 After doing a poll around my Instagram and by the interest of my beautiful girlfriend Tristan it looks like quite a few people want to know why we believe in Ouija boards. I found this topic interesting not only for the supernatural psychology aspect but recently my son and I have jumped into horror movies with my girlfriend. Although I was largely a wuss when it came to spooky movies my girlfriends love for them has shown me that there's some fun in controlled fear. During this last week my son and I binged watched all four paranormal activity movies with Tristan because they're some of her faves. In the first movie when hoping to find out what this demon wants one of the main characters Mika suggests trying a Ouija board. Katie who this demon seems to be attached to is immediately scared by Mika even suggesting this and she makes him promise not to try it. But in a twist of words Mika merely promises not to buy a Ouija board but later he brings one home and justifies it by saying he kept his promise because he just borrowed it. This triggers a huge fight between Mika and Katie and when they leave the house we see the board move on its own and then catch fire. This is actually quite common too and no not the Ouija board moving because of a spirit and then catching fire but people are legitimately afraid to use a Ouija board. In paranormal activity they say it's dangerous because you're then inviting the demon in or there's the concern that they might aggravate the demon. One of the reasons I love my girlfriend is because we have interesting conversations while critically thinking together and although we're both huge skeptics she was telling me how she would be reluctant to use a Ouija board. I found this really interesting. In a recent supernatural psychology video I asked how many of you would live in a house where murders took place and in the last video I discussed how many of us atheists wouldn't sell our soul. So today I thought it'd be interesting to dive into the supernatural psychology of Ouija boards because there's actually some science behind how they work. So before we get started pause the video for a second and let me know down in the comments below if you would be brave enough to use a Ouija board. In order to understand how Ouija boards work we need to discuss the psychological phenomenon called the idiomotor effect and also if you're new to the Rewired Soul make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. Here we practice critical thinking and skepticism to improve our emotional intelligence and overall well-being. In a hilarious episode of Bob's Burgers that took place in season 5 Tina falls in love with a ghost named Jeff who she keeps in a shoebox. When Tammy Jocelyn Zeke and Jimmy Jr. are skeptical of the existence of Jeff, Louise convinces them to use a Ouija board to communicate with Jeff. After Zeke asks Jeff what type of food ghosts eat the Ouija board replies with S-O-U-P and all the kids end up believing they actually communicated with this ghost named Jeff. Later we find out that Louise was chicken the kids and was actually moving the planchette and I assume that even most skeptics figure that when using the board with other people someone must be moving it but what's really interesting is that even if you use the board alone it would move. To understand this we need to explain the idiomotor effect. As Dr. Steven Novella describes in his book The Skeptics Guide to the Universe he explains the idiomotor effect as involuntary subtle muscle movement triggered by an expectation that creates the illusion that the movement was caused by an external force. The idiomotor effect is just another wacky part of our brain that many of us are completely unaware of. This explains many beliefs that date back to ancient times before we had the scientific progress that we have today. Even as recently as 1933 the British Society of Dowsers was founded. Dowsing is something you may have seen before where people take two rods and believe they can point you in the direction of water. You hold the two rods parallel and as you near water supposedly the rods are supposed to cross. While sometimes the Dowser will get lucky and stumble across water based on random chance there's no scientific evidence that Dowsing works in any scientific way. Dowsers also believe that this practice can find metal ores, gemstones, oil and more which would completely defy the laws of physics. Psychologist Ray Hyman has done quite a bit of research into the idiomotor effect to explain why this happens. Hyman says quote under a variety of circumstances our muscles will behave unconsciously in accordance with an implanted expectation. What makes this simple fact so important is that we are not aware that we ourselves are the source of the resulting action. This lack of any sense of volition is common in many everyday actions. So this also helps explain why we believe Ouija boards actually work. Like Hyman states this happens unconsciously in accordance with an implanted expectation. This is why a Ouija board plan chat may move even if we're using the board alone. But when with friends the board may have more power if multiple people have similar unconscious expectations. While this may help explain something like the board's yes or no questions what about when the board actually spells out words? Well think about it. Have you ever watched Wheel of Fortune or played a game of Hangman? Our brain is a prediction machine and is constantly trying to fill in gaps and guess what's coming. And this is especially true with words. As the plan chat moves to a letter the unconscious idiomotor effect kicks in and starts spelling out a word. Then we use post-talk reasoning to explain what this word means in relation to what we're asking or experiencing. So now that we have a better understanding of the idiomotor effect the question is does it really matter if people believe in Ouija boards? Sometimes when I make these supernatural psychology videos I wonder Chris are you just being a buzzkill? As many of you know I hold firmly to the belief that if it's not hurting anyone who cares. For example even though I'm an atheist if you're a believer as long as you're not trying to harm people do your thing. So is it a big deal if you and your friends have a spooky night and use a Ouija board and think it's real? As long as you don't make any life-changing decisions that may have a negative impact I'd say no. Or is it a big deal that my highly intelligent and rational girlfriend would be reluctant to use a Ouija board? Not really. I don't expect that topic ever being the catalyst for a fight in our relationship. Although I'd argue that in a majority of cases it's no big deal whether or not people believe in Ouija boards there are some concerns. For example there's a booming industry of psychic medians who manipulate people out of a lot of money by taking advantage of their belief in the supernatural. Some grieving people desperate to speak to a loved one who passed away may spend thousands of dollars trying to communicate with them. Others may spend tens of thousands of dollars in psychics trying to induce more control over their own lives. If your belief in the supernatural is hurting you psychologically or financially I make these videos on critical thinking and skepticism for you. But what if I told you that this belief has actually led to hundreds of deaths? Currently a man by the name of James McCormick is spending 10 years in prison for taking advantage of people's ignorance about the idiomotor effect. At first McCormick started selling a golf ball finder using a similar framework as the Dousers. But money is one of the most corruptive influences so he eventually upgraded to saying that he had invented a device that can locate landmines and he's thought to have made upwards of 50 million pounds from the sales of more than 7,000 of these fake devices. According to the BBC one invoice showed sales of 38 million pounds over three years to Iraq. He also sold these bogus devices to countries such as Thailand, Georgia, Romania and more. As a result hundreds of people have died using his devices while searching for landmines. So although Ouija boards are largely just for a spooky evening of fun when we lack critical thinking skills and skepticism our ignorance can have devastating results. Many of us won't be defrauded by a psychic or a guy selling fake bomb detection devices but we need to look at the bigger picture. By being skeptical and practicing critical thinking we're increasing our ability to pause and question what we're reading in the news or even gossip our friends are telling us. And when we educate ourselves about how the mind works we can better understand some of its unconscious reactions such as biases or the idiomotor effect. Alright everybody thank you once again for making it all the way through this video essay and yeah I was excited to make it like I said over on Instagram by the way follow me over on Instagram at 3Width Soul on Twitter too but anyways I put up a poll because I love hearing from all of you and a ton of you wanted me to cover this and it's something that I've been thinking about doing for a while so I hope you enjoyed it and learning about the idiomotor effect I hope that makes a little bit more sense why these Ouija boards work and listen like I said I am constantly constantly questioning myself like I'm like Chris are you just you're just being a wet blanket are you being an old wet blanket trying to discourage people from just having fun no I don't care I don't care like if you want to like have fun and do whatever and get spooky that's cool but like I said like we're practicing honing our critical thinking skills and everything like that you know just to help us in other situations we question things and say hey is there another possible explanation for this like just constantly when I look you know on social media when I look at videos and just see all the arguments and everything like that or recently I've been seeing a ton of conspiracy theories and stuff like I'm just like we need to become better thinkers right and by the way I have a lot of videos planned like diving into stuff I put up some other polls and I'm gonna do some of the other videos that you guys voted like second and third and things like that so those will be coming soon make sure you follow me on social media I've had some people say they're not getting notifications and all that but I always tweet or I put it up on my Instagram stories or whatever so make sure you follow me over on social media all right but anyways I don't know if this video is gonna be monetized if you want to support the channel in any way at the end there's a link to patreon or if you're looking for therapy like I have been well I actually got therapy a long time ago anyways I use better help online therapy if you want to check it out there's an affiliate link down below it's affordable it's online so you can be indoors social distancing and working with an awesome therapist I'm gonna use my link a little bit comes back to support the channel and the work that I do here so check it out down in the description and the pin comment below and also I always link the books that I recommend too so if you want to check out the books from Steven Novella go check that out alright but anyways that's all I got for this video if you liked this video please give it a thumbs up if you're new make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell and a huge huge thank you to everybody who supports the channel over on patreon or getting my books at the rewiredstall.com or signing up for you know better help or using my affiliate links all of you are just the most beautiful people ever all right thanks again for watching