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It's vintage! Sell it on eBay! Then it will bring you good luck. :D
 
They were sold like this up to the early '70s at least. my family had them then.

We have several threads on then as you'll know.
I remember the chain store BEATIES still selling them, only one aisle away from the Star Wars toys, in the children's toys department in the late 70's, around The Empire Strikes Back time so more like 1980? ..
 
I recall the following article and maybe of interest?

How Ouija boards work. (Hint: It's not ghosts.)

By Aja Romano on September 6, 2018

It’s that time of year again — the season when paranormal entities come out to play. But if you’re thinking about grabbing a Ouija board for your next conversation with the other side, you might want to think again.

Despite their long history as hoax spiritualist devices turned hit toys turned tools of the devil, Ouija boards won’t actually put you in contact with demons or spirits. Any scary firsthand reports you might hear or read of real-life Ouija board horror stories are exaggerations, false claims, or a misunderstanding of how Ouija boards actually work.

That might be disappointing news if you’re hosting a Halloween sleepover, but it might also leave you asking, “How do Ouija boards work?” The answer is surprisingly simple.

[...]

In fact, there’s a simple scientific explanation: The mysterious mechanism that powers the Ouija board is called the ideomotor effect (pronounced “idio-mo-tor” or “id-ee-aah-meh-ter”), and it’s basically a way for your body to talk to itself.

The ideomotor effect is an example of unconscious, involuntary physical movement — that is, we move when we’re not trying to move. If you’ve ever experienced the sudden feeling of jerking awake from sleep (known as the hypnic jerk), you’ve experienced a more abrupt version of the ideomotor effect: your brain signaling your body to move without your conscious awareness. The obvious difference is that the ideomotor effect happens when you’re awake, so the reflexive movements you make are much smaller.

In the case of a Ouija board, your brain may unconsciously create images and memories when you ask the board questions. Your body responds to your brain without you consciously “telling” it to do so, causing the muscles in your hands and arms to move the pointer to the answers that you — again, unconsciously — may want to receive.

There are multiple scientific studies that have shown various instances of the ideomotor effect in action. In one well-known and oft-repeated variant of the Ouija board test, blindfolded participants spell much more incoherent messages. (You can try this one at home.)

These experiments easily demonstrate that the Ouija board only works when the participants are able to manipulate the pointer themselves. If a ghost or spirit were really in the room, it would be able to direct the planchette to spell out coherent messages without any assistance. But there is no ghost, and when the Ouija board users are deprived of their ability to spell out words they can see, the game rapidly devolves into gibberish.

[...]

https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2016/10/29/13301590/how-ouija-boards-work-debunked-ideomotor-effect
 
I recall the following article and maybe of interest?

How Ouija boards work. (Hint: It's not ghosts.)

By Aja Romano on September 6, 2018

It’s that time of year again — the season when paranormal entities come out to play. But if you’re thinking about grabbing a Ouija board for your next conversation with the other side, you might want to think again.

Despite their long history as hoax spiritualist devices turned hit toys turned tools of the devil, Ouija boards won’t actually put you in contact with demons or spirits. Any scary firsthand reports you might hear or read of real-life Ouija board horror stories are exaggerations, false claims, or a misunderstanding of how Ouija boards actually work.

That might be disappointing news if you’re hosting a Halloween sleepover, but it might also leave you asking, “How do Ouija boards work?” The answer is surprisingly simple.

[...]

In fact, there’s a simple scientific explanation: The mysterious mechanism that powers the Ouija board is called the ideomotor effect (pronounced “idio-mo-tor” or “id-ee-aah-meh-ter”), and it’s basically a way for your body to talk to itself.

The ideomotor effect is an example of unconscious, involuntary physical movement — that is, we move when we’re not trying to move. If you’ve ever experienced the sudden feeling of jerking awake from sleep (known as the hypnic jerk), you’ve experienced a more abrupt version of the ideomotor effect: your brain signaling your body to move without your conscious awareness. The obvious difference is that the ideomotor effect happens when you’re awake, so the reflexive movements you make are much smaller.

In the case of a Ouija board, your brain may unconsciously create images and memories when you ask the board questions. Your body responds to your brain without you consciously “telling” it to do so, causing the muscles in your hands and arms to move the pointer to the answers that you — again, unconsciously — may want to receive.

There are multiple scientific studies that have shown various instances of the ideomotor effect in action. In one well-known and oft-repeated variant of the Ouija board test, blindfolded participants spell much more incoherent messages. (You can try this one at home.)

These experiments easily demonstrate that the Ouija board only works when the participants are able to manipulate the pointer themselves. If a ghost or spirit were really in the room, it would be able to direct the planchette to spell out coherent messages without any assistance. But there is no ghost, and when the Ouija board users are deprived of their ability to spell out words they can see, the game rapidly devolves into gibberish.

[...]

https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2016/10/29/13301590/how-ouija-boards-work-debunked-ideomotor-effect

I'm always more interested in the alleged "psychic" or mental health issues that arise from the use of the boards.
 
I remember the chain store BEATIES still selling them, only one aisle away from the Star Wars toys, in the children's toys department in the late 70's, around The Empire Strikes Back time so more like 1980? ..
I saw one in a smart gift shop display in Vienna in 2004. Looked a little out of place.
 
If a ghost or spirit were really in the room, it would be able to direct the planchette to spell out coherent messages without any assistance.
I recall an experiment where the participants were blindfolded allowing the “Spirits” to utilise their bodies/energy to manipulate the planchette without the participants seeing where it was going.
As expected it went to rat shit!
 
As expected it went to rat shit!
What if, though, a spirit was dependent on the person being able to see?

Is there an argument for this?

The question arose from reading our aforenoted article and realising that whilst statedly a debunking exercise, it had that essence, for myself, of being unbridled scepticism.
 
What if, though, a spirit was dependent on the person being able to see?

Is there an argument for this?

It doesn't seem contrary to the whole idea, at any rate. I mean, the idea of spirits influencing the human-induced movement of the planchette always seemed less a question of supernaturally-induced movement and more a matter of mediumship on the part of the humans. So seeing through the human's eyes would be no different than making use of the human's language skills or writing ability in other medium-type things.
 
It doesn't seem contrary to the whole idea, at any rate. I mean, the idea of spirits influencing the human-induced movement of the planchette always seemed less a question of supernaturally-induced movement and more a matter of mediumship on the part of the humans. So seeing through the human's eyes would be no different than making use of the human's language skills or writing ability in other medium-type things.

And the post-effect of not closing the session?
 
And the post-effect of not closing the session?
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Me and a couple of mates tried a makeshift ouija session aged 16 in a holiday chalet. We got some accurate answers out of it but I'm 99%
sure it was one of the lads nudging things along. It felt spooky for the rest of the holiday, mind.
Prior to that (aged 13\14 in the early 70s) a schoolmate said his brother had a ouija and the answers were always accurate. He asked around for any questions to pass on to his brother. I had just borrowed "The Scoriton Mystery" from the local library, so I asked the lad to pass on to his brother the question "Where is Yamski?". Other lads gave him their own questions.
Next day he came in and reeled off the answers from the ouija. "Dan, I don't understand this but your answer is Venus".
Wow! I thought. (It probably turned out the brother had also read the book though!)
 
I saw one in a smart gift shop display in Vienna in 2004. Looked a little out of place.
A Beaties?

I can imagine that WOULD look rather odd. The thought of cramming a major department store into a small gift shop gives me a headache TBH.
 
Can the dead die a second time? What if there's an afterlife after the afterlife?

I guess you haven't seen Game of Thrones, then. I refer to Beric Dondarrion being riased from the dead six times. He claimed there was nothing on the other side, only darkness.
 
Plus - as has been pointed out more than once - Derek Acorah has been very quiet since he died.
I'd imagine that as soon as he 'crossed over' he was brought before some sort of spectral court, on charges of crimes against the spectral world, and is currently serving a very long sentance in ghost prison, unable to communicate with the outside world :p
 
I'd imagine that as soon as he 'crossed over' he was brought before some sort of spectral court, on charges of crimes against the spectral world, and is currently serving a very long sentance in ghost prison, unable to communicate with the outside world :p
That idea should not please me as much as it does!! :p
 
From the Public Domain Review:
https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/jap-herron-a-novel-written-from-the-ouija-board-1917

"Jap Herron: a novel written from the ouija board, with an introduction, The coming of Jap Herron; 1917. . . .Jap Herron was a novel written, supposedly, by a deceased Mark Twain from beyond the grave, dictated via the medium of a Ouija board. The scribe (faithfully taking down notes, or perhaps a little more than just that, depending on your view) was Emily Grant Hutchings, a woman who had actually corresponded with Twain 15 years earlier. [A] New York Times article of the time remarks, Jap Herron was 'the third novel in the last few months that has claimed the authorship of some dead and gone being who, unwilling to give up human activities, has appeared to find in the ouija board a material means of expression'."
 
From the Public Domain Review:
https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/jap-herron-a-novel-written-from-the-ouija-board-1917

"Jap Herron: a novel written from the ouija board, with an introduction, The coming of Jap Herron; 1917. . . .Jap Herron was a novel written, supposedly, by a deceased Mark Twain from beyond the grave, dictated via the medium of a Ouija board. The scribe (faithfully taking down notes, or perhaps a little more than just that, depending on your view) was Emily Grant Hutchings, a woman who had actually corresponded with Twain 15 years earlier. [A] New York Times article of the time remarks, Jap Herron was 'the third novel in the last few months that has claimed the authorship of some dead and gone being who, unwilling to give up human activities, has appeared to find in the ouija board a material means of expression'."
Nowadays it would be possible for an AI to determine whether these 'works' are by Twain or just someone simulating him.
 
Nowadays it would be possible for an AI to determine whether these 'works' are by Twain or just someone simulating him.
Probably anyone who has read a lot of Twain's work could tell if it was a written by him or not. I can't imagine how tedious it would be to write a book dictated through a ouija board. One letter at a time. :hahazebs:
 
Nowadays it would be possible for an AI to determine whether these 'works' are by Twain or just someone simulating him.
The New York Times reviewer didn't need any high tech AI to reach a conclusion ...
If this is the best that "Mark Twain" can do by reaching across the barrier, the army of admirers that his works have won for him will all hope that he will hereafter respect that boundary.
:evillaugh:
The New York Times, September 9, 1917: Book Review Section, p. 336

SOURCE: http://www.twainquotes.com/19170909.html
 
I have a oija board experience that was quite weird. My co-worker who I talked to a lot at work invited me and 2 other women over for tea and cake one day. We had a nice time. One woman read cards and so she read everyone's cards. Then my co-worker pulled out the ouija board and we took turns on it. The other two women went first. And each of them asked "How many life times have I had on earth" :hahazebs: And they got numbers like 23 or 57, one of the other 3 got 98 (!), anyway, when it was my turn I asked the question and got 3 and the others all went "Ahhhh" like I am some kind of substandard person or something but they want to be nice. :hahazebs: The other two women left and I stayed because my friend wanted to keep asking questions. She was asking things about her ex-husband and the oija board was lying. I knew it because I can feel the energy. Before we had always stated "We only want interaction with loving beings." But this time she just jumped in and started asking questions. It told her that her ex was dead, and it was her ex and it was very angry with her. I stopped it by saying "Is this s loving entity?" and it said "no", at which point my friend freaked out and said "What do you want?" It said "3 goats and a virgin." At which point my friend jumped up and ran out of the house, the ouija board flying up and onto the floor. I followed her out of the house and we stood there for a minute until she could compose herself to go back in. We put the ouija board away and I went home. If you play with a ouija board it is a good idea to state who or what you want to communicate with. That was the last time I ever used one. Not long after that I moved to another town for a better job. I heard that my co-worker had become very religious. I guess she was scared after that experience.
 
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