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Ed Ouija

Cool site!

I'm curious about Ouija boards, specifically, the standard explanation of how they work, the ideomotor effect.

Now, as I see it, when a Ouija board "says" something, it's either because one person is being dishonest or because of the ideomotor effect. But consider what's involved in the ideomotor effect! Apparently our subconscious minds decide on an answer and actually spell it out letter by letter without our conscious minds knowing about it at all. Does this strike anyone else as a completely spooky demonstration of how little control we really have over our minds?

Am I somehow misunderstanding the ideomotor effect?
 
My mom has the 3rd one down on the page. No pointer thingie though. Really cool. I'd like to try it sometime. The first one I ever used was one that my cousin made out of a big piece of construction paper and a plastic cup cut in half with a plastic baggie rubber-banded over the top (so the spirits couldn't get out of course).
 
The Ideomotor Effect can be interesting, but I wouldn't call it "spooky".

It’s loosely defined as physical movement as directed by the subconscious, or Id as described by Freud. Nervous ticks and the machinations of OCD can be attributed to it. Paranormally speaking, such things like dowsing or free/auto writing are also attributed to it; however, it is claimed that unseen “forces” direct the movement and/or the subconscious.

I’ve performed a “parlor trick” in which I take a pendant of some kind and hang it from a string or chain in my hand. I then tell it to swing in a direction or a circle or whatever, and miraculously it obeys me. The viewer then says that I was moving it with my hand, but very slightly. And they’re correct, I was; however, I then let them hold it and it still works. It doesn’t matter, because most people so want to believe, they make it happen and then convince themselves subconsciously that they didn’t move it.

The only thing “spooky” about it is the gullibility of man.
;)
 
BNiles said:
The Ideomotor Effect can be interesting, but I wouldn't call it "spooky".

It’s loosely defined as physical movement as directed by the subconscious, or Id as described by Freud. Nervous ticks and the machinations of OCD can be attributed to it. Paranormally speaking, such things like dowsing or free/auto writing are also attributed to it; however, it is claimed that unseen “forces” direct the movement and/or the subconscious.

The only thing “spooky” about it is the gullibility of man.
;)
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Huh? You don't consider it spooky that this effect can apparently use your brain to construct a sentence and then spell it out, letter by letter?

It even borrows your eyes to see where the letters are.

That's DEFINITELY spooky to me. We're not talking about a twitch here and a twitch there; we're talking about premeditation on a pretty amazing level taking place completely below the level of conscious thought.

Edited to add: I mean "spooky" in the sense of "hair-raising", not in the sense of "paranormal".
 
I know it's a jolly popular explanation of how ouija boards work, but it sounds a bit suspect to me, given the iffy and outdated nature of the popular notion of the 'subconscious'.

I wonder if we need the ideomotor effect to be any more complicated than the version involved in dowsing and pendulum-questioning. Wouldn't the default position be outright fraud in these cases? It certainly has been in my own experience with ouija boards.

Whenever I've done a ouija board with people I absolutely trust not to move it on purpose - even when all of us have really believed it can work (when I was a woo-woo teenager) - it hasn't moved at all, or just wanders a bit. Whenever I've been with people I feel a bit less sure about, we've made contact with Elvis and all sorts.

It's a tempting thing to apply the ideomotor effect to ouija boards, but I can't help but be, well, sceptical.
 
I am an idiot when it comes to Ouija Boards.

What was the purpose of them? Were they originally made to contact the spirits? If this is so, I wonder how many sales they had. I wouldn't imagine that enough people would buy into that crap back then to make it profitable.

How many here have used them and feel that there is something mysterious to them, and how many have used them and feel that it's a bunch of balony?

I've never seen one, other than in photos. I think it's a bunch of balony, for those who don't, why don't you?
 
Sundog said:
Cool site!

I'm curious about Ouija boards, specifically, the standard explanation of how they work, the ideomotor effect.

Now, as I see it, when a Ouija board "says" something, it's either because one person is being dishonest or because of the ideomotor effect. But consider what's involved in the ideomotor effect! Apparently our subconscious minds decide on an answer and actually spell it out letter by letter without our conscious minds knowing about it at all. Does this strike anyone else as a completely spooky demonstration of how little control we really have over our minds?

Am I somehow misunderstanding the ideomotor effect?
Click to expand...

The easy way to debunk Ouija, and to prove it is the ideomotor effect, is to blind-fold the operators, while an observer writes down the messages..

Of course a die-hard believer will suggest the spirits are now speaking in ' tongues '.

Still won't explain why a blind-fold, on someone in this world, affects the speech patterns of someone in the ' other ' one...
:confused:
 
Sundog said:


Huh? You don't consider it spooky that this effect can apparently use your brain to construct a sentence and then spell it out, letter by letter?

It even borrows your eyes to see where the letters are.

That's DEFINITELY spooky to me. We're not talking about a twitch here and a twitch there; we're talking about premeditation on a pretty amazing level taking place completely below the level of conscious thought.

Edited to add: I mean "spooky" in the sense of "hair-raising", not in the sense of "paranormal".
Click to expand...

Is it any different than multiple personalities? One doesn't know what the other is doing. I think this is a case of taking a small brain function and ascribing it to greater things.

One person says it's possible that I have a twitch coming from my subconscious, and another takes that ball and runs with it. In the case of the Ouiji board, everyone sits down with all of their idiosyncrasies and preconceived notions deeply ingrained in their brain. Once a question is asked, the person(s) with the strongest feelings about the answer starts to move the object and everyone else follows suit.

This is not very special. Don't you think about doing something before you do it? We all do. And everyone's 1st thought (though not always acted upon) is always from the subconscious. It is our most primal instinct. A gut reaction or feeling. Like swatting at a fly while having a conversation. We don't think about it, we just do it.
:)
 
Diogenes said:


The easy way to debunk Ouija, and to prove it is the ideomotor effect, is to blind-fold the operators, while an observer writes down the messages..
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Or pull their hat down over their eyes?

Don't miss my point here. I don't for a moment believe it's actually paranormal. I'm just marveling at the complexity of the ideomotor explanation. Consider the process necessary when a question is asked:

Subconscious constructs a plausible "answer" and forms it into a sentence.

Subconscious over an extended period of time does the following:

Think what the next letter in the "answer" is.

Look for that letter.

Override conscious control of the hands, moving the pointer stealthily - not obviously, notice - to the letter.

All of this is happening beneath our conscious awareness!

This is a truly incredible phenomenon, wouldn't you say? Or is something still wrong with my understanding of the ideomoter effect?
 
BNiles said:


Is it any different than multiple personalities? One doesn't know what the other is doing. I think this is a case of taking a small brain function and ascribing it to greater things.

:)
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No - but that's rather spooky too, don't you think?
 
BNiles said:
OK...its "SPOOKY " :p
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:D :p

OK, excuse the word "spooky", it's bound to be a loaded word around here. Substitute "highly unsettling". I don't particularly like the idea of my brain having that much autonomy behind my back! (Excuse the bad joke...)
 
Sundog said:


Or pull their hat down over their eyes?
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I didn't suspect that you suspected it was paranormal.. I apologize for the inference..

I just quoted you without looking for a deeper meaning, while doing my imitation of someone with profound information to pass on..:D
 
Sundog said:


:D :p

OK, excuse the word "spooky", it's bound to be a loaded word around here. Substitute "highly unsettling". I don't particularly like the idea of my brain having that much autonomy behind my back!
Click to expand...

I agree that it can be unsettling. But at the same time, it is a much-needed function with just as much chance of being damaged or misinterpreted as any other brain function.

In the case of the Quiji, assuming no deception is present, it's usually a case of ignorance of what is happening and a wanting to believe. I would bet that most people, who have tried it, did so when they were young and haven’t touched it since. This is because A.) They now realize what was happening, or B.) They convincingly scared themselves to a point of which they won't try it again. I can only hope there are more A's than B's. :wink:
 
BNiles said:


In the case of the Quiji, assuming no deception is present, it's usually a case of ignorance of what is happening and a wanting to believe.
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Hmm, interesting... so their conscious wish to believe translates into the subconscious performing this amazing sequence of acts, while the conscious mind "looks the other way."

Think about what this might mean when applied to very religious people. Who knows what paper moons their subconscious constructs to support their beliefs, from visions of angels to UFO's?

The mind is a very weird thing.
 
Oh absolutely. Just look at people who display "Blind Faith" in the face of scientific data. Or people who have experienced traumatic events only to develop an acute loss of the memory or a replacement of the memory with something else. Like victims of child molestation who black out the event or claim that the boogieman attacked them or dismiss it as a childhood nightmare altogether.

It's the minds defense mechanism to hide reality until the conscious mind can rationally deal with it. Now obviously we have stepped well beyond Ideomotor Effect here, but you are correct, the brain is an amazing organ and the mind is capable of even stranger things.


SPOOKY :roll:
 
Like I said before, this ideomotor explanation for ouija boards stems back to the Freudian heyday. I just don't think it's a convincing explanation for anything beyond the simple yes/no stuff any more.

What makes us think it's not simple deception?

Diogenes, your blindfold thing obviously demonstrates it's not spirits, but doesn't prove the complex ideomotor effect and all its corollaries as you claimed.

Seems to me us sceptics aren't being very sceptical about our favourite explanation.
 
If Ouija boards were really all that effecatious for contacting the spirit world, why can't you just place the planchette on the board and sit back while the spirits moved it and spelled out words.

Why do so many things paranormal have to befacilitated by humans? At least Poltergeists can move stuff on their own...

Damn lazy spirits...
 
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