I apologize for the length of this. I got carried away.

Thank you for your inspiring thoughts and response. It's wonderful that you discovered your inner voice of knowledge and a guide by which to get your answers without aide of devices or gadgets. I hadn't thought of the devices as hurdles, but have always been leery of them since my experience with the Ouija.

I was raised with the lore that Ouija boards were haunted. The lore was that each board had it's own spirit good or bad, but as far as a demon aspect I wasn't aware of that lore until years after the prediction had came to pass.

Interesting enough fear had nothing to do with my choices, it was the message and the messenger that kept me from using the ouija board again. I was so mad about it. I was not happy that it had been so negative. I believe that board had a dark spirit attached to it and it gained pleasure in it's prediction. I say this because it chose a negative event to tell about and it could have chose a positive event.
We could not stop the death from happening, (I did try though) So after all these decades, I can only surmise there was no point in the board's prediction except to try to scare, upset and hurt us... or maybe dare one of us or both to seek further and sucker us into it's evil web so it could ruin us.
There was no lessons to be learned from the negative prediction, it did nothing but add to the heartbreak of the loss.

I agree & believe you're right--> "I think the point of all divining devices is to find a way to open the mind to the many frequencies that exist outside of our current parameters."

Thank you for explaining the pendulum method. I wondered how it worked. I agree that in asking questions and determining the answers would be open to personal interpretation. You may be right about the answers coming from within. Since the pendulum is hand-held, it's be an extension of yourself and your own 'self', spirit and desires could be projected in the answers.

The pendulum sounds like the wedding ring trick of dangling the ring on a thread over a bride's wrist in effort to tell how many children she'd have and their genders. This is supposed to work for single females too. The number of stops and starts of genders determines the amount.
Also the ring dangling on a thread can also be used to determine the gender of an unborn baby by holding it over a pregnant woman's tummy.
If the ring swings in a circle, it's a girl and if it swings back & forth it's a boy.
Curious enough, where I was raised, an alternative to the dangling ring is a sewing needle & sewing thread used in the same manner for both of these type tellings.

As close as I can remember, the ring or needle pendulum was pretty accurate.
Oddly, the ring/needle pendulums was an acceptable fun parlor game at our church because they considered it based on the woman's pulse or heartbeat.

"The future must unfold like a flower - the petals aren't meant to be wrenched open." <--words to live by

A few decades ago I played around with regular playing-cards (p*ker cards) in effort to get a bead on future events. It was quite fun, dealing out the cards and asking yes or no questions and then of course there were the individual cards that had meaning. I had a book for that. I grew tired of it after a couple of weeks because it was so limited to what one could actually get the gist of. I've often wondered if tarot cards would be the same way.

During that same card playing time, an acquaintance of mine had some I-ching sticks. I think that's what they were called. I tried them a time or two. She was really fascinated by them, I wasn't impressed with them at all. It seemed a lot of work to find out not much of anything. I felt like that wizard on the movie 'Willow' who told Willow "the bones tell me nothing" lol I figure there's seers who can read I-ching sticks and utilize them in a proficient manner. They're just not for me.

And then there's dowsing. I have to admit that the first time I heard about dowsing for or with spirits I got tickled because the only dowsing I knew of was water witching. I couldn't imagine how a forked stick could get answers from spirits... and then I saw a paranormal show where they used metal rods in metal tubes. They apparently free spin or cross with aide of a spirit to answer yes or no. I didn't care much for the concept, but I suppose it could be a suitable means of communication if one is careful.

I come from a line of water-witchers. We used either a coat hanger or a young flimsy tree branch or sapling. I like water witching, I haven't done it in years and may not be able to do it now. It sure was neat to feel the downward pull and tugging vibrations and know it's water buried deep or shallow that hasn't been seen yet.
Oddly enough water-witching was accepted practice in our church. I guess because they saw it as a survival skill that was a gift from God.

I'm of a mindset, like you on our personal experiences are our best teachers, however, while it is true we all have good and bad aspects of our personalities, I disagree thatt actual demon and evil spirit aspects could be one. IMO An attachment or haunting of an actual negative spirit or demon is not a natural part of the human condition. It's like a parasite situation. I believe as surely as there are angels of goodness then so is there fallen angels of badness. I believe we are far better off to embrace the positive and rebuke the negative. I also believe there's good and bad spirits from humans who've passed on.

Through prayer and positive thinking, I put my trust in my guardian angel and God to alert me to happy or sad tidings or negative and positive events when I need to be forewarned.
I've been more at peace this way. At least now when I get an inkling of a negative event or a positive one, I know it comes from a positive influence (and it's not meant to scare me into dancing with a devil to find out more.)

Like you, music, dreams, and many other curious symbols that are put in my path usually give me the right necessary clues along the way.

Family bond is another of the psychic connections of natural instincts that I trust highly. It's something as familiar as breathing to me.
I think some feelings/info/things come from sub-conscious and/or the universal consciousness. It has a different sense about it because of the scale of the feeling.

Again, I apologize, I got carried away with my reply. I hope you can cypher some coherency out of my jumbled thoughts.

I've enjoy discussing these subjects a lot.

I hope you don't mind my long windedness.