ChevreulWhat the Board Reads
A pendulum board is a ruler for a hanging weight. It fixes the frame before the question is asked, so that the hand has only to move and the board does the reading.
Chevreul's experiment of 1833 is the whole of the theory and it is stated on the dowsing page: the swing comes from the hand, the hand moves without the mind's knowing, and the belief precedes the motion. Everything I make in this family takes that as settled and builds on it. If a pendulum reliably shows what your own nervous system already believes, then the instrument that reads it should be as clear, as stable and as beautiful as an instrument for reading anything else, and it should last.
Most charts are bad geometry: a semicircle stamped on a card, its centre nowhere in particular, its divisions wherever the printer's software put them. Mine are laid out with a compass from the figures that were laid out with a compass in the first place, the vesica, the golden rectangle, the pentagram, and inlaid rather than printed, so that they cannot wear and so that the fingers can find the divisions in a dim room.
What I MakeInlaid, with a Stone at the Pivot
The boards
The core is stable and veneered on both faces, like the talking boards, so that it cannot cup; a pendulum board that is not flat lies to you. The chart is inlaid in contrasting timbers. Under the pivot, the point over which the pendulum hangs and from which every reading is taken, there is a stone: lapis as standard, because it was the stone of the séance table for two hundred years, or clear quartz, or whatever you ask for. The stone marks the pivot with something the eye is drawn to, and it brings to the instrument a material that has its own reasons for being there, which are on the crystals site at length.
The charts are the yes-no arc, the alphabet arc for spelling, the numerical dial, the compass rose for direction, and custom layouts for specific practices; each board carries one or several. The board ships with a drawing of its own chart, so that the geometry can be checked.
The pendulums
Silver, because it is the right metal, and the reasons are of two kinds. It is dense, which makes the bob quick to settle and slow to be disturbed, and it is clean, which means it neither drifts on a hair nor drags on the air. My chains are solid sterling too, every link soldered shut, with no clasp at the bob, since a clasp is a hinge and a hinge is play, and play in the chain is noise in the answer. The bobs are conical, the mason's plumb, which is still the best all-round form; or a natural stone point capped in sterling; or a sterling helix, a spring pendulum tuned so that the bounce and the swing fall into resonance at chain length, for those who want a more talkative instrument.
The full range, and the geometry of every chart, are on Pendulum Boards, the sister site devoted to this family alone. What is here is the flagship pieces: the inlaid boards with stone at the pivot, and the sterling pendulums to go with them.
The specification
- BoardStable core veneered both faces; bubinga, macassar ebony, walnut or oak. Chart inlaid, laid out by compass. Stone at the pivot.
- ChartsYes-no arc, alphabet arc, numerical dial, compass rose, or a layout to your practice.
- PendulumSterling conical, 18 g; sterling-capped stone point; sterling helix. Solid sterling cable chain, every link soldered, no clasp.
- Supplied withThe drawing of its chart, a fitted case, the certificate, the number.