Swing Low

Swing Low

Here is an activity that is bound to impress.
Have each of your participants make a simple pendulum from a piece of light string and a light weight, like a button or paper clip.
Then have each person draw a large X on a piece of paper.
Each person holds their pendulum over the X, keeping his or her arm stretched straight out, without leaning on a table or any other object.
Review the rules: Clockwise is Yes, Counter-Clockwise is No.
Demonstrate:
Ask your pendulum a question to which the answer is YES. More than likely it will swing clockwise. Try again for NO.

What is Going On?

Well remember when you played with a Ouija board when you were young? It is the same effect and it has a name; the ideomotor effect. Even though we aren’t aware of it, we make tiny muscle movements with the hand holding the pendulum. But we really can’t believe that we have made any movements, so we tend to disassociate ourselves with being the cause.

How I Would Use This?

There are so many ways to use this activity.
I would focus on the concept of self-causing. In this case, we just don’t feel these tiny movements, yet we are still behind making the pendulum move. Where else in life does this happen to us? What else happens in our lives, that we can trace back to our own cause.

Another way of using this activity is to play around with the power of thought. As we think yes or no, so our body responds, whether we want it to or not. What other thoughts does our body respond to? How might negative thoughts impact our bodies?

Source: Brain Hacks, Stafford and Webb