Are Ouija boards really that scary?

The name is the only clue you need. The French and German words for ‘yes’ show that the board will always tell you what you want to hear. Mind you, Elijah Bond and Charles Kennard, who invented the Ouija board for their novelty games company, claimed that Bond’s sister-in-law, a spiritualist, was given the name by the board itself at a séance in 1890, and that it meant ‘good luck’. Clearly the person on the other side wasn’t much of a linguist.

Another explanation comes from the US comedian Brett Erlich: ‘“Ouija” is short for “we just push this thing around and make it say what we want to”.’ That certainly fits with the science, which is something known as the ‘ideomotor effect’, where simply thinking of something can cause you to make physical movements, even though you’re unaware of the reason. The people with their hands on the pointer (or planchett – French for ‘little plank’) direct it around the board without realising what they’re doing.

The magicians Penn and Teller demonstrated this by blindfolding participants in an experiment, then changing the position of the board without telling them. The group proceeded to move the planchette into what had previously been the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ positions, but which were now blank spaces. Derren Brown debunked the Ouija board without even trying to. A friend brought one to his home, and insisted on contacting Brown’s late grandfather. The board spelled out ‘R-U-P-E-R-T’. Brown had to break the news that his grandfather’s name had been Fred.

But as ever, those who want to believe will believe. G.K. Chesterton used the board as a teenager, while Arthur Conan Doyle (famously a fan of spiritualism) tried to convince, of all people, Harry Houdini.