I'm still "getting back on the bike" with my pendulum. I'm not getting hits, but I am noticing that I have small involuntary movements in my hand. These definitely seem to influence the swing of the pendulum, but aren't to a positive result. I try not to think of anything while dowsing, but, of course, that's impossible. I try not to care, and I've tried just counting or semi-focusing on the physical attributes of the pendulum. I guess I'm creating AOL's, but it's impossible not to think. Putting the pendulum down distracts, but I'm right back to thinking again. I'm going to watch the CD's again (I think the 4th time)and take new notes. Maybe I missed something. I've been doing the cups and haven't even progressed to the other exercises. Maybe that's not a good thing to do. Any more advice? Can one over-do and defeat themselves?

I'll have to review the dowsing DVDs myself, but it may be something isn't made sufficiently clear there. It's not expected that you "try not to think of anything." In fact, not only (as you noted) is that impossible - it is also not desirable. It is very helpful to keep your tasking/intent in mind. That will not only help you focus your intent more sharply and help keep your subconscious on task, but it will also help keep extraneous distractions out by giving you something germaine to your task to occupy your mind with. (I think I answered a similar question earlier in the forum. You might look around and see if you can find that.) As I recall, the advice about focusing on the intent is given more clearly later in the set, so if you have gone no further than the cup exercise, it might be worth your while to leave that be for awhile and progress on through the set, coming back later to revisit it.

Major, thank you for responding to my question about trying not to think. I went back to the CD and in setting up my protocols, one of the last things was in bold, full caps saying not to think and not to speak. This is what made me believe that I had to clear my mind as completely as possible of any meaningful thought. Thanks for clarifying. I am focusing now and doing much better. I hope this is helpful to others.

Ah, that explains it. Yes, that does sound a bit confusing. We intended that to be understood as "don't think about extraneous things, and certainly don't speculate as to location or answer" depending on what your dowsing goal is. I guess that' how we should have phrased it. The part about not speaking aloud (after explicitly specifying the intent) is just to keep the left brain out of things as much as possible. Darn. Oh, weii -- in a production of this magnitude I suppose there are bound to be a few (hopefully minor) things that don't turn out to be as clear and unambiguous as intended.

After I write my question down I do the "remote viewing squiggle" and start dowsing. Is staring at that squiggle during the session good enough to keep the left brain occupied while reminding the unconscious of the target?

I haven't tried that. How is it working out for you?

I seem to get better results if I can form an image of the target and hold that in my mind while I dowse. For instance, when practicing with cards, if I'm trying to locate the king of hearts, I picture that card as I hold the pendulum over each card. My successes increased when I started doing that.

I think Bombur's got the right idea, where. I'm not sure doing an ideogram as part of dowsing is necessarily a good idea, since that requires doing something else with your hand rather than holding the pendulum right after specifying your intent -- and that ideogramatic "energy" may be exactly what you needed to be putting into the pendulum or L rod. Excellent question, though!

Best,
Paul