Can the machines also have strength that varies randomly within a small range? Can they also think that something might or should happen?

'Cause there's your answer right there.

Could you explain what you mean?

Obviously its not a flawless plan, there are many energies, many variables, many strengths etc.

I like to think like this whatever im doing.

a) Reproduce the claim to the exact specifications it was said to have been done, to see if it is true.

b) If unsuccessful, (which means the claim is most likely a hoax) attempt to reproduce the effect/desired outcome, purely to find out what actually WILL produce the effect.

No I mean that what makes a Ouija work is that fact that people's arms perform random little motions that they can't control. Probably even more of a factor is the fact that they think and want something to happen. They won't realize they're moving, but are subconsciously moving the glass to try and create those messages.

OH! right yes i understand. Yea thats basically what i want to show in this experiment (im going to do it since its fairly cheap).

What I want is to show nothing will happen, by running out of ways to make it move, the only explanation is that it is human error/muscle spasms etc. Of course you know exactly what enthusiasts will say. That we still havent discovered "ecto-energy" or something equally outrageous.

Of course, remaining unbaised, something could happen (other than the glass shattering). You really never know until you've tried. It COULD move.

But after trying magnetic, heat, electricity, vibrations, sonics, etc and more i cant think of right now, thats pretty much expended all avenues of possibility that its paranormal.

The only problem I can see is that it may not move at all because of the lack of human touch. The spirits and what not use their energy through the people to make the arms move as they are not having a physical presence there themselves. So perhaps they NEED the people to touch whatever is being moved directly?

I guess what i'm trying to say, if that made no sense, is that the "muscles spasms" are actually the spirit interaction...

Nice idea but I think Amorymeltzer is right. You need...
1. Something to make unpredictable movements that controls the arm. (Just use a random number generator that uses a given range of digits-numbers to equal certain movements.
2. You need something to pose a question (which thinks)
3. You need a demon (couldn’t see it in the drawing sorry).

My suggestion for the last two would be President Bush (although I’m not to sure if that particular demon "thinks"). Try Tony Blair?

I thought this was a great idea for about 15 seconds of looking at it. lol. It is a great idea, and I think someone should build one, just for the sake of showing that the glass/planchette will not move if a human is not using it. This device would take out all possibility of human interference, so if it moved, it would be purely spiritual. Someone should make one and take it somewhere haunted,set it on a level surface, ask some questions and let it do it's thing.

But then the flaw is... what if spirits cannot take control of metal and plastic. As other people mentioned, I think that they will probably have to 'come through' a person, since the machine has no conciousness or energy of it's own (besides perhaps Potential). Although this also takes out the possibility of either proving or disproving the ouiji phenomenon, since the human variable must be left in, it seems. Unless you can train a cat, dog, or similarly small-but-agile pet to use the Ouiji board. This way, it doesn't know language so it cannot influence it. Although getting it to sit still and put it's paw on the thing for any period of time could be difficult. Maybe set a hamster ball up on the planchette with some sort of 360 degree wheel mechanism, so wherever the hamster rolls, the piece goes. Haha. Okay, now I'm just going off on a tangent. But I suppose if living conciousness is needed, these are possible ways of addressing it.

I would also like to see someone make a free, Ouiji computer program that can simply make use of the computer mouse to control the piece. I can probably get my friend to make me one in JAVA if I can figure out how it could work. And then another one that the computer answers entirely on it's own. I'm thinking.... first a random number is generated for the length of the response, and then for each of those numbers, another number is generated for each of those numbers which ranges from 1-26 for each letter.

ie.
You ask aloud, "Who are you?" and then press "Get Reply"

The program randomly generates "6"

Run 1. 9
Run 2. 1
Run 3. 13
Run 4. 2
Run 5. 15
Run 6. 2

These letters are then translated into corresponding letters of the alphabet.

Thus the computer's reply would be: IAMBOB

There would be a separate button which randomly generates 1 or 2, for Yes/No questions.

Thats about all I can think of at the moment.

[edit on 3-10-2005 by Yarcofin]