Do you have something you consider to be "lucky?" Some people have a coin or a rabbit's foot (not that it did the rabbit much good). Me? I have a pocket watch.

My grandfather gave me the watch when I was very young. It's one of those watches where you press the stem and the front pops open, allowing you to read the time. The numerals are antique looking and the hands are ornate. At the bottom, where the numeral "6" would be, there is a moon dial that reveals the phase of the moon—not that this is a useful feature for me.

In fact, I don't even know why I call it a "lucky piece" at all. I don't think it brings me any sort of luck, but it does make me feel closer to my grandfather, who died twenty-five years ago. I just like it and feel "unbalanced" if I don't have it with me. The outside is quite scratched up and the face is yellowing with age, but I don't care. The crystal is still clear and the watch tells time with surprising accuracy, as long as I remember to wind it every day.

I have it attached to a leather fob. This short lanyard has a big loop in it that allows me to hook it to my pants belt. Sometimes I spin it in circles like the Zoot Suiters of the 1940s used to spin their keys on chains.

As I said, my watch has been with me for many years and has become my major affectation. Types of watches go in and out of style, but I have continued to wear my pocket watch even when it was quite out of fashion. Recently I started to wonder if there was anything I could do with it so that it could become even more than a revealer of time. Somehow this idea stuck in my mind, and I finally took a trip to the bookstore in the mall.

I browsed the bookshelves, gently swinging my watch at the end of the fob, and I spotted a book cover displayed at the end of an aisle. At first, the picture on the cover looked like someone swinging a watch on a chain. When I looked more closely, I saw that the object being swung was some sort of stone or crystal.

I looked at the book's title: Pendulum Magic for Beginners. I wanted nothing to do with magic tricks or mystical mumbo-jumbo, but then I noticed the author's name: Richard Webster. "A good name," I thought, and wondered if we were related. On the back cover it says that the author lives in New Zealand and is a hypnotherapist. I used my cell phone and called my mother. She confirmed that there was nobody in our family by that name. Well, Webster is a common name. It's a British word that means "a weaver," or having something to do with wool, and throughout history there have been lots of people who could use that as a name.

Even so, we shared a name, so I figured, "Why not? Let's check this out and see what happens." I'm glad I did. It changed my life.

It turns out that a pendulum is just a weight suspended by a string, chain, or in my case, a leather watch fob. The basic technique is really quite simple. The author writes, "If you are sitting down, rest your elbow on a table and hold the thread or chain of your pendulum between your thumb and first finger, using the least amount of pressure possible. Your elbow should be the only part of your body in direct contact with the table. Make sure that your stomach or other hand is not inadvertently touching the table. The palm of your hand should be facing downward, and the pendulum should be hanging about a foot in front of you...

"Swing the pendulum gently back and forth to become familiar with the movement. Allow the pendulum to swing in different directions. Deliberately swing the pendulum in gentle circles...

"Once you have become used to the feel of the pendulum, stop the movements of the weight with your free hand. When the pendulum is still, ask it which movement indicates a positive, or 'yes' response. It makes no difference if you think the question in your mind or say it aloud. Many people find that the pendulum will immediately respond and provide the answer. However, if you have never used a pendulum before, it might take time before it moves. Be patient. It will probably move only slightly at first, but if you keep on thinking 'yes,' it will start moving more and more strongly." (pp 6–7)

Well, when I read that, I thought it was one of the silliest things I'd ever heard. After all, I'm a laboratory technician, not a TV psychic. Then I thought, "Why not?" So I sat at a table, put my feet flat on the floor, and held the fob of the watch so the timepiece dangled at the end of the leather strap. Then I said aloud, "Show me what 'yes' looks like."

Immediately I broke into hysterical laughter at the thought of how silly I looked. I finally regained my composure and wiped away some tears of laughter. I tried it again. "Show me what 'yes' looks like." In seconds, even though I swear I didn't move it, the watch started to swing back and forth! Quickly, the swinging of the watch reached a full six inches. "I'll be darned!" I said to myself. "This actually works."

The book continues, "Then ask what response indicates 'no,' 'I don't know,' and 'I don't want to answer.'" Again, much to my amazement, the watch made different movements, including making a circle for "I don't want to answer."

For the next few weeks, I read more of the book and played with my watch/pendulum. Soon, I could use the pendulum while sitting or standing. But the big test was yet to come.

Like many people, I keep a jar of pennies. Every night I put all of the pennies that I received in change that day into the jar. Now I decided to use them to see if the pendulum could do more than just swing, and actually give useful information.

I reached into the jar and pulled out a handful of coins. I had no idea how many were there. Using my watch as a pendulum, I asked, "Did I take more than twenty pennies?" The pendulum began to swing, indicating, "Yes."

"Did I take more than one hundred pennies?" The pendulum moved again, indicating, "No." I kept working like this until it came up with an exact total. "Did I take 63 pennies?"

"Yes."

I counted the pennies. I actually was feeling excited about this. I got the total, then I rechecked the count. It was 64. "Why did you give me the wrong answer?" I asked. It started to swing in a circle signifying "I don't want to answer."

Just what I needed—a pendulum with an attitude.

For the next several days I practiced with the pennies and the pendulum. In no time my accuracy was at better than 90% (although some days were much better and other days were much worse). I was actually getting good at this.

Ten days ago, I called up a friend of mine, Tim, a co-worker at the lab. He had been off work, ill, for several days and I was worried. When I reached him, I asked what was wrong and if there was anything I could do.

"I don't know," he said. "Everything just seems 'wrong' lately. I've been having headaches and can't sleep. The doctors don't know what is causing the problems. All the tests they've done show nothing amiss. Right now I'm up for anything. Maybe your pendulum watch could help me." He had seen me practicing during lunch breaks at work before he took ill.

"Why not?" I said. "I'll come over and see what I can do." I looked through Pendulum Magic for Beginners and reviewed the section on the pendulum and health. This section discusses power centers of the body known as chakras. It seems that these centers exist within an emanation of the body called the aura, and they can cause problems if they are out of balance.

Right.

Here I am, a scientist, a lab tech (and I do the experiments, I don't just wash test tubes), and I'm talking about auras and chakras and invisible power centers of the body. This was totally absurd.

Yet, so far, everything in the book I tried had proven to be accurate. Could Webster's description of the aura and the chakras be accurate, too? "Why not?" I thought.

When I got to Tim's house I had him lie down on his bed. Then I used the pendulum over each of the chakras in the body (the book explains where they are) while saying, "Is this chakra in good condition?" The answer came that several were not very good. Finally, I determined which was the most negative by working with the watch and asking it questions. The brow chakra seemed to be the most problematic. I then followed the book's instruction for dealing with this problem. First, I asked my pendulum to show me how it would move when indicating negative energies. For me, this was a type of spiral getting bigger and smaller. I also was shown that positive energy was represented by the same motion as when it answers, "Yes." The book goes on:

"Fill a glass of water and place the fingers of the hand that is not using the pendulum into it. Suspend it [the pendulum] over the chakra that is most negative and ask the pendulum to remove all the negative energies from it. It [the pendulum] will start moving in the direction that indicates negative energies. This shows that the pendulum is extracting the negative energies, and that they are coming up the pendulum, into your arm, across your chest, and down into the glass of water.

"When the pendulum stops moving in the negative direction, take your fingers out of the water and wash your hands thoroughly under running water.

"Repeat the process with the next most negative chakra and continue until all the negative chakras have been treated in this way.

"When you have treated all of the negative chakras, go through all seven chakras again to ensure that you get a positive reading from each one. Sometimes you will find that not all of the negativity has been removed, and the process needs to be repeated. The aura balancing is not finished until you receive a positive reading from each chakra." (pp 79–80)

I followed the procedure. I actually had to go through the clearing of the chakras several times. Toward the end, I began to notice an odd smell. It was very foul. I sniffed around and discovered that it was coming from the glass of water! Something I didn't understand was going on.

Finally, when all of the chakras were showing up positive, I asked Tim how he was feeling. No answer. "Tim," I repeated, "how are you feeling?" I was answered by ten seconds of silence followed by snoring. Tim had fallen asleep.

Laughing, I dumped the water out in the sink. Something told me to run the tap to flush the water down the drain. I washed the glass, too.

When I went back to Tim he was still lying down, but his eyes were open. "How long was I asleep?" he asked.

"I dunno. Maybe five minutes."

"Wow. It seems more like five hours. That's the best sleep I've had in weeks. And my headache is gone.

As I said before, I'm a lab tech. I'm a scientist. For years I've lived by a paradigm that clearly indicated what was real and what was not. Now, this simple book—a "beginners" book, no less—has made me question my belief system. No, I'm not abandoning what I previously learned. Rather, I'm expanding on it, allowing for greater possibilities than I had previously considered.

Other topics in Pendulum Magic for Beginners no longer seem odd or flaky. The idea of working with colors and crystals to change your life, doing divinations, finding lost objects, or solving problems by using my watch hanging from its leather strap used to sound silly to me. Now I'm not so sure.

My mind has become more open to new concepts, new ideas, and new possibilities. As I recognize the greater potentials that are available to us all, I've become happier and more content. I'm less angry and little things don't upset me.

I can't claim that Webster's book is responsible for all of this. Perhaps I was ready for this change and, like a chemical added to a reaction in one of my test tubes, the book was just a catalyst for change. What I do know is that my family and friends all like the changes that have come over me; I like them, too.

So to Mr. Webster I have one thing to say:

"Thanks!"