• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Suggestions for Ouija Board experiments

noticed this thread and thought that I'd just say that the blindfolding experiment does/can work.

years ago I was part of a paranormal team who were very sceptical and performed lots of different experiments as scientific as reasonably practicle.

one of the experiments was to blind fold every person who was in contact with the planchette, made to turn their heads away from the talking board and also the board was rotated to a different angle.

Whilst the results were not as good as usual and the planchette seemed quite 'sluggish' but it did still work, but the part that amazed me was when the planchette moved over a letter (there was a small window in the planchette) it quite often wouldn't be directly over the letter or mid way between letters so I called out to be more accurate over the letter and sure enough everytime it would adjust PERFECTLY over the letter.

I still can't explain that to this day.


and btw I am still not a believer in ghosts.
 
Well, it wasn't perfectly over a letter and it was adjusted, it would be more likely to get better than worse..


What happened if you erroneously called out that that it was maladjusted when it wasn't ?
 
marcus777 said:
noticed this thread and thought that I'd just say that the blindfolding experiment does/can work.

years ago I was part of a paranormal team who were very sceptical and performed lots of different experiments as scientific as reasonably practicle.

one of the experiments was to blind fold every person who was in contact with the planchette, made to turn their heads away from the talking board and also the board was rotated to a different angle.

Whilst the results were not as good as usual and the planchette seemed quite 'sluggish' but it did still work, but the part that amazed me was when the planchette moved over a letter (there was a small window in the planchette) it quite often wouldn't be directly over the letter or mid way between letters so I called out to be more accurate over the letter and sure enough everytime it would adjust PERFECTLY over the letter.

I still can't explain that to this day.


and btw I am still not a believer in ghosts.
Click to expand...


I have no idea how thorough your test protocols were, but I think the number one error in that kind of test is poorly-applied blindfolds. Were people able to perform as well in a pitch black room where an observer used infra-red goggles or sensors?

Were people able to perform as well when the board was higher than their heads?

Were people able to perform as well when the questions were asked in a language that no planchette holder understood?

Were people able to perform as well when none of the planchette holders knew the answer to the question? E.g. a book has been opened randomly and placed on a high shelf - was the group able to write out the first few words on the page?
 
Last edited:
Suggestions for Ouija Board experiments

For ghods sake, why?
It is designed to be a toy. It is sold as a toy. It is a toy.
While you're at it, why don't you design a test that tests the efficiency of Slinkies as dowsing rods, then go on from there and test Monopoly boards to see how accurate they are in predicting the financial futures of those who play the game?
I think the only proper response to people that try to start conversations about "the mysterious Ouija Board" is to interrupt them with "It's just a toy", and walk away.
 
marcus777 said:
one of the experiments was to blind fold every person who was in contact with the planchette, made to turn their heads away from the talking board and also the board was rotated to a different angle.
Click to expand...

Can you get the group back together?

Many local and state skeptic groups offer prize money for the type of demonstration you describe. Several thousand dollars could be yours for 40 minutes of work.
 
Czarcasm said:
I think the only proper response to people that try to start conversations about "the mysterious Ouija Board" is to interrupt them with "It's just a toy", and walk away.
Click to expand...


Need I say that people said the same thing about the mysterious Magic 8-Ball ???!!!

oh, wait. They were right - that was a toy, too.
 
Last edited:
One thing I know, not everyone using a Ouija board is deliberately conning people. I know this because I can make the thing work by myself. I tried it because I always secretly suspected the others were moving the planchette, maybe even subconsciously. I figured if I tried it on my own, I could at least rule out deliberate deception - or someone else's subconscious mind being responsible. Which I did. It worked, and that bit of weirdness got me started on books about consciousness.

My Ouija-board moving subconscious could not even spell the word "definitely." It spelled it "definately," which I was guilty of 25 years ago, in high school. Not since. But when I tried to test the "spirit" by getting it tell me something I didn't know - my husband's sister's middle name - it came up blank. I even had my husband write the name out and post it somewhere obvious on his desk so the "spirit" could go check it out. Nothing. So. That confirmed my suspicion that it wouldn't know anything I didn't know. But the spelling thing? Anyway, just weird.

And I wound up with the most bizarre hypnagogic/nightmare demon guy standing by the bed that night. This is not unusual for me, but that one was the worst. Just thought I'd mention that on behalf of those who claim it's an evil portal. A subconscious expectation, I would think.
 
Ladewig said:
Can you get the group back together?

Many local and state skeptic groups offer prize money for the type of demonstration you describe. Several thousand dollars could be yours for 40 minutes of work.
Click to expand...

However, he said he doesn't believe in it. So I think that he wouldn't believe he would get the money (and he probably wouldn't).
 
Assuming that in some instances, such as mine, communication is taking place without the conscious intention of the person moving the planchette, wouldn't it be fascinating to see what areas of the brain lit up on fMRI?
 
Czarcasm said:
Suggestions for Ouija Board experiments

For ghods sake, why?
It is designed to be a toy. It is sold as a toy. It is a toy.
While you're at it, why don't you design a test that tests the efficiency of Slinkies as dowsing rods, then go on from there and test Monopoly boards to see how accurate they are in predicting the financial futures of those who play the game?
I think the only proper response to people that try to start conversations about "the mysterious Ouija Board" is to interrupt them with "It's just a toy", and walk away.
Click to expand...

On a similar note, have a game of Hungry Hippos to determine whether or not the animals in the zoo are hungry. Or better yet, instead of taking your dear old grandfather to the doctor when he complains of chest pains, whip out your game of Operation!
 
In my view there is definitely a Ouija "effect". I have little doubt though that this is entirely down to the ideometer explanation. If this is truly the source of the effect, then blindfolding participants would negate that effect.

Having tried several Ouija experiments in the past, even the ideometer explanation is fascinating. If the information passed on, assumingly from one of the more of the "dominant" participants, then the subliminal creativity of that information from their brain, at least in my experiments, has been quite impressive. We all have a degree of creativity in our brains, but the transmission of that through a planchette, or even a simple unturned glass, is worthy of some scientific analysis. I would suggest using modern brain imaging techniques perhaps linked to motor nerves in the operative arms of the participants, might provide some useful insight.
 
ExMinister said:
I know this because I can make the thing work by myself. I tried it because I always secretly suspected the others were moving the planchette, maybe even subconsciously. I figured if I tried it on my own, I could at least rule out deliberate deception - or someone else's subconscious mind being responsible. Which I did. It worked...
Click to expand...

Cool... I'd like to have a go at it, but I don't understand how you can work it on your own - can you describe how you used it solo?
 
Tell the spooks to MTFU and move the planchette on their own, the lazy sods. :p
 
If you can manage to rule out deliberate deception (by using the board alone, for example), the next obvious explanation is the ideomotor effect.

But the ideomotor effect is usually associated with tiny, subtle muscle movements, as with a pendulum or dowsing rod where at no time does the person perceive their hand to move. The movement takes place below the level of consciousness.

With the Ouija board, the person perceives that their entire hand/arm is moving, with whole words and phrases, in big sweeping motions, and a dialogue is being carried out with a person who is perceived as not them.

So there must exist a version of the ideomotor effect where part of the brain is capable of carrying out an entire conversation, through the movement of one's own hand, with the part of the brain that is conscious. One voice is conscious and the other would seem to be a "you" that you have no awareness of.

What I wonder is whether there is any research out there on this form of the ideomotor effect?

I also wonder whether there could even be many of these "not me" voices, and whether they are just usually silent in a healthy person. To me it's just as bizarre as alien hand and split brain studies. As with alien hand syndrome, the sense of agency is disturbed, and the messages often seem hostile or contrary. Most of the hypnagogic experiences people report also seem hostile; it's the hostile or contrary nature of the experiences that has given rise to stories of demons and aliens over the years and made it all seem spooky. I can't help wondering if there's a connection.

Based on what we already know of the brain, Ouija board phenomenon is NOT "too weird" not to be supernatural. We already know that the brain is capable of all sorts of that kind of weirdness that has been explained, and it's not so unimaginable that the brains of Ouija participants might be capable of adjusting the planchette onto a letter more accurately when everyone's heads are turned (the brain is also capable of waking us up in the morning at a designated time).

At any rate, it's one thing to try to devise experiments to demonstrate that it's all in the heads of the participants, but that will only take us so far because someone will always come up with another excuse for why the spirits can't work that way.

More effective in the end to probably bypass all that and be able to demonstrate from a neuroscientific point of view exactly what is going on. I haven't been able to find much research on exactly how the ideomotor effect works specifically with the Ouija, though perhaps it is out there. I would think it would also shed light on automatic writing where the hand supposedly moves without conscious intent, and channeling.
 
dlorde said:
Cool... I'd like to have a go at it, but I don't understand how you can work it on your own - can you describe how you used it solo?
Click to expand...

You sit and wait. And wait. :)

The long version is that I would sit cross-legged on the bed with the board in front of me, the fingertips of one or both hands resting lightly on the planchette. Feeling like a total dork, I might ask into the air if there was anyone there who wanted to talk to me. Or not, since I assumed I was talking to myself. I think, as a skeptic, you could just as easily bypass that part (ha). In fact, you hold your arms the same way you would to type, with the amount of pressure you would have on the keyboard while just resting your fingers on the keys.

And then you wait.

I would wait sometimes 5 or 10 minutes before anything would happen. Then the planchette would start to move and carry my fingers along with it. Sometimes it would spell out a word or carry my fingers up to yes or no. It would respond to my questions but sometimes I would have to wait another long interval between answers. This does make it boring and frustrating at times. It also reinforces your perception that you are not moving it yourself, as if it WAS you doing it, you would not wait such interminable amounts of time between answers.

Also interesting to me, besides the fact that this part of my brain is terrible at spelling, is that the planchette would make round circular motions and come up either above or below a letter. My conscious instinct was to move in the shortest path possible - straight up, down or sideways. But the planchette made rolling motions, so that the feeling was like making large, round, loose circles on a piece of paper.

If I tried to anticipate what it was going to say, more often than not I would be wrong.

And if I turned my head away or closed my eyes, the movement would stop.

I also think it's interesting that my husband can't do this. He can sit and wait for 30 minutes and nothing will happen. I can sit WITH him, both of our hands on the planchette, and absolutely nothing will happen. I give him a lot of credit for believing me, having had this different experience himself.

But on my own it works. It has worked in years past with a few friends and with my sister, though I secretly thought they were somehow moving it. Even if they didn't do it on purpose, and I didn't rule that out, they had to be doing it. I knew I wasn't! Which is how I came to be testing it out on my own.
 
Last edited:
Ladewig said:
Throw three dice on the top of a tall bookshelf in the room. Have the "spirits" spell out the sum. Get a stepstool and check results.


ETA: opps I forgot the most important part. If the sum is 10 and the spirits spell out 11, then it is a fail.
No if's and's or but's. 10 ≠ 11. If the spirits cannot meet the standard that we hold second graders to on their math tests, then the spirits are too stupid to listen to.
Click to expand...

To make sure the guessing is taken out of it, it should be three hundred sided dice ( that would be 6 ten sided dice, if you cannot find legitimate hundred sided dice.) , i could see a 6% or so success rate blowing the minds of believers regardless of if it is the same as chance.

And besides, you know, as well as i do, regardless of what we say , they are going to see a 4 and a 6 as hits if it is a 5. Hundred sided dice greatly reduce that phenomenon.
 
Ladewig said:
The other approach to the Ouija board is to tell believers that the more people participating the more accurate it is. It is fun watching six people trying to push the planchette in six different directions. Or ask the spirits to spell something backwards.
Click to expand...

Asking very polarizing questions would help this as well, if you have a diverse group. People will be vying for what they want to hear, and it would lead to much tugging of the plastic bit.
 
marcus777 said:
noticed this thread and thought that I'd just say that the blindfolding experiment does/can work.

years ago I was part of a paranormal team who were very sceptical and performed lots of different experiments as scientific as reasonably practicle.

one of the experiments was to blind fold every person who was in contact with the planchette, made to turn their heads away from the talking board and also the board was rotated to a different angle.

Whilst the results were not as good as usual and the planchette seemed quite 'sluggish' but it did still work, but the part that amazed me was when the planchette moved over a letter (there was a small window in the planchette) it quite often wouldn't be directly over the letter or mid way between letters so I called out to be more accurate over the letter and sure enough everytime it would adjust PERFECTLY over the letter.

I still can't explain that to this day.


and btw I am still not a believer in ghosts.
Click to expand...

I seriously wish i had a dollar for every time someone comes in here with an experience that would have proved the paranormal, done under perfect conditions by their account, but they have no way of proving at all.

Seriously, unless the three stooges are in charge of every bit of camera equipment , and filming , this is a premise that shows clear as day the level of b.s. in the paranormal community.
 
Czarcasm said:
Suggestions for Ouija Board experiments

For ghods sake, why?
It is designed to be a toy. It is sold as a toy. It is a toy.
While you're at it, why don't you design a test that tests the efficiency of Slinkies as dowsing rods, then go on from there and test Monopoly boards to see how accurate they are in predicting the financial futures of those who play the game?
I think the only proper response to people that try to start conversations about "the mysterious Ouija Board" is to interrupt them with "It's just a toy", and walk away.
Click to expand...

Well yeah, the ones sold at wal mart are, but my lady at the psychic/candle/homeopathy store sold me a real one, its made out of solid oak, has a crystal finder for the letters, and she assured me that the 500 dollars was well worth it for such a powerful piece of paranormal equipment.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom