GeoffreyD
I was a little apprehensive about tackling this book as the last time that I used a pendulum was in the 70’s when I received one of those “Develop your psychic powers” sets for my birthday. For those of you who remember the 70’s, this kit was fairly popular at the time (Age of Aquarius and all that) and consisted of a deck of cheap cardboard Zenner (ESP) cards and a plastic pendulum on a wonky chain.
I do have fond memories of amazing my friends and family with the pendulum until a neighbour’s dog got to it and dragged it off into the sunset, never to be seen again. Possibly due to this traumatic childhood event I’ve never touched another pendulum since (honest, officer, it wasn’t me!) so I decided to read Freddie’s book as a “pendulum virgin”, to see where it would lead me.
The book is divided into the following articles and routines:
Articles
• “What are pendulums?” provides an interesting comparison of “shut-eye” and “open-eye” views on how pendulums work
• “Respect the pendulum” examines the mindset needed by you, the performer, in order to get the pendulum to “work” for you and your audience
• “Buying a pendulum” sounds obvious enough but provides practical reasons for determining the type and style of pendulum needed
• “Some types of pendulum” provides some rather nice eye-candy as well as helpful tips on using particular styles in your act
• “The Basics” explains how to prime your audience before using the pendulum, ways that they can use the pendulum, and a method to ensure that the pendulum will work for them every time.
• “Making Your Own Pendulums” by Joshua Johnson provides practical advice on choosing materials for your pendulum based on your own style and has even nicer eye-candy. Trust me, you will think about pendulums in a different way after reading this article.
Routines
• “The Lie Detector” proves that the pendulum knows all...
• “Divining an Object” allows the performer to determine which item the volunteer had previously chosen
• “The Wine Glass Séance” provides tips on using the pendulum and a wine glass to “contact the spirits”. It also contains an interesting anecdote that shows how powerful this effect can be...
• “Ring Out The Dead” by Dale Shrimpton is a complete (and almost totally self-working) routine that includes full patter and directions.
All you need are a pendulum and a wine glass to act as a “spirit bell”.
I tried this out on several friends and it worked 3 out of 4 times the first time around. If it doesn’t work the first time then it should definitely work the second time around unless your volunteer is purposely trying to sabotage your act of course...
Bonus Routine:
• “Someone special” by Joshua Johnson provides a fascinating glimpse into “witness chambers” (which I had never heard of before) and includes full patter and directions.
Can the name of the volunteer’s “someone special” be spelled out on the ouija board?
Requires a pendulum with a compartment, a ouija board and a little bit of sleight of hand.
To sum up, this book is not a complete and comprehensive guide on the pendulum, and was never intended to be. As Freddie says in his Introduction, his goal is to inspire you to look at pendulum use in a new way and I must admit that I’ve found this to be the case.
While reading the book, I thought up several storylines based on the pictures of some of these pendulums, and worked out a few presentation tweaks to the included routines so that they could be used in my shows, so this means to me that the book has been successful in its goal.
My only regret after reading this book was that Freddie didn’t explain how to use a disco ball as an uber-pendulum. Now that would be a trick I would definitely like to see!
