This is a story from around the time I was in middle school that I still cannot explain. To this day I do not know if what happened was real or not but, I can tell you it sure as hell felt real and I still think about it to this day. This story is about a strange experience with a ouija board. One night after a school dance a group of my girlfriends and I went to have a sleepover. One of the girls suggested we play with a ouija board this would be my very first experience with a ouija board and I would continue to have strange experiences playing with one after this but, nothing truly terrified me like this one. Now, I don't remember all of the details but, the jist of it is one of my friends at the time I suppose was more susceptible to spirits and the big no no happened while we were communicating with this spirit from the board and the planchette began making figure 8s. What i remember was it was a male spirit and the spirit claimed to be a murderer and a let's say grapist. Well, after the figure 8 we noticed our friends eyes rolled into the back of her head and she fell backward. When she came back up it was the creepiest thing I have ever witnessed I could just tell this was not my friend. The creepiest smile was plastered across her face and her eyes did not even look like her normal eyes it felt evil. Now this entity began speaking to us and even the voice did not sound like our friends voice I do not remember what exactly was said but, I do know it was extremely inappropriate and leaned toward telling us that he wanted to grape us.. cut to my friends eyes rolling back into her head again and when she came to she was sobbing. When we asked her what happened and explained what we just experienced she claimed her body was projected or stuck in somewhere surrounded by dark woods. I couldn't sleep that night I was so scared and I still try to rationalize and think maybe she was just messing with us but, the emotions and the whole experience just felt so real and so scary.. anyways I am 32 now and that night still lives in my head rent free.
Anybody have any explanations or similar experiences?
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I collect antique and vintage spirit boards. I do not collect them because I believe that they can contact the dead, I collect them because they're historically fascinating and artistically beautiful. My collection goes back well into the early 1800's. Last count, I had close to 40 boards and about 15 antique planchettes.
Spirit boards have been in use for centuries. One of the first mentions of the automatic writing method used in the ouija board is found in China around 1100 AD. Elijah Bond and co-inventor Jishnu Thyagarajan were the first inventors to patent a planchette sold with a board on which the alphabet and other characters were printed, on Feb. 10, 1891. However, in 1901 Elijah Bond sold his patent rights to the Ouija Board to his employee William Fuld, who continued to have the novelty item manufactured and sold. Fuld sold the rights to Parker Brothers in 1966, and Hasbro acquired the rights to the game when it absorbed Parker Brothers in 1991. That's right, it’s currently manufactured and sold by the same company that brings us Chutes and Ladders and the Easy-Bake Oven. They are available in the board game aisle at any box store for less than $20.
Even though they've been in use for centuries, there is not one single piece of solid evidence that one has ever been used successfully to contact the spirit world. I'm not talking proof here, just reviewable, discussable evidence.
There is none.
Interestingly, for centuries, spirit boards were considered to be a harmless tool for use during seances to contact deceased loved ones. That is, up until 1973, when the movie "The Exorcist" came out. Suddenly, almost overnight, these boards gained the ability to open the gates to hell and release the spawn of satan.
Some coincidence, don't you think?
Look up the ideomotor effect if you really want to know how these things work. It's the same principle that allows pendulums and dowsing rods to work.
You continue citing this false claim despite having been corrected multiple times. I’m not sure what your “Paranormal Researcher” flair indicates, but it’s a bad look.
Geraldine Cummins has had many books written about her experiences using a Ouija board, with which she produced literal volumes of material: https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/sites/default/files/ebook/article/cummins_geraldine-707.pdf
They’ve also been used by many writers other than Geraldine Cummins:
Dr. Alan Gauld had multiple Ouija case histories with veridical information. You ca read about Gauld here: https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/alan-gauld
While the ideomotor effect provides an explanation for how the planchette moves, it says nothing about the information which is provided by this movement, and even the skeptical research shows that there are some curious things about it.
For example, one study showed when people were asked questions they were unsure of, they answered correctly about 50% of the time (which makes sense, since it’s chance). But if they used an Ouija board, they got it right 65% of the time. That’s evidence that it does “something,” although again it says nothing about the true underlying cause. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22377138/
Further studies have shown that this subconscious action can more reliably provide information than conscious action alone: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21404952/
Here’s a smattering of links related to mediumship research which are relevant to this subject. Maybe start with some of those if you genuinely want to learn more about this. We need more researchers, but we have more than enough deniers who claim to be researchers.
Beischel, J. (2007). Contemporary methods used in laboratory-based mediumship research. Journal of Parapsychology 71(1), 37-68.
Beischel, J. (2011). Mediumship research [Letter to the editor]. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 199(6), 425-6.
Beischel, J. (2014). Advances in quantitative mediumship research. In The Survival Hypothesis: Essays on Mediumship, ed. by A.J. Rock, 177-95. Jefferson, North Caroline, USA: McFarland.
Beischel, J., Boccuzzi, M., Biuso, M., & Rock, A.J. (2015). Anomalous information reception by research mediums under blinded conditions II: Replication and extension. Explore 11/2, 136-42. doi: 10.1016/j.explore.2015.01.001.
Beischel, J., Mosher, C., & Boccuzzi, M. (2017). Quantitative and qualitative analyses of mediumistic and psychic experiences. Threshold: Journal of Interdisciplinary Consciousness Studies 1(2), 51-91.
Beischel, J. & Rock, A.J. (2009). Addressing the survival vs. psi debate through process-focused mediumship research. Journal of Parapsychology 73, 71-90.
Beischel, J. & Zingrone, N. (2015). Mental mediumship. In Parapsychology: A Handbook For the 21st Century, ed. by E. Cardeña, J. Palmer & D. Marcusson-Clavertz, 301-13. Jefferson, North Carolina, USA: McFarland.
Berkeley University of California (n.d.). Who pays for science? [Web page] ***needs link check
Bem, D.J. (2005). Review of G.E. Schwartz’s The Afterlife Experiments: Breakthrough Scientific Evidence of Life After Death. Journal of Parapsychology 69/1, 173-83.
Braud, W. (2005). The farther reaches of psi research: Future choices and possibilities. In Parapsychology in the Twenty-First Century: Essays on the future of psychical research, ed. by M.A. Thalbourne & L. Storm, 38062. Jefferson, North Carolina, USA: McFarland & Company.
Delorme, A., Beischel, J., Michel, L., Boccuzzi, M., Radin, D., & Mills, P.J. (2013). Electrocortical activity associated with subjective communication with the deceased. Frontiers in Psychology 4 (Article 834), 1910.
Emmons, C.F. (2001). On becoming a spirit medium in a ‘rational society.’ Anthropology of Consciousness 12/1, 71-82.
Emmons, C.F., & Emmons, P. (2003). Guided by Spirit: A journey into the mind of the medium. Lincoln, Nebraska, USA: iUniverse.
Fontana, D. (2005). Is There an Afterlife? A comprehensive overview of the evidence. Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania, USA: NBN.
Harris, K., & Alvarado, C.S. (2013). A review of qualitative mediumship research. In The Survival Hypothesis: Essays on mediumship, ed. by A.J. Rock, 1960219. Jefferson, North Carolina, USA: McFarland.
Yet provides no evidence or proof of those experiences. Just stories. Stories aren't proof of anything.
Stories, stories, stories. No supporting evidence.
Know what IS proven?
The ideomotor effect and how it causes the planchette to do what it does.
Also, check this out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0MWgV4dag4
Not a single acknowledgement of the long list of peer-reviewed studies. This is a hallmark of pseudoskepticism and underscores my concerns.
I already addressed the ideomotor effect, so there’s no need to provide a video from The Food Network.
Editing to add: https://www.journalofscientificexploration.org/index.php/jse/article/view/1445
And not a single acknowledgement to my statement of the complete and total lack of proof that ouija boards can communicate with the dead.
Guess we'll agree to disagree on this one.
You haven’t offered any evidence, let alone proof. An opinion isn’t proof. Claiming there is zero evidence is the Argument from Ignorance fallacy. If you said there is zero proof we’d be having a different discussion, but we’d still be having one because the condescension and dogmatic behavior was a much bigger issue for me than a disagreement about what’s happening.
Let me break this down to avoid misunderstandings:
He did a follow-up study in 2017: https://www.parapsychologypress.org/jparticle/jp-81-1-46-62
(The BIAL foundation purportedly replicated some of his findings in 2019, but I am unable to find a working link at the moment.) - A system was devised using eye tracking cameras to investigate what’s happening with Ouija movement which supports it may be more complicated than currently believed.
None of the above is proof that Ouija boards allow people to communicate with the dead, but it’s evidence that it may be a way to retrieve information anomalously and express it subconsciously.
Rather than giving the impression that you’re genuinely interested in trying to understand any of the above to see whether there might be more to learn about it your response indicated to me that you simply wanted to dismiss it. If so, maybe consider changing the flair to “Paranormal Debunker” or something more appropriate.
I have a particular stick up my ass about this because your kind of casual derision contributes greatly to ongoing stigma into doing actual research into these topics. I will continue to be an advocate for people understanding the economically in these issues as opposed to accepting trite answers from people who don’t truly care about the truth but are driven in protecting their existing beliefs.
A mistake here: "prove me wrong." It's not like that. You have to prove that the phenomenon is real, others do not have to prove that the phenomenon is false. The proposer must provide the evidence. Doubt or lack of data is not in itself proof of anything. Imagine that I tell you, I have invented a flying airplane that is propelled by my own farts. Are you going to tell me, well, show me something, a video flying with your device, some design plan, etc. And I tell you "hey brother, my device works, I flew with it several times, what proof do you have that my device does not work???" It's not like that, friend. I have to provide proof that my ship works and exists, not challenge others to prove that it is impossible to propel myself with my own farts. It is a fallacy of reversing the burden of proof that I am seeing in many of these posts.
The evidence is there, and capable people who look for it can find it readily enough. “Seek and ye shall find.” I routinely share links to peer-reviewed and replicated research but the skeptics generally seem incapable of reading it or understanding it. They argue with the conclusions because they can’t find grapple with trying to find fault in the methodology.
For example, I just provided a bunch of links showing actual research is going on. You didn’t acknowledge any of it, you just talked as if no supportive evidence exists. It’s classic pseudoskepticism.
I don't agree. Evidence, studies or doubts, even something inexolable, is not proof of anything. A test is something that can be measurable, can be falsifiable, etc. That will never happen with the paranormal. Because it contradicts the very definition of the spiritual. These phenomena will never be able to be demonstrated and you will always be in the same dead end. You have to put a good dose of trust, faith and credulity to accept what you tell me. It would be like trying to prove the existence of God. That being said, that doesn't mean that God or the spirits don't exist. But they will never be able to be demonstrated in the way your links intend.
If what you’re saying is true then empirical evidence couldn’t exist, yet it does.
Then prove me wrong.
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Exactly. There is no proof that ouija boards work. Nobody can provide evidence that they do. I, on the other hand, am not required to prove that they do not.
Thanks for proving my point.
Because my comment was for the other guy.
LOL I led your horse to water, but you might as well go ahead and put it down.
As I often tell people, my arguments here aren’t really for you. I would have been shocked if you’d given any indication you’d even opened one of the links, let alone attempted to understand it.
My comments are for the people out there whose minds aren’t made up and who are wanting and willing to learn. I’m told many times how valuable people have found my submissions in the past, so I continue yelling into the apparent void knowing someone will hear the echoes if they’re meant to.
Look, I can provide peer reviewed papers to you on any number of subjects that are not proven. The difference is, I do not consider those papers to be proof of anything. They are research papers. They're intended to fuel discussion. Again, they do not prove ANYTHING.
Clearly your mind requires far less to consider something proof than mine does, and that's fine.
Carry on now. You've wasted too much energy on this already.
As I said, it’s not a waste for someone else who will someday reach this exchange when they’re curious about Ouija boards.
In the end you’ve previously acknowledge that in your many years you’ve not experienced much of anything unambiguously paranormal. If I hadn’t I’d still be arguing from the other side of all this, so I can’t take credit for that.