Question from a reader:

Hi Anna,

I noticed you use pendulum dowsing a lot in your online courses. However, I wondered if there were similarities between using an Ouija board and pendulums? I’ve heard that both are dangerous to use and that pendulum dowsing attracts bad or negative spirits. Are pendulums ‘safer’ than ouija boards or is there is a similar risk? I would appreciate your answers and perhaps a little reassurance.

~ Dana

Hi Dana, Thanks for your question.

First of all, you’re right that pendulum dowsing features heavily in my online programs. In both my Akashic Record Reading Program and Energy Clearing for Spaces Course, dowsing features heavily. There’s also a couple of chapters dedicated to dowsing in my Intuitive Awakening Course.

I’ve been using pendulum dowsing myself for the last 13 years, and teaching it for about 10 years.

So here’s my response to your question: “Does pendulum dowsing attract bad spirits?”

Any means of getting information from the spirit world (such as using your clair senses to channel information or using a pendulum) can be unsafe if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Let’s just make a quick differentiation here for anyone reading who isn’t aware: ‘bad spirits’ would be low-vibrational ones such as earthbound spirits (more on those at the bottom of this article) and mischievous ones such as poltergeists. These spirits are not necessarily evil or bad, they’re just low-vibrational and stuck in negative energies themselves, so they are not good sources of guidance. The spirits we do want to connect with are our Spirit Guides and angels – those spirits are safe to channel.

In this article I’m going to explain how you can make sure your pendulum dowsing session (and path of psychic development in general) are safe and that you’re connecting with the right kind of spirit.

But firstly, I just want to make something clear:

Using a pendulum is nothing like using an Ouija board.

Ouija boards have a bad reputation for a reason. They either involve physical movements from participants who don’t realise they’re making those movements or they rely on input from poltergeist spirits that have amassed enough energy in the physical to be able to move objects. Poltergeists are a type of stuck earthbound spirit and they are in a sort of limbo between dead and living. Because they are dead and stuck, they do not have access to the energy they would need to move objects, so instead they draw it from incarnated souls, which is why you can get the scary phenomena occurring when using an ouija board, such as people who are involved in the ouija board session feeling influenced or possessed by a spirit.

These poltergeist spirits, to be powerful enough to draw energy from incarnated people and move objects, tend to be spirits of those who have been dead for a really long time and of course they are the spirits of those who have not crossed over, usually because they are still stuck in the energies of fear, anger, regret or revenge. So they can be scary spirits too because they are angry, frustrated or afraid.

But, the scary moving of objects that occurs when you use an ouija board, is NOT what happens when you use a pendulum the way I teach people to do it in my online courses. Spirits do not move my students’ pendulum. Instead, the student is technically making the pendulum move, in that the answers come from the student’s Higher Self or Spirit Guides, to the student’s subconscious mind (which makes the tiny movements in the wrist/arm) and then to the conscious mind, which sees what the pendulum is doing.

And I also do not teach people to just open themselves up to any old spirit. I don’t recommend that anyone opens up to channel any old Tom, Dick or Harry.

There are two things I teach my students to do to make pendulum dowsing safe. (I’m sharing those two steps here in case they are helpful for anyone reading):

1. I teach people to program their pendulum correctly so that it is connected ONLY to their Higher self or Spirit Guides. At its heart, this involves setting a clear intention.
2. I also teach people to clear earthbound spirits (and that includes poltergeists) out of their home and their auric field as part of their path of psychic development. And I offer a technique to keep earthbound spirits away permanently. I offer these methods in all my online courses and in my book, The Empath’s Toolkit.

So, when you complete these two steps, you are not going to attract bad or negative spirits. Spirits are not going to be moving the pendulum either. (Those two steps make your pendulum very safe and reliable to use.)

*I mentioned earthbound spirits above. Here’s some extra information for anyone who isn’t too familiar with earthbound spirits and why we should avoid them:

Earthbound spirits (also called ghosts) are the mental/emotional bodies of human souls who have not fully crossed over after death. The reasons for not fully crossing over after death are many and varied. I’ll give you a couple of examples: if a soul commits suicide (perhaps when under the influence of a drug) and then regrets their decision immediately afterwards, their sense of regret could stop them from crossing over. Or if a soul is murdered and their killer was never brought to justice, that is another possible reason for not crossing over because of the lack of resolution in such a situation. Souls can get stuck on the earth plane after death, because of fear, regret, or a desire for revenge or resolution. And they can attach to both people and places. They particularly like attaching themselves to people who smoke cannabis, and to empaths.

For this reason, it’s not unusual for an inexperienced psychic developer to have earthbound spirits attached to their auric field. And the problem with that is, these spirits do not give good guidance or advice, if we accidentally channel one (and sometimes people do mistake this type of spirit for their Spirit Guides). Earthbound spirits give advice that comes from a place of stuckness, sadness or fear. It’s low-vibrational guidance. And they can come through pendulums if you don’t know what you’re doing.

So, if you’re on a path of psychic development, but maybe you’re not quite sure what you’re doing, please stop and consider how you’re going to avoid these earthbound spirits. If you’d like a safe and structured way to learn to connect with your guides, you might be interested in signing up for my free intuition e-course (link at the end of this article).

Alternatively, you’ll find a method for clearing (and repelling) earthbound spirits in my book The Empath’s Toolkit (link below).

Further Reading & Resources:

• Sign up to my free intuition e-course (Essential steps to develop your intuitive abilities & communicate with your Spirit Guides safely.)
• The Empath’s Toolkit (includes a technique for clearing & repelling earthbound spirits.)
• [Article]: Is It OK to Use A Ouija Board to Get Spiritual Guidance? (in short, no.)
• [Online course]: Energy Clearing for Spaces