How Ouija Boards Work

which we're going to conduct after this episode records. You don't worry about this first. Yeah, we're having a seance, buddy, I don't know about that. We're gonna get down, We're gonna get down to brass tacks and answer all the unknown questions. Well, you know, I'll tell you what. I will have a seance with you using a Wuiji board, because now I know how they work and I'm not quite as scared of them as I used to be

saying after I saw The Exorcist. Yeah, I say Wegi, Yeah, I kind of do too, although I think it's probably Wegia right not to be confused with the crimes photographer Weig we're talking about the board. Although yeah, I think some people say we ja. Yeah. I just think it's interesting. I said WEGI since I was a kid. Yeah, I mean too, But I also say reci cup instead of Reese's. Umi does too? You mean do yeah? And I'm like, no, it's Reese's. They're like, no, it's Recy's. Yeah. Well I

don't even say Reese's. I'd just say a reci cup. I think they think they need too people in their quirks. Yeah, foibles, I say foibles. Uh yeah. You should hear him sing that potato potato song everybody Yeah, which apparently I got snookered on that. By the way. That's an old, an old bit. So I was snookered by an urban legend. What the whole potato Potato song? Where I say, like, yeah, a friend of mine's friend Audish end with this piece and sang it wrong. You thought it was for real? Yeah,

of course I did. I've never heard that before. It's very funny. Had you heard that, um now, because you would have stopped me. I know I have heard it before, but it wasn't too long ago. Was it from my mouth? Maybe? But I didn't think like that. It was it actually happened. I think anyway, we gig board um, and I mentioned exorcists already saw that, right, of course a bunch of times. Enough, here's the trivia question for you. What is the name

of the spirit Reagan communicates with. I didn't even have to look this up? Uh through her Wegi board? Geez, I don't remember Captain Howdy? Shut up? No, do you remember? Now? Captain Howdy was who she's talking with? Who is the devil? I guess that was one of his aliases. I wonder if he has like a double passport that says Captain Howdy on the whole Satan Lucifer. Yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah,

it's true. That makes it a little less frightening. So um, what was that the early seventies that exercise came out right, I think? Um? And the Wigi board, the one she was playing with, I believe was a Parker Brothers Buigi board. Was it now has bro Um and that was this mass manufactured, mass marketed toy game. But it was actually based on like a real phenomenon that we've talked about

here on this show. Before the spiritualism movement of the nineteenth century, the Luigi board first made its appearance around then. Supposedly they claimed providence for this way further back than that, but there's no real evidence that the Luigi board itself is any older than the mid nineteenth century and that

it's American in origin. Yeah, the actual Wijia brand board is what you're talking about, right, right, or talking boards in general, which is another name for like a Wuiji board as a talking board, but not all talking boards are Wigi boards, that's right. So you're saying there's no evidence that they existed before, like in the eight hundreds before that. Before that, No, there there people did use divination.

There is a pretty good source a fourth century BC Greek scholar who wrote a history um who talks about a pair of men who were killed for dividor for using divination. But they used a pendulum and a disc with the alphabet around it to spell out a message. So there were divinations. People did use um like alpha style. Yeah,

I don't know if they use a plan chet. But the Wigi board itself, despite being marketed for many years, is something from Egyptian antiquity, is probably something no or that was created no earlier in the mid nineteenth century in the States. Well and is Uh an attorney name Alijaban patented what was called the Uijia Egyptian luck board. Um. And it's important to point out when when these things are marketed, they when you read the fine print, they never claim to be able to, you know, talk with

the spirits. It's like just sort of it's a game, right, It's a game now, And it was once it became mass marketed, they they started the Yeah, but in one it was part of this larger offshoot of spiritualism. Yeah. And we talked a bit about egythology, and it's sort of all ties in seances were big. Do you remember they cracked the hieroglyphic code from the Rosetta Stone just a couple of decades before. So Egypt was like this weird place with all sorts of strange cults and rituals. Yeah.

And it's just it's strange to me that something like the occult, even on a minor level, sort of took hold in the United States at one point. Uh. And I don't know how if it was except to buy the masses, but like you know, regular people and noteworthy people would hold seances and try to communicate with their dead relatives, usually through a medium who was usually female. You're right, you know there weren't a lot of dudes

doing it. Uh No, there are a lot of dudes who were involved in it, but the mediums were typically female, and a lot of them used things that were like the Luigi board talking boards. Yeah, like they you mentioned the dial plate, which was a spinning wheel with letters and numbers, and the alphabet board, which was sort of like a Weigia board, but um, you just pointed to different letters and waited for a response from the great beyond. Some had a little pencil that would like actually write

things out right. That used the plan chet, which is French for a little plank, which is a little uh, a little board or something maybe like a circular disc on three legs, and then one of the legs for a writing plan chet. Um was basically a whole with a pencil going through it, so that when the planet moved using the medium's hands, but the spirit was really in control, the pencil would write something hopefully. Uh So

back to the Wiji board, the official game version. Over about seventy years, it changed ownership a few times, eventually landing at Parker Brothers, which is now has Bro. Like you pointed out right, Elijah Bon, the guy who, um, he didn't come up with the first Ouiji board, but he was the first one to make an improvement on an existing patent and um, the Wuiji board, as we understand it, that was his how we see it now, and he actually went off after he sold the rights

to it to a guy named um Charles Nard. Uh, Elijah Bon went off and created a rival version that had a huge swastika on. It didn't perform so well. Uh no, it did at first, because we're talking, I could have that association was still like a mystical symbol. But it was made by the Swastika Novelty Company in West Virginia that he founded to produce this rival board, and it's considered his other Wigi board. That's pretty funny, isn't that weird? Yeah? My friend, my friend Jesse char

the other day tweeted something funny about design. I think it was something like, of design is trying to make something not look like a swastika or a penis. Al thought that was pretty good. Did she make that up or have you heard that? I have not heard of that alright, so I'm giving credit to Jesse char So,

um check. The point is that Weiji board took this, this thing that was being used by mediums as part of a very serious spiritualism movement and said, hey, you don't need um this crazy old lady to contact your dead uncle. Now you can buy one and do it in your own home over cocktails, exactly. Um. And a lot of people took it like that from the get go. I think some people probably purchased Wiji boards seriously, but I think from from the outset it was a part

of a party. It was a conversation starter. Yeah, yeah, something that that you just did socially too, for fun, for sure. I think that there was always a large segment of the Wegi board buying population that just took it as as entertainment. Yeah, exactly, which it's probably how you should take it. Uh. From Kennard, he had an employee named William fold f U l D who uh who basically took it over to the point where he even stamped his name inventor on the back of it,

even though he wasn't. And he's credited as being sort of the father of the Wigia board because he's the one that really ran with it in a marketing sense and brought it to the masses, and UH would do all the press for it. Um He claimed that the French and German words for yes, we and yah is

where the name comes from, even though that's not true. Well, even before that, Charles Kinnard said that Um he came up with the name by asking the board itself what it was called, and it's spelled out O U I J, And he asked it what it meant, and the board told him it was Egyptian for good luck. So that was the story. And then yeah, I guess Fold was like it means yes and yes, yes and yes pretty

much in French and German. It's pretty good. So, like we said, um, Fold sold it to Parker Brothers, who turned into Hasbro, and now when you buy a Wigi brand Wigi board, it's from Hasbro. Yeah. And the article here makes a point to U two call out the Catholics for um, basically saying that it could be an evil thing and not to use it. But as a little Baptist boy, we were very much told not to use a Weigia board. I remember specifically, um my uncle

like burning his Wigia board. Yeah, did he go out and buy it just so he could burn it? Now we got a party going in my house. Yeah, it's prettyunny to look back. When I was a kid, I was like, yes, get rid of that evil thing. Were you there when he burned it? No? I wasn't there, but I heard about it, and that was just good for him. That's cool throwing candy Land while you're at it, because that game stinks? What it was? The Shoots and Ladders?

I never played that? Sorry? Remember that one? Yeah? That one made you like hate the other people you played with though, right, didn't couldn't you like get ahead by screwing over your fellow players? That's I think that's why it was called Sorry. Yeah, I think like if you landed on someone, you sent him back at the beginning. And yeah, yeah, maybe I just played with Jerk soon knows. Maybe so? Um so chuck the Buigi board um From the original Bond creation to the one you get today

from Parker Brothers, the design of it has changed very little. Yeah, I guess we should describe it. I mean, I assume most people have seen one, although you know I've never used one. Have you? Oh? Yeah, when I was younger, I'd totally be into trying it out. It's neat for fun, you know, it's very neat, because I mean the thing is just moving around the board by itself. All right. So we will describe the board if you have not seen it. Um. It has the alphabet and two different arcs,

has numbers below the alphabets. It has a yes in one corner with I think a moon, and a no in one corner with the sun. And therein lie the answers. My friend, Oh, don't forget the most important part, basically what amounts to the off button. It's goodbye written at the bottom number. So yeah, it's sort of like a satanic magic eight ball kind of, except this really works

and it's not satanic, right. Um. So the way that you use um this talking board um, which again, if you're interested in this and you want to see some pretty cool old Buiji boards and the Swastika board as well, UM, and another one called the Sphinx board, which I think is the coolest one. It's from like the forties. Um. There's this awesome online museum called the Museum of Talking Boards, and they have histories of all this, the history of

Luigi Board History of Talking Boards. UM. Just some really great articles and images on there, So go check that out because it's a pretty cool website. UM. But when you're when you're using this, um, well, the instructions have stayed the same too, not only the design but the gameplay itself. It's just about the same as it was way back in the nineteenth century, right. And when you use this, they say you want to have two or more people UM with their fingers lightly resting, just your

fingertips lightly resting on the plant chet. And we should say the plant chet um like the other plant chet that used a pencil to write. It's just a little um plastic heart shape board, I guess, with three small legs and then a circular um plastic covered disc in the middle, clear plastic disc that you look through, and the disc shows you the letter number or word that the spirit is community hating. That's right. When you look down through the plane chet, that's the letter word in question.

That's right. So you sit there, you ask a question aloud. Everyone concentrates, no no joking around going on, no even Fold himself said, do you want to make sure that the people who are at the table are taking this seriously or else second or words right? Well, even though it was advertised for mirthmaking, you gotta cut the mirth down when you're actually operating the board. Take the guy who has the lampshade on his head, He's got to

get out of that room. Uh So, then you ask the question, and then everyone watches, and the plan chet as if by magic or Satan's dark powers, moves along

in either answers yes or no questions, or spells things out. Um, you want somebody to jot down yeah, sure, the letters or numbers as they are read out, and and in the article it says ideally they spell out words or sentences they can the players can understand, right, Um, Like it would if it's spelled out a nonsense word like wegia, you would probably just say it's it's malfunctioning, or you would say what does that mean, and then it would spell out it's Egyptian for good luck, or German and

French free. Yes. I wonder if Weji boards always answer the same when you ask them what wegia means. I don't know. I started saying it differently all of a sudden, Sidewigi, I just said wegia a couple of times. Interesting, how do you pronounce the thing that you clean your windshield with? That a squiga or a squeegee? Yeah, but that's s q u E g e E. There's three ees. No,

I'm just kidding. Um. And uh, evidently it can take up to five minutes for the plan chet to start moving, which I don't know if I would have the patience for that, I know I might start moving it on my own. Oh yeah, you know, well then you would be the life of the party, especially if you said, like I'm being contacted by the spirits. Right. If after five minutes you don't get any movement from the plane chet, you want to either ask the question again or ask

another question. Um. And there's some there's some tips for using your jiboard to maximum capacity. Um. One of them is concentration. Again, the dude with the lampshade needs to go sit in the living room watch TV or something while everybody else is doing this. Um, you want to turn down the lights, maybe, burn some candles, burn some in incense, turn off that smartphone and the TV. Maybe. Yeah, And uh, you really want to concentrate and when you

ask questions, you want to ask them slowly, clearly simple questions. Um. And you want to ask them one at a time and wait for the answer the response before you ask the next question. Yeah. And they also recommend that you avoid um scary questions because that could lead you down a dark path, my friend, and always above all else in the game by saying goodbye, because if you leave that portal open to the great beyond, the bad people might come in through that portal and find you and

kill you. Ask Reagan from the Exorcists, right, things can go pretty badly. So you want to end each session with the planchet over goodbye and then breathe a sigh of relief exactly um. And apparently if this doesn't work the first time you do it, you shouldn't be frustrated.

In fact, the Museum of Talking Boards has a regiment that they prescribe um thirty minutes of practice every day for two weeks, and apparently you'll open your chakras or something, and all of a sudden you will be speaking through the Wigi board, or the spirits will be speaking through you go through the Weigi board. Is that before after the opium regimen that they advise, I think the Museum of Talking Boards is Um, they're more historical, they're more

interested in the history background of the whole thing. So let's talk about this for a minute. People sit down, they put their fingertips on this thing. The plan Chett moves. I mean it moves like we're not making this up. Like if you've never messed with a wigi board before, like give it a shot with another friend, and like the chances are the things going to just start moving by itself. It's eerie, especially when you're younger. Now see, I've never done it. I explained this to me. What

do you mean? I will show you so, um, I get it. But the thing, this, this plan Chett, is very light plastic. The feet might even have felt on them or something like that. It's designed to move very easily forward. No I think original Planchet's headcast Um. But you're just basically you're you're being pulled around the table. So you actually want to be in a comfortable position because your fingertips are just sitting on this thing. And then when you ask a question after a while, it'll move.

I've never seen one move fast, but it just moves kind of slow. But I mean there's no question about you're not thinking. Isn't moving like it's moving over to a letter and then it's moving over to another letter and then it's spelling something out. But you are moving it. No, you're not in your head. Here here's the thing, like, let's get to the science of this. You are in fact moving it and there, but you are not conscious of moving it, which is the awesome part of it.

It's this thing called idio motion, Yeah, which is the IDEO and I didn't know if they were just being fancy or not. It can go either way ideo ideo motion, but the the it is an actual involuntary motion. It's one of the types of involuntary motion of which human beings are capable thanks to our muscles and neurons. Yeah. It was coined by do named William Carpenter in to explain dawsing rods, which is the same kind of you

know thing basically, yeah, dawsing rods pendulums um. Idio motion is where thought proceeds precedes movement, and the other part of it is that we're unaware of that movement. Yeah, it's movement without owning that basically, So when you apply that to we ji boards, you have what's called the ideo motor effect, where you your thought is placed in the form of a question to Theuiji board, and then the movement, the unconscious movement. You're not aware that you're moving,

UM moves to answer that question. So if you're thinking yes, like right, am I speaking with uh, you know, great uncle Charlie, and you really want to and you're you're thinking, yeah, man, I hope he's there. So you're unconscious or subconscious? Which is it? I would guess unconscious. I think it's unfashionable to these subconsciousness. UM it would move it to the yes, but you wouldn't realize. You would think it was just moving.

And and that that's where the Weji board fund comes from. Chuck, like you don't realize you're moving it like you you have no sensation of movement. And like you said, this is this idea. Emotion is a UM, it's it's we've understood it for a while since early eighteen hundreds, and even Fold himself in one of his patents said, and I think explained that it was moved by unconscious muscular

movement of the briers. And back in the eighteen hundreds, this guy named Anton chevrel chevrole chavrell he Um basically proved this using a pendulum on a string. Yeah, and it's um. You've probably long heard about the the Old wives tale. If you want to find out what your baby's gender, you hold um like a ring on a string over the ballet and wait for it to move. And if it moves back and forth, it's a boy. That's circular, it's a girl. Um, And it's the same

basic thing. Is this the chevrol pendulum? Basically, it's just idea emotion. In effect, you are unconsciously swinging the string. Yeah, and whichever way you probably desire exactly. That's what makes it so fascinating, is what you're really seeing is the unconscious telegraphing supposedly of the mother's wishes of what gender she would like, because she's in fact controlling it, but she's her muscles are moving so minutely that she's not

aware of the movement. But since the pendulum is on the string, it really kind of really telegraphs these very very tiny movements, and then inertia takes over and it really starts going. So it just seems amazing because the hands not moving, but the ring is going crazy. It's going crazy. Uh, this is the same. If you ever heard of facilitated communication, it's pretty controversial. Um, you've probably

seen it on the news. It's when basically a caregiver will guide the fingers of someone who's severely disabled over a typewriter, typewriter, a typing machine, over a keyboard to a computer. Uh, to supposedly get answers or communicate. Um. And it's very controversial. Uh. It started out in nineteen seven in Australia, this lady named Rosemary Crossley. Um. But the American Psychology Association basically says it's not scientifically valid.

These are people that are just what facilitated communication. Yeah, that they're the caregiver is really guiding this conversation and it's really not coming from the person that's disabled. Right. The thing is is what makes this so tragic and sad is that the caregiver isn't aware that they're actually making these movements. Again, all of this is unconscious. You can't tell you're making this movement. And so since the profoundly handicapped person is moving their hand, the caregiver thinks

that it's them. It's the it's the handicapped persons, not like they're trying to snow somebody. They and they may even really really want this person to communicate and say the things. Yeah, they're still studying at Syracuse University actually has UM since nineteen ninety two. It was the FC Institute now it's the Institute on Communication and Inclusion. Are still studying it. And you know the controversy as usuals between the skeptics and the believers. Oh well, that's that's

the thing. If you want to see who who believes in the idea motor effect, type that into Google. It's all like skeptics dictionary, skeptics, skeptic, Like every entry is skeptic. But if you type in IDEO emotion you get UM. You know, peer reviewed scientific literature on that. It's just the IDEO motor effect is basically taking the proven idea

emotion and applying it to debunk things like Buiji boards. Uh. They did a study in the University of British Columbia just last year and UM basically they said it's strongest when there are multiple people on the plan chet And they tested this by blindfold thing people saying you've got someone else on the board with you, and when in fact there was no one else on the board, the person would still say it was the other person moving it.

They would say there was no other person, right, and then they say, well, then it was the spirits moving in. I guess that's funny that no one says it's the spirits moving into. That's always the other person who's moving in. That's a pretty, um, pretty common trade of any Wiji board game. That you're sitting there going like, you're moving it. No, you're moving it. No, I'm really not moving it. That's

that's how it comes. And then uh, with two people working in tandem, you have two sets of muscles moving unconsciously but you know, making a movement. Um. You have one person relinquishing responsibility because they think it's the other person, which they think freeze the muscles to move even more strongly because you're saying it's not me, it's the other person. Um. And if they both have a common goal, then the

planchet will move even more um briskly. I guess like, if both girls are like, it's gonna move to be R A D, then you know that planchet is gonna move to those letters in that order. But they're both going to be like I'm not moving. Uh, well, hold on, before we get into any real life stories, we want to do a message break and we're back. So should we talk about a couple of these stories, umluigia, Are they real? Are they not stories? Sure? The Herds of

Kansas City, Yeah, this is pretty crazy. Herbert heard killed his wife Nellie, shot her in the back four times. Um, and you would think what a jerk. But what happened was there they were elderly, they were in their set and these um they played with the Wigia board one night and um, Nellie claimed that she received a message saying her husband was stepping out on her. So ar gave like fi dollars to the other lady. Even that's

probably like their life savings, um. And so what happened was Nellie tortured him, tied them to a bed post, whipped him with a knotted rope, burned him with a red hot poker, stabbed a knife into his shins, and forced a confession by holding a gun to his head. And eventually she left the the gun on the bedside table there Herbert got ahold of it and killed her. And UM, can't really blame Herbert and apparently the courts

did not what else you got any other ones? Uh? Yeah, there's a m It was called an Italian enclave in El Cerrito, California. The Italian community there apparently experienced a wave of mass hysteria that landed several people in uh an asylum because of Wiji board use. When the town went crazy. Yeah, one policeman like tore off his clothes and ran into a bank. And um, there's a lot of craziness that happened. It was just massisteria, I guess. And the town was like, you know what, no more

Weiji boards. And finally, in British authors sax Rohmer supposedly came up with his villain Dr Fu Manchu when his Wiji board spelled out Chinaman. So, um, his Wigi board was racist. M yeah, and uh you know he says, that's where it came from. So here's the thing. If you ever want to test whether Wiji boards are the result of idea motion and the players actually moving it or not, to the Goodwill and buy one for three dollars and then and then do this very very simple test.

You blindfold the yours, you turn the board ninety degrees, so that anybody who's memorized the layout of Aligi board can't cheat it right, And then ask them some questions and you're not going to get any kind of sensible answer. And if you do, then you need to trade carefully because you just unlike the gate to the spirit world, don't forget to tell it goodbye, to seal off that gate. I always remember put it on goodbye folks. So uh

you here anything else? I've got nothing else. I feel like here in my forties, after knowing now that they're not evil tools of Satan, then I would like to try it out sometime on a on a Friday night with good friends. Yeah, we'll play little cards against humanity. We'll play some wegia and then risk and risk to wind it all out with the big bang. Um, invite me over. So if you want to learn more about wegia, weigi that kind the thing, you can again go check

out the Museum of Talking Boards. Pretty sweet. And also you should read this article on how stuff works dot com. Type oh U I j A into the handy search bar and it will bring up this article. And since I said, um search bar in there somewhere, I think it's time for listener mail, I'm gonna call this crack baby. Jeez. We we got some good response on the old crack episode, which was a good one. I think kill lately. Hey, guys,

just finished listening to the story on crack cocaine. It reminded me of a story of a crack baby from many years ago. It's round two thousand one. I was doing volunteer work at the local children's hospital in the neonatal I see you holding babies, um. I came in one day and one of the nurses told me to go hold this one particular baby. She told me it was a crack baby that had been crying NonStop for

three days and hadn't slept. So I washed up. I went to go hold this baby, held the baby in my arms and just look that the baby, and the baby was crying, eyes closed NonStop, just crying, crying, crying, crying. After several minutes, the baby's eyes opened a little bit and then closed again, would keep crying, tears or flowing the whole time. After several minutes of that, her eyes would remain open longer and longer, but the baby was

still crying and the tears were still flowing. After several more minutes, the baby's eyes stayed open, looking at me, crying a little bit less. The baby started crying less and less and less, then after several minutes, was smiling, giggling and cooing and making all those nice happy baby noises. After several more minutes of that, the baby's eyes started to close, and soon she was asleep, sleeping for the first time in three days. It was a wonderful experience

that I will remember forever. Jim from Austin, Texas, that's pretty cool. He cooed a crack baby to sleep sooth. He's a sooth sayer. That's soothe coore you go, Jim, Yeah uh, And now he brings it Christmas presents every year. That would be a great story. Do it, Jim. Uh. If you have something to tell us that you've done based on something we talked about, I would say that's that Jim story falls under that umbrella, wouldn't you We

want to hear about it. Basically, just let us have it on Twitter at s y s K podcast on Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know via email at Stuff podcast at Discovery dot com, and like we said at the beginning, hang out with us at our home on the web. Bring a smoking jacket and some slippers, and we'll chill out at Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com. Brought to you by the all new twenty fourteen Toyota Corolla