Speaker 1: Brought to you by the all New Toyota Corolla. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Stuff You Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W.
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant, Jerry's kind of here, uh, and this is
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know. Yeah, this is the last podcast
Speaker 1: these two today that we're recording in the infamous murder room.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's right, yeah, murder room. Yeah, we're moving offices,
Speaker 1: and what better thing to do than to have a seance,
Speaker 1: which we're going to conduct after this episode records. You
Speaker 1: don't worry about this first. Yeah, we're having a seance, buddy,
Speaker 1: I don't know about that. We're gonna get down, We're
Speaker 1: gonna get down to brass tacks and answer all the
Speaker 1: unknown questions. Well, you know, I'll tell you what. I
Speaker 1: will have a seance with you using a Wuiji board,
Speaker 1: because now I know how they work and I'm not
Speaker 1: quite as scared of them as I used to be
Speaker 1: saying after I saw The Exorcist. Yeah, I say Wegi, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I kind of do too, although I think it's probably
Speaker 1: Wegia right not to be confused with the crimes photographer
Speaker 1: Weig we're talking about the board. Although yeah, I think
Speaker 1: some people say we ja. Yeah. I just think it's interesting.
Speaker 1: I said WEGI since I was a kid. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean too, But I also say reci cup instead of Reese's.
Speaker 1: Umi does too? You mean do yeah? And I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: it's Reese's. They're like, no, it's Recy's. Yeah. Well I
Speaker 1: don't even say Reese's. I'd just say a reci cup.
Speaker 1: I think they think they need too people in their quirks. Yeah, foibles,
Speaker 1: I say foibles. Uh yeah. You should hear him sing
Speaker 1: that potato potato song everybody Yeah, which apparently I got
Speaker 1: snookered on that. By the way. That's an old, an
Speaker 1: old bit. So I was snookered by an urban legend.
Speaker 1: What the whole potato Potato song? Where I say, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: a friend of mine's friend Audish end with this piece
Speaker 1: and sang it wrong. You thought it was for real? Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course I did. I've never heard that before. It's
Speaker 1: very funny. Had you heard that, um now, because you
Speaker 1: would have stopped me. I know I have heard it before,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't too long ago. Was it from my mouth? Maybe?
Speaker 1: But I didn't think like that. It was it actually happened.
Speaker 1: I think anyway, we gig board um, and I mentioned
Speaker 1: exorcists already saw that, right, of course a bunch of times. Enough,
Speaker 1: here's the trivia question for you. What is the name
Speaker 1: of the spirit Reagan communicates with. I didn't even have
Speaker 1: to look this up? Uh through her Wegi board? Geez,
Speaker 1: I don't remember Captain Howdy? Shut up? No, do you remember? Now?
Speaker 1: Captain Howdy was who she's talking with? Who is the devil?
Speaker 1: I guess that was one of his aliases. I wonder
Speaker 1: if he has like a double passport that says Captain
Speaker 1: Howdy on the whole Satan Lucifer. Yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's true. That makes it a little less frightening. So um,
Speaker 1: what was that the early seventies that exercise came out right,
Speaker 1: I think? Um? And the Wigi board, the one she
Speaker 1: was playing with, I believe was a Parker Brothers Buigi board.
Speaker 1: Was it now has bro Um and that was this
Speaker 1: mass manufactured, mass marketed toy game. But it was actually
Speaker 1: based on like a real phenomenon that we've talked about
Speaker 1: here on this show. Before the spiritualism movement of the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, the Luigi board first made its appearance around then.
Speaker 1: Supposedly they claimed providence for this way further back than that,
Speaker 1: but there's no real evidence that the Luigi board itself
Speaker 1: is any older than the mid nineteenth century and that
Speaker 1: it's American in origin. Yeah, the actual Wijia brand board
Speaker 1: is what you're talking about, right, right, or talking boards
Speaker 1: in general, which is another name for like a Wuiji
Speaker 1: board as a talking board, but not all talking boards
Speaker 1: are Wigi boards, that's right. So you're saying there's no
Speaker 1: evidence that they existed before, like in the eight hundreds
Speaker 1: before that. Before that, No, there there people did use divination.
Speaker 1: There is a pretty good source a fourth century BC
Speaker 1: Greek scholar who wrote a history um who talks about
Speaker 1: a pair of men who were killed for dividor for
Speaker 1: using divination. But they used a pendulum and a disc
Speaker 1: with the alphabet around it to spell out a message.
Speaker 1: So there were divinations. People did use um like alpha style. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know if they use a plan chet. But
Speaker 1: the Wigi board itself, despite being marketed for many years,
Speaker 1: is something from Egyptian antiquity, is probably something no or
Speaker 1: that was created no earlier in the mid nineteenth century
Speaker 1: in the States. Well and is Uh an attorney name
Speaker 1: Alijaban patented what was called the Uijia Egyptian luck board. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's important to point out when when these things
Speaker 1: are marketed, they when you read the fine print, they
Speaker 1: never claim to be able to, you know, talk with
Speaker 1: the spirits. It's like just sort of it's a game, right,
Speaker 1: It's a game now, And it was once it became
Speaker 1: mass marketed, they they started the Yeah, but in one
Speaker 1: it was part of this larger offshoot of spiritualism. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And we talked a bit about egythology, and it's sort
Speaker 1: of all ties in seances were big. Do you remember
Speaker 1: they cracked the hieroglyphic code from the Rosetta Stone just
Speaker 1: a couple of decades before. So Egypt was like this
Speaker 1: weird place with all sorts of strange cults and rituals. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it's just it's strange to me that something like
Speaker 1: the occult, even on a minor level, sort of took
Speaker 1: hold in the United States at one point. Uh. And
Speaker 1: I don't know how if it was except to buy
Speaker 1: the masses, but like you know, regular people and noteworthy
Speaker 1: people would hold seances and try to communicate with their
Speaker 1: dead relatives, usually through a medium who was usually female.
Speaker 1: You're right, you know there weren't a lot of dudes
Speaker 1: doing it. Uh No, there are a lot of dudes
Speaker 1: who were involved in it, but the mediums were typically female,
Speaker 1: and a lot of them used things that were like
Speaker 1: the Luigi board talking boards. Yeah, like they you mentioned
Speaker 1: the dial plate, which was a spinning wheel with letters
Speaker 1: and numbers, and the alphabet board, which was sort of
Speaker 1: like a Weigia board, but um, you just pointed to
Speaker 1: different letters and waited for a response from the great beyond.
Speaker 1: Some had a little pencil that would like actually write
Speaker 1: things out right. That used the plan chet, which is
Speaker 1: French for a little plank, which is a little uh,
Speaker 1: a little board or something maybe like a circular disc
Speaker 1: on three legs, and then one of the legs for
Speaker 1: a writing plan chet. Um was basically a whole with
Speaker 1: a pencil going through it, so that when the planet
Speaker 1: moved using the medium's hands, but the spirit was really
Speaker 1: in control, the pencil would write something hopefully. Uh So
Speaker 1: back to the Wiji board, the official game version. Over
Speaker 1: about seventy years, it changed ownership a few times, eventually
Speaker 1: landing at Parker Brothers, which is now has Bro. Like
Speaker 1: you pointed out right, Elijah Bon, the guy who, um,
Speaker 1: he didn't come up with the first Ouiji board, but
Speaker 1: he was the first one to make an improvement on
Speaker 1: an existing patent and um, the Wuiji board, as we
Speaker 1: understand it, that was his how we see it now,
Speaker 1: and he actually went off after he sold the rights
Speaker 1: to it to a guy named um Charles Nard. Uh,
Speaker 1: Elijah Bon went off and created a rival version that
Speaker 1: had a huge swastika on. It didn't perform so well.
Speaker 1: Uh no, it did at first, because we're talking, I
Speaker 1: could have that association was still like a mystical symbol.
Speaker 1: But it was made by the Swastika Novelty Company in
Speaker 1: West Virginia that he founded to produce this rival board,
Speaker 1: and it's considered his other Wigi board. That's pretty funny,
Speaker 1: isn't that weird? Yeah? My friend, my friend Jesse char
Speaker 1: the other day tweeted something funny about design. I think
Speaker 1: it was something like, of design is trying to make
Speaker 1: something not look like a swastika or a penis. Al
Speaker 1: thought that was pretty good. Did she make that up
Speaker 1: or have you heard that? I have not heard of
Speaker 1: that alright, so I'm giving credit to Jesse char So,
Speaker 1: um check. The point is that Weiji board took this,
Speaker 1: this thing that was being used by mediums as part
Speaker 1: of a very serious spiritualism movement and said, hey, you
Speaker 1: don't need um this crazy old lady to contact your
Speaker 1: dead uncle. Now you can buy one and do it
Speaker 1: in your own home over cocktails, exactly. Um. And a
Speaker 1: lot of people took it like that from the get go.
Speaker 1: I think some people probably purchased Wiji boards seriously, but
Speaker 1: I think from from the outset it was a part
Speaker 1: of a party. It was a conversation starter. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: something that that you just did socially too, for fun,
Speaker 1: for sure. I think that there was always a large
Speaker 1: segment of the Wegi board buying population that just took
Speaker 1: it as as entertainment. Yeah, exactly, which it's probably how
Speaker 1: you should take it. Uh. From Kennard, he had an
Speaker 1: employee named William fold f U l D who uh
Speaker 1: who basically took it over to the point where he
Speaker 1: even stamped his name inventor on the back of it,
Speaker 1: even though he wasn't. And he's credited as being sort
Speaker 1: of the father of the Wigia board because he's the
Speaker 1: one that really ran with it in a marketing sense
Speaker 1: and brought it to the masses, and UH would do
Speaker 1: all the press for it. Um He claimed that the
Speaker 1: French and German words for yes, we and yah is
Speaker 1: where the name comes from, even though that's not true. Well,
Speaker 1: even before that, Charles Kinnard said that Um he came
Speaker 1: up with the name by asking the board itself what
Speaker 1: it was called, and it's spelled out O U I J,
Speaker 1: And he asked it what it meant, and the board
Speaker 1: told him it was Egyptian for good luck. So that
Speaker 1: was the story. And then yeah, I guess Fold was
Speaker 1: like it means yes and yes, yes and yes pretty
Speaker 1: much in French and German. It's pretty good. So, like
Speaker 1: we said, um, Fold sold it to Parker Brothers, who
Speaker 1: turned into Hasbro, and now when you buy a Wigi
Speaker 1: brand Wigi board, it's from Hasbro. Yeah. And the article
Speaker 1: here makes a point to U two call out the
Speaker 1: Catholics for um, basically saying that it could be an
Speaker 1: evil thing and not to use it. But as a
Speaker 1: little Baptist boy, we were very much told not to
Speaker 1: use a Weigia board. I remember specifically, um my uncle
Speaker 1: like burning his Wigia board. Yeah, did he go out
Speaker 1: and buy it just so he could burn it? Now
Speaker 1: we got a party going in my house. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: prettyunny to look back. When I was a kid, I
Speaker 1: was like, yes, get rid of that evil thing. Were
Speaker 1: you there when he burned it? No? I wasn't there,
Speaker 1: but I heard about it, and that was just good
Speaker 1: for him. That's cool throwing candy Land while you're at it,
Speaker 1: because that game stinks? What it was? The Shoots and Ladders?
Speaker 1: I never played that? Sorry? Remember that one? Yeah? That
Speaker 1: one made you like hate the other people you played
Speaker 1: with though, right, didn't couldn't you like get ahead by
Speaker 1: screwing over your fellow players? That's I think that's why
Speaker 1: it was called Sorry. Yeah, I think like if you
Speaker 1: landed on someone, you sent him back at the beginning.
Speaker 1: And yeah, yeah, maybe I just played with Jerk soon knows.
Speaker 1: Maybe so? Um so chuck the Buigi board um From
Speaker 1: the original Bond creation to the one you get today
Speaker 1: from Parker Brothers, the design of it has changed very little. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess we should describe it. I mean, I assume
Speaker 1: most people have seen one, although you know I've never
Speaker 1: used one. Have you? Oh? Yeah, when I was younger,
Speaker 1: I'd totally be into trying it out. It's neat for fun,
Speaker 1: you know, it's very neat, because I mean the thing
Speaker 1: is just moving around the board by itself. All right.
Speaker 1: So we will describe the board if you have not
Speaker 1: seen it. Um. It has the alphabet and two different arcs,
Speaker 1: has numbers below the alphabets. It has a yes in
Speaker 1: one corner with I think a moon, and a no
Speaker 1: in one corner with the sun. And therein lie the answers.
Speaker 1: My friend, Oh, don't forget the most important part, basically
Speaker 1: what amounts to the off button. It's goodbye written at
Speaker 1: the bottom number. So yeah, it's sort of like a
Speaker 1: satanic magic eight ball kind of, except this really works
Speaker 1: and it's not satanic, right. Um. So the way that
Speaker 1: you use um this talking board um, which again, if
Speaker 1: you're interested in this and you want to see some
Speaker 1: pretty cool old Buiji boards and the Swastika board as well, UM,
Speaker 1: and another one called the Sphinx board, which I think
Speaker 1: is the coolest one. It's from like the forties. Um.
Speaker 1: There's this awesome online museum called the Museum of Talking Boards,
Speaker 1: and they have histories of all this, the history of
Speaker 1: Luigi Board History of Talking Boards. UM. Just some really
Speaker 1: great articles and images on there, So go check that
Speaker 1: out because it's a pretty cool website. UM. But when
Speaker 1: you're when you're using this, um, well, the instructions have
Speaker 1: stayed the same too, not only the design but the
Speaker 1: gameplay itself. It's just about the same as it was
Speaker 1: way back in the nineteenth century, right. And when you
Speaker 1: use this, they say you want to have two or
Speaker 1: more people UM with their fingers lightly resting, just your
Speaker 1: fingertips lightly resting on the plant chet. And we should
Speaker 1: say the plant chet um like the other plant chet
Speaker 1: that used a pencil to write. It's just a little
Speaker 1: um plastic heart shape board, I guess, with three small
Speaker 1: legs and then a circular um plastic covered disc in
Speaker 1: the middle, clear plastic disc that you look through, and
Speaker 1: the disc shows you the letter number or word that
Speaker 1: the spirit is community hating. That's right. When you look
Speaker 1: down through the plane chet, that's the letter word in question.
Speaker 1: That's right. So you sit there, you ask a question aloud.
Speaker 1: Everyone concentrates, no no joking around going on, no even
Speaker 1: Fold himself said, do you want to make sure that
Speaker 1: the people who are at the table are taking this
Speaker 1: seriously or else second or words right? Well, even though
Speaker 1: it was advertised for mirthmaking, you gotta cut the mirth
Speaker 1: down when you're actually operating the board. Take the guy
Speaker 1: who has the lampshade on his head, He's got to
Speaker 1: get out of that room. Uh So, then you ask
Speaker 1: the question, and then everyone watches, and the plan chet
Speaker 1: as if by magic or Satan's dark powers, moves along
Speaker 1: in either answers yes or no questions, or spells things out. Um,
Speaker 1: you want somebody to jot down yeah, sure, the letters
Speaker 1: or numbers as they are read out, and and in
Speaker 1: the article it says ideally they spell out words or
Speaker 1: sentences they can the players can understand, right, Um, Like
Speaker 1: it would if it's spelled out a nonsense word like wegia,
Speaker 1: you would probably just say it's it's malfunctioning, or you
Speaker 1: would say what does that mean, and then it would
Speaker 1: spell out it's Egyptian for good luck, or German and
Speaker 1: French free. Yes. I wonder if Weji boards always answer
Speaker 1: the same when you ask them what wegia means. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I started saying it differently all of a sudden, Sidewigi,
Speaker 1: I just said wegia a couple of times. Interesting, how
Speaker 1: do you pronounce the thing that you clean your windshield with?
Speaker 1: That a squiga or a squeegee? Yeah, but that's s
Speaker 1: q u E g e E. There's three ees. No,
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. Um. And uh, evidently it can take
Speaker 1: up to five minutes for the plan chet to start moving,
Speaker 1: which I don't know if I would have the patience
Speaker 1: for that, I know I might start moving it on
Speaker 1: my own. Oh yeah, you know, well then you would
Speaker 1: be the life of the party, especially if you said,
Speaker 1: like I'm being contacted by the spirits. Right. If after
Speaker 1: five minutes you don't get any movement from the plane chet,
Speaker 1: you want to either ask the question again or ask
Speaker 1: another question. Um. And there's some there's some tips for
Speaker 1: using your jiboard to maximum capacity. Um. One of them
Speaker 1: is concentration. Again, the dude with the lampshade needs to
Speaker 1: go sit in the living room watch TV or something
Speaker 1: while everybody else is doing this. Um, you want to
Speaker 1: turn down the lights, maybe, burn some candles, burn some
Speaker 1: in incense, turn off that smartphone and the TV. Maybe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And uh, you really want to concentrate and when you
Speaker 1: ask questions, you want to ask them slowly, clearly simple questions. Um.
Speaker 1: And you want to ask them one at a time
Speaker 1: and wait for the answer the response before you ask
Speaker 1: the next question. Yeah. And they also recommend that you
Speaker 1: avoid um scary questions because that could lead you down
Speaker 1: a dark path, my friend, and always above all else
Speaker 1: in the game by saying goodbye, because if you leave
Speaker 1: that portal open to the great beyond, the bad people
Speaker 1: might come in through that portal and find you and
Speaker 1: kill you. Ask Reagan from the Exorcists, right, things can
Speaker 1: go pretty badly. So you want to end each session
Speaker 1: with the planchet over goodbye and then breathe a sigh
Speaker 1: of relief exactly um. And apparently if this doesn't work
Speaker 1: the first time you do it, you shouldn't be frustrated.
Speaker 1: In fact, the Museum of Talking Boards has a regiment
Speaker 1: that they prescribe um thirty minutes of practice every day
Speaker 1: for two weeks, and apparently you'll open your chakras or something,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden you will be speaking through
Speaker 1: the Wigi board, or the spirits will be speaking through
Speaker 1: you go through the Weigi board. Is that before after
Speaker 1: the opium regimen that they advise, I think the Museum
Speaker 1: of Talking Boards is Um, they're more historical, they're more
Speaker 1: interested in the history background of the whole thing. So
Speaker 1: let's talk about this for a minute. People sit down,
Speaker 1: they put their fingertips on this thing. The plan Chett moves.
Speaker 1: I mean it moves like we're not making this up.
Speaker 1: Like if you've never messed with a wigi board before,
Speaker 1: like give it a shot with another friend, and like
Speaker 1: the chances are the things going to just start moving
Speaker 1: by itself. It's eerie, especially when you're younger. Now see,
Speaker 1: I've never done it. I explained this to me. What
Speaker 1: do you mean? I will show you so, um, I
Speaker 1: get it. But the thing, this, this plan Chett, is
Speaker 1: very light plastic. The feet might even have felt on
Speaker 1: them or something like that. It's designed to move very
Speaker 1: easily forward. No I think original Planchet's headcast Um. But
Speaker 1: you're just basically you're you're being pulled around the table.
Speaker 1: So you actually want to be in a comfortable position
Speaker 1: because your fingertips are just sitting on this thing. And
Speaker 1: then when you ask a question after a while, it'll move.
Speaker 1: I've never seen one move fast, but it just moves
Speaker 1: kind of slow. But I mean there's no question about
Speaker 1: you're not thinking. Isn't moving like it's moving over to
Speaker 1: a letter and then it's moving over to another letter
Speaker 1: and then it's spelling something out. But you are moving it. No,
Speaker 1: you're not in your head. Here here's the thing, like,
Speaker 1: let's get to the science of this. You are in
Speaker 1: fact moving it and there, but you are not conscious
Speaker 1: of moving it, which is the awesome part of it.
Speaker 1: It's this thing called idio motion, Yeah, which is the
Speaker 1: IDEO and I didn't know if they were just being
Speaker 1: fancy or not. It can go either way ideo ideo motion,
Speaker 1: but the the it is an actual involuntary motion. It's
Speaker 1: one of the types of involuntary motion of which human
Speaker 1: beings are capable thanks to our muscles and neurons. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was coined by do named William Carpenter in to
Speaker 1: explain dawsing rods, which is the same kind of you
Speaker 1: know thing basically, yeah, dawsing rods pendulums um. Idio motion
Speaker 1: is where thought proceeds precedes movement, and the other part
Speaker 1: of it is that we're unaware of that movement. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's movement without owning that basically, So when you apply
Speaker 1: that to we ji boards, you have what's called the
Speaker 1: ideo motor effect, where you your thought is placed in
Speaker 1: the form of a question to Theuiji board, and then
Speaker 1: the movement, the unconscious movement. You're not aware that you're moving,
Speaker 1: UM moves to answer that question. So if you're thinking yes,
Speaker 1: like right, am I speaking with uh, you know, great
Speaker 1: uncle Charlie, and you really want to and you're you're thinking, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I hope he's there. So you're unconscious or subconscious? Which
Speaker 1: is it? I would guess unconscious. I think it's unfashionable
Speaker 1: to these subconsciousness. UM it would move it to the yes,
Speaker 1: but you wouldn't realize. You would think it was just moving.
Speaker 1: And and that that's where the Weji board fund comes from. Chuck,
Speaker 1: like you don't realize you're moving it like you you
Speaker 1: have no sensation of movement. And like you said, this
Speaker 1: is this idea. Emotion is a UM, it's it's we've
Speaker 1: understood it for a while since early eighteen hundreds, and
Speaker 1: even Fold himself in one of his patents said, and
Speaker 1: I think explained that it was moved by unconscious muscular
Speaker 1: movement of the briers. And back in the eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: this guy named Anton chevrel chevrole chavrell he Um basically
Speaker 1: proved this using a pendulum on a string. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's um. You've probably long heard about the the Old
Speaker 1: wives tale. If you want to find out what your
Speaker 1: baby's gender, you hold um like a ring on a
Speaker 1: string over the ballet and wait for it to move.
Speaker 1: And if it moves back and forth, it's a boy.
Speaker 1: That's circular, it's a girl. Um, And it's the same
Speaker 1: basic thing. Is this the chevrol pendulum? Basically, it's just
Speaker 1: idea emotion. In effect, you are unconsciously swinging the string. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and whichever way you probably desire exactly. That's what makes
Speaker 1: it so fascinating, is what you're really seeing is the
Speaker 1: unconscious telegraphing supposedly of the mother's wishes of what gender
Speaker 1: she would like, because she's in fact controlling it, but
Speaker 1: she's her muscles are moving so minutely that she's not
Speaker 1: aware of the movement. But since the pendulum is on
Speaker 1: the string, it really kind of really telegraphs these very
Speaker 1: very tiny movements, and then inertia takes over and it
Speaker 1: really starts going. So it just seems amazing because the
Speaker 1: hands not moving, but the ring is going crazy. It's
Speaker 1: going crazy. Uh, this is the same. If you ever
Speaker 1: heard of facilitated communication, it's pretty controversial. Um, you've probably
Speaker 1: seen it on the news. It's when basically a caregiver
Speaker 1: will guide the fingers of someone who's severely disabled over
Speaker 1: a typewriter, typewriter, a typing machine, over a keyboard to
Speaker 1: a computer. Uh, to supposedly get answers or communicate. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's very controversial. Uh. It started out in nineteen
Speaker 1: seven in Australia, this lady named Rosemary Crossley. Um. But
Speaker 1: the American Psychology Association basically says it's not scientifically valid.
Speaker 1: These are people that are just what facilitated communication. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that they're the caregiver is really guiding this conversation and
Speaker 1: it's really not coming from the person that's disabled. Right.
Speaker 1: The thing is is what makes this so tragic and
Speaker 1: sad is that the caregiver isn't aware that they're actually
Speaker 1: making these movements. Again, all of this is unconscious. You
Speaker 1: can't tell you're making this movement. And so since the
Speaker 1: profoundly handicapped person is moving their hand, the caregiver thinks
Speaker 1: that it's them. It's the it's the handicapped persons, not
Speaker 1: like they're trying to snow somebody. They and they may
Speaker 1: even really really want this person to communicate and say
Speaker 1: the things. Yeah, they're still studying at Syracuse University actually
Speaker 1: has UM since nineteen ninety two. It was the FC
Speaker 1: Institute now it's the Institute on Communication and Inclusion. Are
Speaker 1: still studying it. And you know the controversy as usuals
Speaker 1: between the skeptics and the believers. Oh well, that's that's
Speaker 1: the thing. If you want to see who who believes
Speaker 1: in the idea motor effect, type that into Google. It's
Speaker 1: all like skeptics dictionary, skeptics, skeptic, Like every entry is skeptic.
Speaker 1: But if you type in IDEO emotion you get UM.
Speaker 1: You know, peer reviewed scientific literature on that. It's just
Speaker 1: the IDEO motor effect is basically taking the proven idea
Speaker 1: emotion and applying it to debunk things like Buiji boards. Uh.
Speaker 1: They did a study in the University of British Columbia
Speaker 1: just last year and UM basically they said it's strongest
Speaker 1: when there are multiple people on the plan chet And
Speaker 1: they tested this by blindfold thing people saying you've got
Speaker 1: someone else on the board with you, and when in
Speaker 1: fact there was no one else on the board, the
Speaker 1: person would still say it was the other person moving it.
Speaker 1: They would say there was no other person, right, and
Speaker 1: then they say, well, then it was the spirits moving in.
Speaker 1: I guess that's funny that no one says it's the
Speaker 1: spirits moving into. That's always the other person who's moving in.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty, um, pretty common trade of any Wiji
Speaker 1: board game. That you're sitting there going like, you're moving it. No,
Speaker 1: you're moving it. No, I'm really not moving it. That's
Speaker 1: that's how it comes. And then uh, with two people
Speaker 1: working in tandem, you have two sets of muscles moving
Speaker 1: unconsciously but you know, making a movement. Um. You have
Speaker 1: one person relinquishing responsibility because they think it's the other person,
Speaker 1: which they think freeze the muscles to move even more
Speaker 1: strongly because you're saying it's not me, it's the other person. Um.
Speaker 1: And if they both have a common goal, then the
Speaker 1: planchet will move even more um briskly. I guess like,
Speaker 1: if both girls are like, it's gonna move to be
Speaker 1: R A D, then you know that planchet is gonna
Speaker 1: move to those letters in that order. But they're both
Speaker 1: going to be like I'm not moving. Uh, well, hold on,
Speaker 1: before we get into any real life stories, we want
Speaker 1: to do a message break and we're back. So should
Speaker 1: we talk about a couple of these stories, umluigia, Are
Speaker 1: they real? Are they not stories? Sure? The Herds of
Speaker 1: Kansas City, Yeah, this is pretty crazy. Herbert heard killed
Speaker 1: his wife Nellie, shot her in the back four times. Um,
Speaker 1: and you would think what a jerk. But what happened
Speaker 1: was there they were elderly, they were in their set
Speaker 1: and these um they played with the Wigia board one
Speaker 1: night and um, Nellie claimed that she received a message
Speaker 1: saying her husband was stepping out on her. So ar
Speaker 1: gave like fi dollars to the other lady. Even that's
Speaker 1: probably like their life savings, um. And so what happened
Speaker 1: was Nellie tortured him, tied them to a bed post,
Speaker 1: whipped him with a knotted rope, burned him with a
Speaker 1: red hot poker, stabbed a knife into his shins, and
Speaker 1: forced a confession by holding a gun to his head.
Speaker 1: And eventually she left the the gun on the bedside
Speaker 1: table there Herbert got ahold of it and killed her.
Speaker 1: And UM, can't really blame Herbert and apparently the courts
Speaker 1: did not what else you got any other ones? Uh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a m It was called an Italian enclave in
Speaker 1: El Cerrito, California. The Italian community there apparently experienced a
Speaker 1: wave of mass hysteria that landed several people in uh
Speaker 1: an asylum because of Wiji board use. When the town
Speaker 1: went crazy. Yeah, one policeman like tore off his clothes
Speaker 1: and ran into a bank. And um, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of craziness that happened. It was just massisteria, I guess.
Speaker 1: And the town was like, you know what, no more
Speaker 1: Weiji boards. And finally, in British authors sax Rohmer supposedly
Speaker 1: came up with his villain Dr Fu Manchu when his
Speaker 1: Wiji board spelled out Chinaman. So, um, his Wigi board
Speaker 1: was racist. M yeah, and uh you know he says,
Speaker 1: that's where it came from. So here's the thing. If
Speaker 1: you ever want to test whether Wiji boards are the
Speaker 1: result of idea motion and the players actually moving it
Speaker 1: or not, to the Goodwill and buy one for three
Speaker 1: dollars and then and then do this very very simple test.
Speaker 1: You blindfold the yours, you turn the board ninety degrees,
Speaker 1: so that anybody who's memorized the layout of Aligi board
Speaker 1: can't cheat it right, And then ask them some questions
Speaker 1: and you're not going to get any kind of sensible answer.
Speaker 1: And if you do, then you need to trade carefully
Speaker 1: because you just unlike the gate to the spirit world,
Speaker 1: don't forget to tell it goodbye, to seal off that gate.
Speaker 1: I always remember put it on goodbye folks. So uh
Speaker 1: you here anything else? I've got nothing else. I feel
Speaker 1: like here in my forties, after knowing now that they're
Speaker 1: not evil tools of Satan, then I would like to
Speaker 1: try it out sometime on a on a Friday night
Speaker 1: with good friends. Yeah, we'll play little cards against humanity.
Speaker 1: We'll play some wegia and then risk and risk to
Speaker 1: wind it all out with the big bang. Um, invite
Speaker 1: me over. So if you want to learn more about wegia,
Speaker 1: weigi that kind the thing, you can again go check
Speaker 1: out the Museum of Talking Boards. Pretty sweet. And also
Speaker 1: you should read this article on how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Type oh U I j A into the handy search
Speaker 1: bar and it will bring up this article. And since
Speaker 1: I said, um search bar in there somewhere, I think
Speaker 1: it's time for listener mail, I'm gonna call this crack baby. Jeez.
Speaker 1: We we got some good response on the old crack episode,
Speaker 1: which was a good one. I think kill lately. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: just finished listening to the story on crack cocaine. It
Speaker 1: reminded me of a story of a crack baby from
Speaker 1: many years ago. It's round two thousand one. I was
Speaker 1: doing volunteer work at the local children's hospital in the
Speaker 1: neonatal I see you holding babies, um. I came in
Speaker 1: one day and one of the nurses told me to
Speaker 1: go hold this one particular baby. She told me it
Speaker 1: was a crack baby that had been crying NonStop for
Speaker 1: three days and hadn't slept. So I washed up. I
Speaker 1: went to go hold this baby, held the baby in
Speaker 1: my arms and just look that the baby, and the
Speaker 1: baby was crying, eyes closed NonStop, just crying, crying, crying, crying.
Speaker 1: After several minutes, the baby's eyes opened a little bit
Speaker 1: and then closed again, would keep crying, tears or flowing
Speaker 1: the whole time. After several minutes of that, her eyes
Speaker 1: would remain open longer and longer, but the baby was
Speaker 1: still crying and the tears were still flowing. After several
Speaker 1: more minutes, the baby's eyes stayed open, looking at me,
Speaker 1: crying a little bit less. The baby started crying less
Speaker 1: and less and less, then after several minutes, was smiling,
Speaker 1: giggling and cooing and making all those nice happy baby noises.
Speaker 1: After several more minutes of that, the baby's eyes started
Speaker 1: to close, and soon she was asleep, sleeping for the
Speaker 1: first time in three days. It was a wonderful experience
Speaker 1: that I will remember forever. Jim from Austin, Texas, that's
Speaker 1: pretty cool. He cooed a crack baby to sleep sooth.
Speaker 1: He's a sooth sayer. That's soothe coore you go, Jim,
Speaker 1: Yeah uh, And now he brings it Christmas presents every year.
Speaker 1: That would be a great story. Do it, Jim. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you have something to tell us that you've done
Speaker 1: based on something we talked about, I would say that's
Speaker 1: that Jim story falls under that umbrella, wouldn't you We
Speaker 1: want to hear about it. Basically, just let us have
Speaker 1: it on Twitter at s y s K podcast on
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know via email
Speaker 1: at Stuff podcast at Discovery dot com, and like we
Speaker 1: said at the beginning, hang out with us at our
Speaker 1: home on the web. Bring a smoking jacket and some slippers,
Speaker 1: and we'll chill out at Stuff you Should Know dot
Speaker 1: com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Speaker 1: Is it how stuff works dot com. Brought to you
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