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William Seger

(10,742 posts)
Sat Jun 14, 2014, 10:33 AM Jun 2014

The Strange and Mysterious History of the Ouija Board

Last edited Sat Jun 14, 2014, 11:04 AM - Edit history (1)

Their initial experiments involved a Ouija-playing robot: Participants were told that they were playing with a person in another room via teleconferencing; the robot, they were told, mimicked the movements of the other person. In actuality, the robot’s movements simply amplified the participants’ motions and the person in the other room was just a ruse, a way to get the participant to think they weren’t in control. Participants were asked a series of yes or no, fact-based questions (“Is Buenos Aires the capital of Brazil? Were the 2000 Olympic Games held in Sydney?”) and expected to use the Ouija board to answer.

What the team found surprised them: When participants were asked, verbally, to guess the answers to the best of their ability, they were right only around 50 percent of the time, a typical result for guessing. But when they answered using the board, believing that the answers were coming from someplace else, they answered correctly upwards of 65 percent of the time. “It was so dramatic how much better they did on these questions than if they answered to the best of their ability that we were like, ‘This is just weird, how could they be that much better?’” recalled Fels. “It was so dramatic we couldn’t believe it.” The implication was, Fels explained, that one’s non-conscious was a lot smarter than anyone knew.


Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-strange-and-mysterious-history-of-the-ouija-board-5860627/?all

(Edit: Fixed link to first page.)
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The Strange and Mysterious History of the Ouija Board (Original Post) William Seger Jun 2014 OP
cool results whatever the cause. thanks for posting this. Tuesday Afternoon Jun 2014 #1
It's definitely Satan. Be very askeered! tridim Jun 2014 #7
funny. Someone over at Discussionist signed up under that very name = Satan Tuesday Afternoon Jun 2014 #8
Interesting. TDale313 Jun 2014 #2
Fascinating libodem Jun 2014 #3
This is why I love DU. xfundy Jun 2014 #4
"internal" and "external": how cute we mortals are! MisterP Jun 2014 #5
The Krell developed an advanced technology based on this mysterious force bananas Jun 2014 #6
"a set of Ouija board bra and underwear" muriel_volestrangler Jun 2014 #9

Tuesday Afternoon

(56,912 posts)
8. funny. Someone over at Discussionist signed up under that very name = Satan
Mon Jun 16, 2014, 11:13 AM
Jun 2014

cue The Twilight Zone Theme Song.

TDale313

(7,820 posts)
2. Interesting.
Sat Jun 14, 2014, 11:05 AM
Jun 2014

If I had to guess, more than anything, feeling the answers were coming from or reinforced by another source eliminated a lot of internal second guessing. (Was it A? I think it's A. Or no, maybe B. I'm going with B) This maybe just helped them trust what they already knew a bit better?

bananas

(27,509 posts)
6. The Krell developed an advanced technology based on this mysterious force
Sun Jun 15, 2014, 01:45 PM
Jun 2014
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krell

In the classic 1956 science fiction film, Forbidden Planet, the extinct race of advanced beings of the planet Altair IV are known as the "Krell". The Krell had reached a stage of technological and scientific development so advanced that they were able to construct a vast underground machine with virtually unlimited power; a machine that could turn thoughts into reality and project that reality anywhere on the planet.

Another Krell device that played a prominent role in the movie was their plastic educator, a device able to create a three-dimensional visualization of the operator's thoughts while acting directly on the brain to measure intelligence and impart knowledge. Although previously demonstrated fatal to humans, its use by Dr. Morbius had boosted his IQ such that he could understand some of the basic science of the Krell (allowing him, for instance, to "tinker together" the amazing Robby the Robot.) When Lt. "Doc" Ostrow tried it he gained the ability to reason out and tell Commander J.J. Adams what had caused the downfall of the Krell – "Monsters from the Id" – but it also caused fatal injury to his brain.

At the opening of the film Dr. Morbius, the lone researcher studying the extinct Krell, does not know exactly what happened to them; nor does he know what they looked like. No record of their physical nature has survived except in the form of their characteristic arch; the doorway used to move between rooms. This doorway, much wider at the middle than at the top and bottom, suggests a being of enormous girth.

Morbius has discovered that in a single day and night, over 2,000 centuries past, the entire Krell race disappeared and in the time since all above-ground evidence of their civilization has disappeared (likely a nod to Plato's tale of Atlantis.) Later in the film we learn that the Krell's 8,000-cubic-mile (33,000 km3) machine was so advanced that it gave physical form and life to their Id. Even for the advanced Krell this Freudian personality characteristic, although long forgotten, had not been eliminated. When combined with the power of their machine, the unbridled emotions of their Ids were all at once let loose to eradicate the entire Krell race.

muriel_volestrangler

(101,149 posts)
9. "a set of Ouija board bra and underwear"
Thu Jun 19, 2014, 12:07 PM
Jun 2014
Hot Topic, mall favorite of Gothy teens, sells a set of Ouija board bra and underwear

Well, if you know someone gullible enough that they'd fall for "can you strip down to your underwear, I just need to ask if Auntie May is happy in heaven", it could help ...
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