Even though Ouija boards have been around for more than 100 years, they are still a popular activity around Halloween.
To work, all participants need to place their hands on the wooden pointer and move the planchette around the board to summon the spirit of their choice.
The board's ability to communicate with those who have passed to the other side is something that some people think is a harmless parlor game.
The explanation for how the board works isn't as simple as you might think.
There is a long history of the Ouija board. The spiritualism movement was started by the Fox Sisters, a popular medium in the 19th century.
One method of communicating with spirits is to say the alphabet and listen for a knock. They were able to say words and messages from the dead.
The method captured the public's imagination, but it was very frustrating. It was important for people to be able to communicate with spirits as quickly as they could with people using new technologies. The Ouija board was a huge hit when it was first developed.
The Ouija board fell out of favor at the beginning of the 20th century. Many famous medium used the device to debunk it.
The Society for Psychical Research moved away from spirit communication and towards other supernatural phenomena.
The revival of interest in spiritualism and Ouija boards after the second world war is still going on today.
Is Ouija boards a good idea? Depending on who you ask. The answer would be yes for those who believe in telepathy. Skeptics and scientists alike would agree that there is no proof of spirits.
We often hear stories from people who say that they have felt the planchette move over the board, spelling out words and telling them things no one else around the table could know.
If it isn't ghosts from the other side, what is it?
There is a possibility that the ideo motor effect is the answer. Our movements can be driven by our thoughts according to the term ideomotor.
A subconscious movement is referred to as the ideomotor effect. When using a Ouija board, a person subconsciously moves the planchette, spelling out things only they knew.
The planchette appears to move independently because those around them contribute their own subconscious movements.
Automatic writing and dowsing are two types of pseudoscience which use a y-shaped twig or metal rod to find the location of buried objects.
Our sense of agency is related to another explanation. The ability to control actions that will have an influence on external events is referred to as the sense of agency. Lifting a table up will cause it to move.
Experiments with Ouija boards show that our sense of agency can be altered, leading us to believe that a third party is moving the planchette.
Our brain faces issues when it comes to predicting the consequences of decisions. We feel that we are responsible for the action when we match our predictions.
If we feel that the outcome doesn't match up with what we expected, our sense of agency may decrease.
Emotional spillover is a third factor to think about. We know that witnesses can catch emotional events nearby. It was thought to be a factor in the witch trials.
The excitement of the highly charged environment may make it easier for us to empathise with those around us. It's more likely that we'll think the planchette is moving on its own if we pick up on their fear.
A combination of factors can convince people that the planchette is moving and spirits are talking to them.
With how difficult it is to recreate the social setting in which most people use Ouija boards in a lab, we can't say with complete certainty that these factors alone explain what actually happens when we place our fingers on the planchette.
During times of social and political upheaval, the public's desire to communicate with the dead becomes more popular.
It is possible that we will see a return to the seance rooms of the Victorian era given the current social, economic, and political climate. At the very least.
Megan Kenny is a senior lecturer in psychology at the university.
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