Take Me to the Other Side

     Many kinds of spiritual writings or spiritual interventions have been practiced through the history of humankind. In antiquity, the Chinese used a form of spirit writing to contact the dead. This trend was also carried out in places such as Europe and India. Since the late 19^th century, the Ouija Board was being sold to the public as nothing more than a board game or a parlour trick. Single planchettes for spiritual writings were also being sold to the public. The real question is: why do people still believe they are tools to contact the dead?

     Many people remember using the Ouija Board at a party, or when you were a child hanging out with your friends on a stormy night. You would place your hands gently on the board with others, and watch the planchette move and spell words through the power of the spirits. To everyone’s amazement, the planchette would eerily move on its own. Everyone would also claim they were not the one moving it to each letter. Was this an ancient form of spiritual intervention, or simply a parlour trick explained by science?

     It is the latter. The most well known explanation of the Ouija Board is the ideomotor effect. In short, this is a characteristic of the agent who is moving an object unconsciously, and attributing it to another force; in this case, it is a supernatural force. This what many people do not know about the Ouija Board and how it functions.

     Simple tests can be done to prove the inaccuracy and falsity of the Ouija Board. One simple test is to have two people use a Ouija Board, while another watches and records the data. The trick here is to blindfold the two people using it. What happens after this test? It produces pure jibberish. The same can be done with a keyboard or a pad of paper when trying to open this inter-dimensional portal. 

     There are many other outstanding issues with the Ouija Board and its supposed function and stages of use. Why does a spirit need wood and plastic to open a spiritual doorway? Why do your eyes need to be open for it to work? Why can the spirit “possess” your body, and only spell words (as opposed to actually moving the rest of your body around, or talking)? Why can’t the spirit move the planchette itself? There are other questions that arise when scrutinizing the Ouija Board, and only add to the debunking of it.

     Ouija Boards are a simply a game. The do not act as inter-dimensional doorways. They do not use spirits to spell words. However, they do rely on humans to physically move them. Does this mean ghosts/spirits/spectres do not exist? Well, no. The evidence is stacked against them, but all this means is that the Ouija Board is a sham.

     People seem to want to believe that it contacts ghosts, or their dead relatives. Many people want to believe there is something after this life. Other people may want some form of closure after their loved ones have passed on, and this board may give them that. It may seem unfair to take that way from them, but I can only assume that knowing the truth would be better in these cases.