What makes ouija board move

But then in the s the Catholic Church and other religious groups became concerned about it. It changed from a toy or possibly a way to communicate with the dead to a gateway to hell.

Then in the s and s, a few murder suspects blamed the Ouija board for their misdeeds. As the game became more sensationalized as something that causes murderous thoughts and serves as a portal to hell, the game became scarier. In the movie the "Exorcist" the Ouija board plays a prominent role as it allows the devil to possess Regan. People flock to Ouija boards, scary movies and haunted houses as sort of a dry run for what would happen to them when faced with a demon, ghost or a blood-crazed killer in real life.

So who did? A ghost? Alright, so here comes the breaking news: No, it was not a spirit. It was you! Or rather, it was you and your friends that unconsciously collaborated to select the letters. In a new study , scientists from Aarhus University, in Denmark, the University of Southern Denmark, and Bielefeld University in Germany have identified precisely what happens when the glass moves. In , he packed his bag with a notebook, video camera, and eye-tracking equipment, and set off for Baltimore in the US with a research assistant.

They were headed to a conference for people that communicate with the dead via Ouija boards. Instead of a glass, they use a triangular piece of plastic, called a planchette, which moves around the board and points to letters, numbers, and individual words such as yes or no. The results are published in the scientific journal Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. The idea was that two or more people would sit around the board, place their finger tips on the planchette, pose a question, and watch, dumbfounded, as the planchette moved from letter to letter, spelling out the answers seemingly of its own accord.

The biggest difference is in the materials; the board is now usually cardboard, rather than wood, and the planchette is plastic. The Ouija board, in fact, came straight out of the American 19th century obsession with spiritualism, the belief that the dead are able to communicate with the living.

Spiritualism, which had been around for years in Europe, hit America hard in with the sudden prominence of the Fox sisters of upstate New York; the Foxes claimed to receive messages from spirits who rapped on the walls in answer to questions, recreating this feat of channeling in parlors across the state. Aided by the stories about the celebrity sisters and other spiritualists in the new national press, spiritualism reached millions of adherents at its peak in the second half of the 19th century.

The movement also offered solace in an era when the average lifespan was less than 50 : Women died in childbirth; children died of disease; and men died in war. As spiritualism had grown in American culture, so too did frustration with how long it took to get any meaningful message out of the spirits, says Brandon Hodge, Spiritualism historian. Calling out the alphabet and waiting for a knock at the right letter, for example, was deeply boring. People were desperate for methods of communication that would be quicker—and while several entrepreneurs realized that, it was the Kennard Novelty Company that really nailed it.

The article went far and wide, but it was Charles Kennard of Baltimore, Maryland who acted on it. In , he pulled together a group of four other investors—including Elijah Bond, a local attorney, and Col.

Washington Bowie, a surveyor—to start the Kennard Novelty Company to exclusively make and market these new talking boards. 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.

And it was a money-maker. And by , Kennard and Bond were out, owing to some internal pressures and the old adage about money changing everything. Notably, Fuld is not and never claimed to be the inventor of the board, though even his obituary in The New York Times declared him to be; also notably, Fuld died in after a freak fall from the roof of his new factory—a factory he said the Ouija board told him to build.

Its power comes from a combination of psychology and our deep human need to make meaning. The ideomotor effect at the heart of the board works because of the scene we set when we open the box, the curiosity and desires we channel through it together.

Instead of being a disappointment that ruins our childhoods , the truth behind the Ouija board takes that power away from ghosts and spirits and puts it back in our hands. With your arm out, dangle a small weight on a piece of string. Hold the weight steady and ask yourself a yes or no question in your head.

After some time the weight should be swinging in a circle to answer your question. I believe you can even do this with your eyes closed to give it extra subliminal effect. The A. By Riley MacLeod. Photo: Paul Tamayo. Image via Wikimedia. Image: Wikimedia Other.