The Hidden Gold Coin

Abbè Mermet lived at the beginning of the 20th century in a small Swiss village named Sedeilles. He was familiar with the pendulum in many ways and his municipality knew of it.

Therefore, one day Mermet was asked to seek out drinking water for his municipality. After several hours he was sure that it was much easier to find gold than water. Of course, the municipal council wanted to know where the gold would be.

Unerringly Mermet pointed to a group of people who worked on an adjacent field. "There is gold at one of the field workers”, he said.

They went there. Mermet dowsed the workers and then pointed at a certain man. The man had no idea where there should be gold in his work clothes. Nevertheless, he took off all his clothes apart from the trousers.

Mermet still insisted that the man carried gold with him.

"Now, if you are so sure, where should it be?", the man asked Mermet. Mermet touched his belt. "There!"

At this moment the man remembered what he had long forgotten. When he had been drafted by the army a long time ago, his mother had sewn a gold coin into the belt. Just in case he would need some money urgently. He had completely forgotten about this gold coin over the time. Now he discovered it.

The Disappeared Child

In 1933 a little boy disappeared in Valais in Switzerland. Almost all inhabitants of the village helped in the search. However without success. They did not even discover the smallest trace.

Thus, the mayor turned to Abbè Mermet and asked for his assistance. Mermet turned to his pendulum. After several meetings he wrote an unbelievable story to the mayor.

An enormous eagle should have kidnapped the little boy. He named 2 places, where the eagle would have dropped the child. Together with friends the father of the child went to the first place. However, they could not find the smallest trace of the boy.

They could not get to the second place high up in the mountains. A heavy snow fall prevented them from going there. They had to wait for two weeks, until the way was passable again.

When they arrived there, they were offered a terrible sight. They found the badly mauled corpse of the boy. A more detailed investigation produced evidence that it had really been an eagle.

Source: Pendulum Power (Greg Nielsen, Joseph Polansky), 1978