Ouija Boards

anyone had any experiences of Ouija Boards?

im curious to try it out soon with a few friends although it can be pretty dangerous right?

discuss

My friends have one and we used to use it alot last year in his basement. It was fun, we have the glow in the dark board. It used to work and creepy stuff happened, but recently we tried using it again and it wouldnt budge, so I dunno.

No personal experience here, although I have heard some funky stories on the matter from people, and though I am posting here, please don't take my word for it (even though I personally believe it all to be bullclap)

How does the Ouija board work though, might I ask? Sure, people may think think or believe you get messages from spirits, demons or ghosts. Yeah, okay then. That's possible, but then again, have spirits, ghosts and demons actually ever been proven to exist? Witches were said to exist before, and that people saw tham, although during the Dark Ages when thousands of women were burned to death at a stake, did people find out that witches never had existed in the first place and that normal people were burned out of superstition and ignorant beliefs. Sure, unrelated to the ouiji matter, but it does to show that a common conception can be wrong no matter how many people believe it.

Mostly, to a cetain extent, I believe that those using the board either consciously or unconsciously select what is read. To prove that an ouiji board works and that spirits do indeed channel through them, it would be simple to try it blindfolded for some time, having an innocent bystander take notes on what letters are selected. Usually, the result will often be unintelligible nonsense of randomly selected letters. Okay, so what makes the pointer move then, even when people don't intend to choose what is chosen? People's suggestions, myths, beliefs and stories. Such influences direct the mind and affect motor behavior. What is purely physiological, however, can appear to some to be paranormal. In other words, if you believe this stuff and are trying to get the spirits to answer questions proving that they are all-knowing, and you ask a question that you already know the answer to (for example, "What's my father's name?"), odds are that your own hands will do the rest by spelling out your answer. That's where trying it blindfolded comes in (provided you haven't memorized the board, obviously). If it's really spirits, they should be able to guide your hands no matter whether you can see or not. But if it's you doing it unconsciously, then obviously the blindfold would screw things up.

Since this test hasn't really be officially taken, I can't really speak for it as a whole. As for an actual spirit causing the movement, I'd say fake, but who knows if the energy of another mind is helping each participant to move. Either way there are better games to play at a party, and none likely to unleash a malestrom within your vicinity. Try Twister instead, mm'kay?

So your saying, Pelagias, that people actually move the pointer on the Ouija board? Well my friends have videotaped them using one and it showed the pointer moving on it's own free will. Plus, i have heard many stories of this happening. If you don't believe me pm me for a website that has a virtual Ouija board that i have seen work.

But personally I'm Christian so i think it's wrong to even touch a Ouija board because they are possesed by the devil.

It is people moving the pointer, though they may not realize it.


If you don't believe me, I offer you a simple test: Have as many people as you want use the board, but blindfold them. Then ask a question. You'll get gibbrish in response.

Or, better yet, ask a question that none of the people using the pointer know the answer to. You won't get gibbrish, but you'll get a wrong answer.

If you then ask the same question, without blindfolding them, you'll get a coherent answer.

Now, does this mean that the people using it are tricking you? Not at all. The pointer is designed to respond to incredibly tiny movements, ones that you're not even aware that you're making.

So you're saying they're moving the pointer with small pulses of they're minds?

Originally Posted by flammerfire

So your saying, Pelagias, that people actually move the pointer on the Ouija board? Well my friends have videotaped them using one and it showed the pointer moving on it's own free will. Plus, i have heard many stories of this happening. If you don't believe me pm me for a website that has a virtual Ouija board that i have seen work.

But personally I'm Christian so i think it's wrong to even touch a Ouija board because they are possesed by the devil.

Who knows for absolute certain? There's a difference between truth and conceived truth, in that in one case something truly is happening or in another aspect in which somebody is imagining something happening. Imagination is just that, not reality or truth. Of course people move the pointer on Ouija boards, they don't move all by themselves without touch, do they? All I mentioned before was that somebody can mistakenly believe that actual words are being spelled out to them from a paranormal sense, not that it's actually happening in the first place in the way that they believe.

As I mentioned before, I've heard people mention certain things in their own stories that they've told me, some of whom that I do trust to a considerable degree, but because I've had no personal experience in the matter and never seen such stories happen before my own eyes, I'm more inclined to lean towards the sceptical opinion. If spirits, ghosts and demons are real, somebody should have some undeniable proof by now, and if Ouija board powers are real, then such a test would prove them valid or invalid regardless. It's not a hard concept to grasp.

A virtual Ouija board on a website I don't believe would have the significance a non-virtual one would have right before you with your hands there, your prescence moving them and such 'spirits' guiding your way. Many people indulge in the paranormal, but for all the research that's been done, still few things like ghosts and otherworldly spirits are proven, if anything like that at all.

All I'm saying that I just believe it mainly to be the antics of the overactive imagination. *shrugs*

P.S: Actually, forget it. GDwarf said it all for me, and in better, bite-sized pieces too. Thank you, m'dear. <3

Me and my cousin made one once out of paper. I forget the questions we asked, but we got answered that freaked my cousin out. You know why? Because when I realized that the quarter we were using was not moving, I gently nudged long myself. Just enough so that it would move, but she didn't see it.

Then she told me it was bad to throw it away, so we decided to cut it up and flush it down the toilet.

Really, I don't believe that they work, but my mom thinks that they are evil and are connected to demons and bad spirits, so I have never seen a real one.

Here are a few experiances I have had with Ouija boards.

1.you ask it to make a noise, you heard a thumping sound coming from the ceiling.
2.correctly guessed people who were outside the door.
3.Feeling that someone was behind you.
4.when our teacher came in, it said goodbye before anyone knew he was coming, and when we hid the board no one could find the peace that moves across the board, later we found it behind the mirror.
5.The scariest part was when we had a spirit that said it wanted to hurt us and would not leave us alone, a friend told me she saw 666 flash on the wall.

I will also like to point out that well it was moving I touched the hands of the other players to get them to move their hand off the board one at a time and they all did and the thing kept moving.

But I did ask questions and got a few wrong answers. The questions I ask that gave me wrong answer were

1.Where was I born.
Board answered - tennesee.
Real answer - Ohio

2.Whats my middle name
Got the first letter right.

I don't believe in Ouija Boards...

Haven't had any first-hand experience, but still it's hard to believe that it could be true. IF it's true that demons, spirits and King Kongs and whatnot exist, why can't we communicate with them otherwise? Why does there have to be a board and a pointer? If they could talk to us using a simple board, then surely they could use other objects too.

Maybe they can...Hey that Wiimote is moving on it's on...and now the bathroom door opened on itself...better check it out...i bet the ghosts are trying to tell me something...hey, i need to pee! Thanks ghosts!

On a serious note, i could be wrong, but until proven wrong, i think Ouija Boards are fake. Something happens because people want something to happen. Tricks of the human mind...

Originally Posted by GDwarf

It is people moving the pointer

thats what i would have thought, ive seen a lot of videos on youtube where people push the glass or whatever joking about

but you hear about a lot of the stories and you cant help wonder if theyre true.

like most ghost stories

this video is pretty interesting. kinda scary though
YouTube - Ouija Board

Here's an experiment. Try doing it with your eyes closed, and have someone else write down what it spells.

I'll spoil the surprise - it doesn't spell anything that makes any sense. Ouija boards, like dowsing, rely on the ideomotor effect - subconscious motions that are guided only by our expectations. Subconsciously, you'll move your fingers to letters that would make sense. You're not aware of this when you do it, so it seems like something's controlling it.

It's a neat trick, but nothing more.

Originally Posted by Mad Hatter

Here's an experiment. Try doing it with your eyes closed, and have someone else write down what it spells.

I'll spoil the surprise - it doesn't spell anything that makes any sense. Ouija boards, like dowsing, rely on the ideomotor effect - subconscious motions that are guided only by our expectations. Subconsciously, you'll move your fingers to letters that would make sense. You're not aware of this when you do it, so it seems like something's controlling it.

It's a neat trick, but nothing more.

really? thats pretty interesting. how did you figure this out? lemme guess, google right?

Originally Posted by flammerfire

So you're saying they're moving the pointer with small pulses of they're minds?

Not quite.

When you're concentrating on something your body tends to make subtle movements that you're not aware of. However, it does this in response to things you see or expect to happen.

So, if you expect the pointer to move up a bit, you will actually move it up a bit, just without realizing it. I had forgotten the term, so I'm glad MH remembered it, it's called the ideomotor effect, and it's quite common and accounts for a whole slew of 'paranormal' events.

Which, once again, is why you should do it blindfolded, or ask questions that no one using the board knows the answer to and that they can't guess the answer to. All of a sudden you'll get either gibberish or completely wrong answers, while before you'd be getting fairly accurate ones.

If Im not mistaken, those are evil and the work of the devil, so any church goer should not fool with that foolishness.

I find it highly unlikely that Parker Brothers managed to create an actual channel, via the devil, to some sort of spirit realm and then decided to sell it to people.

Please read the other posts, Ouija boards are a fun distraction, nothing more. No ghosts are contacted in any way, shape, or form.

There was this bad scary movie back in the day called "Witchboard", containing the most exaggerated aspects of the Ouija board. There are ghosts in there, yes, but if you play it alone you will increase the chances of being possessed by it... and then of course you go on a killing rampage once fully converted.

I've never played with the Ouija board, or know anyone who has played it. But I agree with the ones saying it moves because of how sensitive the pointer is made.