Ouija Boards and the Ideomotor Effect

Ideomotor Effect

 Researched and Written 

By

Allen Tiller

 

William Carpenter

“Ideomotor effect” is a term first coined in 1852, by William Carpenter, in his research to explain the movements of planchettes, dowsing rods and pendulums by psychics.
Carpenter's research documents indicate that muscular movement can be achieved by the human brain unconsciously, thus initiating movement unknowingly to the holder of a pendulum or other paranormal “seeing” device.

Carpenter identified the Ideomotor Effect as a third category of non-conscious behaviour, with excitomotor (breathing) and sensorimotor (being startled) effects being the first and second categories.  He theorised that hypnotic suggestion, applied kinesiology and the movement of pointers on an Ouija Board are all applied due to the Ideomotor effect.
Ideomotor effects occur without the conscious choice of any person, they are subtle, often unnoticeable movements that draw from a person's emotions - an example of this would be tears forming in the eye when one is happy or sad, a totally unconscious effect of the human existence.
The effect has been researched and continually expanded on over the years since Carpenters' discovery.

American Psychologist Ray Hyman writes in 1977, “Honest, intelligent people can unconsciously engage in muscular activity that is constant with their expectations”. They also show that suggestions that can guide behaviour can be given by subtle clues by onlookers and those involved in seances or Ouija board sessions.

So how does this apply to the paranormal?

As we have seen above with our preconceived notions, our minds manipulate our muscles and lead our pendulum or Ouija board planchette to answers we already expect, whether good or bad,

This would suggest that nothing paranormal is happening in our dowsing experiments/ sessions, but is this definitive proof that the Ideomotor effect is the cause, some researchers don't believe so and experiments are being done to prove otherwise.

In recent experiments, a gentleman from “project reveal” attached his Pendulum to a Vander-Graff to prove that static electricity can move a pendulum.

Watch his video here:

 Moving a Pendulum using Magnetic Fields

This one we are going to leave open for you, Constant Reader, to decide what you believe, visit us in our forums here on the Eidolon Paranormal website to discuss this phenomenon further and your beliefs as to whether it is indeed paranormal, or actually a natural phenomenon!

 

Video's showing Ideomotor Effect

James Randi: Dowsing, The Ideomotor Effect

 Science Bytes - Episode 10

 References:

http://www.turnbacktogod.com/ideomotor-pendules-dont-believe-them/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideomotor_effect

http://www.skepdic.com/ideomotor.html

http://www.barrettdorko.com/articles/ideomotor.htm

Paranormal Investigators: Past & Present: James Randi

International Sceptic James Randi

This week we are visiting a famous sceptic and debunker of the paranormal, that's right, a sceptic, Mr James Randi.
Randi, a native of Toronto Canada is an internationally renown sceptic, but also an investigator of the paranormal. Randi has investigated the occult, supernatural beliefs and the paranormal, what he refers to collectively as “woo-woo”.
James Randi started out on his paranormal exploration path as a magician named “The Amazing Randi”, from 1946 he was a professional conjurer and escapologist, he has appeared on many television shows over the years including the Tonight Show, Penn and Teller and in Australia on an infamous episode of The Don Lane Show, where Don was on stage with James Randi. Randi criticised Doris Stokes, a show regular, and the tempers boiled over, Don Lane was outraged and famously said to Randi, "we're going for a commercial break and you can piss off. We'll be back with Diana Trask" see the clip here:

 http://youtu.be/vIPqUJiiMwc at 2:17 onwards.

Don Lane and James Randi

During the 60's Randi hosted his own radio program, of which he often spoke about UFO's, amongst his guests was famous UFO researched James Mosley. Mosely invited Randi to be a guest speaker at a UFO conference in New York where he famously said during a speech “ Let's not fool ourselves. There are some garden variety liars involved in all this. But in among all the trash and nonsense perpetrated in the name of Ufology, I think there is a small grain of truth."
In the '70s, Randi went on tour with hard rock act, Alice Cooper. He performed on stage as a dentist and executioner. He also designed a number of Alice's stage props that were used throughout Alice's macabre stage shows.

Perhaps James Randi is best known for the offer of one million U.S. dollars for any person who can demonstrate evidence of paranormal, supernatural or occult powers under event conditions agreed to by both parties. To this day, the offer still stands with no-one being able to prove their psychic abilities under test conditions.
James Randi, now in his 80's is still working hard, having recently come to Australia for the annual convention of Australian Sceptics in Carlton Victoria. He is also working on a documentary about a stunt he pulled in Australia with the 60 minutes TV show crew back in the 1980s!

Update: James Randi passed away at the age of 92 in October 2020.

You can read more about James Randi here:

http://www.randi.org/site/

© 2013 Eidolon Paranormal

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