I wonder if anyone can explain the case of Patience Worth . I have not read the book The Sorry Tale. Has anyone read this book or heard of this lady? Can they debunk it for me? I have to admit I am skeptical about it myself, but so far seems unexplainable.
Ashkicker, I read your link, and I didn’t see anything in it that was hard to explain. Somebody wrote a book and claimed it was dictated by a spirit. Unless there’s some compelling evidence that it’s genuine there is nothing to explain.
No, that isn’t true at all. In fact, honest partipants CAN get the thing talking. You can have two people working a Ouija board who really, honestly aren’t trying to cheat, and it’ll zip all over the place. I know this because I’ve played with them and seen it happen when two people were really trying to be honest.
This is known as the ideomotor effect. Basically, you subtly move the planchette without realizing you’re doing so. You THINK you’re just following it around, but your subconscious brain is actually causing your muscles to twitch it around. That’s why it really only works with two or three people on it; the combined ideomotor effect is greater than any one person, which adds to the illusion.
The very reason Ouija has been so popular for so long is BECAUSE it can work even if everyone is being totally honest. There’s absolutely nothing supernatural about it, but the effect is spectacular and creepy. It’s just a game, but it’s a cool game.
This effect can be seen in many other ways, too. Dowsing is a very old and very obvious example of the ideomotor effect. Facilitated Communication, when an adult holds a retarded or crippled child’s hand and guides it to press keys on a keyboard, is another - very similar to the Ouija effect, actually. The adult honestly thinks the child is typing messages, but it’s just the adult doing it without realizing they’re doing it.
An ex-girlfriend of mine showed me a really neat ideomotor trick. Two people stand about 10-20 feet apart. One takes a wire clotheshangar and balances it on their hand by gripping the bottom with the pinkie finger and then balancing it on the meat of the hand, so it can swing back and forth and will fall off your hand if you don’t balance it. While they carefully balance it, the other person visualizes themselves using psychic power to knock it off balance. If they make a visual show of doing this, or grunt or something, it’s truly remarkable how often the clotheshangar will seem to be “knocked over” by the force of the other person’s mind. The person holding the hangar doesn’t THINK they’re unbalancing it. But of course they are… if they close their eyes, and you don’t say anything as you send psychic rays towards the hangar, it won’t fall over in time to your “psychic” efforts.
I believe the “Ask the Pendulum” routine is also an ideomotor trick. That’s where you tie a thread or string onto a needle or paperclip or something light. You hold the string gently between thumb and forefinger of one hand over the palm of the other hand. You decide beforehand which direction represents which answer, and then ask a yes/no question.
To be fair, I’ve never heard of the Pendulum thing being represented as anything other than a (perhaps questionable) method of getting at subconscious answers or desires. But the ideomotor effect is well-known and can account for otherwise unexplainable or so-called “psychic” phenomena as RickJay mentioned above.
Hmmm, I’m surprised its taken this long for the ideomotor effect to be mentioned.
Here’s a neat example like what Triss mentioned:
Get a friend to hold a pendulum of sorts. Make one out of string and a washer or something - or crystal if you have it - because we all know crystal is more magical than a washer.
Now ask them to concentrate on not moving the pendulum. It won’t move. Ask them to concentrate on not moving it, but notice how it begins to move left and right anway [pendulum moves left and right]. Now tell them to continue concentrating on NOT moving the pendulum, but notice how it is moving up and down [pendulum moves up and down]. Tell them to continue concentrating on not moving the pendulum but observe how it is moving in a circle [pendulum moves in circle].
Clearly you are facilitating communication with the spirit world.
Oooh, can I PLEASE use that for my sig!
fauxpas, that sounds like the plot of a really lame, straight to video horror movie.
:dubious:
If it is, you may sue me for copyright orders!!! I don’t care if you believe me or not, but that really did occur. I only wish I was there to witness such a queer event.
I am a skeptic by default. I my now lenghty stay on this planet, I have neither seen, read, or heard anything other than claims to the alleged existance of the supernatural. That someone else may have a vivid imaginations and/or faith simply doesn’t do anything for me.
However, when it comes to Ouija Boards, well, I think they are a bunch of hooey too. As has been already explained, blame the ideomotor effect and your own gullibility for those particular claims.
That’s how it’s supposed to work if you have any consistency – I just don’t get all these posters that start with: “Well, I am totally a skeptic but…”
Newsflash: If you believe in Ouija Boards you best drop the “skeptic” part from your self-description. Because if you really believe that a cardboard and plastic game can communicate with the dead, there’s no telling what else you can be led to believe.
Alright OP et al, care to address your thoughts on the ideomotor effect?
Frankly, I think Uncle Wiggly was creepier.
When I was 17, this guy and had an Ouijabord session. (wll, not ouijs, but a glass upside-down on a piece of pape with the alphabet and yes/no written upon it.
The glass moved nicely, there were a few special effects (glass toppling over) etc.
I was absolutely convinced (and even at 17, I was not stupid and not gullible, either) the guy could not have been faking it, and i knew I had not been faking it, too.
So it bothered me for some weeks if the supernatural really existed. However, being practical and seeing I would not get an answer just pondering about it, I let the matter go.
Some years later, I met the same guy and asked him about our “enchanted evening”. He confessed laughing that he had faked the whole thing that evening. :eek:
In retrospect, I learned a few valuable lessons.
- I am more gullible than I thought. Probably even now.
- I did have an interesting evening.
- I am not the kind of person to get really troubled over the question whetether the supernatural exists. If I was, my oujagame might have harmed me. But then again, vulnerable persons will get hurt sooner or later, no?
I’m glad this got bumped, because I didn’t see this first time around.
Of course you may. I would consider it an honor!
ever thought that the ouija board might not be helping us talk to ghosts but to our sub-conscious instead? all the arguments against it fail to hold water with this point of view…
I don’t see how you can be so sure it happened if you weren’t there and have no evidence other than your friend’s word. And if the first part of the story were true, there would be other evidence – if nothing else, the eyewitness accounts of the teacher and the rest of the class. Without some kind of solid proof I’d never believe a ridiculous story like that, not even if I was hearing it from my oldest and dearest friend. I wouldn’t even believe that a schoolteacher who valued his/her job ever brought up the subject of Ouija boards or let students build and experiment with one in class.
That’s the ideomotor effect that people have mentioned. The arguments against the ouija board aren’t denying that that effect exists, they are saying that the ouija board doesn’t communicate with supernatural spirits.
I played with a ouija board as a kid. I’d ask it questions, and it would spell out things like “bfknrpl.” I got bored quickly.
Umm… Well, ouija boards… I have been sworn to secrecy on the subject, but I WILL say this:
Sometimes a ouija board DOES work. You need to know exactly how to use one, though. And I don’t mean the Parker Bros. directions.
They do not work for everyone every time.
If it DOES work, you will damn sure know it. And you will probably wish you hadn’t used it.
The above being said, some ouija experiences are very satisfactory and acheive the original purpose quite nicely. But they are not a very good party toy. They do not usually work under casual circumstances.
I would caution anyone who does not know what they are doing to stay the Hell away from them.
according to RickJay the ideomotor effect actually supports the idea of ouija boards helping us talk to our sub-conscious…
Well, yes, exactly, shijinn.
Your “subconscious” isn’t a supernatural thing. It’s a normal part of your brain.
But to be honest, in most cases your subconscious is not all that exciting.
Maybe some parts of your subconcious are exciting. Surely the point is that you are not aware of what goes on in that part of your brain, as the information there is not normally available.
Maybe, the subconcious part of the brain is more able to tap into the paranormal, than the concious part?