This is from the skeptical inquirer:
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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 some time Have an unbiased 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. 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, but it is hardly a sufficient reason for concluding that the messages issue from anything but our own minds.

I had one, but my pet rock pissed on it and ruined it. It never worked again.

Its not just a mass produced game. This kid I was talking about had a similar type game (home made) they play back home in Indonesia. The more I think about it, them more questions I have. I am not a believer but there's just something I just can't put my finger on. As far as getting it to work, it doesn't happen all the time but when it did work, it was all fun and games, then it gets serious when the damn thing would move with one finger. that's my one finger and I was NOT pushing or pulling it. How the hell does that happen?

keep you pet rock inside a waterproof Magic 8 Ball

It is decidedly so.

Precisely; a ouija board is an amplification device, as are forked branches, bent metal rods and pendulums.

Regarding dowsing, I'm a dowser and can tell you from personal experience that dowsing does in fact work and can be employed to find not only water.

BTW, I'm a strong advocate of the scientific method being used to attempt to understand and define the universe and am convinced that as yet to be understood scientific principles underlie dowsing, ouija boards and numerous other "mysterious" phenoma.

I'll have to side with you on the dowsing. I once saw a guy use 2 brazing rods bent to an L shape find a water line so we wouldn't dig it up. I accused him of knowing where it was until I found out it had been laid in 1927. He wasn't even born in '27.

Well... C'mon let's hear it

Id have never believed dowsing could work either until I saw a guy do it. Still dont know how its possible.

Probably similar to what happens in automatic writing, in which you hold the pen lightly against the paper, and a spirit moves the pen and uses it to write.

When I was in 6th grade, I went to school one day and found out that a 10-page paper was due that day. I had no idea what my classmates were talking about; maybe I had missed school the day we were given that assignment? Anyway, I told the teacher that I didn't know about the assignment, and he was very kind to me. He said I could sit in the back of the room, and all I had to do that day was write a 10-page paper on any topic I chose.

I sat in the back of the room, pen to paper, trying to figure out a topic that I could write 10 pages about. Suddenly the pen moved by itself, and started writing words in my handwriting. I thought that was very odd. I could read the words as they were being written, and I soon discovered that I was writing about King Charlemagne. There were specific names of people, and exact dates of specific events from many hundreds of years ago, and it was written as if the writer was there in person seeing all these things.

The pen moved as fast as it could. It was writing a lot of words! Page after page. At lunchtime, my friends asked me to go to the cafeteria with them, but I said to go without me, because I wanted to keep writing. It's funny, because as the last sentences were being written (halfway through the afternoon), I could sense that the writer was almost done, and when the final sentence was finished, I knew that was it. The story was complete. I sat and looked at all the pages for a minute, hardly believing that I had finished the assignment! Then I walked up to the teacher's desk and gave him all of the pages. He was pleased. The next day, he asked me how I knew all of the information I had written down. Obviously I *must* have known all of that information, because it was all in my handwriting, right? I told him the truth of what happened. He looked at me, and I could see that he believed me. I never saw that paper again.

He was a good teacher.

_

I imagine there are a lot of 'spirits' out there with good contracts from Milton- Bradley.

I posted this in a 'Lost Rolex' thread awhile back:

This may sound crazy, but I can tell you first hand that it's not - dowse for it. Use a forked stick (any wood species), two brazing rods bent into "L" shapes, or make a pendulum from a piece of string and...any weight.

Google "dowsing". Years ago I was at a friend's and his wife mentioned a diamond ring that had gone missing, but was definitely somewhere in their house. It had been missing for several years.

I made a pendulum and started exploring their large home, beginning in the master bedroom. The pendulum begin swinging, increasing as I approached the husbands walk in closet, then to a sport coat in the back, that he hardly ever wore. The pendulum swung more and more as I neared the inside breast pocket, where the diamond ring was found.

There's no scientific explanation for how this works, but all humans have the ability to some extent. Again, strange, but if you are skeptical, it blocks the ability and nothing happens. This is what happens when scientists gather to witness and document the process - they're scientists and by their very nature skeptical and their negative energy blocks the dowser's ability as well.

I know, sounds all New Age garbage, but believe me, while I'm a right-brained artist type, I have a very strong interest in science. I became interested in dowsing in grad school and read up on it. Turns out you can dowse for anything, not just water; missing people, buried cable, lost jewelry, anything.

Ah, i remember now! It was the summer after grad school, I'd taken a temp. job as a helper on a survey crew for a small neighboring city. We were on our way to the little zoo the city was constructing adjacent to city hall to relocate a new water line's location (workers had knocked out the stakes or whatever).

When we arrived, I happened to find, stashed in the back of the truck, two heavy copper rods bent into "L" shapes. Surveyor told me they were dowsing rods, standard issue to a lot of survey trucks (still? This was many years ago), but he'd never tried using them.

Fascinated, I asked if I could use them to see if I could locate the buried pipe and he told me where and what direction to start walking. As I slowly progressed, suddenly the tods, held close in front of me like pistols, began to slowly rotate until they crossed (for some, the rods will rotate in opposite directions). When they were at 180 deg. opposed, the surveyor told me to stand still while he eyeballed and scratched a line in the dirt to correspond to the angle of the rods.

Surveyor set up his transit, directed me to assist and located the PVC pipe, which was not yet even connected to a water source. It's location was directly below, and precicesly aligned with the line scratched in the dirt.

I was totally intrigued and did a lot of reading and experimenting afterwards. I could recount numerous episodes where, over the years, I've located various objects as well as locations of people's homes on maps, etc. Again, if you're open minded and don't "block the energy" or whatever the hell happens if you doubt it will work, it will definitely work.

Interestingly, the process of dowsing is physically draining. My understanding is that whatever is used, forked stick, pendulum, etc., simply amplifies subtle, unconscious body movements, making them visible.

Give it a try! Believe me, I wouldn't have spent all this time poking at this keyboard if I didn't know all this dowsing stuff to be true. Hope you find the Rolex!

My plumber use that trick all the time to locate pipes, but never on PVC pips. I first read about it in Fine Homebuilding back in college.

dowsing... my cousin makes a fortune dowsing for oil. he's sent around the world finding places to drill. his results match and beat the most sophisticated seismic surveys. he gets large amounts of money when he locates oil deposits and then a percentage when they start producing. took him decades to convince companies it works and found wells for free until they were convinced. now he's bringing in the big bucks. before oil he was traveling the world dowsing for gold. he's got some great stories

Star Jelly

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1346074241.jpg

... :rolleyes::rolleyes:

same here. I tried it with some brazing rods later on and it didn't work for me. Maybe because I didn't believe it would work.

Way back at the dawn of time, or so it now seems I used to prospect for Gold as a hobby. As a condition one of my Partners wanted a map dowsed before commiting for the expedition.HUH! Anyway he had a Topographical map dowsed of the area where we wanted to go. The long and short of it was that one of the two areas the Dowser circled on the map was the only commercial operation in the area...dead on.

As far as the expedition went I knew my Partners expectations were a bit high when he pulled out a gallon sized glass jar. I asked him, "Is that for the Black Sands we are going to get?" He answered, "No it is for the Gold we are going to get." Ohhhh Geezus..

We used Dowsing rods all the time in the water department when I was in the field. I wouldn't wager my career one them. I've had mixed results, some of the old locators were really good with them, but they've all retired. I'm not sure if any locators use them anymore with all the new wands they have now days.

My Mom was into Ouija boards when I was a kid. One day, when I was 17 years old, my Mom & her friend were using one when I came over to the house. I didn't touch it, but they started to ask it questions about me. I was a very naughty kid & it started to tell on me, giving specifics like locations & deeds. This freaked me out. I started to ask questions about my future & it painted a bleak picture. It said I would never marry, have 3 bastards, & spend most of my life in prison. It also said I would be in jail within 2 weeks. My Mom asked if there was any hope & the only thing it said was "Seek God". Two weeks later a counselor at the local juvenile detention center helped me get straightened out.

I had a girlfriend that is very good with Tarot cards. She gave me a couple readings over the 2 years we were together & now does it for a living. I never got anything creepy or malicious from it, astrology seems harmless. I believe Ouija boards & the sort only have power if you give it, faith is pretty powerful, best to stick with the positive.