Who doesn’t love a toy that lets you communicate with ghosts? What if it could offer you a window into the spirit world via a piece of wood with letters and numbers on it? We of course are talking about the “mystical” Ouija Board. Although I am too young to remember its introduction, I am very familiar with its pseudoscience. This board must surely be one of the first mass-marketed examples of profit-by-scientific-illiteracy.
I would hope that something as old and as debunked as this novelty toy would have lost its pull in a more modern and scientific society, but sadly, its ability to spook still draws people to fall victim to pseudoscience.
So, once again, let’s debunk!
Spooky Indeed
So for those of you that are under 40, some background might be helpful.
Spooky Bulls***
An Ouija board (pronounced WEE-jə, and possibly derived from the French and German words for “yes”, oui and ja), also known as a spirit/fire key board or talking board, is a flat board marked with the letters of the alphabet, the numbers 0-9, the words ‘yes’ ‘no’ and ‘goodbye’, and other symbols and words are sometimes also added to help personalize the board. Similarly pronounced Hindi word Ojha means the ones who deal with spirits. The Ouija board can supposedly be used to communicate with spirits of the dead. Although nobody knows where the idea for such a device came from, there are records of Ouija-like instruments being used in ancient China, Greece, Rome and many other countries. It uses a planchette (small heart-shaped piece of wood) or movable indicator to indicate the spirit’s message by spelling it out on the board during a séance. The fingers of the séance participants are placed on the planchette, which then moves about the board to spell out words or become physically manifested. It has become a trademark that is often used generically to refer to any talking board.
Following its commercial introduction by businessman Elijah Bond in the late 1890s, the Ouija board was regarded as a harmless parlor game unrelated to the occult until American Spiritualist Pearl Curran popularized its use as a divining tool during World War I. Mainstream Christian religions and some occultists have associated use of the Ouija board with the threat of demonic possession and some have cautioned their followers not to use Ouija boards.
What Does it Do?
Alright then, what we are dealing with is a tool of the occult. But this was only popular back in the day right? Nope, it’s still just as spook-inducing as when it was first introduced as such. I have taken a blog testimonial from a well-educated, appropriately aged woman who used a Ouija board just a few days ago to illustrate.
She writes:
I placed my fingers so lightly on the pointer that they almost weren’t touching. And I kept closing my eyes. I wanted to have zero input on the outcome. My cousin did the same. I’ll skip over the first five minutes, when the pointer refused to move. No matter what we asked, it just sat there. My cousin finally said “Well, nothing’s happening this evening.” At that moment, the pointer started to move. Let’s write this again: The pointer started to move.
For the next two hours, we asked questions, and the pointer zipped all over the board, answering. After about an hour, it even identified itself: my deceased cousin Ben…it was pretty astonishing.
In her post she points out to readers that before reading, one must set aside preconceptions of the paranormal, and must “keep an open mind” about these “unexplainable” events.
So science can’t debunk this sort of nonsense? Hardly!
“Unexplainable”? Science Doesn’t Think So
There is a much more reasonable explanation to these “messages” from beyond, and they are firmly rooted in an explainable world.
The Ouija board relies on something called the ideomotor effect, which is the effect that nuanced and even subconscious thoughts have on muscle movement. The concept is that you can never really stop your muscles from moving completely, and that subconscious thoughts can influence subtle movements in said muscles, even when you think that you are remaining still.
As in reflexive responses to pain, the body sometimes reacts reflexively to ideas alone without the person consciously deciding to take action. For instance, tears are produced by the body unconsciously in reaction to the emotion of sadness.
In the case of the Ouija board, this effect leads the user to personally determine where the indicator moves, whether he/she is aware of it or not.
A psychological tendency to want to see something “weird” or “spooky” happen, or to want to desperately talk with a deceased loved one influences this effect, and subsequently your hand moves to the letters appropriately, and again, users may not even be aware of this.
An experiment to prove this effect is easily done. Tie a thin piece of string to a metal hux nut, or something suitably small and relatively heavy. Now hold the string between your fingers and out stretch your arm in front of you (with the nut hanging down from the string). Now make your arm as still as possible, until you are satisfied that your arm is not moving. If you then imagine the hex nut moving in a circle, and concentrate, the nut will indeed begin to move in a circle, even though you do not consider your arm to be moving.
As ridiculous as this seems, you are, in effect, employing the same logic when using a Ouija board (the user has control over the outcome).
What is happening is that small, subconscious, movements in your arm, influenced by your intentions and the ideomotor effect, are being translated through the string and down to the hex nut. Once you get the idea of how this works, the same logic can be easily applied to the Ouija board.
The consequences of the ideomotor effect are these: because you want to see something happen, or want to speak with a deceased person, these subconscious thoughts will become realized by small, unnoticeable muscle movements. These movements are wholly determined by the user, and is a logical explanation for why users receive answers to specific questions.
Messages From Yourself
By definition, a natural explanation for a certain phenomenon is more likely than a supernatural one. The Ouija board is a great psychological comforter, or a great party trick, but it is certainly not other-worldly. We can appreciate the imagined commune it may give with deceased loved ones or spirits etc. but it is more intellectually honest to recognize what is really happening.
It is infinitely more likely that a physical explanation, namely the ideomotor effect, is the reason why Ouija boards can be so spooky. Contrast this with the alternate explanation, which is that a ghost is wading through the vastness of spirit-land to posses your hands so that you can speak to the dead, and the credibility of the Ouija board is dissolved.
And I think you can take something away from this alternate explanation. You may not be interacting with the spirit world via wooden board, but you are coming to terms with conflicts inside yourself that want to be resolved. A Ouija board may be facilitating this conflict resolution, but it is internal, and natural.
This kind of skepticism will surely be met with something close to “you’re not open-minded” or “it cannot be explained”. I disagree with both of those statements. You can still have an open mind while evaluating evidence that is in congruence with everything that we know about the world. The key is to not be so open-minded that you accept any idea or theory, to be so open-minded that your brain falls out. With the knowledge that our psychological tendencies can have unconscious effects on our muscle movements (confirmed by science), the Ouija board phenomena becomes thoroughly explainable.
Science-Based Life 
Lord, that’s what I LOVE about “science”! It has an answer for everything and all scientists repeat the same answer ad nauseum. Where else does this ideomotor effect come through? Why only the pendulum or the ouija board? Broaden your horizons. Think for yourself. You need to make a study, not a show of testing something with yourself as subject and observer. Even YOU know that that is bad science. Why did you start off thinking that what you were doing was weird? Is that not poisoning the well? Please. You know better. This “test” and explanation is as flawed as the chatter from the religious nuts who call the board a portal to evil. People who NEVER use the word “portal” suddenly find it in their lexicon when talking about talking boards. The truth is in between, where you do not dare look.
Peace,
Rev. Eliot
Alright, let’s take this hit by hit.
First, by putting science in quotation marks, you make it clear that you yourself have a disdain or mistrust of science, poisoning the same well before you even make it to my claims.
Next, science does not admit to have the answer to everything; scientists revel in the unknown (it means they will continue to have a job). And science is certainly not repeating the same old answer for thousands of years regardless of new findings or evidence (like fundamentalist religion for example). If you were to look at the answer to one question 200 years ago and compare it to the same answer today, I’m positive that you would see the progress that science embodies.
Next, you are assuming that the only way to see the ideomotor effect is through the examples that I outlined, and that I am blindly following these examples. I disagree with this broad generalization of my methods. I thought that I made it fairly clear that I was giving an example of the effect, not the absolutely only example of the effect ever. The effect can be used to concisely explain my pendulum example and the Ouija board, but at no point did I say it was the only way. This is not dogma, this is an example of a phenomena that is useful to illustrate what I am talking about. By your same logic, I could say that you should not make any claims about your religion unless you have exhaustively studied every single permutation of it, and do not simply voice the findings of others. But of course you can, and so can I; using specific examples that demonstrate the scientific consensus is not bad science.
Next, I am not saying that the simple pendulum test proves that the ideomotor effect is true, I am using it as an easy way to see the effect for yourself. Physiology and neurology have already proven the ideomotor effect, and if you thought I was trying to conclusively and scientifically prove it in my post, I apologize for your confusion. Also, a physical explanation for the Ouija board phenomenon is definitely not as flawed as the supernatural “chatter from the religious nuts”.
Next, “portal” is just a word. It is used to describe a feeling that the misunderstood effects of the board that a person can have. You are being needlessly nitpicky here, and I believe this is straw-man for an argument that you are not quite voicing here.
Finally, you say that the “truth is in between, where you do not dare look.” That’s the great thing about science, there are explanations for things. If you are adamant that I have gotten this article wrong, what are your suggestions. It is much easier to come at a scientific explanation and basically dismiss it outright, as you have, with no alternative explanation. But you can’t just dismiss an explanation without offering one yourself because I don’t see any real criticism of the ideomotor effect or its relation to the Ouija board phenomenon in your comment.
If that contempt of science that you present in your second sentence is to something other than just uncritical dismissal, substantiate it with something specific.
Thanks for the rebuttal.
Well said, but I’m afraid its fallen on def ears. You can show people like this absolutely concrete evidence of something, but if it in some way does not agree with their faith (or even if they perceive it to be incompatible with their faith…..I do not see how evolution and the big bang are incompatible with Christianity…..) they will simply turn a blind eye to it.
But thank you for representing the rational folk out there. As for the rest of them, let them go on believing that the world is governed by some kind of magic and not physics, or that the world was formed in 7 days and is only 4000 years old and that satan put the fossils here to fool us, or that the moon is indeed made of cheese, they will believe what they want, faith is convenient as it does not require proof like science does…..You can not force a person to accept truth no matter how much you slap them in the face with it…
I agree with you Tony. Those who are merely a stone wall to factual arguments are hopeless, and beyond my (or science’s) corrections. Ironically, these are typically the same people who will claim that scientists or skeptics are “closed-minded”, first misinterpreting science as a whole, and then using magical thinking to fuel their own hypocrisy. However, even in the face of this, I think that we as skeptics have to make a two-pronged attack on superstition and pseudoscience:
First: we must arm ourselves with knowledge. Knowledge is indeed power, and if we can first understand an issue ourselves, we will better know how to defeat irrationality.
Second (ties in with the first): once we as skeptics have this knowledge, we can reach out, in the most personable and reasonable ways possible, to those who are not as closed off from reality as the conspiracy theorists and religious fundamentalists that you mentioned.
Perhaps there are many who will turn a deaf ear to this kind of debunking, but I try to maintain an optimism that at least some of it may seed the slightest bit of doubt, and lead to better thinking (although the psychological research on this kind of persuasion is against us). So here’s to hoping that critical thinking may chink the armor of superstition.
Your comment in regards to discrediting the science of this based solely on your own inexperience with the field in question is a great example of pseudoscience. You comment that the ideomotor effect only applies to the oiuja board and pendulum, yet this is an impossibility.
The oiuja board was introduced to America in the 1890s, yet the ideomotor effect was written by William Benjamin Carpenter in 1852. That this effect predates the oiuja board means it can not be a simple cop out excuse to understand it.
You ask others to broaden their horizons and keep an open mind. I propose that you should do the same.
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That’s what i love about science…………………….
I’m sorry, but I have to disagree. In my one experience with the Ouija board I asked “What is your name?” It started spelling E-U-G… I was pretty sure it was about to spell nonsense, but then it spelled “Eugene.” I do not know anyone named Eugene. I never think about the name Eugene. There is nothing you could tell me to convince me that Eugene was “in my subconscious.”
So the fact that you are controlling the movement of the wooden marker through imperceptible muscle movements and that you happen to know the name Eugene is less plausible than ghosts controlling your body?
Eugene was quite clearly in your subconscious (if only for the fact that you know the name). Indeed, you could never know what is in there, as it is unknown to your conscious self (sub-conscious).
If there is no evidence that could be presented to you that would prove you otherwise, you drift dangerously near close-minded and blind belief.
What I’m trying to say is I’ve probably never even seen “Eugene” on paper before. That is the last name my subconscious would spell. There are plenty of theories that would seem logical, until you have an actual experience similar to this. I recommend you keep an open mind as well and try it!
My point is that you can’t know what your subconscious does or does not know, full stop. It is below that level of awareness.
Again, literally any natural explanation is more likely than the idea that ghosts are possessing your hand and speaking through you. The ideomotor effect is that more logical natural explanation. With it, the ghost hypothesis is no longer necessary or viable. Know that being open minded doesn’t mean accepting something weird based on fallible personal experience.
you may have heard it anywhere from a tv commercial you dont remember watching to someone screaming it in a far distance , the point is, if it is stored in your subconscious you will not remember it.
Haha well then we can’t be completely sure what is in the subconscious and what isn’t? I am not questioning your logic. It makes sense. If I never touched a Ouija board I’d completely agree. To you my experience is fallible because you aren’t me. But if you had an experience personally, that you couldn’t explain I promise you, you would give it some more thought. That’s all I have to say. Peace my friend.
I have in fact tried a Ouija board, and if you focus in on the natural explanation, nothing at all happens.
Here’s a test: cover your eyes, ask a question, and have a friend read what the board spells out. If it is indeed yourself who is determining what is spelled, the answer will be gibberish. This is enough to validate the natural hypothesis.
There’s only two kinds of persons that are still using this “ideomotor effect” as explanation for Ouija:
1) People who have NEVER approached a real Ouija board and have absolutely no idea of how it works.
2) Skeptics that have to follow their own agenda to the very end. (Of course, never tried Ouija, and also actively refuse to try it).
The opinions of both groups are totally irrelevant, since they lack any true experience; but still they insist that they know the answer of something that they never researched in the first place.
“Ideomotor effect” is NOT a valid explanation for the Ouija phenomenon.
First of all, it’s not even a real scientific theory. By using the subconscious as excuse, they can argumentate anything that they want, since the subconscious is unknown to everyone; even to the subject! They’re placing the cause of the phenomenon in something unitelligible, that can’t be proved neither wrong nor right. It’s not better, thus, than any esoterical or religious explanation; that is, it’s pure dogma.
And second: The phenomenons which occur during Ouija can’t be physically explained by ideomotor effect alone. The glass moves too fast, and the sentences it creates are meaningful. Not even your conscious mind would be able to move the glass at such speed, placing it in the correct letters, without errors; much less your subconscious. And even less, when there are other subconscious interfering.
It would be the same as pretending that somebody who never writed on a computer board, knows ituitively where is each letter and is able to write fast, without looking at the board, and without errors.
1) I have used a “real” Ouija board, am familiar with how it supposedly works, and remain unconvinced.
2) What is the skeptic agenda, by the way? At our last meeting I remember that we said something about criticizing Ouija boards but I can’t recall.
The ideomotor effect is a perfectly valid explanation for the effects we see Ouija boards produce. It is in fact a real phenomenon and you can test it for yourself with a heavy object tied to a bit of string. If you hold out this object on the string, and try to hold your arm completely still, you will notice that the object will still move. This is because you can never truly stop your arm from moving and the small, imperceptible movements of your arm get translated down the string and manifest larger in the movement of the object. This is analogous to how the Ouija board “works.”
The ideomotor effect says that you are controlling where the glass goes, not a ghost. Therefore, do you think that the glass is moving too fast for a human to reproduce? I doubt this is the case. Of course, it makes perfect sense that the sentences means something to you, you are controlling the glass! You are not giving nearly enough credit to the human mind. To say that it is incapable of forming an intelligible sentence quickly on a piece of wood while you are looking at the letters is very cynical. Your brain does far more taxing duties than this every second of your life. In fact, you reading this comment and responding to it is more mentally difficult.
Here’s an experiment that I think you should try before we continue. If the Ouija board “works,” when you try it alone, consider trying the following: Have a friend sit near you, close your eyes, and then you alone use the board. Ask a question of the “spirits” and then have your friend silently write down what letters are indicated. If the ideomotor effect is the true explanation, meaning that you were determining where the glass went, the “sentence” crafted should be unintelligible. If this is the case, you seeing the board (or another friend seeing the board and also touching the glass) influenced what letters were “chosen.” If you can perform this experiment with the proper blinding as I suggested, and you still get sentences that are well crafted and meaningful, I will take your claims more seriously.
The fact that ideomotor effect “could” explain pendulum movements doesn’t mean that it can explain glass movements during Ouija, or that the mechanics involved are analogous. Those two movements have nothing in common; a pendulum is suspended in the air, so anything, from a slight movement of the hand to a breeze of air can move it. A glass is much bigger, and is placed over a solid surface which gives friction; you’d need to have a considerable pressure over it to push it, and even more to pull from it towards you. You have also to get over the resistance of the other person’s fingers.
And the glass moves too fast for your mind. For example, one day, when I was playing Ouija with my sister, my parents entered the house suddenly, and in that same moment the glass spelled out: “Me voy” (“I go away”, in English). That happened in a second. It would have taken much longer for your mind to, first, realize that somebody has entered the house (and recover from the sudden surprise), and second, search for each one of the letters to create the sentence.
And many times, it moved so fast, that you had to be careful so it didn’t escape from your fingers.
Also, there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, that makes me think that the answers that Ouija boards give have anything to do with my subconscious. It spoke of names of people that nobody knew, it used strange grammar and words that are almost never used in my language. To the question “¿A quien quiero?” (“Who do I love?”), for example, the answer was “Vicious”, because of a Sid Vicious poster I had in my room. And at that time I was pretty much in love with a guy from High School, and I was thinking about him, and expected to see his name, not the name of a rock star from a poster! That’s not the kind of thing that could have been neither in my subconscious nor in that of my sister and friend, who know me perfectly well. And saying that that’s my subconscious mind is completely arbitrary. Could it be? Maybe. But there’s no proof of it, and all signs seem to indicate that it isn’t really.
When you dream or have nightmares you can recognize your subconscious there: your personality, your problems, your obsessions, or just things that you saw while awake and that mix together in the dream. But when “speaking” with Ouija, I see no projection of myself there; there’s not more subconscious content in those answers, than in the answers that could give me my neighbour if I asked him anything.
Seeing some kind of connection with your subconscious is just wishful-thinking and speculation, but in no case, a proven fact or scientific fact as “ideomotor effect” proponents pretend.
The blinded experiment is actually further proof that it’s not your mind the one moving it. If you can move the glass so fast and accurate to each letter, without making errors like, for example, moving it to the B, instead of the A, then that means that you know intuitively where’s the position of the letter. What would prevent you then from moving it to the correct letters while blindfolded? A person who knows the position of the letters in a computer board is able to write fast on it, and also write without looking at it, paying attention just to the screen.
Whether not you agree with the scientific explanation of what is going on here is irrelevant. Because it is a natural explanation, it is inherently infinitely more plausible. It is literally more likely that the mafia came into your house while you had your eyes closed and moved the glass while you weren’t looking, and then scooted out the back door. This is facetious, yes, but it is still more likely than a ghost or spirit. There is absolutely no evidence anywhere ever that ghosts exists, which leaves us searching for the most plausible natural explanation. The ideomotor effect is that explanation. Think of all the natural and physical laws of the universe that you would have to suspend in order to make the ghost-theory work. In light of the better explanation, the effect in question, the ghost-theory is indeed a paranormal fantasy.
You are just assuming that the glass moves too fast for your mind. You again are not giving your brain nearly enough credit. Given that you can pick a lengthy word out of a jumbled word search in a second of two, for example, it is completely understandable that your brain can phrase a sentence that you already know very quickly. Give your brain some credit.
What you said about it moving so fast that it might “escape your fingers” is nothing more than you noticing the movement that goes along with you moving your own hand. If the glass were to move on its own, that would be something, but it never does.
You don’t seem to understand the subconscious. You said that the word “vicious” appeared “because you had a sid vicious poster in your room.” Well of course you know that name! Of course you know that grammar! I don’t see how it is impossible to think that your mind could come up with a name of a personality who you enjoy and that you think about frequently enough. That is not magic. That is memory.
You also seem to think that we have access to our own subconscious. We don’t, as it is below our level of consciousness. You cannot know what is or what is not in there, full stop. In theory, every name, sentence structure, obscure reference, and song lyric you have ever heard or seen could be kicking around in there. This gives the mind a plethora of example to draw upon. Again, this is not magic, it’s your memory.
No, when you dream you do not “recognize your subconscious.” When you sleep you brain is still active and conscious (though less so than in a waking state). Subconscious refers more to things that you literally have no thought of, like your ability to understand the words you are hopefully reading in this sentence. You can’t consciously “turn off” your ability to understand this arrangement of letters as a word, for example, it is sub-conscious.
Given that the experience that you just recounted to me involved the spelling of a person’s name which you know quite well (a “projection” of yourself), nothing mystical is going on. And again, you cannot know the contents of your subconscious mind.
Also,the ideomotor effect is a proven psychophysiologcal phenomenon. The burden on proof is on claimants who insist that ghosts move their hands, and they have their work cut out for them.
Good point on the experiment. Here’s an idea to control for what you mentioned: Flip the board upside down and down the experiment I outlined earlier, so that even someone who is very used to where the letters are cannot cheat.
The fact that ideomotor effect is a more plausible theory and doesn’t break the physical laws that we know at this point, is no guarantee of it being true. Could it be true? Yes. Sounds to us more logical? Yes. But objective truth is independent of what we perceive as logical or plausible. Think about geocentric astronomy: the idea that it’s the Sun the one who’s moving around the Earth was the most plausible theory during centuries, and would be the intuitive belief of somebody who didn’t know anything about astronomy and had just arrived on Earth. It was false, however.
The same goes for Ouija. The fact that our current science is unable to prove or disprove the existence of ghosts, or parapsychological phenomenons like telekinesis, doesn’t mean necessarily that these things can’t exist. If the scientific theory isn’t proved with 100% certainty, there’s no reason to invalidate other possible explanations just because they don’t fit our current worldview.
Precisely the unknowable nature of subconbscious is what bugs me most about this theory. If the subconscious is such a deep, obscure, inexplorable entity, how can anybody ground a scientific theory in it? You can’t explore it empirically, you can’t have certainties based in it. So the word “Vicious” was in my subconscious at that moment? Yeah, maybe. But there’s no way to prove it. Maybe the word that was in my subconscious was actually “Elephant”. But nobody will ever know. I don’t see then so much difference between saying that, and saying that it was ghosts, or aliens, or psychic powers. In all the cases you’ve got indiscernable entities as the source of the movement, which can’t be proved neither right nor wrong.
Also, if the subconscious is such a random and uncontrollable thing, what prevents it from answering with gibberish nonsense. specially when there are several subconscious working at the same time? Or what prevents it from answering with numbers when you ask for a name? In my experience, that never happened; all answers were consistent (even if some had bad or weird grammar). The only moment when we got gibberish answers was when we asked about the name of the “entity”, but even that pattern was followed in each and every ocassion, so that was also consistent.
Then, either your subconscious is a completely random structure, which escapes your control and knowledge, and thus can answer anything (no matter how crazy) to any question, or it’s somehow related with your conscious mind, and in that case the answers should reflect somehow your expectations, or at least the grammar and language you use, and the basic assumptions you have.
Neither of these things happened to me. The answers fell in some in-between grade; they were all logical, but sometimes weird. For example, to the question “when were you born?”, we got on one ocassion this answer: “2013” (that was around 2004-05).
That was logical in the sense that it was a number, and not a name, but it was still weird, in the sense that it doesn’t fit your most basic assumptions (that is, that a birthday date has to be always in the past).
As for the turned-over table, I didn’t try the experiment during the time I used to play Ouija; it just never crossed my mind. Still, even when the glass moved around an empty table without letters, that wouldn’t prove that the person is cheating. You’d just have a phenomenon, rendered useless by the particular conditions of that empty table.
You are making a distinction between intuition and evidence. The two are completely distinct. The fact that your ghost explanation does break physical laws, relies too heavily on anecdotes and not data, and is “more logical,’ virtually rules it out as a plausible explanation in the face of another, more plausible one. With you admitting such implausibility for the ghost claim, it seems you are desperately clinging to an idea which is only backed up by personal experience and speculation about how ghosts work (not the most fleshed out field of research). Personal experience, mind you, is the lowest and most unreliable form of evidence.
You are correct in saying that we cannot prove something 100% true or something completely false, but this gives no credence to your Ouija claims. In science, we look to the preponderance of evidence to say with the most amount of certainty that something is true or not. Looking to the evidence we have (and the alternative explanations) about Ouija boards we can say that they fail this test. Conversely, saying that we cannot prove the non-existence of weird phenomena means nothing. You can’t prove there isn’t a tea pot orbiting around Mars. To discount something in science, we devise an experiment and see what the data objectively tells us. Again, in the face of a much more plausible theory with actual veracity behind it, Ouija board paranormal claims also fail this test.
You’re right, the subconscious is a vexing area of neuroscience and psychology, and again you’re right, it is very difficult to get at empirically. But in fact we can get at it empirically with cleverly crafted experiment that involve techniques like priming, for example.
Because a discussion of the workings of the subconscious would take a whole book to lay out, let’s put it aside for now. I want to pose a question to you, and it has to do with my experiment that I suggested you try. Do you have your eyes open when you use the Ouija Board? If you do the experiment as I suggested a few comments ago, and if I am correct about the ideomotor effect, if you close your eyes and try to receive a “message” nothing intelligible will come of it. If it truly is you who are determining where the glass goes, then attempting to use the board blindfolded should return something nonsensical. Keep in mind that simply making something fit will not do, i.e., if a ghost is really controlling your hand, I’m sure it has the common decency to for actual words, and not just something you have to struggle to shoehorn into your life (as with astrology readings, for example).
Really, try this experiment, I want to hear what happens. I will reserve judgment until you do, like a proper scientist.
Do you not think that it is possible that the “messages” you are receiving are truly nonsensical, and you are rationalizing whatever pops up? This is a well-known phenomenon called the Forer Effect where people rate vague, general statement about their life with a high degree of accuracy. To me, this coupled with the ideomotor effect is another nail in the coffin (a physical nail, not a phantom one).
Try the experiment and then get back to me. I’d be willing to craft the procedure with you if you are interested.
I know that personal experience isn’t enough to be the only ground for science. But, conversely, I expect that scientific theories fit with my personal experience, or at least, describe it accurately.
Ideomotor effect describes a scenary that doesn’t really fit with my experience (it requires, for example, that you have enough physical contact with the glass to push and pull it, and not just your fingernail on it). And the same happens with the “it’s-all- cheating” theory.
If I was with a group of people and we all saw something really weird in the sky, like an OVNI, and scientists came up with an explanation for it based in collective hallucination, for example, the least I could demand is that his theory fits into the scenary. That is, that the conditions required for a collective hallucination to happen (drug ingests, high temperatures, and so on) were really met at the time. If none of these conditions were met, I wouldn’t have a reason to doubt my experience (no matter how anecdotical), and replace it with a theory that doesn’t convince me.
This doesn’t mean necessarily that you choose some esoterical explanation instead (many persons do, but not all). It’s just that the scientific theory, in its current formulation, seems to you insufficient, unconvincing or incomplete.
On the other hand, the answers were all meaningful and most of the time straight-forward. To the question, for example, “Who’s going to win the USA elections, Bush or Kerry?” the answer was “Kerry”. That leaves hardly a place for speculation about the meaning. There weren’t in any way vague answers like the ones that give tarot or astrology, which can mean anything. The same goes for the “Vicious” example. Why would pop up precisely that English word in the middle of a Spanish conversation, just when I (a fan of the Sex Pistols) asks “Who do I love?”. That’s not me trying to find a meaning for a criptic, meaningless answer; the meaning is obvious.
The only nonsensical answers happened when we asked about the “entity’s” name. In that case, the answers were always something along the lines of: “jdfhjb8796kjfghkgdfkj”. That also puzzles me a lot. If it’s your subconscious, then, either ALL the answers should be meaningless words like that, or none should. Why didn’t our subconscious come up with a random name, like it did with the other questions about people’s names? It could have been the name of a dead relative, or famous person with whom you subconsciously wished to talk. But that never happened. In all the ocassions, it refused to answer that particular question, and only that.
I regret not having made the blindfolded experiment back then; that idea simply didn’t pop up in my mind. However, when I return home this Summer I could try to convince my sister to do it.
In any case, it would be really difficult to prove that nobody’s actually cheating, since you can’t watch other people’s fingers to see that they’re not flexing or moving them. And if your subconscious can move a glass fast and accurate to the correct letters while seeing, I don’t see a reason why it wouldn’t do it while blindfolded. It’s the same as somebody who knows a computer keyboard, as I commented earlier; that person should be able to write without looking at the board.
i recently conducted an experiment where the person asking the question (to which only he knew the answer to!) had his hands absent from the planchette (or glass) while the other 2 played and awaited the answer. shockingly the response was always correct! the most compelling evidence was the instant my boyfriend asked about a man who accompanied him in the elevator on his way up to my home (my nephew who was also playing was no where near my neighborhood when my boyfriend arrived here and i was watching a movie in my room, therefore it is impossible for any information regarding this man to be stored in our subconscious), i understand my boyfriend knew the answer however his hands were not on the planchette, how can this be explained? is our subconscious strong enough to move something with no physical contact? there is something called zero point theory in which people have the ability to move something subconsciously, somehow temporarily suspending gravity. however this interferes with the ideomotor effect!
I can only speculate that there is some missing link in your logical chain. Either your boyfriend was not the only person to know this information, or perhaps the re-telling of the story is a bit embellished. Regardless of my speculation, you still have a mountain of work cut out for you to posit that a possibly fallible mind or inattentive consciousness is less plausible than the idea that a spirit came into the physical realm, knew knowledge about this realm, and physically affected it. It is far more plausible that some link in your “experiment” is missing. Let’s begin with the mundane and work our way up to the immensely implausible.
At this point of the story, the ideomotor explanation is already enough implausible, since you have to resort to such an over-complicated and far-fetched theory (“Maybe some other person knew the answers, maybe the story was embellished, maybe, maybe, maybe…”). This sounds pretty much like clinging hopelessly to a theory that has passed already the point of plausibility, just because it HAS to be the only and true theory.
i assure you there is no link missing in my story nor would i over embellish my claim. we started this experiment due to our complete skepticism towards communicating with the dead or any supernatural entity from another dimension or realm. our goal was to discredit the ouija board and prove to ourselves there is no supernatural event taking place, however the evidence was compelling and unexplainable. we also asked questions in our mind so that the other two players were oblivious to the question and still the board responded accurately! (also the person asking did not have their hands placed on the planchette!!) another instance was when i asked a question that neither one us knew, i would get the answer from my mother the following morning when should awake, againg shockingly the board answered correctly (which i came to realize in the morning only after asking my mother the question). i am not claiming i was undoubtedly communicating with the dead but something is unexplained. please help me understand!!
the ideomotor effect is the reasoning behind the ouija board, however this theory would require the subject who is asking the question to have their hands on the planchette, so what is the explanation behind what occurred to me? he who was asking did not have their hands on the planchette. therefore making it impossible for the subject to move it subconsciously! in addition the other two players were oblivious to the answers for these questions asked. even in science somethings are unexplained. seeing as kyle has no other explanation for the ouija board but the ideomotor effect, i would love to know his opinion on my experience with the board (without calling me a liar, such accusation seems acceptable only from a close minded person. you shouldnt have to resort to such actions just to back up your claim on the reasoning behind the ouija board).
Here is an article relating to our discussion: http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2012/07/-is-there-anybody-there.html
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I’ve not read every comment on here but I feel compelled to respond. Firstly I’ve stumbled across this article in trying to find some clear documentation on Ouija boards of which I can find none.
I had a very similar view on Ouija boards being either fake or manipulated with sub-conscious thoughts however I’ve since done my own experiments to de-bunk Ouija boards however I’ve ended up mystifying them even more, let me explain what happened and how this motor effect cannot apply to such a theory.
We was sat chatting about ghosts and evp and how everything paranormal seems to have a normal undertone when it comes to science explaining them, basically it was a discussion with half the people saying they believed and the other half saying it’s all explainable etc. etc., then Ouija boards came up…….
We made one there and then, a scrap piece of would and stuck letters to it including yes, no, hello and goodbye, we quickly read about how these are open closed etc. but we just stuck a slapped a glass on the board and all put our fingers on and started asking questions, within a few minutes your could feel the glass become fixed to the board like pressure was being applied from the top ( there was 5 people sat around the board ) it began to move in circles very slowly, I asked out ” if there is someone there who wishes to talk to us, please move the glass to Hello” the glass moved to hello and then back to the centre, I asked for a name etc. etc. you get the idea, it’s the next part that to me debunks the whole motor theory altogether, I let go of the glass took a step back and observed the board instead whoever I was the one still asking the questions……
The glass continued to answer my questions until one “spirit” came through who sparked my interest, a gentleman called James Walworth came up who gave us a running count of his life and how he came to “pass”, I decided the best thing to do was for me to study this chap and find out a bit more about him before continuing with questions.
James Walworth turned out to be a monk who lived on the site we was at, he was an exiled monk from the henry viii era and the act of supremacy meant he was executed for standing by his beliefs.
I returned to the board and continued to ask along those lines of questions again it was all coming back as factual and again I was not part of the board so my “motor” effect had no input on where that glass was moving, I asked if he could answer questions in my head, to which it replied yes.
I asked questions in my head and I had the answers every time I even got to find out about another incident within the property I had no knowledge about prior to the board.
Whilst I like to say I’m a man of science and have no beliefs in heaven hell or anything of the sort I am puzzled as to how a board that’s homemade and probs not even used properly and we get 100% accuracy to questions asked, and it’s an experiment I had no influence over it leads to two wild theory’s :-
I’m showing signs of some serious ESP skills or it is actually “spirits”, what are your thoughts on this ?
sorry for resurrecting this article from the dead!
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Thank you so much for your valuable post which provide something rational.
I am so fed up of all these stupid posts and fake stories by illiterate people who think a board can make them talk to non existing entities called demon or spirits or whatever.
After reading your theory, I can live peacefully. As long as Science is there, I am not at all vulnerable to any stupid spooky theory.
I came up with the fact that the subconscious thing you have been talking about is more or less a DREAM. We never know how and what do we saw there.
Educated people need some better education and reasoning but sadly world is full of stupid people who believe in all these non sense. Lets hope for a better future.
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