Chapter VI: MISCELLANEOUS EXPERIMENTS
I AM indebted to Pietro Zampa and his book for the following few experiments which I will call “border-line” because some of them I find difficult to explain.
ORIENTATION WITHOUT A COMPASS
Let us suppose, for the purpose of this experiment, that we have lost our way in a thick fog and have no means of finding our way home, which we know is due South, if we only knew in which direction due South lay. Luckily we have our pendulum which is held in the usual manner and we think of what we want to find, the North and South line. After a short while the pendulum will swing on the line you require, but this does not tell you which is North and which is South. In order to find this you must have a piece of metal, and we will assume that you have a bunch of keys in your pocket.
Hold the keys in your left hand, which should be held away from and in front of the body to act as an aerial. Hold the pendulum in the right hand and turn slowly round; when the pendulum gyrates you are facing the South. Other metals respond to different points of the compass but they are not the same for everybody. Iron or a bunch of keys indicate the South to me and, I believe, to most people but not all, so I suggest you make a test before getting lost in a fog.
For this test the author suggests that a lead pendulum be used, but I am afraid I cannot assign any reason for this. The method is not unlike that adopted in the case of a medical diagnosis. Hold the pendulum over the engine, which must not be running, or over a diagram of the engine as supplied by the makers. While the pendulum is gyrating touch the various parts of the engine with the left hand, such as valves, plugs, carburettor, etc. When a faulty part is touched the pendulum will check in its gyrations and stop. I have never tried this as I have never owned a car since I came in contact with Radiesthesia.
ARITHMETICAL ERRORS
The best way to make this experiment is to get someone to make a number of calculations on separate pieces of paper: addition, subtraction, multiplication or division, some correct and some with an error or errors. Place the piece of paper, face downwards so that you cannot see the calculations. Apply your pendulum over each piece of paper in turn and you will find that it will gyrate positively (clockwise) over a correct calculation and anti-clockwise over those with an error. I have tried this many times with very satisfactory results, in fact I have found it most useful when adding up long columns of figures, a thing I have to do occasionally but, to be quite frank, I don’t know how it comes about, unless it is a case of harmony, or lack of it, between the figures. If you are asked to do this as a “parlour trick”, as in the case of the cups of water and the salt, only do it once, because, if the pieces of paper are handled more than once, you will not get good results.
FORGERIES
In order to detect a forgery it is necessary to have a sample of the genuine article as well as the one under suspicion, be it a signature, coin or currency note. Place the two specimens on the table in front of you, about six inches apart. Hold j^our pendulum over a point mid-way between the two specimens; if it gyrates in a clockwise direction harmony exists, which indicates that it is not a case of forgery. On the other hand, if the pendulum oscillates forgery is indicated. I know of at least two stamp collectors who use this method.
HANDWRITING
On two occasions this method of determining character from handwriting has given me the information I required, once in Italy in the case of the Mess staff, and once since in the case of one of my own men; but I do not, for a moment, suggest that it is infallible. My Italian friend told me that he held quite an important Government position during the early days of Mussolini’s rise to power and that he, in his official capacity, received a considerable number of anonymous letters, which I can readily understand. All these letters he tested by this method and he assured me that, when the writers of the letters were found, as they generally were, the character fitted in nine cases out of ten.
Place the letter on the table in front of you, as if you were reading it, and hold the pendulum over it. If the pendulum oscillates perpendicularly across the writing, that is, away from your body, it indicates a character of a very high order. Strangely enough, I find this reaction very rare, in fact, I can only remember one case. If it oscillates along the writing, that is, from side to side, it indicates a normally good character; but if it eventually changes into an ellipse it signifies a somewhat confused mind. Negative (anti-clockwise) gyrations indicate idleness, lacking in conscience, but not necessarily evil; and positive gyrations everything that is bad. I do not recommend this except for an express purpose and certainly not amongst friends, even as a joke, as some outside influence might be the cause of the reaction, for example, that of some object that had been on the table for some time prior to the experiment.