Ouija boards-the final word!

pjh said:
Right then, how would you go about proving that, or getting any evidence whatsoever to back up such an outrageous claim?

Let's be clear here what I am saying - if a word is spelled out letter by letter say "Aunt Jessica" this is done by the concious control of one of the participants.

How would you go about providing any evidence for your position, that a word could be spelt without the person haveing any concious knowledge that they were doing it?
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Please read my piost again - I did not say in all instances it was the ideomotor effect, I said it perfectly possibly could be the ideomotor effect. The force generated is perfectly adequate to move a glass.

Your claim is actually the outrageous one.
I'd love to know how you plan on demonstrating that "the ouija board has little or nothing to do with the ideomotor effect".

And why you disagree so firmly with the opinion of The Sceptic's Dictionary , and The Straight Dope or The Encyclopedia reference for the sceptical view of Ouija boards or, basically, almost everyone who doesn't think it is actually spirits.
 
Alright then, given that you have no evidence for either how do you *know* that the ideomotor effect is plausible and yet can discount the spirit explanation as implausible and requiring evidence?

On the basis of a few urls? I'm sure if I could get a get a list of urls that state that ouija boards are genuine spirit commucation tools - what now?

I can demonstrate that anyone can conciously move the pointer around, and demonstrate that given more than 2 people is is very hard to tell who is actually moving the pointer.

Now I await any evidence whatsoever that a person could move a pointer to spell out a name without being conciously aware that they were doing it.
 
Just had an idea for a test of Ouija boards.Have one or more people who dont speak English perform the ouija board,ask English questions(you can see I havent thought this out)Therefore if spirits are real language shouldnt be a problem,and English words would still be spelled.
No? ;)

By the way Ashles I Pm'd you!! One day....:p
 
Hummm... I have to be honest, if you invited me to a séance I'd definitely be trying to make it do things. No need for ideomotor effect here. And I'd prefer an older wooden model, maybe with a story behind it - like it was found in the attic of an old house in the bayou. :D

(Don't worry I'm never invited to séances)
 
Azrael 5 said:
Just had an idea for a test of Ouija boards.Have one or more people who dont speak English perform the ouija board,ask English questions(you can see I havent thought this out)Therefore if spirits are real language shouldnt be a problem,and English words would still be spelled.
No? ;)
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Gone one better than this. Back when I was learning Chinese I put some basic Chinese characters round the board (`shi` for yes, `bu shi` for no etc. and also the phrase for `please repeat question, I think) I asked some friends who knew no Chinese to take part and asked questions in English. The glass just wavered around. Obviously the `spirits' didn't know any Chinese! I didn't get as far as asking questions in Chinese and using an English alphabet - but if someone could try it would be interesting. My guess is that the Ouija would `talk' but without any reference to the foreign language questions being asked.
 
Odin that's just perfect!

A mouse is not a whole lot different from a normal oija pointer so any of the 'ideomotor effect' believers here:

Sit there, use the mouse ask a question and see if your body can move the mouse and spell out a word without you controling it!

It must be the ideomotor effect that makes me click on all those 'XXX teens here' links as I certainly don't click on them conciously but the page seems to pop up anyway.
 
pjh said:
Alright then, given that you have no evidence for either how do you *know* that the ideomotor effect is plausible and yet can discount the spirit explanation as implausible and requiring evidence?
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Well we know the ideomotor effect exists and can exhibit it repeatedly and consistently.
But there is no evidence that spirits exist.

That's not to say that we can know that spirits aren't moving the planchette. But it is why I discount the spirit explanation.
That and the fact that they never tell us anything that the dead might really know.

On the basis of a few urls? I'm sure if I could get a get a list of urls that state that ouija boards are genuine spirit commucation tools - what now?
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Er no, not on the basis of a few URLs. Please stop arguing with a strwman.

I can demonstrate that anyone can conciously move the pointer around, and demonstrate that given more than 2 people is is very hard to tell who is actually moving the pointer.
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Well done. And what would that demonstrate? That sometimes it might be done that way? When have I ever denied that?

Now I await any evidence whatsoever that a person could move a pointer to spell out a name without being conciously aware that they were doing it.
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Well I have seen it done, but that is obviously only anecdotal evidence.

Psychologists (including Freud) have used Automatic writing for years to encourage unconscious thoughts out of a patient. This is the ideomotor effect.
The link mentions the work of Pierre Janet in France, and Morton Prince and by Anita Mühl in the United States so you can read those studies.

Now if you want to continue denying the ability of the ideomotor effect to produce these results then that's up to you, but you can't say I haven't referenced enough information on the subject to demonstrate that it is perfectly feasible.
 
mgdwcb said:
Gone one better than this. Back when I was learning Chinese I put some basic Chinese characters round the board (`shi` for yes, `bu shi` for no etc. and also the phrase for `please repeat question, I think) I asked some friends who knew no Chinese to take part and asked questions in English. The glass just wavered around. Obviously the `spirits' didn't know any Chinese! I didn't get as far as asking questions in Chinese and using an English alphabet - but if someone could try it would be interesting. My guess is that the Ouija would `talk' but without any reference to the foreign language questions being asked.
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What about people who live in foreign speaking countries.What then?;)
 
So these spirits are powerful enough to move a wine glass around, and smash objects against the wall (btw the ouija board levitating off the lap and smashing against the wall has got to be the OLDEST paranormal boogeyman story ever told) but none of these damn spooks can pick up a pencil and write a message?
 
Here's an experiment to show that spirits are the unlikely cause ideomotor effect;

Hold a pendulum over a sheet of paper on which is written a clock face, making sure you don't deliberately move the pendulum. Then `will' the pendulum to move towards, say 1 o'clock. With practice the pendulum will move to your `command'. You can do this over and over, pointing at any time you want. Not a `spirit' but the ideomotor effect - because the pendulum is moving to YOUR command (unless you believe that you have a spirit under your control!).

Now ask the pendulum something like "what time of day was the Queen born?". The pendulum will move (never mind where the pendulum points, as the answer is from your subconscious).

Now why should anyone believe that a spirit suddenly takes over when we ask a question? You can repeat the experiment with the ouija.
 
pjh said:
Now I await any evidence whatsoever that a person could move a pointer to spell out a name without being conciously aware that they were doing it.
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What evidence could there be that would convince you?

Do you believe that the ideomotor effect even exists?
 
Leaving aside the well documented and proven ideomotor effect for now, it's obvious that it's a pile of nonsense because of the information the 'spirits' provide. If it's communication with departed people, why cant those people provide any information that is not available to the psychic or ouija users? Is it...

A) the spirits become rather forgetful and not worth talking to once dead?

B) that oiuja and related 'talking to the dead' stuff is highly refined, weapons-grade baloney, and since the people at the board dont know they cant make the answer appear.

"Where's the money hidden, Grandpa?"
"......................."

"Did you like eating?"
".......Y......E....S"
 
What evidence could there be that would convince you?

Do you believe that the ideomotor effect even exists?
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The ideomotor effect exists where a tiny muscular movements allow the performer to essentially deceive themselves. Good examples are a precariously balanced dowsing rod and pendulum based divining.

However if you're asking me to believe that a person could move something (say a mouse) and spell out a name without the person being aware that they are doing it then I am entirely skeptical.

Unless you can completely discount the far more prosaic explanation (The person is doing it conciously) then I cannot see how you could support the other far more outregeous claim being made here.

As for evidence .. well the minimum really. Any description of a repeatable test, and the results of a number of test conducts would be nice.
 
http://skepdic.com/ideomotor.html

Do what I did and use Google, the above link is one of the first to appear and lists sources for ideomotor experiments. Bare in mind that in most ouija situations you are dealing with a group of susceptible people, not merely one, so at any time it may be one or more that are causing the pointer to move.

All this is somewhat secondary to me anyway. As I stated above it doesn't particularly matter about the physical way the ouija participants move the pointer (and they do move it, you'll not ever see one move itself) if the messages they produce are meaningless and clearly not from any outside source. If the people at the board were genuinely contacting famous dead people, or even dull unknowns come to that, the dead would surely communicate something at some point beyond the possible 'ken' of the participants.

Psychics doing cold readings are exactly the same, they can only provide information extracted from the participants and nothing that could ever prove they were in communication with the dead person in question. Surely this fact alone is proof enough that there are no spirits, and hence nothing influencing the ouija pointer apart from a bunch of people daft enough to try it in the first place.
 
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