Fortune Telling?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

There was incident some time back when I was in class with some classmates and they decided to use play some "pencil spirit" game and tried some fortune foretelling. I know there are many other variants of this, but some of the interesting stuff that came out of it was some actual true answers, not least we had a pencil dragging 2 people round the table because the 2 people didn't set things up right, and I'm not kidding that the pencil could move of its own accord.

I wonder if anyone has tried to come up with an explanation, a scientific one, for such... phenomena.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

There was incident some time back when I was in class with some classmates and they decided to use play some "pencil spirit" game and tried some fortune foretelling. I know there are many other variants of this, but some of the interesting stuff that came out of it was some actual true answers, not least we had a pencil dragging 2 people round the table because the 2 people didn't set things up right, and I'm not kidding that the pencil could move of its own accord.

I wonder if anyone has tried to come up with an explanation, a scientific one, for such... phenomena.

Short answer. Yes. It's called the Ideomotor effect. Read and be amazed.

[Covenant]

Penn and Teller also debunked the hell out of this phenomenon on Bullshit! using the same sorts of things. It's always a false positive, there's never actually a force controlling anything. Even when it spells out names, it's nothing, and you can make people spell out the names of certain people if you give them a BS story about that person having died there, even if they're still alive and kickin'. ;D

[Darth Wong]

There was incident some time back when I was in class with some classmates and they decided to use play some "pencil spirit" game and tried some fortune foretelling. I know there are many other variants of this, but some of the interesting stuff that came out of it was some actual true answers, not least we had a pencil dragging 2 people round the table because the 2 people didn't set things up right, and I'm not kidding that the pencil could move of its own accord.

If that pencil could move of its own accord, then why did you have to hold onto it? Surely this powerful mystical force could move the pencil even more easily if you let it go, right? Why don't you try doing the math on moving a pencil by itself, as opposed to a pencil with people holding onto it?

I wonder if anyone has tried to come up with an explanation, a scientific one, for such... phenomena.

I've got one: you're a gullible fool.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

There was incident some time back when I was in class with some classmates and they decided to use play some "pencil spirit" game and tried some fortune foretelling. I know there are many other variants of this, but some of the interesting stuff that came out of it was some actual true answers, not least we had a pencil dragging 2 people round the table because the 2 people didn't set things up right, and I'm not kidding that the pencil could move of its own accord.

I wonder if anyone has tried to come up with an explanation, a scientific one, for such... phenomena.

Short answer. Yes. It's called the Ideomotor effect. Read and be amazed.

Hmm... was a paper on this ever published and subjected to debate? Wouldn't mind reading it.

[General Zod]

There was incident some time back when I was in class with some classmates and they decided to use play some "pencil spirit" game and tried some fortune foretelling. I know there are many other variants of this, but some of the interesting stuff that came out of it was some actual true answers, not least we had a pencil dragging 2 people round the table because the 2 people didn't set things up right, and I'm not kidding that the pencil could move of its own accord.

I wonder if anyone has tried to come up with an explanation, a scientific one, for such... phenomena.

Short answer. Yes. It's called the Ideomotor effect. Read and be amazed.

Hmm... was a paper on this ever published and subjected to debate? Wouldn't mind reading it.

You mean like one of the cited links that's posted at the bottom of the very page Terwynn gave to you?

[Dalton]

Randi.org: Ideomotor Effect

Randi.org: Automatic Writing

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Short answer. Yes. It's called the Ideomotor effect. Read and be amazed.

Hmm... was a paper on this ever published and subjected to debate? Wouldn't mind reading it.

You mean like one of the cited links that's posted at the bottom of the very page Terwynn gave to you?

Wouldn't something like this be chronicled in some medical journal of repute?

[B5B7]

Wouldn't something like this be chronicled in some medical journal of repute?

Possibly - I imagine there are many articles in journals and books of psychology.

Here is another link, that leads to other links:ouija board

[Darth Wong]

It never fails to amaze me that people think some kind of supernatural explanation is necessary for the movements of a pencil or ouija marker which someone is holding in his hand. Gee, you don't think the hand might be making it move, right?

[The Jester]

I would guess that since the person is not consciously controlling their own movements, they therefore conclude that they cannot be the source of the motion. Somehow they completely forget about what happens when boiling water spills on their hand. It's as though they do not want to lose a sense of control about themselves by acknowledging that their body can act without conscious thought, so they delude themselve into thinking that there is an external force and that they always retain full conscious control of their limbs.

[Lagmonster]

I would guess that since the person is not consciously controlling their own movements, they therefore conclude that they cannot be the source of the motion. Somehow they completely forget about what happens when boiling water spills on their hand. It's as though they do not want to lose a sense of control about themselves by acknowledging that their body can act without conscious thought, so they delude themselve into thinking that there is an external force and that they always retain full conscious control of their limbs.

Most of the time it's simpler than that. A person normally already believes in ghosts, and will then take whatever appears at first glance to be 'evidence' of his position and claim it as such, ignoring all arguments against it.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Wouldn't something like this be chronicled in some medical journal of repute?

Possibly - I imagine there are many articles in journals and books of psychology.

Here is another link, that leads to other links:ouija board

No need to imagine. Just plug the phrase into scholar.google.com and be amazed.

Article in Pediatrics -- Noting that certain "alternative" therapies for treating children are more readily explained via the ideomotor effect.

A military article -- This one mentioning ideomotor effect with regards to what turned out to be a glorified dowsing rod.

Abstract on article specifically about the phenomena -- Specifically offering a neurological explanation for the effect. The whole article requires paying someone $30.00, or finding the journal at your local college's science library.

<ADDENDUM>

Also, plug the phrase ideomotor principle into scholar.google.com.

[The Jester]

Most of the time it's simpler than that. A person normally already believes in ghosts, and will then take whatever appears at first glance to be 'evidence' of his position and claim it as such, ignoring all arguments against it.

People don't tend to believe in things like ghosts unless there is an element of peer pressure or the person feels that they cannot explain whatever phenomenon they expereinced any other way (or both). What I do find curious is that people usually automatically disregard the frailty of their own perceptions, despite the fact that these frailties are easily demonstratable in every day life.

[Vendetta]

It never fails to amaze me that people think some kind of supernatural explanation is necessary for the movements of a pencil or ouija marker which someone is holding in his hand. Gee, you don't think the hand might be making it move, right?

Obviously you have to hold on to the pencil to stop the spirit from whisking it away to whatever æthereal realm it calls home.

This is why you can never find pencils, even if you're sure you only just put them down a minute ago. They are taken by spirits.

[LadyTevar]

I just want an explaination for how the two girls playing with the Ouija board five feet away from me were spelling out my silent thoughts.

No, I was not talking to either of them. I was not touching the board, it was on the floor with them around it and I was a full five feet away sitting down on the dorm bed watching them play. They had no clue what it was spelling out, as it was something I'd never discussed with them. Yet the board was moving to the letters as I thought them.

It still creeps me out.

[Ravencrow]

Obviously you have to hold on to the pencil to stop the spirit from whisking it away to whatever æthereal realm it calls home.

This is why you can never find pencils, even if you're sure you only just put them down a minute ago. They are taken by spirits.

What they say is that the spirit will come out and haunt the person who takes his finger off the medium device during the session. They tend to use coins in my side of the world. I didn't play it only because I didn't want to scare myself to death. I've had friends who gave themselves unnecessary nightmares over things like this.

[Stark]

That's why the CIA uses ouija boards to hunt terrorists.

It's not a boardgame made in the 19th century by a Maryland novelty company at all.

[Darth Wong]

I just want an explaination for how the two girls playing with the Ouija board five feet away from me were spelling out my silent thoughts.

No, I was not talking to either of them. I was not touching the board, it was on the floor with them around it and I was a full five feet away sitting down on the dorm bed watching them play. They had no clue what it was spelling out, as it was something I'd never discussed with them. Yet the board was moving to the letters as I thought them.

It still creeps me out.

That's because you were subconsciously playing along with the game, forming the thought as their letters began to form in the same way that people start forming a sentence when they see a half-formed sentence on Wheel of Fortune. There's a reason why skeptics never seem to experience these things; they aren't helping it along in their heads.

It would be a lot more impressive if you wrote down a sentence on paper in such a manner that it was impossible for any kind of signalling to go on, and then they spell out that sentence verbatim without having had any pre-arranged contact or other cheating.

[Stark]

It would be a lot more impressive if you wrote down a sentence on paper in such a manner that it was impossible for any kind of signalling to go on, and then they spell out that sentence verbatim without having had any pre-arranged contact or other cheating.

It'd also be world-defining signals technology, and win the Randi prize.

[wolveraptor]

Ouija boards are fun. Some of my dumbass friends take them seriously, so whenever I have my hands on one, I always make an effort to guide the thing towards spelling the word "penis".

[Patrick Degan]

Ouija boards are fun. Some of my dumbass friends take them seriously, so whenever I have my hands on one, I always make an effort to guide the thing towards spelling the word "penis".

Or guide it along to the result from a Monty Python skit: U-P-Y-O-U-R-S.

[Medic]

Okay, like, one time I was at a friend's birthday party and like, we TOTALLY busted out a weegie board.

Funny thing. Nothing moved. [well to be honest, it did, very obviously forcibly after everyone was awkwardly aware of the fact that it was BS]

[Dooey Jo]

One time I asked the Ouija spirit what the then-recently crashed Russian space station was called. The fucking moron didn't even have a clue. Some all-knowing mystical entity, eh
Heh, if they ever do it again, when they ask if there's a spirit present, I think I'll secretly guide the glass to the "no" answer...

This is why you can never find pencils, even if you're sure you only just put them down a minute ago. They are taken by spirits.

Isn't that also why socks always magically vanish in the laundry?

[Vendetta]

Isn't that also why socks always magically vanish in the laundry?

No, that's poltergeists. See, they don't actually steal the sock, just move it out of the laundry box when you aren't looking, so you find it just after you start the wash cycle.