Although Ouija boards are viewed by some as a positive spiritual device it is simply a toy, the participants are subconsciously making small, involuntary, physical movements using a well-known, and well-understood, phenomenon called the Ideomotor effect.

The effect is extremely powerful and many subjects cannot be convinced that their actions are originating solely in their own minds.

Experiments consistently suggest that, at best, the messages are received involuntarily from the participants themselves, and, at worst, by a manipulative player, possibly with the help of confederates within the group present.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideomotor_effect

Damn right.

I can accept that can happen in alot of cases but I cant accept that as the be all and end all. The ouija board itself is just a tool for combining group energy to make contact possible if desired. There isn't anything special about the board itself...You don't actually need a ouija board to achive this, it can be done in various ways. It's all in the group energy and focus of intent. So the expereince or result will depend greatly on the expereince of the group as to whether it's spiritual one or someone pushing the glass. If spiritual it can also make a difference if it's a positive or a negitive experience, that will depend greatly with having expereince of how the spirit world works.... Sorry, but I've just had to many experiences that can't be debunked to say it's all intirely down to someone pushing it or subconcious movement. Not when it involves mind reading and answering of questions through thought only....

I agree that often subconcious control of the ouija board can occur... however, my own personal experience has show that sometimes it goes beyond that into the truly super natural.

I'd posted about an experience sometime when I first started coming to UM, so I shall simply quote that old thread:

I've heard that reasoning before, and the explanation is very close to perfect.
However, there is something to think about.
As I'm sure was mentioned, would a ghost really care whether or not it's a toy? All it sees is an object it can use to speak to the living, so it takes advantage of the situation. It doesn't much matter if it's a toy, because it can be used as a way for it to communicate. This is all assuming that ghosts can indeed move certain objects, of course.
I constantly hear people throwing the idea away just because the Oujia board happens to be a toy. Which, hazzard, I'm thankful you're not doing. I don't think that reasoning alone makes any sense at all.

Well, ouija boards are sold as toys. But I think, as you said Jay, that it doesn't necessarily mean anything. If you can draw out a board on a peice of paper and it works, what's the difference? Yes, they've been sold as toys, but in the end, they can be quite dangerous IMO.

People will often dismiss what they don't understand out of fear that their perception of the Universe will have to change to accomodate the possibility that they are wrong.

Oh wow what an experience and with a happy ending as well

One should never underestimate the Universe's ability to throw you something interesting now and then.

That has often been true of me. At some point, I found the evidence overwhelming that there were many things occurring that I didn't understand. Indeed, it seemed those things far, far outweighed the things I did understand. Confronted with that simple fact, who wouldn't take comfort in pretending to some small certainty somewhere-- anywhere?

And so I would like to endorse the idea that the ouija board is just a toy. I know about the ideomotor response and all. But some people swear to some pretty outrageous stories about them, and the fact is, I really don't know.

I am certain, however, that my perception of the universe is wrong and will have to change.

Take a wine glass, turn it upside down and rest your finger on it. Now cncentrate. The glass will move. In the right circumstances, this can be terrifying. If you look at someone who uses ouija boards, they probably WANT to have some kind of paranormal experience. This just helps the situation on a bit. If the person in question has a good imagination, people like me can have hours of fun scaring them.

So I have a question: If I use Ouija boards as a little party trick for friends mixed up with some other slightly creepy magic, but I'm not taking it seriously, and in no way beleive in it, and after I'm done I explain myself, Am I "asking for trouble" from the so called spirit world?

Just wondered.

All it takes is an over enthusiastic finger and a bit of suggestion and bingo!

Nothing more than an old parlour game, fun, but as yet nothing more than that.

Well, I personally never experienced anything myself, because I've never used one. Therefore, I cannot make an accurate comment on the entire subject.

I did however, here stories from people I am close to(family members) who claimed that crazy shiz happened when they messed with one of these boards. Someone told me the board stuck to the ceiling, so her and her friends ran out of the room. When they went back in, the board was on the floor.

That could've been the alcohol or drugs they were using. If movement of the board were to occur- other than the planchette itself, it would mostly be limited to it sliding across the table (or a motion similiar to being tossed off the table), or the planchette shooting across the table.

I watched an episode of Penn and Teller's Bullsh....(you know the rest of the title ) on Ouija boards.
They proved that it was the people moving the planchette. They blindfolded them and then they turned the Ouija board upside down unbeknownst to the people.
Of course the planchette always returned to the upper corners where they thought "yes" and "no" were. But, "yes" and "no" were now on the bottom corners of the board!
Now I am not saying that all Ouija board expreiences are fake, because I don't really know. This was an interesting concept though.
I think everyone who thinks the Ouija board is working for them should try this little experiment of blindfolding the participants. Either videotape the board and review the answers after the session or have another person stand aside and write the answers on a notepad.
I think a lot of people will be surprised at the results.
Even "you" could be moving the planchette without even knowing it

Not every ouija board done is going to be spiritual, your going to get sub concious movment to an extent. However when a spirit does truelly start to channel it's quite different. How can you explain mind reading and answers to questions sent out by thought, (telepathically) which is how spirit communicates..? These experiements that claim to proove ouija boards as non spiritual are flawed for a couple of reasons...Firstly how many times has the experiement been done? A few times just doesn't cut it, you can't read much into a small sample study. The other thing I don't get is why they would turn the board over, for what purpose really? how does that acurately test whether it's spiritual or not... it's biased really in assuming that it's only to trip people up who are pushing it. If you tunr the board over then how do you expect a spirit to see where the letters are?


If your going to go to these lengths you may as well just throw out the ouija board alltogether. You don't need it for spirit communication. Combine group energy in a similar way and ask for raps or table knocking/tilting.. Two for yes, one for no.. Combined group sub concious energy will not interfere this way so much as there's not an object that people are collectively touching together.

I dunno whether or not it's a toy. There are many stories both for and against either side... To me, the use of a board is a) not needed and b)probably more dangerous than useful, if in fact they work. Giving uncontrolled access to the spirit world (which is in fact what the board does in the hands of an inexperienced group) opens things up too much to the bad elements of the paranormal.

Just a very brief opinion.

--Marty

I played with a ouija board once. It was the glow-in-the-dark board I found at Wal-Mart for $19.95. My friend and I couldn't get the planchette to move at all, so finally we asked questions and just dropped it on the board. Apparently she had a ghost named "Frd" living in her apartment. He seemed quite the drunkard, as his spelling was slurred. Either that, or we were channelling a 12 year-old AOL user who'd never typed a day in their life. He said he enjoyed "wlrking no de beeec" and sometimes would "tch movs wih teh gyrlss."

So either the ghost was a bad speller, or we weren't very precise dropping it on the letters we wanted. Either way, it was an amusing diversion. I've never really taken much stock in ouija boards.

Heard to many scary stories to ever being comfortable using one again. They may be toys, however, if anyone does take it seriously it can mess up their mind by the things the board "supposingly" says.

I have a Ouija Board, and I've never once got it to work. But I am always sure to be polite and say "goodbye" before putting it away. Just in case.

While I am skeptical of Ouija boards, and would otherwise whole-heartedly agree that Ouijas do nothing that connects to the supernatural, a close friend of mine had a very weird experience with a ouija board that makes me wonder...

Her grandfather had recently died when her friends decided to use a ouija board. She opted out, as death was not exactly something she wanted to think about at that point in time. Sitting in the room with them, saying very little, she watched and listened as she heard her friends "contact" someone who claimed to be and old man who had had 8 kids. She didn't think much of it until he said that his wife's name was Flower (a nickname that her grandfather had called her grandmother in life.) They asked if he had grandkids, and the board began spelling out the nicknames her grandfather used to use for herself and her cousins (and they were very specific, odd names). None of the people using the board knew these names.

There was one problem. Her father had 7 children. Not 8.

She casually told her mother about the experience, and her mom, who was washing dishes, broke a plate by dropping it when she heard that the board said he had 8 children. Her grandparents had had a miscarriage as their first child. My friend had never been told that until that day.


With stories like that, how can one explain it away? Is it coincidence (which is highly unlikely, as the information shared was unknown by those using the board and was extremely specific)... was my friend influencing their responces (also unlikely as she didn't speak much and didn't even know all of the information provided until she confirmed it with her mother)... or did they really contact my friend's dead grandfather?

It remains a mystery to me.

If that's a true story, the only thing that could explain it away is a conspiracy theory. There's no particular need to explain it away, though. Such communications do happen, even under highly controlled conditions. Usually, they occur through a human medium.

Here's my guess: The planchette on a ouija board is moved unconsciously by the participants (ideomotor response). These participants may not have the talent or inclination to receive spirit communications consciously. Maybe the faint impressions that a spirit person can convey are normally overwhelmed by conscious thought, attention to physical stimuli, and other signals. Or perhaps they are normally filtered out or ignored as "noise" or error. But as we've noted, the ideomotor response provides a channel straight from the unconscious mind to a physical thing that spells out messages. So if a spirit person could at least make an impression on the unconscious, that message could reach the ouija board via the ideomotor response prior to any filtering.

I think resorting to such a conjecture is necessary if and only if the information received is both verifiable and unknown to the participants, as was the case here. This information could not have come from the unconscious minds of the participants, and another explanation must be sought.

A competing "paranormal" explanation-- one not requiring an afterlife-- would be that the participants received the information telepathically from the granddaughter. This explanation can also be dismissed, because she thought the grandfather had 7 children, not 8 as the ouija board spelled out.

hehe if that is not evidence enough for you, I'm not sure what would be

I've mentioned having experiences with mind reading through thought. We took turns of thinking of a word, any word and asking the spirit to spell it out. We progressed to asking questions no one else could possibly know the answer to via thought. We progressed this to having someone stand outside the room and send there question in thought. We recorded the answers and showed what we had got afterwards, it was all bang on for everyone concerned. The funniest thing about it was we didn't know what the answers we were getting for this person ment untill afterwards.

And there you have it. Like Hazzard said in his first post,"Experiments consistently suggest that, at best, the messages are received involuntarily from the participants themselves, and, at worst, by a manipulative player, possibly with the help of confederates within the group present".

That and the Ideomotor effect pretty much sums it up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideomotor_effect

I agree.

I agree with this post 100%. I have used a ouija board on several occasions and have
never experienced anything to convince me that it is anything more than a parlor game.
It is simply a toy and nothing more.

I can understand that everything can be manipulated. My own experiments and teachings went beyond moving glasses or a planchette of simply getting messeges.

I do not wish to discuss this, but my advice is to keep away because bad unpleasant things can happen.

Get a Teacher for Spiriitual development when the time is right...

smee

If somekind of paranormal thing is happening its not because of the board...its just cardboard and plastic. At most your using as kind of a "focusing object". So technically you could do the same thing with a rock.

FYI: I don't believ in this...playing Ouija boards never let me talked to ghoasts just like playing Monopoly never gave me a hotel on park avenue.

Ironically enough, some don't have the "hello" section, so who woul'd be suprized if it does work if hello was there? I'm not sure, but if I was on the "other side" I know I'd be insulted if you didn't say hello to me. It woul'd be a bit prejudgemental, knowing goodbye was going to be the last thing to say. So why even talk back to anyone summoning you?

Well, I have no way of knowing....what I do know is if you use it alone - you can say hello and goodbye regardless of goodbye being printed on it. It sounds funny but if you think about it.... isn't that why it doesn't work?

Wow, cool!

When I was a kid, we did one of those with an upturned glass in my home (the whole thing was led by my mom, aunt and grand-mother who were fervent believers in ghosts etc).

I was very freaked out by it. Later at night, I came back alone and placed my hand on teh glass to see if it would move and it did! Ever since then I have been looking for the explanation! I had never heard of the ideometer effect. I can tell you I didn't move it CONSCIOUSLY. You really think the glass is moving on it's own, it's a very powerful illusion!

When it moves to form words with out touching it at all, then I will beleive it.

Strings! STRINGS! STRINGS, I SAY, STRINGS!

the ouija board is a very debatable topic

I can tell you, with the experiences I have had with Ouija Boards. They are NOT fake. not when I have been around them. Very errie occurances have happened that I wish not to write a full length post about. Seriously though, in most cases, it is the people moving the thing. Regardless, If your full intent is to talk to spirits, a board is just a medium. You can communicate with spirits with other mediums, including meditation.

Keep your minds open people. Not everything can be explained.

MC

ive used oija boreds.

used them out of curiosity mostly.

alot of things happend during the use of one

the most significant of these would be asking the 'spirit' to blow out a candle that was well over a metre away form anyone.

the candle didnt blow out...its kind of just went out on its own.....but onl after we asked the spirit to blow it out.

that creeped me and my four friends out alot.

But you just explained it.

Sometimes it's people, sometimes it's spirits. Which is it? Unexplained or spirits?

I 100% disagree. but I dont believe the boards itself have power but its the persons that uses the boards that have power. The boars are just a tool sorta like tarot cards

I haven't used one for quite awhile, but the two times I did it freaked me out.

The 1st time, my sister and I were using it in the kitchen when my Mom was doing the dishes. Anyway, we supposedly got my grandfather that had died when we were 4 or 5. I had asked what he was doing and as it spelled out, I was reading it outloud. He said he was fishing with indians. At that point my mom stoped doing the dishes and asked to repeat what I had said... When I did, she said when she was very young he would go on fishing trips in Minisota with indians. I did'nt even know my grandfather and my sister is younger than I am.
The 2nd time I was in my 20s and we stoped by a friends house after we had a couple of beers (she thought we had come over right after work)... She had it out and asked if we wanted to try it, I had had only 3 about 2 hrs. earlier. Anyway, when we were doing it it spelled out ALKI over and over. Anyway, I didn't realize what it was spelling, but when I sounded it out...
Those are the only experiences I have had with them...

As long as people consider the subconsious, contemptuous and ineffective, useless and nonrelevant, the mysteries of the universe shall be well hidden from the vulgar.

I feel the ouija board is just a toy myself! But this is just through my own experiences with it.

I suppose that anyone who believes in them enough could proabably think they are really working.
But again this is just what i think.

People will often believe in what makes them feel better out of fear of the truth.

Coincidence. If you light a candle, it's going to go out eventually.

Agreed! They're toys.