Ouija boards...a realm of supernatural answers or a piece of simple lifeless wood?

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Delirious

Delirious

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Metroider17
Ouija board (often pronounced "wee-gee" or called weegee box in English) is any flat surface printed with letters, numbers, and other symbols, to which a planchette or movable indicator points, supposedly in answer to questions from people at a séance. The fingers of the participants are placed on the planchette that then moves about the board to spell out messages. Ouija is a trademark for a talking board currently sold by Parker Brothers.[1] While the word is not considered a genericized trademark, it has become a trademark which is often used generically to refer to any talking board. In popular culture these boards are considered to be a spiritual gateway used to contact the dead; however, the only evidence for this is the various accounts of users.
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[WIKIPEDIA]Ouija_Boards[/WIKIPEDIA]

I was wondering what everyones take on these boards are..

Are they real? Are they kind of real? Are they just pieces of wood?

Also does anyone have an experience with them worth sharing?

Leave the fact out that I am a Christian, I am truly curious about this topic and other peoples experiences are about this.
 
It’s a piece of wood that only seems remarkable because of the ideomotor effect.

Derren Brown did something that uses the same phenomena on one of his TV specials – he had a guy hide a picture of his wife somewhere far away, then he held the guy’s hand and told him to just think about where the picture is. This is a very easy trick, because if you pull on somebody’s arm while they’re thinking of a location, they’ll unknowingly give you very subtle tugs that direct you to the exact location.

With a Ouija board, people want a certain answer, and though they will try to avoid consciously affecting where the thingamabob goes, they’ll unconsciously influence it. If you take a Ouija board and cover the letters (and the person doesn’t already know where the letters are), you will get meaningless gibberish. I believe Penn and Teller did that exact experiment in one of their BS! episodes – you should be able to find it on YouTube.

Ouija boards are neat experiments in how our thoughts affect motor functions, but they’re as spiritual as my shoes.
 
I remember back when I was a lurker Famine or someone, maybe Duke, said something about these:

There was a test where a man was doing the Ouija-thing and a particular answer came out. When they tried it again, this time the man blindfolded, they had turned the board around so it was reversed to him without knowing. He then tried to pick out letters and create an answer based on where he thought the letters were the last time.
 
Wood!??! I've only seen the cardboard fold-up from Milton-Bradley or whoever.

I think that's who sells it, anyway. Maybe Sage's shoes know. . . .

Kneel before the podiatrical covers of Sage! Look not upon them!
 
Lifeless wood/cardboard. If you think otherwise, one word: gullible.
 
Year.Zero
I remember back when I was a lurker Famine or someone, maybe Duke, said something about these:

There was a test where a man was doing the Ouija-thing and a particular answer came out. When they tried it again, this time the man blindfolded, they had turned the board around so it was reversed to him without knowing. He then tried to pick out letters and create an answer based on where he thought the letters were the last time.
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Yep - they even called out the letters as if the board were the right way up, despite it being the wrong way up.

And all this was on "Penn & Teller: Bulls***!" (as it appears in listings).

P&T: BS! - Occasional language warning (like the show's title)
 
Ideomotor response also occures when someone is divining.

I don't know if divining is the right word, so I uploaded an images of what I mean.

 
I know that i lost all belief in those things when my sixth grade teacher (a nun) told us that when she was playing one time, she asked if she "would ever succeed in becoming a sister" and then told us that the board "lept across the room." Trying to scare us because she thought it was an instrument of satan. :rolleyes:
 
But what about floating ouija boards? It happens from time to time that an ouji board starts to float during a séance.




💡
 
I'm going to see Derek Acorah tonight. I'll let you know if Tutenkhamun has anything to say on the matter.
 
kikie
But what about floating ouija boards? It happens from time to time that an ouji board starts to float during a séance.💡
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Yes, on board the Space Shuttle perhaps...

I'd like to see the evidence that this has actually happened in a non-zero gravity environment (and not underwater either! :p). It's a popular image used in movies and on the TV, but I'd be willing to bet that it has never happened once in a controlled experiment to test the phenomenon. (Of course, these supernatural phenomena don't happen when they are being tested - the spirit world guards it's secrets most jealously!)
 
An easy way to make boards and tables “float” is to just plant someone with a long-sleeve shirt and a stiff ruler-shaped object slipped into one of his sleeves. If you watch enough of these tricks, you can easily tell who was planted.
 
For the most intelligent creatures on Earth, there's an alarming amount of people who believe in ****e like this. I hate false hope. Still, idiots will be idiots and there's nothing I can do to stop that.
 
I think the physical instabilities of many people help cause the board to move. I tried one once, and it worked, but I was not very focused. When I was, nothing happened.
 
Ouiji boards airn't BS, but I'm not going to pretend to understand exactly what happens. Me and my sister used to do it all the time with homemade boards (draw a circle, put letters, numbers, yes, no, etc.) and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I know it's certainly not me conciously moving the thing around, but I'm not going to leap to the conclusion that it must be spirits either. I've had some amusing and scary experiences.
 

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