Speaker 1: Hello friends. I hope you're having a creepy Saturday afternoon
Speaker 1: or morning or night. I would recommend saving this stuff
Speaker 1: he should Know select episode until tonight, when you can
Speaker 1: break out your Wegia board and learn about Weiga as
Speaker 1: you play Wegia and realize that we Jia is just
Speaker 1: bunk and completely made up. From October two, how Wegia
Speaker 1: boards work? Right here, right now, Welcome to Stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know, a production of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,
Speaker 1: and 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, Uh,
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. Didn't
Speaker 1: you didn't don't know me about this first? Yeah, we're
Speaker 1: having a seance, buddy, I don't know about that. We're
Speaker 1: gonna get down, We're gonna get down the brass tacks
Speaker 1: and answer all the unknown questions. Well, you know, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you what. I will have a seance with you
Speaker 1: using a Weiji board, because now I know how they work,
Speaker 1: and I'm not quite as scared of them as I
Speaker 1: used to be saying after I saw The Exorcist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Sai or we I say Wegi. Yeah, I kind of
Speaker 1: do too, although I think it's probably Wegia right, not
Speaker 1: to be confused with the crimes photographer Weig. We're talking
Speaker 1: about the board. Although yeah, I think some people say
Speaker 1: we Ja. Yeah. I just think it's interesting. I said
Speaker 1: Wegi since I was a kid. Yeah, I mean too,
Speaker 1: But I also say reci cup instead of reesis because
Speaker 1: Umi does too. You mean sister do Yeah, And I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: it's Reese's. They're like, no, it's Rec's. Yeah. Well I
Speaker 1: don't even say Rec's. I'd just say a reci cup.
Speaker 1: I think they. I think I do too. People in
Speaker 1: their quirks, Yeah, foibles, I say foibles. Uh. Yeah. You
Speaker 1: should hear him sing that potato Potato song everybody, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which apparently I got snookered on that. By the way.
Speaker 1: That's an old, an old bit. So I was snookered
Speaker 1: by an urban legend. What the whole potato Potato song
Speaker 1: where I say, like, yeah, a friend of mine's friend
Speaker 1: auditioned with this piece and sang it wrong. You thought
Speaker 1: it was for real? Yeah, of course I did. I've
Speaker 1: never heard that before. It's very funny. Yeah. Had you
Speaker 1: heard that, um now, because you would have stopped me.
Speaker 1: I know I have heard it before, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: too long ago. Was it from my mouth? Maybe? But
Speaker 1: I didn't think like that it was. It actually happened.
Speaker 1: I think anyway, we gi su every day, we gi board. Yes, um,
Speaker 1: and I mentioned exorcists already. You saw that, right, of
Speaker 1: course A bunch of times enough. Here is a trivia
Speaker 1: question for you. What is the name of the spirit
Speaker 1: Reagan communicates with? I didn't even have to look this up?
Speaker 1: Uh through her wigi board. Geez, I don't remember Captain Howdy?
Speaker 1: Shut up? No, do you remember? Now? Captain Howdy was
Speaker 1: who she's talking with? Who is the devil? I guess
Speaker 1: that was one of his aliases. I wonder if he
Speaker 1: has like a devil passport that says Captain Howdy on
Speaker 1: Devil Satan Lucifer Captain. I didn't know that. Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 1: That makes it a little less frightening. So um what
Speaker 1: was that the early seventies that Exorcist came out, right,
Speaker 1: I think so okay um and the Wigi board, the
Speaker 1: one she was playing with, I believe was a Parker
Speaker 1: Brothers BIGI board was it now has bro um And
Speaker 1: that was this mass manufactured, mass marketed toy game. But
Speaker 1: it was actually based on like a real phenomenon that
Speaker 1: we've talked about here on this show, before the um
Speaker 1: spiritualism movement of the nineteenth century. The Luigi board first
Speaker 1: made its appearance around then. Supposedly they claim providence for
Speaker 1: this way further back than that, but there's no real
Speaker 1: evidence that the Ouiji board itself is any older than
Speaker 1: the mid nineteenth century, and that it's American in origin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the actual Wijia brand board is what you're talking about,
Speaker 1: right right, or talking boards in general, which is another
Speaker 1: name for like a Wigi board as a talking board.
Speaker 1: But not all talking boards are Wigi boards, that's right.
Speaker 1: So you're saying there's no evidence that they existed before,
Speaker 1: like in the eight hundreds before that, before that, no,
Speaker 1: there there people did use divination. There is a pretty
Speaker 1: good source. A fourth century BC Greek scholar who wrote
Speaker 1: a history um, who talks about a pair of men
Speaker 1: who were killed for dividor for using divination. But they
Speaker 1: used a pendulum and a disc with the alphabet round
Speaker 1: it to spell out a message. So there were divinations
Speaker 1: people did use um like style. Yeah, I don't know
Speaker 1: if they use the plan chet. But the Luiji board itself,
Speaker 1: despite being marketed for many years, is something from Egyptian antiquity,
Speaker 1: is probably something no or that was created no earlier
Speaker 1: in the mid nineteenth century in the States. Well one
Speaker 1: is uh. An attorney name Alijaban patented what was called
Speaker 1: the Wigia Egyptian luck board. Um. And it's important to
Speaker 1: point out when when these things are marketed, they when
Speaker 1: you read the fine print, they never claim to be
Speaker 1: able to, you know, talk with the spirits. It's like
Speaker 1: just sort of it's a game, right, it's a game now,
Speaker 1: And it was once it became mass marketed, they started
Speaker 1: the Yeah. But in eight one it was part of
Speaker 1: this larger offshoot of spiritualism. Yeah, and we talked a
Speaker 1: bit about egypt pology and it sort of all ties
Speaker 1: in seances were big. You remember, they cracked the hieroglyphic
Speaker 1: code from the Rosetta stone just a couple of decades before,
Speaker 1: so Egypt was like this weird place with all sorts
Speaker 1: of strange cults and rituals. Yeah, and it's just it's
Speaker 1: strange to me that something like the occult, even on
Speaker 1: a minor level, sort of took hold in the United
Speaker 1: States at one point. Uh. And I don't know how
Speaker 1: if it was accepted by the masses, but like you know,
Speaker 1: regular people and noteworthy people would hold seances and try
Speaker 1: to communicate with their dead relatives, usually through a medium
Speaker 1: who was usually female. Right, you know there weren't a
Speaker 1: lot of dudes doing it. Uh. No, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of dudes who were involved in it, but the
Speaker 1: mediums were typically female, and a lot of them used
Speaker 1: things that were like the Luigi board talking boards. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like they you mentioned the dial plate, which was a
Speaker 1: spinning wheel with letters and numbers, and the alphabet board,
Speaker 1: which was sort of like a wigia board, but um,
Speaker 1: you just pointed to different letters and waited for a
Speaker 1: response from the great beyond. Some had a little pencil
Speaker 1: that would like actually write things out right, that used
Speaker 1: the plan chet, which is French for a little plank,
Speaker 1: which is a little uh, a little board or something
Speaker 1: maybe like a circular disc on three legs, and then
Speaker 1: one of the legs for a writing plan chet. Um
Speaker 1: was basically a hole with a pencil going through it,
Speaker 1: so that when the plan chet moved using the medium's hands,
Speaker 1: but the spirit was really in control, the pencil would
Speaker 1: write something hopefully. Uh So, back to the Wiji Board,
Speaker 1: the official game version. Over about seventy years, it changed
Speaker 1: ownership a few times, eventually landing at Parker Brothers, which
Speaker 1: is now has Bro. Like you pointed out right, Ali
Speaker 1: Jaban the guy who um, he didn't come up with
Speaker 1: the first Weigi board, but he was the first one
Speaker 1: to make an improvement on an existing patent and um,
Speaker 1: the Wiji board, as we understand it, that was his
Speaker 1: how we see it now, and he actually went off
Speaker 1: after he sold the rights to it to a guy
Speaker 1: named um Charles Knard. Uh Elijah Bond went off and
Speaker 1: created a rival version that had a huge swastika on
Speaker 1: It didn't perform so well. Uh no, it did at first,
Speaker 1: because we're talking seven did you have that association was
Speaker 1: still like a mystical symbol, but it was made by
Speaker 1: the Swastika Novelty Company in West Virginia that he founded
Speaker 1: to produce this rival board, and it's considered his other
Speaker 1: Luigi board. That's pretty funny, isn't that weird? Yeah? My friend,
Speaker 1: my friend Jesse Char the other day tweeted something funny
Speaker 1: about design. I think it was something likeent of design
Speaker 1: is trying to make something not look like a swastika
Speaker 1: or a penis. I thought that was pretty good. Did
Speaker 1: she make that up or have you heard that? I
Speaker 1: have not heard of that, alright, so I'm giving credit
Speaker 1: to Jesse Char, so um, chuck. The point is the
Speaker 1: Wuiji board took this, this thing that was being used
Speaker 1: by mediums as part of a very serious spiritualism movement,
Speaker 1: and said, hey, you don't need um, this crazy old
Speaker 1: lady to contact your dead uncle. Now you can buy
Speaker 1: one and do it in your own home over cocktails exactly. Um.
Speaker 1: And a lot of people took it like that from
Speaker 1: the get go. I think some people probably purchased Wiji
Speaker 1: boards seriously, but I think from from the outset it
Speaker 1: was a part of a party. It was a conversation starter,
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 Ouiji 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 nephew L D who Uh, who
Speaker 1: basically took it over to the point where he even
Speaker 1: stamped his name inventor on the back of it, even
Speaker 1: though he wasn't. And he's credited as being sort of
Speaker 1: the father of the Luigia board because he's the one
Speaker 1: that really ran with it in a marketing sense and
Speaker 1: brought it to the masses and uh would do all
Speaker 1: the press for it. Um. He claimed that the French
Speaker 1: and German words for yes, we and yah is where
Speaker 1: the name comes from, even though that's not true. Well,
Speaker 1: even before that, Charles Kennard 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 oh U I
Speaker 1: j A, And he asked it what it meant, and
Speaker 1: the board told him it was Egyptian for good luck.
Speaker 1: So that was the story. And then yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: Fold was like it means yes and yes, yes and
Speaker 1: yes pretty much in French and German. It's pretty good,
Speaker 1: So like we said, um fold sold it to Parker Brothers,
Speaker 1: who turned into Hasbro. And now when you buy a
Speaker 1: Wigi brand wid you board, it's from Hasbro. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: the article here makes a point to U two call
Speaker 1: out the Catholics for um basically saying that it could
Speaker 1: be an evil thing and not to use it. But
Speaker 1: as a little Baptist boy, we were very much told
Speaker 1: not to use a Wigi board. I remember specifically, um
Speaker 1: my uncle like burning his Wija board. Yeah, did he
Speaker 1: go out and buy it just so he could burn it? Friday?
Speaker 1: We got a party going in my house. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: pretty funny to look back. When I was a kid,
Speaker 1: I was like, yes, get rid of that evil thing.
Speaker 1: Were 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. Throw throwing candy Land while you're
Speaker 1: at it, because that game stinks. What was the Shoots
Speaker 1: and Ladders? I never played that? I was into? Sorry,
Speaker 1: remember that one? Yeah? That one made you like hate
Speaker 1: the other people you played with though, right, didn't couldn't
Speaker 1: you like get ahead by screwing over your fellow players?
Speaker 1: That's I think that's why it was called sorry. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think like if you landed on someone, you sent
Speaker 1: him back in the beginning and yeah, yeah, maybe I
Speaker 1: just played with Jerk soon knows. Maybe so um so chuck.
Speaker 1: The Uigi board UM. From the original Bond creation to
Speaker 1: the one you get today from Parker Brothers, the design
Speaker 1: of it has changed very little. Yeah, I guess we
Speaker 1: should describe it. I mean, I assume most people have
Speaker 1: seen one, although you know I've never used one, have you? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: when I was younger, i'd totally be into trying it out.
Speaker 1: It's neat for fun, you know, it's very neat, because
Speaker 1: I mean, the thing is just moving around the board
Speaker 1: by itself. All right, So we will describe the board
Speaker 1: if you have not seen it. Um. It has the
Speaker 1: alphabet and two different arcs, has numbers below the alphabets.
Speaker 1: It has a yes in one corner with I think
Speaker 1: a moon, and a no in one corner with the sun.
Speaker 1: And therein lie the answers. My friend. Oh, don't forget
Speaker 1: the most important part, basically what amounts to the off button.
Speaker 1: It's goodbye written at the bottom the number. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's sort of like a satanic magic eight ball kind of,
Speaker 1: except this really works and it's not satanic, right. Um.
Speaker 1: So the the way that you use um this talking
Speaker 1: board um, which again, if you're interested in this and
Speaker 1: you want to see some pretty cool old Buiji boards
Speaker 1: and the Swastika board as well, UM and another one
Speaker 1: called the Sphinx board, which I think is the coolest one.
Speaker 1: It's from like the forties. Um. There's this awesome online
Speaker 1: museum called the Museum of Talking Boards, and they have
Speaker 1: histories of all this, the history of the Buiji board,
Speaker 1: history of talking boards, UM, just some really great articles
Speaker 1: and images on there. So go check that out because
Speaker 1: it's a pretty cool website. UM. But when you're when
Speaker 1: you're using this, um, well the instructions have stayed the
Speaker 1: same too, not only the design but the gameplay itself.
Speaker 1: It's just about the same as it was way back
Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century. Right. And when you use this,
Speaker 1: they say you want to have two or more people, yeah, um,
Speaker 1: with their fingers lightly resting, just your fingertips lightly resting
Speaker 1: on the plant chet and we should say the plant chet, um,
Speaker 1: like the other plant chet that used a pencil to write.
Speaker 1: It's just a little um plastic heart shape board. I
Speaker 1: guess with three small legs, and then a circular um
Speaker 1: plastic covered disc in the middle, clear plastic disc that
Speaker 1: you look through, and the disc shows you the letter
Speaker 1: number or word that the spirit is communicating. That's right.
Speaker 1: When you look down through the plane chet, that's the
Speaker 1: letter word in question. That's right. So you sit there,
Speaker 1: you ask a question aloud. Everyone concentrates. No, no joking
Speaker 1: around going on. No, even Fold himself said, you want
Speaker 1: to make sure that the people whore at the table
Speaker 1: are taking this seriously or else second to work right? Well,
Speaker 1: even though it was advertised for mirthmaking, you gotta cut
Speaker 1: the mirth down when you're actually operating the board. Take
Speaker 1: the guy who has the lampshade on his head, he's
Speaker 1: got to get out of that room. Uh. So, then
Speaker 1: you ask a question, and then everyone watches, and the
Speaker 1: plan Chet, as if by magic or Satan's dark powers,
Speaker 1: moves along in either answers yes or no questions, or
Speaker 1: spells things out. Um, you want somebody to jot down yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: the letters or numbers as they are read out, And
Speaker 1: and in the article it says ideally they spell out
Speaker 1: words or sin it says they can the players can understand. Um,
Speaker 1: like it would. If it's spelled out a nonsense word
Speaker 1: like wegia, you would probably just say it's it's malfunctioning,
Speaker 1: or you would say what does that mean, and then
Speaker 1: it would spell out it's Egyptian for good luck, or
Speaker 1: German and French free. Yes, I wonder if wegia boards
Speaker 1: always answer the same when you ask them what wegia means.
Speaker 1: I don't know, we should I started saying it differently
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, down Sidewigi. I've just said wegia
Speaker 1: a couple of times. Interesting, how do you pronounce the
Speaker 1: thing that you clean your windshield with that is squiga
Speaker 1: or a squeegee? Yeah, but that's s q u e
Speaker 1: g e e eat. There's three No, I'm just kidding. Evidently,
Speaker 1: it can take up to five minutes for the plan
Speaker 1: chet to start moving, which I don't know if I
Speaker 1: would have the patience for that, I know I might
Speaker 1: start moving it on my own. Oh yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: well then you would be the life of the party,
Speaker 1: especially if you said, like, I'm being contacted by the spirits. Right,
Speaker 1: if after five minutes you don't get any movement from
Speaker 1: the plane chet, you want to either ask the question
Speaker 1: again or ask another question. Um. And there's some there's
Speaker 1: some tips for using your Wiji board to mat maximum capacity. Um.
Speaker 1: One of them is concentration. Again they do with the
Speaker 1: Lambshade needs to go sit in the living room, watch
Speaker 1: TV or something while everybody else is doing this. Um,
Speaker 1: you want to turn down the lights, maybe, burn some candles,
Speaker 1: burn some 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 plan chet over goodbye and then breathe a
Speaker 1: sigh of relief exactly. Um. And apparently if this doesn't
Speaker 1: work 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
Speaker 1: something and all of a sudden you will be speaking
Speaker 1: through the Wiji board, or the spirits will be speaking
Speaker 1: through you go through the Weigi board. Is that before
Speaker 1: after the opium regimen that they advise. I think the
Speaker 1: Museum of Talking Boards is um. They're more historical. They're
Speaker 1: more interested in the history background of the whole thing.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about this for a minute. People sit down.
Speaker 1: They put their fingertips on this thing. The plan chet moves,
Speaker 1: I mean moves like we're not making this up. Like
Speaker 1: if you've never messed with a Wigi board before, like
Speaker 1: give it a shot with another friend, and like the
Speaker 1: chances are the things going to just start moving by itself.
Speaker 1: It's eerie, especially when you're younger. Now see, I've never
Speaker 1: done it. I explained this to me. What do you mean?
Speaker 1: I will show you so, um, I get it. But
Speaker 1: the thing, this, this plan chett is very light plastic.
Speaker 1: The feet might even have felt on him or something
Speaker 1: like that. It's designed to move very easily forward. No,
Speaker 1: I think original Planchet's headcast um. But you're just basically
Speaker 1: you're you're being pulled around the table, so you actually
Speaker 1: want to be in a comfortable position because your fingertips
Speaker 1: are just sitting on this thing. And then when you
Speaker 1: ask a question after a while, it'll move. I've never
Speaker 1: seen one move fast, but it just moves kind of slow.
Speaker 1: But I mean, there's no question about you're not thinking.
Speaker 1: Isn't moving Like it's moving over to a letter and
Speaker 1: then it's moving over to another letter and then it's
Speaker 1: selling something out. But you are moving it. No, you're
Speaker 1: not in your head. Here here's the thing, like, let's
Speaker 1: get to the science of this. You are in fact
Speaker 1: moving it and there, but you are not conscious of
Speaker 1: moving it, which is the awesome part of it. It's
Speaker 1: this thing called idio motion. Yeah, which is someone pronounce
Speaker 1: ideo and I didn't know if they were just being
Speaker 1: fancy or not. It can go either way ideo idio 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 due named William Carpenter in two
Speaker 1: to explain dawsing rods, which is the same kind of
Speaker 1: you know thing basically, Yeah, dawsing rods pendulums um idiomotion
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, like,
Speaker 1: am I speaking with uh, you know, great uncle Charlie. Yes,
Speaker 1: 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 use subconsciousness. UM. It would move it to the yes,
Speaker 1: but you wouldn't realize. You would think it was just
Speaker 1: moving and and that that's where the weji board fund
Speaker 1: comes from chuck like you don't realize you're moving it,
Speaker 1: like you you have no sensation of movement. And like
Speaker 1: you said, this is this idea. Motion is a um,
Speaker 1: it's it's we've understood it for a while since early
Speaker 1: eight hundreds. And even Fold himself in one of his
Speaker 1: patents said, and I think explained that it was moved
Speaker 1: by unconscious muscular movement of the prayers. And back in
Speaker 1: the eighteen hundreds, this guy named Anton Chevrel Chevroule chavrell
Speaker 1: he Um basically proved this using a pendulum on a string. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's um. You've probably long heard about the the
Speaker 1: old wives tale. If you want to find out what
Speaker 1: your baby's gender, you hold um like a ring on
Speaker 1: a 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 is the chevrol pendulum. Basically, it's just
Speaker 1: ideo motion. 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 supposed to of the mother's wishes of what
Speaker 1: gender she would like, because she's in fact controlling it,
Speaker 1: but she's her muscles are moving so minutely that she's
Speaker 1: not aware of the movement. But since the pendulum is
Speaker 1: on the string, it really kind of really telegrash these
Speaker 1: very very tiny movements and then inertia takes over and
Speaker 1: it really starts going. So it just seems amazing because
Speaker 1: the hands not moving, but the ring is going crazy.
Speaker 1: It's going crazy. Uh, this is the same. If you
Speaker 1: ever heard of facilitated communication, it's pretty controversial. Um, you've
Speaker 1: probably seen it on the news. It's when basically a
Speaker 1: caregiver will guide the fingers of someone who's severely disabled
Speaker 1: over a typewriter, typewriter, a typing machine, over a keyboard
Speaker 1: to a computer. Uh, to supposedly get answers or communicate. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's very controversial. It's art it out in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy seven in Australia, this lady named Rosemary Crossley. Um.
Speaker 1: But the American Psychology Association basically says it's not scientifically valid.
Speaker 1: These are people that are just what facilitating 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 person. It's
Speaker 1: not like they're trying to snow somebody exactly. They and
Speaker 1: they may even really really want this person to communicate
Speaker 1: and say these things. Yeah, they're still studying at Syracuse
Speaker 1: University actually has UM since nineteen ninety two is the
Speaker 1: FC Institute now it's the Institute on Communication and Inclusion
Speaker 1: and are still studying it. And you know the controversy
Speaker 1: as usuals between the skeptics and the believers. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: that's that's the thing. If you want to see who
Speaker 1: who believes in the idea motor effect to type that
Speaker 1: into Google, it's all like skeptics Dictionary, skeptics, skeptic, Like
Speaker 1: every entry is skeptic. But if you type in IDEO
Speaker 1: emotion you get um, you know, peer reviewed scientific literature
Speaker 1: on that. It's just the IDEO motor effect is basically
Speaker 1: taking the proven idea emotion and applying it to debunk
Speaker 1: things like Wuiji boards. Uh. They did a study in
Speaker 1: the University of British Columbia just last year and UM,
Speaker 1: basically they said it's strongest when they are multiple people
Speaker 1: on the plan chet And they tested this by blindfolding
Speaker 1: people saying you've got someone else on the board with you,
Speaker 1: and when in fact there was no one else on
Speaker 1: the board, the person would still say it was the
Speaker 1: other person moving it, right. They would say there was
Speaker 1: no other person, right, And then they say, well, then
Speaker 1: it was the spirits moving it. I guess that's funny
Speaker 1: that no one says it's the spirits moving into That's
Speaker 1: always the other person who's moving in. That's a pretty um,
Speaker 1: pretty common trade of any wigiboard game. That you're sitting
Speaker 1: there going like you're moving it. No, you're moving it. No,
Speaker 1: I'm really not moving it's that And then uh, with
Speaker 1: two people working in tandem, you have two sets of
Speaker 1: muscles moving unconsciously, but you know, making a movement. Um,
Speaker 1: you have one person relinquishing responsibility because they think it's
Speaker 1: the other person, which they think freeze the muscles to
Speaker 1: move even more strongly because you're saying, it's not me,
Speaker 1: it's the other person. Um. And if they both have
Speaker 1: a common goal, then the planchet will move even more
Speaker 1: um brisk glee. I guess like if both girls are like,
Speaker 1: it's gonna move to be R A D, then you
Speaker 1: know that plan chet's gonna move to those letters in
Speaker 1: that order. But they're both going to be like, I'm
Speaker 1: not moving. Uh well, hold on, before we get into
Speaker 1: any real life stories, you want to do a message break? Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: and we're back. So should we talk about a couple
Speaker 1: of these stories? Um uigia are they real? Are they
Speaker 1: not stories? Sure? The Herds of Kansas City, Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is pretty crazy. Herbert Heard killed his wife Nellie, shot
Speaker 1: her in the back four times. Um, and you would
Speaker 1: think what a jerk. But what happened was there they
Speaker 1: were elderly, they were in their seventies. Um. They played
Speaker 1: with the Wigia board one night and um Nellie claimed
Speaker 1: that she received a message saying her husband was stepping
Speaker 1: out on her, so gave like fred dollars to the
Speaker 1: other lady emon that's probably like their life savings. Um,
Speaker 1: And so what happened was Nellie tortured him, tied him
Speaker 1: to a bed post, whipped him with a knotted rope,
Speaker 1: burned him with a red hot poker, stabbed a knife
Speaker 1: into his shins, and forced a confession by holding a
Speaker 1: gun to his head. And eventually she left the gun
Speaker 1: on the bedside table there. Herbert got ahold of it
Speaker 1: and killed her. And UM, can't really blame Herbert. And
Speaker 1: apparently the courts did not h what else you got
Speaker 1: any other ones? Uh? Yeah, there's a m It was
Speaker 1: called an Italian enclave in El Cerrito, California. The Italian
Speaker 1: community there apparently experienced a wave of mass hysteria that
Speaker 1: landed several people in uh an asylum because of Wiji
Speaker 1: board use. When the town went Wijia crazy. Yeah, one
Speaker 1: policeman like tore off his clothes and ran into a bank.
Speaker 1: And um, there's a lot of craziness that happened. It
Speaker 1: was just massissia, I guess, and the town was like,
Speaker 1: you know what, no more Weiji boards. And finally, in
Speaker 1: British authors sax Rohmer supposedly came up with his villain
Speaker 1: Dr Fu Manchu when his Wigia board spelled out Chinaman.
Speaker 1: So um his Wigia board was racist? Yeah, and uh
Speaker 1: you know he says, that's where it came from. So
Speaker 1: here's the thing. If you ever want to test whether
Speaker 1: Wiji boards are the result of idea motion and the
Speaker 1: players actually moving it or not, go to the good
Speaker 1: Will and buy one for three dollars and then and
Speaker 1: then do this very very simple test. You blindfold the players.
Speaker 1: You turn the board ninety degrees so that anybody who's
Speaker 1: memorized the layout of a Weiji board can't cheat it right,
Speaker 1: and then ask them some questions and you're not going
Speaker 1: to get any kind of sensible answer. And if you do,
Speaker 1: then you need to trade carefully because you just unlike
Speaker 1: the gate to the spirit world, don't forget to tell
Speaker 1: it goodbye, to steal off that gate. I always remember
Speaker 1: put it on goodbye, folks. So do you hear anything else?
Speaker 1: I got nothing else. I feel like here in my forties,
Speaker 1: after knowing now that they're not evil tools of Satan,
Speaker 1: then I would like to try it out sometime on
Speaker 1: a on a Friday night with good friends. Yeah, we'll
Speaker 1: play a little cards against Humanity. We'll play some weigia
Speaker 1: and then risk and risk to wind it all out
Speaker 1: with a big bang. Um, invite me over. Okay, so uh,
Speaker 1: if you want to learn more about weigia, weigi that
Speaker 1: kind of thing, you can again go check out the
Speaker 1: Museum of Talking Boards. It's pretty sweet. And also you
Speaker 1: should read this article on how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Type O U I j A into the handy search
Speaker 1: bar and we'll bring up this article. And since I said, UM,
Speaker 1: search bar in there somewhere, I think it's time for
Speaker 1: listener mail, I'm gonna call this crack baby. Jeez. We
Speaker 1: we got some good response on the old crack episode,
Speaker 1: which is a good one. I thought, yeah, I thought
Speaker 1: so too, killing it lately. Hey, guys, just finished listening
Speaker 1: to the story on crack cocaine. It reminded me of
Speaker 1: a story of a crack baby. For many years ago,
Speaker 1: it's around two thousand one. I was doing volunteer work
Speaker 1: at the local children's hospital in the neonatal I see
Speaker 1: you holding babies. Um. I came in one day and
Speaker 1: one of the nurses told me to go hold this
Speaker 1: one particular baby. She told me it was a crack baby.
Speaker 1: That had been crying NonStop for three days and head
Speaker 1: and left, so I washed up. I went to go
Speaker 1: hold this baby, held the baby in my arms and
Speaker 1: just looked at the baby, and the baby was crying,
Speaker 1: eyes closed, NonStop, just crying, crying, crying, crying. After several minutes,
Speaker 1: the baby's eyes opened a little bit and then closed again,
Speaker 1: would keep crying, tears are flowing the whole time. After
Speaker 1: several minutes of that, her eyes would remain open longer
Speaker 1: and longer, but the baby was still crying and the
Speaker 1: tears were still flowing. After several more minutes, the baby's
Speaker 1: eyes stayed open, looking at me, crying a little bit less.
Speaker 1: The baby started crying less and less and less, then
Speaker 1: after several minutes was smiling, giggling and cooing and making
Speaker 1: all those nice happy baby noises. After several more minutes
Speaker 1: of that, the baby's eyes started to close, and soon
Speaker 1: she was asleep, sleeping for the first time in three days.
Speaker 1: It was a wonderful experience that I will remember forever.
Speaker 1: Jim from Austin, Texas. That's pretty pretty cool. He code
Speaker 1: the crack baby to sleep soothed. He's a sooth sayer.
Speaker 1: He's a soothe coore mere to go. Jim. Yeah uh,
Speaker 1: and now he brings it Christmas presents every year. That
Speaker 1: would be a great story. Do it, Jim. Uh. If
Speaker 1: you have something to tell us that you've done based
Speaker 1: on something we've talked about, I would say that's that
Speaker 1: Jim story falls under that umbrella, wouldn't you. Yeah, 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, or you
Speaker 1: can send us an email to stuff podcast at how
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeart Radios. How Stuff Works. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: for my Heart Radio becausit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.