Ouija Board Game

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Kroll, Justin (July 16, 2012). "U recruits pair to rewrite, helm 'Ouija' ". Variety . Retrieved February 6, 2014. I’m no stranger to Ouija Board use. When I was a kid, I delighted in hosting amateur seances with my friends. Sure, the movement of the planchette (the thing that the spirits supposedly move) was probably us subconsciously pushing the thing to spell something spooky, but we didn’t care; every little jerk and jump of the heart-shaped piece of plastic was the thrill of the century. When I heard about this new digital version, I was instantly hit with a wave of nostalgia. And curiosity. How would an AI-enhanced, e-version of the classic game fare compared to the physical version? I decided to find out. Over the years, both became so fascinated by the board that they discussed marketing their own design. Their discourse culminated in a letter, dated 21 February 1919, in which Crowley tells Jones, The second thing I want to discuss about the results is that they got results at all! These subjects who were in sole control of the planchette, all moved it to either yes or no. (A few other students did participate but didn't get any results, so those are excluded from the 19 discussed.) In case you supposed that the ideomotor response might produce slight random movements but not larger decisive movements, this proved it can. The subjects knew where yes and no were, and moved the planchette all the way across the board to them. From the paper:

In fact, there’s a simple scientific explanation: The mysterious mechanism that powers the Ouija board is called the ideomotor effect (pronounced “idio- mo-tor” or “id-ee- aah-meh-ter”), and it’s basically a way for your body to talk to itself. Kit, Borys (April 19, 2011). "Evan Spiliotopoulos to Pen Universal's Ouija". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved July 11, 2022. It's true that name Ouija is the French and German words for yes, oui and ja. That's officially what the game's publisher will tell you it means, and that comes all the way down from one of the original bosses of the company, William Fuld. But Fuld wasn't the first, and before he came along, the founders had their own explanation for the name. Carroll, R. "Ideomotor Effect." The Skeptic's Dictionary. Robert T. Carroll, 12 Sep. 2014. Web. 5 Aug. 2015. Smith, Hortense (7 February 2010). "Pink Ouija Board Declared "A Dangerous Spiritual Game," Possibly Destroying Our Children". Jezebel. Suddenly, people forgot about the Ouija board’s relatively pure history and deemed it an evil and demonic tool. Satanic Panic came shortly after in the 1980s after a group of Californian kids told their community that their school was a location for rape, prostitution, and Satanic activities. These unproven allegations led to yet another wave of fear among the American public. This patent file from the United States Patent Office shows that the office required the board to be tested before a patent would be granted. a b c Kit, Borys (December 6, 2013). " 'Bates Motel' Actress to Star in Universal's 'Ouija' ". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved January 29, 2022.

Carpenter, W. "On the influence of suggestion in modifying and directing muscular movement, independently of volition." Proceedings of the Royal Institution of Great Britain. 12 Mar. 1852, Number 10: 147-153. Shenefelt, Philip D. (2011). "Ideomotor Signaling: From Divining Spiritual Messages to Discerning Subconscious Answers during Hypnosis and Hypnoanalysis, a Historical Perspective". American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis. Informa UK. 53 (3): 157–167. doi: 10.1080/00029157.2011.10401754. ISSN 0002-9157. PMID 21404952. S2CID 19324123.Galton, Ray; Simpson, Alan (10 October 1974). "Seance in a Wet Rag and Bone Yard". Steptoe and Son. Season 8. Episode 6. IMDB. YouTube. DailyMotion. Over the years, research has determined that the ideomotor effect is closely tied to subconscious awareness — and that its effect is maximized when the subject believes he has no control of his movements. Paradoxically, the less control you think you have, the more control your subconscious mind is actually exerting. The first patent offers no explanation as to how the device works, just asserts that it does. That ambiguity and mystery was part of a more or less conscious marketing effort. “These were very shrewd businessmen,” notes Murch; the less the Kennard company said about how the board worked, the more mysterious it seemed—and the more people wanted to buy it. “Ultimately, it was a money-maker. They didn’t care why people thought it worked.”

Roland Doe used a Ouija board, which the Catholic Church stated led to his possession by a demon [45]Stafford, T. "How the Ouija Board Really Moves." Future. BBC, 30 Jul. 2013. Web. 1 Oct. 2017. The Mars Volta wrote their album Bedlam in Goliath (2008) based on their alleged experiences with a Ouija board