Suggestions for Ouija Board experiments

ExMinister said:
I for one would never advocate abandonment of the Magic 8 Ball. :)

But isn't it even a little bit interesting that with a Ouija board, the subconscious mind is somehow given a voice? Not just a yes or no swing-of-the-pendulum kind of voice, but actual words and phrases and even an apparent personality?
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Only if the participants can see the board ..

Blindfolding does result in gibberish ( .. if the planchette even remains on the relevant part of the field.. ) , despite claims to the contrary..

But maybe this is old news to neuroscience.
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Why should they even bother ?

It may be that the research already exists to fully explain this, and the voices in schizophrenia as well, or other instances where "not self" parts of the brain "speak," for lack of any better way to describe it.
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What would we gain from a better understanding of this ?
I'm reminded of the tipsy weatherman who points to the weather map and proclaims:

" There it is ! And there is not a damn thing we can do about it !

Or it may well be that we don't have the technology to study it, or that the cost of the research would outweigh the benefits, which could be better utilized elsewhere.
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See above ...

At any rate, unless someone makes a paranormal claim about the Ouija board, I don't think there is really any way to test it by observation only. The woo claim that the spirits are providing information could be tested like any other such claim, though the believers always seem to find a way to justify when it fails, and for which reason being able to pinpoint exactly which parts of the brain are in fact involved here would be yet another step toward rationality.

It is easy to dismiss it as gullibility or even deception, but those who have experienced it the way I have will not find those accusations helpful, and many will continue to believe in a paranormal explanation as a result.

Science will eventually find an answer to this, if it hasn't already. The more we can explain, the less woo there will be, to state the obvious. But offering explanations that don't fit the facts (as with the accusations of gullibility or deception, in cases where the experiencer knows these not to be the case) does more harm than good.
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Then, all you have to do is offer one verifiable case than cannot be explained away by gullibility, deception or any other excuse you wish to offer.. it should be easy to do .

Like Randi says .. If your claim is that you can play the violin; all you have to do is whip it out and play a tune...:)
 
Skeptical Greg said:
Only if the participants can see the board ..

Blindfolding does result in gibberish ( .. if the planchette even remains on the relevant part of the field.. ) , despite claims to the contrary..



Why should they even bother ?



What would we gain from a better understanding of this ?
I'm reminded of the tipsy weatherman who points to the weather map and proclaims:

" There it is ! And there is not a damn thing we can do about it !



See above ...



Then, all you have to do is offer one verifiable case than cannot be explained away by gullibility, deception or any other excuse you wish to offer.. it should be easy to do .

Like Randi says .. If your claim is that you can play the violin; all you have to do is whip it out and play a tune...:)
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Did you read my posts describing my experiences using the board alone? How can that be explained by gullibility or deception? It's not like I can't tell the difference between deliberately moving a planchette and the sensation that it is being moved through my fingers by some conscious intention that is not mine (which I can only define then as subconscious).

I have offered a personal experience that, in my opinion as a skeptic and a non-woo, cannot be explained away by gullibility or deception. Now, as I said before, it's just an anecdote and as such I understand it's only worth so much. If you don't accept that I am being honest, that's fine. I totally get that. No one is under any obligation to accept my word on this. Maybe you are saying here that you think I'm gullible enough to be mistaken about consciously being aware of moving the planchette.

I suppose I only shared that experience because I figured I've been around the forum long enough for most people to know I'm a skeptic and not a woo. And I really do think the phenomenon is interesting. But as a skeptic, I respect skepticism and I think it's a healthy response, so how can I argue? ;)

At any rate, I don't need an excuse for it since obviously I am not claiming anything paranormal is going on. I would be fascinated by an explanation, though.

As I said in my post, looking away does result in gibberish. That was my experience, too. But that isn't really relevant to what I'm saying is interesting. If you already acknowledge that it is your own mind somehow at work, then it isn't all that surprising that the process would pretty much come to a halt when you are no longer looking.
 
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The subconscious is pretty good at making experiences for us when we dream, you know;).
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Yes. I guess it could be comparable to a lucid dream, as someone mentioned earlier, when you have the opportunity to speak with dream characters that your own mind creates but seem to have a personality and often a will of their own.

Still, it seems even weirder when it happens when you are wide awake. And maybe the strangest part is the feeling that some other intelligence within your own brain is actually capable of moving your hands without your consiously willing it.
 
Explorer said:
OK, I shall repeat. If they were fully conscious responses from a participant they would be recognised for that, in the same way that I am fully aware that the words that form this very sentence are emanating from the conscious part of my brain.

Sorry, but I don't know why you find that a difficult concept?
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OK. I'll try to explain why I find it a difficult concept.

I can understand how you know when you are responding in a conscious matter or not. I have absolutely no idea how you could look at the content of someone else's writing and could obviously recognize if it is a conscious or unconscious response.

Can anyone else in this thread explain it to me? What am I missing?
 
ExMinister said:
I'm sure lots of people hoax with it and maybe she was. But if she wasn't doing it consciously, if it was her subconscious (as opposed to yours), it would be her fingers that would appear to you to be doing the moving.
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She was absolutely in total belief that it was real and that the planchett was pulling her fingers along. Her fingers were doing all the moving.
 
Ladewig said:
OK. I'll try to explain why I find it a difficult concept.

I can understand how you know when you are responding in a conscious matter or not. I have absolutely no idea how you could look at the content of someone else's writing and could obviously recognize if it is a conscious or unconscious response.

Can anyone else in this thread explain it to me? What am I missing?
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If you are just looking at the detached writings after the event, that had no scientific monitoring data retrieved during the writing process, of course it would be impossible to tell whether or not it was from conscious or unconscious motivation.

Both Exminster and myself, who have conducted personal experiments, know that we are not "consciously" influencing anything, but I would not expect, like him, for you to take our word for it. Other participants, that I feel would take the session seriously and who I have observed during the sessions, still could have been "consciously" pushing the glass, for fun, for deliberate deception, or whatever else, and that is why I am supporting scientific scrutiny in an attempt to separate the fraud from the genuine.

The difference here is that I and Exminister, are not making any paranormal claims, only that an observed phenomenom could provide useful information about our conscious and subconscious processes, perhaps throwing more light on schizophrenia, the mechanisms of dreaming, and other mental health issues. The problem that future research has with respect to this subject, is that it is so mired in woo explanations, that probably there is less chance that science will ever be applied to this phenomenon for the foreseeable future.
 
I'm sorry, but while a child having an invisible friend is cute and shows imagination, an adult having invisible friends only shows us that said adult needs professional help.
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I'm not sure what offends me more, your intolerance or the fact that you seem to use "in need of professional help" as an insult.

If more people would just not humor in any way such beliefs and instead try to convince them to seek therapy, this wouldn't be such a widespread problem.
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I don't know why you consider Christianity to be a "widespread problem" and I'm not sure if I want to know.

When did good mental health become a matter of personal choice?
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Good mental health has always been a matter of personal choice. If I choose not to go to the doctor with a bad knee, anxiety problem, or other ailment that is completely up to me, regardless of how many people go out of their way to "not humor in any way" my decision.
 
MCALLEN, TEXAS - A Texas teenager charged in the stabbing of his 14-year-old friend said a Ouija board told him to carry out the attack, police said on Friday.

The 15-year-old boy has been charged with attempted murder after stabbing his friend with a 4-inch knife on Feb. 29 in a wooded area behind a high school in Weslaco, a small town along the U.S.-Mexico border at the southern tip of Texas.

The victim was treated in intensive care for three days for a severe laceration to his intestine, Weslaco police spokesman J.P. Rodriguez said.

The alleged assailant, whose name was not made public, has no history of mental problems or criminal behavior, Rodriguez said.

"I'm not making excuses for the kid, but I think sometimes it's harder for them to separate reality from fiction," the police spokesman said. "This is kind of bizarre."

After stabbing him, the boy took his friend to a nearby auto repair shop so the owner could call an ambulance, Rodriguez said.

A third boy said he witnessed the stabbing, and that his knife-wielding friend told the victim to say he fell on the blade.

Marketed by Hasbro, the Ouija board has a flat surface marked with letters, numbers and symbols. It is used in a seance game that is said to help players communicate with the dead.

Rodriguez called the case "a little eerie" but said investigators believe the boy used the Ouija board to rationalize the attack.

"He actually believed what the Ouija board advised him, that the friend was the cause of his problems," Rodriguez said. "That's kind of the incredible part."
 
Explorer said:
If you are just looking at the detached writings after the event, that had no scientific monitoring data retrieved during the writing process, of course it would be impossible to tell whether or not it was from conscious or unconscious motivation.

Both ExMinster and myself, who have conducted personal experiments, know that we are not "consciously" influencing anything, but I would not expect, like him, for you to take our word for it.
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On the contrary, I am willing to take your word for it. I am readily willing to concede that on the occasions that you or ExMinister had your fingers on the glass/planchette you were not consciously moving the device.


Other participants, that I feel would take the session seriously and who I have observed during the sessions, still could have been "consciously" pushing the glass, for fun, for deliberate deception, or whatever else, and that is why I am supporting scientific scrutiny in an attempt to separate the fraud from the genuine.
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I am fine with that also. I think scientific tests are interesting and sometimes very productive. Even a carefully controlled test with no specific scientific hypothesis can be interesting - e.g. let's take people doing X and connect them to a Y machine to see what kind of results are produced.

ETA: corrected spelling of poster's name.
 
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Explorer said:
If you are just looking at the detached writings after the event, that had no scientific monitoring data retrieved during the writing process, of course it would be impossible to tell whether or not it was from conscious or unconscious motivation.

Both Exminster and myself, who have conducted personal experiments, know that we are not "consciously" influencing anything, but I would not expect, like him, for you to take our word for it. Other participants, that I feel would take the session seriously and who I have observed during the sessions, still could have been "consciously" pushing the glass, for fun, for deliberate deception, or whatever else, and that is why I am supporting scientific scrutiny in an attempt to separate the fraud from the genuine.

The difference here is that I and Exminister, are not making any paranormal claims, only that an observed phenomenom could provide useful information about our conscious and subconscious processes, perhaps throwing more light on schizophrenia, the mechanisms of dreaming, and other mental health issues. The problem that future research has with respect to this subject, is that it is so mired in woo explanations, that probably there is less chance that science will ever be applied to this phenomenon for the foreseeable future.
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Yes, I agree with this*. There is too much woo surrounding it. It seems almost impossible for someone without a personal experience to take it seriously as anything other than deliberate deception by one of the participants. And if it's attributed to the ideomotor effect, it seems that the extent of the difference between this kind of ideomotor effect and one involving something as simple, by comparison, as dowsing, is not really considered. As I said earlier, this was even true for me. I thought it was most likely one of my friends having a little fun with me - and if they were sincere about not doing it, then it must have been their subconscious mind (not mine since I usually didn't identify with much of what was said, especially the dark stuff, considered myself a better speller, etc). and I never really considered what a bizarre and elaborate ideomotor effect would have to be involved for one of my friends to be moving the planchette around "subconsciously."

But the bottom line is that the waters are too clouded by the perception, very often true no doubt, that it can all be explained away as a hoax, for anyone to believe there might be anything here worth looking at. It's understandable.

If any real explanation is forthcoming, it will probably be by way of research on something else being able to be applied to this phenomenon in the future.

However strange the neuroscience findings about the human brain, free will, consciousness, sensed presences, and even the ideomotor effect today, I predict, based on this type of thing, they will only get stranger.




*except the part about me being a "him" :)
 
ExMinister said:
.... since I usually didn't identify with much of what was said, especially the dark stuff, considered myself a better speller, etc). and I never really considered what a bizarre and elaborate ideomotor effect would have to be involved for one of my friends to be moving the planchette around "subconsciously."
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The spelling issue is interesting. In one session, a female personality was coming across, well at least, it was the name "Sarah". I asked a question, something on the lines of "why not tell us about yourself?" The glass spelled out:

"S-P-I-N-S-R-E-R"

This didn't make any intial sense to me at all, and I started thinking that I had misread one or two individual letters by virtue of using rather too large a glass or too small letters. I asked a supplementary question like "Sorry, I do not understand. Can you explain again?"

Another word then started to form:

"N-O-T-W-E-D"

At first sight again it did not make sense, but when I actually spoke the word it did, and then suddenly it all made sense. This was two words "NOT WED", and it was another way of saying the first incomprehensible word that I had written down, and that word was "SPINSTER". The glass position on the "T" was mistakenly read by me as "R", two letters close together on the table.
 
Explorer said:
The spelling issue is interesting. In one session, a female personality was coming across, well at least, it was the name "Sarah". I asked a question, something on the lines of "why not tell us about yourself?" The glass spelled out:

"S-P-I-N-S-R-E-R"

This didn't make any intial sense to me at all, and I started thinking that I had misread one or two individual letters by virtue of using rather too large a glass or too small letters. I asked a supplementary question like "Sorry, I do not understand. Can you explain again?"

Another word then started to form:

"N-O-T-W-E-D"

At first sight again it did not make sense, but when I actually spoke the word it did, and then suddenly it all made sense. This was two words "NOT WED", and it was another way of saying the first incomprehensible word that I had written down, and that word was "SPINSTER". The glass position on the "T" was mistakenly read by me as "R", two letters close together on the table.
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Can it give you winning lottery numbers?
 
Explorer said:
The spelling issue is interesting. In one session, a female personality was coming across, well at least, it was the name "Sarah". I asked a question, something on the lines of "why not tell us about yourself?" The glass spelled out:

"S-P-I-N-S-R-E-R"

This didn't make any intial sense to me at all, and I started thinking that I had misread one or two individual letters by virtue of using rather too large a glass or too small letters. I asked a supplementary question like "Sorry, I do not understand. Can you explain again?"

Another word then started to form:

"N-O-T-W-E-D"

At first sight again it did not make sense, but when I actually spoke the word it did, and then suddenly it all made sense. This was two words "NOT WED", and it was another way of saying the first incomprehensible word that I had written down, and that word was "SPINSTER". The glass position on the "T" was mistakenly read by me as "R", two letters close together on the table.
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Yeah, it's weird. I found I would always be trying to guess what it was about to say as it was spelling something out, and more often than not I'd be wrong. Disconcerting.

The whole impression that you are not consciously behind it is why so many people swear "it works."
 
ExMinister said:
I never had any luck with that either. I even tried automatic typing once with no success. At least there is some limit to my weirdness.
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I find it interesting that the subconscious is picky about which gismo to use to express itself. If at first you don't succeed, try another method.

1. Ouija boards.
2. Lucid dreams.
3. Automatic writing/typing.

What other methods might work? Sorry to go OT again, but need ideas for some experiments.
 
Learjet said:
I find it interesting that the subconscious is picky about which gismo to use to express itself. If at first you don't succeed, try another method.

1. Ouija boards.
2. Lucid dreams.
3. Automatic writing/typing.

What other methods might work? Sorry to go OT again, but need ideas for some experiments.
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Pendulum. Tarot cards. Channeling.

The pendulum works, though it seems like a pretty simple ideomotor effect there. Tarot cards seem to be more a matter of free association to the cards, maybe a bit of intentional or unintentional cold reading. Channeling I really know nothing about. Seems like a total scam to me - or maybe self-delusion. But then again if the subconscious can move a planchette around, maybe it's not out of the question for it to speak.
 
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Pixel42 said:
I've been reading up on dowsing in preparation for observing DowserDon's pre-testing for the JREF $1m challenge on Sunday and came across this excellent article on the ideomotor effect which might be of interest to those reading/contributing to this thread:

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/ideomotor.html
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Enjoyed reading that, thanks.

Modern brain researchers have produced data and theory that help explain how quasi-independent modules in the brain can initiate motor movements without necessarily engaging the "executive module" that is responsible for our sense of self-awareness and volition.
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This seems to sum it up and is the part that interests me so much: parts of the brain that seem to operate somewhat independently, can hold somewhat surprising and contrary opinions, even possess certain different traits from the conscious self (e.g. poor spelling), and can even be defiant.
 
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