Here's another Ouija Board one...

[Ellie]

Ok,

so many moons ago myself and friends were hanging about at my house with nothing to do, when a bloke that sometimes hung about with us suggested doing a Ouija Board. Him and his friends did them all the time and were quite addicted to them. I immediately thought "I can't see this working but lets have a go and see". So he drew one up and we started. Nothing much for a while. Then it started moving. I thought, "ok, I wonder who in the group is cheating and moving this then.." Anyway, we kept going and this thing was throwing up all sorts of stuff, like it was an old woman blah blah etc. There were a few other things, but nothing which couldn't have been one of the group messing about.

So i got everyone to shift about so we could have different variations of people doing it. It still seemed to be working. So I decided to ask questions that only I knew the answer to. It worked, but I thought "well perhaps that's just me moving it subconciously or something..." Next I decided to ask something that I didn't even know. I took my hand off it so I couldn't interfere, just in case I did know, and I asked for my uncles date of birth. Now I knew his birthday, but I had no idea what year he was born and my hand was nowhere near it. Noone else even knew I had an uncle. It came up with a date - I was a bit shocked to recognise the birthday was correct. I then went through to ask my mum what year he was born. She told me. It had been correct. "Hmmm" thought I.

By this point I was determined to get to the bottom of this, and the guy who had started it all was keen to show us it worked. So he went to the other side of the room and said he was going to write out a series of random letters and then we should ask the board what he wrote. So I gave him the pen and the paper and off he went. I watched him write (I couldnt see what he was writing). We asked. Up came a series of letters and numbers, about 20 odd characters long - probably too many for someone to easily remember. We had been expecting just letters. But it was right. It matched what he had written.

Now you would think "well maybe he had an accomplice" or things of that ilk. But there was no way he was colluding with the folk at the board. In any case, I then had a shot with the pen and the paper. The board got it again. I found I had no way to explain these things. I felt that for one of so few years I had done a fairly good job of attacking the thing logically and trying to introduce some 'controls' to the proceedings. But there I was - stumped. And not a little shaken to be honest. I was left with no explanation other than SOMETHING knew things and was telling us.

So I don't know why it worked, but it did - and I think I removed any doubt about cheating, subconciously or not etc.. I have to say I don't think I would ever do it again.

[Arouet]

[Ellie]

He he, no someone else was holding it. That WOULD have been more impressive

[Arouet]

These personal anecdotes are so hard to comment on. Not having been there, not having a reliable record of what went on, not having the circumstances, makes it hard to comment.

That being said, seems that it should be pretty easy to design a well controlled study around Ouija boards.

[ProfWag]

Interesting story.
One thing I do know is our memories fade and/or alter many events over time.
If you're honest in your story, which I believe you are, then one of three things happened.
1) Your memory has changed the actual events a bit
2) There were cheaters in the room
3) You were actually communicating with dead people.

[Ellie]

Scary eh? But why does it have to be dead people? Surely that's just one of many posibilities (well I guess it could be), many of which we may not even be capable of beginning to conceive with the current data. But yeah, pretty certain my memory hasn't faded - i've been telling this story since the day after it happened. And maybe there were cheaters, but to this day I simply cannot see how that is possible. If Derren Brown had been in the room, i'd have known it was him of course.

[ProfWag]

[Craig Browning]

[Ellie]

He he, perhaps i'm in the wrong place, but I don't like the words "supernatural" or "paranormal" - I don't see why we should de-lineate things. It's all just stuff isn't it? Some we understand a bit better than others. That's why I made no claim as to what was happening (how the hell could I? I don't know!) but just merely that I couldn't see how anyone could be deliberately cheating (these were not magicians, they were waster high-school kids). Anyway, subliminal is just as interesting to me as anything else. I'd like to know more about this. Can you recommend a couple of books?

[Craig Browning]

Subliminal Cuing or Programming falls into a myriad of areas, your best bet would be to start with a study of basic body language interpretation and progress into NLP, possibly Ericksonian Hypnosis (Conversational Hypnosis). It's not something you can really get a good hand on quickly, but if you take a look at the introductory material tied to these areas you can at least gain a glimpse into how humans give off subliminal information. When it comes to the whole Psychic side of things the subliminal issue becomes rather massive and entails years of hands-on study to even come close to understanding.

[Twain Shakespeare]

Fascinating anecdote Ellie.
My default is that extraordinary claims, as Hume says, come from fools, the deluded and liars. I am a fool according to the Tarot (It told me that 3 times. See my post) and my life has proven to me I can be deluded, so I just threw a stone thru another glass wall!
My beta is that people often tell a core of experiential truth, so I accept your account at face value since I have experienced porportional improbable results with I Ching and Tarot. My x wife also made me break my ouija board in half, since she was convinced it was possessed, and I was convinced it was best to humor her.
And yes, why dead people. Twenty years ago my hypothesis was non-hman intelligence, possibly malevolent, but most likely as drunk and waster as the people on this side. Garbage in, garbage out.
Two hypotheses I am entertaining now my be classed as non-theist "morphogenic field theories" (Rupert Sheldrake) and the Theist "Akashic field" theories. Peace

[Twain Shakespeare]

Prof Wag, It seems from your comments that in your world view, humans are the only sentience you aknowledge. Am I correct?
Aroeut, I would love some kind of investigation. My own attempt was to find the body of a murdered friend. If you ever try any experiment, that seems to me the only kind of information than cannot have plausibly come from the experimenters (especially in this type of case, where the murderer would probably not have known her name.)
Craig, thanx for an explanation that can account for everything from how it all could be subliminal signals controlling our subconscious to the Akashic record doing the same! I mean that seriously. Explaining a how is an important step in figuring out a what.

[Craig Browning]

TS... in my personal philosophy around all this boogieman stuff, it is critical for us to know the more logic-centered side of things so we aren't deluding ourselves; ignorance is a killer but worse yet is stupidity... when people consciously choose to not learn about other possibilities and plausibilities to things. This is also how I see life when it comes to prejudice of all forms, be it racial, religious, homophobia, etc. it all comes from the voluntary state of stupidity coupled with false or invented fear of things that are different.. .that we don't understand.

wow... sounds a lot like how rationalist try to deal with the paranormal, doesn't it

[Twain Shakespeare]

Craig, this is a response to at least three of the posts you made. As you said, "wow... sounds a lot like how rationalist try to deal with the paranormal, doesn't it?"
Being rational can always get complicated.
The Shakespeare aspect of my persona is an actor and poet. Rationality is not key to these endeavors. If it is remotely plausible, I tweak or twist charactors I play into atheist or iconoclast, but mostly, in my experience of being characters, my observations of humans, and anecdotal evidence, rationality is "not important" to most people. As the Hindus noticed, philosophers of any sort are rare.

Craig, I have seen, touched, and felt things that, as I said, can only be accounted for by the pseudo-skeptics by assuming I fall in one of Hume's three categories. Unfortunately, what I am lacking is a favored theory for “macro-level quantum flux” ( a phrase that explains no better then “mass hallucination”). All I have is a lot of hypotheses.
Certainly didn't mean to criticize. You seem to be when who can admit error, which, if it doesn't make one a fool, at least gives one the salutary experience of feeling like one. Nor have you made the errors of denying your experience, or clinging to a hypotheses without justification.
Craig, it seems, as a good researcher, you consider the facts more important than the (failure to have) a "complete" theory (I mean “complete” in something like the sense the pseudoskeptics use the term, or as Dawkins might refer to the Neo-Darwinian paradigm) I commend that, and envy you your chance to work your hypothesis.

So, two unrelated questions and a request
1.What do you think of the morphogenic theory of the real existence and evolution of "information"?
2. Do you know of any research in your field going on within a 100 miles of El Paso, TX, in which I could participate?
The request, if you ever come within a hundred miles of El Paso, please let me know!

Peace

[Craig Browning]

ANSWER: I haven't a clue as to what you are talking about. I'm but a simple mortal