Is there any truth in ojo board?can i know how to play it?

Answer 1

A Ouija board is commonly used in divination and spiritualism, often by friends out to have some fun. Sometimes users become convinced they've been contacted by the spirit world. The board usually has the letters of the alphabet inscribed on it, along with words such as 'yes,' 'no,' 'good-bye' and 'maybe.' A planchette, a small 3-legged device with a hole in the middle or a pointer of some sort, is manipulated by those using the board. However, users often feel the planchette is moving of its own accord rather than responding to their own unconscious muscle movements (ideomotor action). The users ask a "spirit" a question and the pointer slides until it stops over "yes" or "no" or a letter on the board. Sometimes the selections "spell out" an answer to a question asked.
Some users believe that paranormal or supernatural forces are at work in spelling out Ouija board answers. Skeptics believe that those using the board either consciously or unconsciously move the pointer to what is selected. To prove this, simply try it blindfolded for some time, having an innocent bystander take notes on what words or letters are selected. Usually, the results will be unintelligible.
The movement of the planchette is not due to spirits but to unconscious movements by those controlling the pointer. The same kind of unconscious movement is at work in such things as dowsing and facilitated communication.
Before there were Ouija boards in America there were talking boards. These could be used to contact the spirit world by anybody in the privacy of one's own home; no séance was required and no medium need be present (or paid!). No experience necessary! No waiting! Quick results, guaranteed!
The Ouija board was first introduced to the American public in 1890 as a parlor game sold in novelty shops.
E.C. Reiche, Elijah Bond, and Charles Kennard ... created an all new alphanumeric design. They spread the letters of the alphabet in twin arcs across the middle of the board. Below the letters were the numbers one to ten. In the corners were "YES" and "NO."
Kennard called the new board Ouija (pronounced 'wE-ja) after the Egyptian word for good luck. Ouija is not really Egyptian for good luck, but since the board reportedly told him it was during a session, the name stuck.*
Kennard lost his company and it was taken over by his former foreman, William Fuld, in 1892.
One of William Fuld's first public relations gimmicks, as master of his new company, was to reinvent the history of the Ouija board. He said that he himself had invented the board and that the name Ouija was a fusion of the French word "oui" for yes, and the German "ja" for yes.*
Although Ouija boards are usually sold in the novelty or game section of stores, many people swear that there is something occult about them. For example, Susy Smith in Confessions of a Psychic (1971) claims that using a Ouija board caused her to become mentally disturbed. In Thirty Years Among the Dead (1924), American psychiatrist Dr. Carl Wickland claims that using the Ouija board "resulted in such wild insanity that commitment to asylums was necessitated." Is this what happens when amateurs try to dabble in the occult? Maybe, if they are suggestible, not very skeptical and a bit disturbed to begin with. However, even very intelligent people who have not gone insane are impressed by Ouija board sessions. They find it difficult to explain the "communication" as the ideomotor effect reflecting unconscious thoughts. One reason they find such an explanation difficult to accept is that the "communications" are sometimes very vile and unpleasant. It is more psychologically pleasing to attribute vile pronouncements to evil spirits than to admit that one among you is harboring vile thoughts. Also, some of the "communications" express fears rather than wishes, such as the fear of death, and such notions can have a very visible and significant effect on some people.
Observing powerful messages and the powerful effect of messages on impressionable people can be impressive. Yet, as experiences with facilitated communication have shown, decent people often harbor indecent thoughts of which they are unaware. And the fact that a person takes a "communication" seriously enough to have it significantly interfere with the enjoyment of life might be a sufficient reason for avoiding the Ouija board as being more than a "harmless bit of entertainment," but it is hardly a sufficient reason for concluding that the messages issue from anything but our own mindsIn the year 1848, something unusual happened in a Hydesville, New York cabin. Two sisters, Kate and Margaret Fox, contacted the spirit of a dead peddler, became instant celebrities, and sparked a national obsession that spread all across the United States and Europe. It was the birth of modern Spiritualism.
The whole world, it seemed, was ripe for communication with the dead. Spiritualist churches sprang up everywhere and persons with the special gift or "pipeline" to the "other side" were in great demand. These unique individuals, designated "mediums" because they acted as intermediaries between spirits and humans, invented a variety of interesting ways to communicate with the spirit world. Table turning (tilting) was one of these. The medium and attending sitters would rest their fingers lightly on a table and wait for spiritual contact. Soon, the table would tilt and move, and knock on the floor to letters called from the alphabet. Entire messages from the spirits were spelled out in this way.
A less noisy technique was a form of spirit writing using a small basket with a pencil attached to one end. The medium simply had to touch the basket, establish contact, and the spirit would take over, writing the message from the Great Beyond. This pencil basket evolved into the heart-shaped planchette, a more sophisticated tool with two rotating casters underneath and a pencil at the tip, forming the third leg. According to some writers, the inventor of the planchette was a French medium named M. Planchette. This is unlikely considering that no information on this individual exists and that the French word "planchette" translates to English as "little plank."
The problem with table turning was that it took far too long to spell out messages. Sitters became bored when the novelty of a rocking table wore off and the chore of interpreting knocks began. Planchette writing was often difficult or impossible to read. It was a challenge just keeping the instrument centered on the paper long enough to get a decipherable message. Consequently, many mediums dispensed with the spiritual apparatuses altogether, preferring to transmit from the spirit world mentally in an altered state of consciousness called "trance." Others eliminated the planchette but kept the pencil, finding the hand a more precise and less troublesome writing instrument. But there were also those who felt it crucial to use the right equipment if they were going to contact the spirit world properly. These resourceful individuals built weird alphanumeric gadgets and odd-looking table contraptions with moving needles and letter wheels. Clearly, these early machines suffered from over engineering if not lack of imagination. Called dial plate instruments or psychographs, a few of these devices appeared in the marketplace under various names and incarnations.
American and European toy companies actively peddled the planchette, making it immensely popular, but virtually ignored the dial-plates. This was most likely because planchettes were easier to make and market inexpensively as novelties. In any event, both took a back seat in 1886 when reports of an exciting new "talking board" sensation hit the newsstands. Mentioned in the March 28, 1886 Sunday supplement of the New York Tribune, the story quickly spread across the country. Here is a reprint of the Tribune article in an Oakland, California publication for Spiritualists, The Carrier Dove:
THE NEW PLANCHETTE.
.A Mysterious Talking Board and Table...............
"Planchette is simply nowhere," said a Western man at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, "compared with the new scheme for mysterious communication that is being used out in Ohio. I know of whole communities that are wild over the 'talking board,' as some of them call it. I have never heard any name for it. But I have seen and heard some of the most remarkable things about its operations—things that seem to pass all human comprehension or explanation."
"What is the board like?"
"Give me a pencil and I will show you. The first requisite is the operating board. It may be rectangular, about 18 x 20 inches. It is inscribed like this: The 'yes' and the 'no' are to start and stop the conversation. The 'good-evening' and 'good-night' are for courtesy. Now a little table three or four inches high is prepared with four legs. Any one can make the whole apparatus in fifteen minutes with a jack-knife and a marking brush. You take the board in your lap, another person sitting down with you. You each grasp the little table with the thumb and forefinger at each corner next to you. Then the question is asked, 'Are there any communications?' Pretty soon you think the other person is pushing the table. He thinks you are doing the same. But the table moves around to 'yes' or 'no.' Then you go on asking questions and the answers are spelled out by the legs of the table resting on the letters one after the other. Sometimes the table will cover two letters with its feet, and then you hang on and ask that the table will be moved from the wrong letter, which is done. Some remarkable conversations have been carried on until men have become in a measure superstitious about it. I know of a gentleman whose family became so interested in playing with the witching thing that he burned it up. The same night he started out of town on a business trip. The members of his family looked for the board and could not find it. They got a servant to make them a new one. Then two of them sat down and asked what had become of the other table. The answer was spelled out, giving a name, 'Jack burned it.' There are, of course, any number of nonsensical and irrelevant answers spelled out, but the workers pay little heed to them. If the answers are relevant they talk them over with a superstitious awe. One gentleman of my acquaintance told me that he got a communication about a title to some property from his dead brother, which was of great value to him. It is curious, according to those who have worked most with the new mystery, that while two persons are holding the table a third person, sitting in the same room some distance away, may ask the questions without even speaking them aloud, and the answers will show they are intended for him. Again, answers will be returned to the inquiries of one of the persons operating when the other can get no answers at all. In Youngstown, Canton, Warren, Tiffin, Mansfield, Akron, Elyria, and a number of other places in Ohio I heard that there was a perfect craze over the new planchette. Its use and operation have taken the place of card parties. Attempts are made to verify statements that are made about living persons, and in some instances they have succeeded so well as to make the inquirers still more awe-stricken."—New York Tribune.
—Carrier Dove (Oakland) July, 1886: 171. Reprinted from the New-York Daily Tribune, March 28, 1886: page 9, column 6. "The New 'Planchette.' A Mysterious Talking Board and Table Over Which Northern Ohio Is Agitated." Article courtesy John Buescher.
All this was so amazing because this new message board was simple to make and required absolutely no understanding, skill, or mediumistic training from the participants. When the message indicator "moved by itself" from letter to letter to spell out a message, it looked genuinely magical and astonishing. This really was a new invention. It didn't take long before interested parties filed a patent for a device strikingly similar to the "new planchette." This first patent, filed on May 28, 1890 and granted on February 10, 1891, lists Elijah J. Bond as the inventor and the assignees as Charles W. Kennard and William H. A. Maupin, all from Baltimore, Maryland. Whether Bond or his Baltimore cronies actually invented anything or merely took advantage of an existing fad using their own design is open to conjecture, but there is no doubt that they were the first to market the board as a novelty. Charles Kennard called the new board Ouija (pronounced wE-ja) after the Egyptian word for good luck. Ouija is not Egyptian for good luck, but since the board reportedly told him it was during a session, the name stuck. Or so the story goes. It is more likely that the name came from the fabled Moroccan city Oujda (also spelled Oujida and Oudjda. This makes sense given the period's fondness for Middle Eastern cites and the psychic miracles of the Fakirs. Charles Kennard and his business partners incorporated as the Kennard Novelty Company and began producing the first ever commercial line of Ouija or Egyptian luck-boards. Advertisements in local periodicals read:
OUIJA
A WONDERFUL TALKING BOARD
Interesting and mysterious; surpasses in its results second sight, mind reading, clairvoyance; will give intelligent answer to any question. Proven at patent office before patent was allowed. Price $1.50. All first-class toy, dry goods, and stationary stores. W. S. Carr & Co., 83 Pearl street; New England News Co., 14 Franklin street; H. Partridge & Co., Hanover and Washington streets; R. Schwarz, 458 Washington street: R.H. White & Co.; Houghton & Dutton.
Hollis St. Theatre program, November 7, 1891, Boston, Massachusetts
Charles Kennard was not long for the Ouija business. Kennard's partners, unhappy with the way things were going, withdrew his authorization to produce the Ouija board after only fourteen months. The firm continued for nine years under corporate control as the Ouija Novelty Company and then appointed an employee, William Fuld as manufacturer in 1901. With that single stroke of fate, William Fuld came to be the one history would forever remember as the father of the Ouija board. Charles Kennard remained marginally in the toy business and even produced and patented other talking boards but he is largely forgotten today.
William Fuld embarked successfully on his new venture and with his brother and business partner Isaac, manufactured Ouija boards in record numbers. Nevertheless, this business partnership was not to last. After a bitter dispute, Isaac was ousted from the company. This not only ended the union but it created a family rift that was to last for generations. Isaac went on to produce and sell Ouija facsimiles, called Oriole talking boards, and pool and smoking tables out of his home workshop. Ouija Novelty continued to collect revenues on the Ouija name and then in 1919 turned over the remaining patent rights to William Fuld who became the most successful Ouija manufacturer of his time. He sold millions of Ouija boards, toys, and other games and kept a job as a US customs inspector. Later in life he became a member of Baltimore's General Assembly.
One of William Fuld's first public relations gimmicks, as master of his new company, was to reinvent the history of the talking board. He said that he himself had invented the board and that the name Ouija was a fusion of the French word "oui" for yes, and the German "ja" for yes. He also made other unlikely claims. Whether he took himself seriously is a matter lost to history. He may have thought apocryphal tales a fun way to sell Ouija boards and to poke fun at a gullible press.
For twenty-five years William Fuld ran the company through good times and bad. In February 1927, he climbed to the roof of his Harford Street factory in Baltimore to supervise the replacement of a flagpole. A support post that he was holding gave way and he fell backwards to his death. Following his death, William's children took over and marketed many interesting Ouija versions of their own, including the rare and marvelous Art Deco Electric Mystifying Oracle. In 1966, they retired and sold the business to Parker Brothers. Parker Brothers produced an accurate Fuld reproduction and briefly even made a Deluxe Wooden Edition Ouija. They own all trademarks and patents to this day.
Almost from the beginning, William Fuld's Ouija board suffered fierce competition from other toy makers. Everyone wanted to make a variation of the Wonderful Talking Board. Ouija imitations with names like "The Wireless Messenger" and I Do Psycho Ideograph, flooded the market. Some companies, like J.M. Simmons and Morton E. Converse & Son even used the Ouija name and the identical board layout. Fuld responded with legal threats and by marketing a second, less expensive talking board, the Mystifying Oracle.
The 1940s saw a virtual cornucopia of artistic and colorful talking boards. Perhaps the most beautiful were Haskelite's Egyptian themed Mystic Boards and Mystic Trays. Other major players were two Chicago novelty companies, Gift Craft, and Lee Industries. Adorned with everything from wizards to cannibals, these talking boards were wonderful departures from Fuld's simple number boards. Gift Craft's popular Swami featured a flying carpet scene and a genii consulting a crystal ball. Lee's Magic Marvel, done in eye-catching red and yellow, had four turbaned soothsayers, the zodiac, and a couple of grumpy demons thrown in just for luck. Love them or not, no one could call them boring.
Today, as in the past, there are companies who produce interesting variants of the talking board. Prevailing designs largely reflect current trends in New Age sentiment and manufacturers make every attempt to avoid any negative connotations. Some of these designs are simple letter boards, while others incorporate complex astrological and Tarot symbolism. With a few exceptions, manufacturing costs usually limit these boards to the folding cardboard variety.
In early 1999, Parker Brothers stopped manufacturing the classic Fuld Ouija board and switched to a smaller less detailed glow in the dark version. Gone is the faux bird's eye maple lithograph and gone is the name William Fuld. Although some of us may morn its passing, we must remember the Parker Brothers slogan: "It's only a game—isn't it?"Writers of occult literature love to talk about the Ouija board's ancient roots. Ouija boards, they tell us, were in use in ancient Greece, Rome, China, or whatever other cultures the authors deem important. They steadfastly maintain that modern Ouija boards are the direct descendants of its more primitive ancestors. If the ancestor wasn't a Ouija board exactly, it was "Ouija-like." This can mean that almost any early divination device qualifies. Few question this and new writers repeat the words of the old without thinking very critically about it. Ancient Ouija boards: fact or fiction? Let's take a look.
The statement between the twin lamps at the top of this page comes from Nandor Fodor's, Encyclopedia of Psychic Science (1934). Fodor takes it word for word from Lewis Spence's earlier book, An Encyclopedia of Occultism (1920). This is the one recurring quote found in almost every academic article on the Ouija board. Spence claims that Ouija boards are ancient and, according to a French historian, a "mystic table on wheels" was in common use among the Pythagoreans. An interesting claim, but is it accurate? Apparently not. Of all the oracles and divination methods mentioned in the writings about Pythagoras and his followers, this "mystic table" isn't among them. Who was the French historian in Spence's account? Spence doesn't say. His description is the first and only one of this ancient Ouija board in any historic record. Spence is also the first to write: "In 1853, a well known French spiritualist, M. Planchette, invented the instrument to which he gave his name." Not only is there no record of a French Spiritualist, well known or otherwise, named M. Planchette, but the word "planchette" means, "little plank" in French. French Spiritist Allan Kardec explains in detail how the planchette evolves in his The Medium's Book (1861). Before it was the little plank (board) it was the little basket. Before that, it was the little table. Neither Kardec nor any other writer of the period credits the planchette to a person with the same name. Perhaps there is something intriguing about these two oft-repeated Ouija legends that keeps them alive. Or, it may be that writers repeat them simply because they believe them to be true. You may draw your own conclusions.
Edmond Gruss describes an ancient Roman Ouija-like board in his, The Ouija Board, A Doorway to the Occult (1994): "Fourth-century Byzantine historian Ammianus Marcellinus records one of the earliest forms of divination, which used a pendulum and a dish engraved with the alphabet." This is an interesting and creditable account from Ammianus Marcellinus' The Later Roman Empire (A.D. 354-378). In his narrative, two sorry individuals, Patricius and Hilarius, under arrest for creating an oracle to define who would succeed the emperor, plead before the court:
My lords, in an unlucky moment we put together out of laurel twigs in the shape of the Delphic tripod the hapless little table before you. We consecrated it with cryptic spells and a long series of magical rites, and at last made it work. The way in which it did so, when we wished to consult it about hidden matters, was this. It was placed in the middle of a room thoroughly fumigated with spices from Arabia, and was covered with a round dish made from the alloys of various metals. The outer rim of the dish was cunningly engraved with the twenty-four letters of the alphabet separated by accurate intervals. A man dressed in linen garments and wearing linen sandals, with a fillet around his head and green twigs from a lucky tree in his hand, officiated as priest. After uttering a set prayer to invoke the divine power which presides over prophecy, he took his place above the tripod as his knowledge of the proper ritual had taught him, and set swinging a ring suspended by a very fine cotton thread which had been consecrated by a mystic formula. The ring, moving in a series of jumps over the marked spaces, came to rest on particular letters, which made up hexameters appropriate to the questions put and in perfect scansion and rhythm, like the lines produced at Delphi or by the oracle of the Branchidae.
Unfortunately for Patricius and Hilarius, things did not go well after their inquisition: "both the accused were fearfully mangled by the torturers hooks and taken away unconscious."
We should mention, in case you didn't read it clearly, that the tripod in the story has everything to do with the Greek oracle at Delphi and nothing to do with the three-legged planchette, as modern writers sometimes mistakenly report. The oracle is clearly a pendulum dish and not a talking board, an important distinction, but why quibble? Could this be an early ancestor of the modern Ouija board? Historically, pendulum devices like this must have been rare since there is little record of common use from Roman times to the 1850's. If we are speaking of evolution, a process in which something passes by degree to a different or advanced state, it's hard to make the connection to modern day Ouija boards. 1500 years is a big leap, even for the spirits to make. It is an ancient alphabet oracle, but it is not a relative of the Ouija board.
Stoker Hunt in his, Ouija the Most Dangerous Game (1985), writes about Ouija boards in ancient China: "In China, centuries before the birth of Confucius (551?-479 B.C.), the use of Ouija-like instruments was commonplace, considered a nonthreatening way to communicate with the spirits of the dead." He is speaking of a well-known form of Chinese spirit writing (Fu Chi, Fuji, Fuluan, or Jiangbi). Some Chinese mystics believe that a divine spirit can take possession of a writing brush or a writing tool similar to the western planchette. Opinions vary among historians about the age of this practice, but it doesn't matter here. This "Ouija-like" instrument is a Ouija-like board without the board, letters, numbers, or sliding message indicator. In other words, it isn't a Ouija board at all.
Hunt goes on to say, "In thirteenth-century Tartary, the Mongols used Ouija-like instruments for purposes of divination and instruction." Although not referenced, this comes directly from Epes Sargent's book, Planchette; or The Despair of Science (1869): "According to Huc, the Catholic missionary, table-rapping and table-turning were in use in the thirteenth century among the Mongols, in the wilds of Tartary. The Chinese recognize spiritual intervention as a fact, and it is an element in their religious systems." It is fun to ponder where Huc the Catholic missionary got the information that table rapping and table-turning were in use in the thirteenth century among the Mongols. That paints quite a mental picture, but the message is clear: Huc is talking about table-turning. Almost all scholars agree that table turning originated in 19th century America. All scholars except for Huc the Catholic missionary, Stoker Hunt, and others who repeat such unsubstantiated ideas. And, need we say it? There is absolutely no historical evidence that American spiritualists were influenced by 13th century Mongols.
To be an ancestor of something, there must be some connection, some evolution, some influence. The instrument has to have been in wide enough use to connect to the popular imagination. As relationships go, the talking boards of today most likely grew out the use of the alphabet and alphabetic pasteboards during 19th century spiritualistic séances and not from pendulum oracles or other devices used many centuries earlier.
In 1848, the Fox sisters realized immediately that calling out the individual letters of the alphabet, and having the spirits knock accordingly, was easier than asking lengthy "yes/no" questions. The use of alphabet pasteboards became common among table-tippers who came to the same conclusion. And there were mediums who didn't wait for the spirits to knock but instead relied on a kind of divine intuition: "During a communication between the medium and the supposed spirit, the former passed his hand over the alphabet, until he found his finger sensibly and irresistibly arrested at a certain letter, and so on, until the word, the sentence, was completed." -The Rappers (1854).
Starting in the 1850's, alphabet boards made the transition to the dial-plate instruments, also known as psychographs, first in the United States and then in Europe. The first talking board with a detachable sliding message indicator appeared around 1886. That's a short thirty-eight year time frame. If the Ouija board has relatives they are the devices of this period: the talking tables, the alphabet pasteboards, and the early dial-plate instruments. To answer your last question first--it is, as you said, a game. They don't need to explain it; they just need to know that people will buy it so they can make money.
Going back to your first question, yes, we can explain how the Ouija board works. In fact, you mentioned it in your question--involuntary movements. Evidently you didn't find that persuasive, so let me take another stab.
For those who don't know what a Oiuja board is, let's start from the beginning, with some help from the Museum of Talking Boards at http://www.museumoftalkingboards.com (only on the net, not a museum you can visit in person). The Ouija board was invented by E.C. Reiche, Elijah Bond, and Charles Kennard in the early 1890's, and then improved upon and mass marketed by William Fuld. Before the Ouija board, spirit mediums used, among other things, a dial plate talking board, which had a letter indicator joined by a spindle to the center of the board. This rotated to pick different letters. Another way of bringing forth supposed messages from the dead was the planchette, which was generally heart-shaped, with a hole for a pencil in the tip of the heart. The medium put his/her hands on the two lobes of the heart and either moved it on a piece of paper to do "automatic writing" (writing with the pencil that supposedly came from the dead) or on a pre-printed chart to point to letters, statements, etc. The inventors of the Ouija board combined these two items.
Even back in the 1880s, the planchette was being sold as a novelty item and parlor game. The Ouija board was in the same vein--an important point. The board didn't originate with swamis, emanate from the mysterious East, or anything like that. It was invented and marketed by American businessmen hoping to make a buck.
The Ouija board has the letters of the alphabet and the numbers 0-9 printed on it, along with YES, NO, GOODBYE, and sometimes a few other things. Copycat versions of the game may incorporate astrological, Tarot, or other New Age symbols. The idea is that you ask the spirit world a question and then rest your hand(s) on the pointer while the spirits answer you.
You may have heard that the name Oiuja (pronounced WEE-ja) is a combination of oui (French for "yes") and ja (German for "yes'). Alas, that was made up by Mr. Fuld. Another story is that Mr. Kennard thought Ouija was Egyptian for "good luck." It isn't really, but the board itself supposedly told him, so who was he to argue?
After Kennard came up with the name, the Kennard Novelty Company advertised the first Ouija board as follows:
OUIJA
A WONDERFUL TALKING BOARD
Interesting and mysterious; surpasses in its results second sight, mind reading, clairvoyance;
will give intelligent answer to any question.
Proven at patent office before patent was allowed.
Price $1.50.I particularly like the part about having to prove that it works at the patent office. Be interesting to see how they did that.Having taken over Kennard, Fuld and later his family ran the Ouija board company for many years, finally selling the game to Parker Brothers in 1966. Early last year, Parker Brothers introduced a smaller glow-in-the-dark version of the game.
How does the Ouija board work? New-Agey folks think you get messages from spirits or ghosts or Invisible Pink Unicorns or something. Yeah, sure. Here's the real explanation, from the Skeptic's Dictionary (http://skepdic.com/ouija.html): "those using the board either consciously or unconsciously select what is read." If you want to prove it to yourself, follow the advice of that same site: "simply try it blindfolded for some time, having an innocent bystander take notes on what letters are selected. Usually, the result will be unintelligible nonsense."
What makes the pointer move? An effect similar to that which occurs in dowsing, known as the ideomotor effect. This is a fancy name for involuntary/unconscious movement, such as a dowser's hand flicking enough to move his stick when he passes over an area he knows has water. (In fact, Cecil has discussed this very subject.) The basic point is that your muscles can move without your consciously thinking, "move to the word YES." As the Skeptic''s Dictionary says, "suggestions can be made to the mind by others or by observations. Those suggestions can influence the mind and affect motor behavior. What is purely physiological, however, appears 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 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, the blindfold will screw things up. Of course, this assumes you're the one operating the pointer. If a medium is doing it instead, there's always the possibility that s/he is simply faking it as part of the show.The point is, the Ouija board is easily explainable. Whether you'll accept that I don't know. Shall we consult the Ouija board?



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Answer 2

i think they sell those in toy'r'us... or wateva the name is called...my frnd and 1 once played this game but its quite stupid of us we wrote yes,no 1 to 0 and a to z on a piece of paper and we put a coin in the middle and we start asking question... we get really accurate answer but then i think its my frnd moving the coin ...however, my teacher has told em that some poeple played the game and died in the end becasue they release their finger b4 calling the spirit to go back but theres a myth that if u play th board, u will shorten ur lifespan byt 3 months? or 6 months..

Actually it is a "game" where people invite spirit on a medium, usually a dish and they ask question about the spirit or nething and the spirit will answer them through the letter on the board by possessing the dish and move.. the player will need to put their fingers on the dish b4 the spirit will answer them... it is believe that if one of the person remove his/her finger in th middle of the game, he/she will die...

Answer 3

No, there isn't. You just move a disk over a letter board while you subconsciously (or purposely) spell out something and pretend a spirit did it.

Answer 4

no and I don't know