h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

GTB I think I may be ahead of you there

ive just been doing an article called "The History of Dowsing" I thought it would help a bit in understanding dowsing.

plz take a look its not in guide ml yet & ive yet to check for spelling mistakes

A881345

romani

That seems very thorough. One thing I'd like to see would be references, so I could learn more on my own. Is there a website you could link us to, or a good modern book to recommend? Any documentation of the guy with the submarines would be great!


GTB

well as I,m on a digibox its difficult for me to get access to web sites but I,ll see what I can find out for you & let you know, the information I have now is bits that ive wrote down & kept from the many books ive read on the subject but all those have been borrowed from the library in the past but the books that ive mentioned in the article ive not yet read,

I need to find someone with a pc

romani

GTB sorry I misread your earlier msg a "how it works" sounds to me its just finding the time before xmas thats the problem right now, but I,ll do my best

romani

Just a couple of grammer/comprehension notes:

"By reading a pendulum, this means, how to understand the way in which the pendulum is communicating with us."
The "this means" bit doesn't ned to be surrounded by commas, you could just rephrase it as:
"Reading a pendulum means understanding the way in which the pendulum is communicating with us."
or to get rid of the "us" you could use:
"Reading a pendulum means interpreting the pendulums movements.".

"Obviously positive means yes and negative means no, but different people get different responses, as to which means yes and which means no."
The yes and no bit gets repeated and I personally don't think it *needs* the obviously, it could be shortened to:
"Positive means yes and negative means no. Movements mean different things to different people" (well something like that)

"To determine which is yes and which is no for anyone, the simplest way is to ask a simple question like "is my name.....?" saying your name, whichever response you get is the yes answer for you, then repeat this excercise saying a false name to get the no response for you."
Is a very long sentence and includes "you"s again, it could be reworded similar to:
"To determine a new users yes and no response the pendulum is asked questions with obvious answers such as "Am I holding a pendulum?"."

pencil queen

the reading a pendulum phrase. yes I agree that can be shortened I like the 1st version best & I think it can be shortened even further to say "reading a pendulum means the way in which it is communicating with us" I,ll get that done asap

the positive/yes & negative/no movements, well your suggestion would be fine too if it was only ppl that are already using a pendulum who are likely to read this article, but mostly I imagine it will be the curious so it has to be explained that way for the novice.

the asking a true & false name question is the easiest & the norm for any beginners so I think to change it to a different question would only be confusing to the unaware

but after all that thankyou for your comments & feedback

romani

GTB's comment on this thread about trying pendulum dowsing for the first time:

"I got a piece of black thread, I got a small plug of wood, and I tied the one to the other. I sat down at a table, resting my arm, relaxed, waited for the pendulum to come to a stop, and asked it whether I'm called 'Tony' (I am). It moved in a clockwise circle. I asked it whether I'm called 'Bryan' (I'm not). It moved in a counterclockwise circle. I asked it whether, if I called my friend in San Francisco at that moment, he would answer the phone. It moved in a straight line, directed away from me and back towards me. I called Patrick; he answered the phone. We talked.

"Later, I asked it whether I should try to get to bed early tonight. It moved in a clockwise circle.

"Here's my hypothesis so far. Either (A) Straight line, to and fro, means 'yes'; straight line, side to side, means 'no', clockwise means 'you know damn well it's yes', and counterclockwise means 'you know damn well it's no; stop testing me' OR (B) This is all a load of dingos kidneys."

Would make a good quote in the section about calibrating the pendulum and learning it's responses...rather than muddling through with "you" and "us" second (?) person references it explains very simply the steps to go through to start learning to interpret a pendulums movements. I know you are using a digibox so copy and pasting it into the entry isnt an option but if you put *insert GTB's experience here* in tags(?) I'm sure a sub would be happy to add it for you once the entry gets scouted.

Again just a thought but it woudld remove those you and us references which aren't commonly used in edited entries.

hello again pencil queen

thankyou for your suggestions & yes I think it would be a good idea for GTB's experience to be added.....that is if GTB does,nt mind

I thought I had removed all the you's I,ll go & have another look & see what else may want changing

romani

right I have now deleted all the you & us words, & have reworded or deleted as neccessary.......but whenever I put in "insert GTB's experience here" in these < > brackets I keep getting error in guide ml for some strange reason....so I have left that out for now

romani

You're welcome to use my (extremely limited) experience as an example. The solution to getting errors whenever you use those brackets ('<...>') is not to use those brackets. They're for GuideML tags. For editorial notes, I usually use the square ones ('[...]').

(You can get those symbols, '<' and '>' into an entry, but you have to use special codes: '&lt;' for '<' and '&gt;' for '>'.)

GTB

Actually, what Pencil Queen was suggesting was to use ... tags in place of ... tags for the blockquote. Never mind all that about the &lt; stuff.

thankyou GTB

I think the way you,ve written your pendulum experience is sorta down to earth & humorous, & something to which any novice will be able to relate to

I must have misread Pencil Queens msg so thanx for explaining that too

I,m going to work now so i,ll do that later, bye for now



romani

Hi Romani

I have read your article and the backlog with interest

I tried dowsing for water and was surprised to find that something definitely happened

However, as a sceptic I don't adhere (yet ) to any notions of paranormal influence, which is what I think is implied in your article

Other researchers in the backlog of this thread have echoed the sentiment that as it stands, your article would be incongruous in the edited guide

I would be happy to see this in the guide IF you took out the contentious statements, such as:

<< Pendulums are especially useful when dowsing indoors, such as over maps, to find ley lines, or finding lost objects or persons, in relation to the map >>

and

<>

etc

If you were to preface points like these with something along the lines of *Advocates of dowsing assert that reading a pendulum means understanding etc etc* , I'd be much happier

six7s

hello six7s

I thought I had already explained that any kind of dowsing is a natural thing & not in any way paranormal, did you read the "history of dowsing" ?

as pendulum dowsing is mainly done indoors & used with maps & charts as well as used to answer questions I think to remove the pendulum/map bit would,nt be giving the reader the full information needed on how to use a pendulum.

but I like your suggestion of the advocates line instead of the word communicating I've not really been happy with particular word anyway.....i,ll get on that now

romani

Let us know when you've finished!

hiya Z

its done

romani

In My Humble Opinion!

Great work Romani!
At last this shud silence the Kritics!
I think this is ready to be scouted, in fact i've seen worse make it into the guide but this shud be a good addition!

Hope it gets picked soon!

Z.

thankyou Z

fingers crossed hey!

romani

romani

one more suggestion, part grammer/clarity and part sceptic (forgive me).

"Pendulums can be made from anything, as long as they are heavy enough to hold the thread taut,"

This could quite happily stand as a sentence on it's own and helps to remove some bulk from the very long sentece that follows.

"although the thread should be black, as black is non-selective, which means that it absorbs radiational frequencies, and wood or crystal seem to make the most accurate pendulums, as they are neutral substances, ie: totally unaffected by all planetary influences."

the radiational frequencies and planetary influences are pseudoscience...they are'nt scientifically proven (black thread absords all *visable* electromagnetic frequencies, there is no evidence that wood or crystal are more influenced by gravity than any other materials) you could get rid of both and just use the word neutral eg:

"The thread should be black as it is a neutral colour. The most accurate pendulums seem to be wood or crystal these substances act neutrally and don't influence the responses of the pendulum."

By breaking down the long sentence it makes the text easier to read and understand quickly.

I hope you don't think I'm harping on - I do think there is a good entry in this I'm just trying to help you get it clear and unbiased (the pseudo science actually detracts from what you are saying - most dowsers (myself included) explain whats happening slightly differently to everyone else, by using your *personal* explainations you might discourage people who would explain it differently)

Hi Romani,

just gave this a quick read through. It's looking good,

I ed aloud at your little opening comment; you tell 'em!

Where do you think you are with it? I'm not sure it's *as* finished as it could be...

One para in particular i think you need to have a look at:

>>
Throughout history, humanity has experimented with many different ways to explain the present and foretell the future. One such method is dowsing - using implements to find information or to locate sources of water or other materials, Pendulums are a Dowsers tool and an artform. Pendulums are simply a weight suspended from a thread and can be used to give answers to questions or as an indicator when looking for something. Its flexibility will allow to determine where particular energies are coming from.
<<

- there are a few ways to improve this and make it clearer, but i just want to see where you are with it first.

Also, i felt it ended rather abruptly; some kind of conclusion would be good, i think.

I know this has been a long and involved PR thread - Don't Panic, they're not all like this. But your subject is one that requires careful treatment. C'est la vie. Interesting but hard work.

so, let us know if you want to keep on with this, and i'll have a bit more to say.
spiff