EP 1: Are Ouija Boards Real?

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What is a Ouija Board?

The Ouija board, also known as a “talking board,” is a flat board marked with letters, numbers, “yes,” “no,” and “goodbye.” Participants use a heart-shaped pointer called a planchette to spell out messages, allegedly guided by spirits. While often seen as a spooky game today, its roots lie in serious attempts at spirit communication.

Origins in the Age of Spiritualism

The Ouija board emerged during the rise of spiritualism in the mid-1800s, a time when people sought new ways to cope with death and explore metaphysical questions. In America, mediums like the Fox Sisters popularized séances. This environment gave birth to the talking board, which allowed everyday people to "speak" to spirits.

Ouija and the Occult Revival

In Victorian England and elite circles in the U.S., occult practices thrived. People were having mummy-unwrapping parties and collecting mystical objects from colonies, according to the Wondering Monsters Podcast. Groups like the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn helped drive interest in arcane knowledge, making the Ouija board both a curiosity and a spiritual tool.

Wartime Surges in Popularity

The Ouija board has experienced popularity spikes during times of mass death and uncertainty. It really picks up steam around the Civil War and again during the world wars. The emotional aftermath of these conflicts led many to seek closure or contact with lost loved ones.

From Entertainment to Evil

Originally not considered dangerous, the Ouija board’s image shifted dramatically after the release of The Exorcist in 1973. In the film, a young girl becomes possessed after using a Ouija board. It wasn’t even about the board—it just had one in it, as noted in the episode. Despite its minor role, the board became associated with demonic possession in pop culture.

Scientific Explanations: The Ideomotor Effect

Skeptics attribute the Ouija board’s movement to the ideomotor effect—tiny unconscious muscle movements that can feel like spirit guidance. Your unconscious mind is doing the work and your conscious mind just fills in the gaps. Psychological priming, group dynamics, and expectations all play a role.

Democratization of Necromancy

Unlike tarot cards or ritual magic, the Ouija board requires no special knowledge. It’s necromancy for the people, as Baba put it on Wondering Monsters Podcast. This accessibility helped it become a common tool in households and slumber parties across generations.

Pop Culture and Urban Legends

With stories of scratched backs, flying planchettes, and power outages, the Ouija board is rich with lore. By the time you’ve got this going on in the '60s, you’ve got a whole culture of stories around it. Many believe the board can invite spirits or cause poltergeist activity, especially when used without following “opening” and “closing” rituals.

What If It's Real?

The podcast also entertained the question: what if the Ouija board does actually work? If this is real, how could it be exploited? What would it mean for governments, warfare, or even the stock market? The uncertainty surrounding its validity only deepens the intrigue.

Final Thoughts and Ratings

The hosts of Wondering Monsters Podcast rated the Ouija board highly for cultural recognition and fear factor but varied in opinions on its legitimacy. One stated, There’s enough stories out there that if just one of them is true, what does that mean?

Whether viewed as a psychological phenomenon, a spiritual conduit, or a creepy kids' game, the Ouija board remains a fascinating artifact of cultural mythology.

Mentioned in This Episode

• Is Bloody Mary Real?
• The Paranormal Scholar

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• Title: Entry of the Gladiators
• Composer: Julius Fučík
• Library of Congress (Public Domain)
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Ouija Board

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Woodcut of the Wunderkammer room, from Dell'historia naturale Wellcome

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Fox Sisters

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Coal Miners

• Artist: Janet Lindenmuth
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planchette, mummy unwrapping party

Transcription

*Transcription was automatically generated and may contain errors.

(Upbeat Music)

Baba: It's weird, we've got a bunch of holidays around the dead, but as a contemporary society, we're really weirdly insulated from it for whatever reason. But it's cool, I was looking into the stuff with the Ouija board and when it had booms and busts in popularity, and things like that, and it's funny because we think of it, so the Ouija board, for those that don't know, it's like most of us know it as a slumber party somewhere between a board game and ghost stories and a weird seance trick. It's big among little kids and then teenagers, and then now and then people pick it up later, just be like, Let's give another world. But for those that don't know, it's like a usually cardboard and plastic device. Now it's put out by, it used to be Parker Brothers. Help me out, Bill.

MM: I think Hasbro is the only current- Hasbro Wizards of the Coast, I believe. Yes. Yeah.

Baba: (Laughter) It was Parker Brothers for a while, but it's got a history that goes before that. Basically, it's got a little plastic heart-shaped device with a little clear window, and then there's a board that that sits on top of that has letters. Usually, it's got a hello and goodbye in the bottom corners, and then yes and no in the top corners, and then a bunch of letters. The idea is that you traditionally, you communicate with the spirits of the dead through this device, and they recommend you do at least two people, and you lightly rest your hands on what's called a planchette, the little heart-shaped thing, and you ask questions, and neither of you are supposed to push it, you just lightly rest your fingers on it, and the planchette moves in response to the promptings of spirits. That's the lore behind it. This thing actually goes way back. As much as it's something that's like the first, what we know as the Ouija or Ouija, goes back to the mid-1800s, so not that old, but the idea of tapping the shoulders of the dead to get answers, and talking to the dead, it's like the oldest form of religious expression. Our oldest religious practices are centered around the honored dead, and ancestor worship, and things like that. So in a sense, we think of spiritualism popped up in the 1800s as a phenomenon, but it hearkens back to this old, old thing we've been doing forever. So you've got, just to paint the picture that the Ouija board emerged into, you've got Great Britain is this massive power, wherein the age of imperialism goes into Victorian era. And so you've got this crazy level of wealth and world curiosity accumulating at the same time as this weird moral uptightness. And we can call that the Victorian era. People are very uptight about sex and things like that. That doesn't seem to have gone away too much. Very uptight about it. And yet also, not at all uptight about taking the shiny, interesting things from other cultures and using them for parlor entertainment. So this was a time when you would have things like mummy unwrapping parties, that you would have friends over and literally be unwrapping bodies of ancient people to see what's in them like a pinata or something like this kind of weird kind of very, I mean, from our perspective, very disrespectful. Well, it's also a classic. It's very, very, and that's the thing, because I guess the average folk in England do a great deal of the time. Yeah, a coal miner.

MM: During the Industrial Revolution, it's an ongoing to mummy unwrapping parties.

Baba: You don't bargain to mummies or something like that. Yeah, so. So you've got all this going on. At that time, you've also got this, it'd be very common to have like a curiosities room in your well off estate, and it would be botanical things and maybe things like we're talking about like mummy stuff or something stolen from some other imperial campout. So these kinds of things are going on. So you've got this interest in other cultures. You've got something of an occult revival stirring up. Around this time, you've got things like the beginnings of like the Golden Dawn and weird kinds of magic groups and things are kind of stirring up. But you've got this other thing, this curious stirring up of spiritualism and seances. And so now the talking board, the Ouija board is an American phenomenon. But if you think about the idea of the traditional idea is that basically you've got two people with their knees basically touching and this board on their lap and their fingers on this board. And in this Victorian era where everything's kind of like very much like at a distance, this is kind of like a flirty kind of activity. So it's kind of interesting that it's emerging in this sort of stew. So you've got spiritualism picks up really big in upstate New York with the Fox sisters. And then also over in Ohio, well, I mean, around the same time, 1860s or so in Ohio, you've got the

MM: emergence of spiritual cults in Ohio.

MM: That's very strange.

Baba: I mean, upstate New York was full of them. There was a whole area they referred to as the burned over district. It was because there were so many weird religions and versions of religions. In fact, up in upstate New York, you still have the town of Lilydale, which is all like mediums like spiritualist and things. You can go and get readings of things done. It's like an area that is that like that's what the area is known for.

MM: And now kind of funny, because it sounds almost more like in the Americas, this is a very like almost like bohemian kind of practice, I guess, like in a weird sense. And then like what you're saying in England, it's more of like a classic, like high class, you know, like parlor game for rich people like, you know, it's like it's like it's just which is an interesting kind of like distinction of how it seems to translate across.

Baba: So like, I kind of think like the the weird kinds of cultural curiosities of the imperialist nations, you know, brought back all these like weird things. And then people got curious about them and got into them and things like that. And anytime you've got luxury and privilege, you've got the time to study all this stuff because you're not out mining coal. And you know, you can be keeping these journals and going to your little magick group and things like that, because you've got all this time and, you know, to be doing these kinds of things. And so so, yeah, like you've got that going on in in the UK. I'm not sure if the term UK was being used at the time. I think England is. Yeah, I'll just call it England. Forgive me, people. Yeah. So. So you've got this going on over there. But yet in the States, so you figure when is this really picking up in the States? Well, there's there's the curiosity coming from the other side of the pond, so to say. OK, and then you've got here we are, New York, New England and things like that. This is kind of kind of picking up, but it really picks up steam around the Civil War because you've got a lot of people that are dead all of a sudden. And so you find these booms of it. Civil War. And then you've got World War One. Because, again, this unprecedented level of dead. And then you've got and then really, again, in the after World War Two, really, you're in the 60s and the occult revival of the 60s that we became big again. So it's had these sort of like ups and downs in terms of like public adoption and popularity. But it's like for the most part, it wasn't considered like a scary thing for the most part. It was like mostly harmless. And it actually wasn't even really being seen as being in conflict with like more mainstream Christianity's. You could do this kind of thing on a Saturday night, as they say, and go to church on a Sunday morning. And it it wasn't any real conflict until. The exorcist, the movie, the exorcist, and this probably ties in with all the stuff we will have to talk about later, like things like the satanic panic and the games and how games are evil and devil worship stuff. And all that stuff for other discussions at other

MM: times, you know, probably makes sense. Like the link up is probably not that far off. I mean, if you like you're saying, like even just like talking about like the Civil War era and stuff like that, like I know like there's a phenomenon just talk about games and how games are seen in a religious context. Like they would you would often find they would ditch playing cards before they would go into the battle because they didn't want to die with a deck of playing cards like in there, you know, because they were gambling, you know, and it's like you didn't want to die like like, you know, possibly having sin, you know, like, like I was gambling, that's not a cool, cool thing. You know, it's not like they thought gambling was wrong, but it's just like they didn't want that on themselves when they died. You know, it's like like maybe it was also they didn't want people to know they were gambling, you know, I don't know whether rations or things to like ditch things like that or you ditch dice or like and I guess like kind of makes sense like dice sort of start as a sort of, you know, you know, kind of fate testing thing like, you know, lots and stuff like that. So I guess like games and religions, squirrelliness around games has some kind of like, you know, probably isn't that hard of a link up to make, especially if you're like, I'm summoning spirits. Oh, no. Yeah.

Baba: And if you go to like the idea of, oh, well, when is this, this becomes bad all of a sudden. And you'll find this throughout the history of magic and weird sort of unsanctioned spiritual practices that for a while, a lot of this stuff is like hand in hand, like the first exorcisms, it was like largely like borrowed technology from pagans and things doing exorcisms. So, I mean, there wasn't like a rule book for how to do exorcisms. So it's like all this weird borrowed stuff. But that idea of, I mean, of spiritual technology and sort of studying what you're, you know, what are other spiritual practitioners doing? So like the idea of like grimoires have this weird relationship with the monastery. Like if it weren't for monasteries, we would have lost so many grimoires. But so many of them were just either like curiosities of clergy that again, like look at this in the context of you're a monk or something. And your whole game is being this spiritual technologist. And here's this book that teaches you how to, it gives you the spirit lists that you can command and you can command them in the name of God, your God. And there's some story that links up why you're allowed to do that. But for a while that wasn't seen as being a problem. It's just as time goes on, it becomes more and more problematic, probably as literacy increases and people outside of the clergy.

MM: Yeah, I was going to say it probably has something to do with like the church at the time, you know, being like, especially like in Europe, like pre-venison era type things. You're like the church is like in charge of technology. Like, so that's why we can still, you know, it was like, like, you know, like you said, like monks and things like preserving like ancient Greek texts and, you know, ancient Roman stuff and things like that. Things that the general populace might start getting access to in like the Renaissance era. But at the time it was like, well, this is bad, but we still have to some, you know, keep a track. Like the thought is not out there for general use, you know. But then like, you know, but then you get into like, oh, well, now once you hit like the Renaissance and you have like merchant class funding artists and architects and stuff like that and writers and, you know, essentially like scientists for lack of a better term, you know, like they start getting access to this essentially, you know, church knowledge, you know, getting these ancient texts. It would have otherwise been kind of wiped out or lost, you know, had not been preserved that way. But yeah, it seems like there's probably some level of control, though, like it's like, you know, they don't want the.

Baba: And so it's interesting. So you've got I talked about the idea of societies like the Golden Dawn, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and there are other sort of like mystical societies or magical societies. And so you've got things like the theosophist and the anthroposophist and the there are all kinds of little groups that are forming lots of times around some kind of a guru figure or whatever. But if you go back in the history of this, when it comes to bothering spirits to get information, the way of doing it traditionally on like the high level would be like you have a like a summoner type character, like a conjurer or. And then you've got like a scryer, you've got a someone that looks in a mirror or a vessel to see things and they describe to the other person what's going on. And that other person will then do other incantations or conjurations or whatever to move things along or they will ask questions and see what happens. When you've got like the operation of John D and Edward Kelly, the whole Inokian Inokian operation, you get fifteen hundreds or so. You've got like this stuff that all this stuff is very expensive, involves very expensive, rare texts. You have to have the sign off of all these high up people and it's all like very like tightly contained. But by the time you've got Ouija boards, you've got this weird democratization of necromancy. Like it's kind of like necromancy for the people again, because it's kind of like where it started was like with the people, you know, and now it's like back with the people and people would be making their own little paper boards and things like that and using like a little glass as a planchette. And so but the all this stuff kind of like came together in a kit when you have the actual creation of the Ouija board and then you can buy it for like not that much money. And I mean like that, you know, this is like a common. It's a toy. It's marketed as a toy for kids for like a while, even now. You know, I mean, like like Hasbro doesn't go far to promote it or its history, but it still exists. I mean, I've got one over there.

MM: You can definitely go buy them at Target. You know, I mean, it's it's a it's like, yeah, you like go buy my cult kit at Target. I have to say, just as an interjection, I was a curiosity I pulled up like just like general like, you know, with like earlier board games, right? Like kind of thing. I was like, wanted to see like where this kind of falls in the scale. So, you know, it wasn't like packaged right up until what was it like the late 1800s or like early early 1900s when it was first packaged.

Baba: It was, yeah, late 1800s. I think it went as I would think when it officially shows up as the Ouija board.

MM: Yes, I saw actually the name the people when they came up with the name, they asked the board to give it the name. Yeah. And that happened in Baltimore. Just a shout out. Yeah, I thought it was kind of funny that it was like not too far from these. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, but I was like, but but I pulled up a thing on butter games. I came across this graph and it goes from like basically 1944. Right. So just like just around the end of World War Two up to the present. And you don't even really start getting like these are games like published like every year. And the graph like it goes from zero to 100 is the first line. Right. And when you're in like the 60s, even the 70s, like basically not even up to like 1985, 87. You don't even crack 100 games being published per year. Like until you hit like 2000 like late very late 90s, like early 2000s. And then the kind of hockey sticks up because obviously we're in kind of a board game Renaissance. But like you didn't really have options for board games. It was like Ouija board, Monopolous, maybe like some mouse trap. Yeah. Well, yeah. But I mean, that's even later. Like when you get like the 60s, I don't even think they had mouse trap yet. It's probably like, you know, the 50s and 60s and stuff like that. You're probably like you got like five games like you can probably buy. It's like like this is like don't even have a real pursuit or anything. There's nothing in history yet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's clearly nothing happened before that. Not here anyway. But yes. So you have like you probably have like five games you can order out of like what like probably the Sears catalog or something. You know, it's at the time.

Baba: So it's like order your house and order the game.

MM: Order your house or your Ouija board and your Monopoly set and then go down to the local giant, you know, departmentstore like that sells every single thing imaginable and 17 floors, you know, and it's like then you're like, oh, they have like five games in the toy. You know, it's like if there's a toy aisle at the time, you know, it's probably like stuffed animals and like, yeah, like it's like so probably not doesn't seem there's a lot of choices in board board games. It's like, yeah, packaged versions of chess and checkers. You know, it's like if

Baba: you think about it like up until we tend to forget this as a world, but like up until 1850, everything was kind of agrarian. Yeah, it was like, I mean, the first oil well drilled in the States was in 1850. So you figure this that's like 10 years before it's actually like it's post the beginnings of spiritualism, which are like the 1940s or so. I'm sorry, 1840s. And then but then before the Civil War. So you've got this like weird sweet spot where oil starts to be used and then increasingly that becomes the defining factor of the age. And you've got the industrial revolution in the States and things like that. So but yeah, like when it comes to. So what the heck were you doing all the time? You know, you were summoning the dead probably some of the time because, you know, there's nothing to do that, you know, you have candles and things because that's kind of like probably how you're keeping your your stuff lit a lot of the time. You know, so but it's interesting. So but it's not really until like that after the exorcist that this thing starts to be seen as an evil kind of thing right in the midst of the occult revival of the 60s. You've got the exorcist shows up in beginning of the exorcist. Reagan is playing with a Ouija board and and they find out about this demon, a zuzu or something. I didn't see the exorcist in a while. But that is Babylonian, Sumerian demon that possesses Reagan and then the exorcist unfolds. But so but you've got this idea then. And this is what becomes like the prominent scare tactic around the Ouija board. That if you use it, you will open a gate that you will be unable to close because you've invited them in. And so it's like all of a sudden now people have been talking to the dead all of history. But all of a sudden through this device, you know, it's this it's this problem you're inviting the evil in. And so that is where a lot of the the urban legends around Ouija boards come from. And there are so many out there.

MM: This is kind of like a Jaws phenomenon, like how like people being scared more of sharks, like really and the like hatred of sharks kind of coincides with the popularity of Jaws. You know, it's like people weren't like not afraid of sharks, but like if like the encounter, like obviously, like even nowadays, like it's like even with like a little ramp up of heavy fishing on the coast. Like shark attacks are pretty rare worldwide for as many billions of people live in this world. You know, you might get like 10 a year or something like that. You know, it's very uncommon. Like, you know, it's like and it's you know, it's it's like you're definitely much more likely to trip and fall. And so, you know, like something like a sidewalk will kill you quicker than a shark. You know, it's like it's like

Danny C: all the sidewalks.

MM: Yeah, yeah. It's like what the but the but like that like the ramp, but Jaws like really made people really scared of sharks like like all of a sudden, like, you know, really ramped up this hate like this anti shark kind of.

Baba: Well, the exercise wasn't even about Ouija boards. Like, you know, it just had one in it.

MM: And that was that was about ancient Babylonian demons, I guess.

Baba: And that's the thing. I mean, it's like it was based on a story. I believe it was actually based on the true life tale, allegedly.

MM: Yeah, I feel like a lot of those true life tale books from that era are.

Baba: I mean, like, the world we're in of like, well, maybe, you know, this is what we're all talking about. Yeah, I know. But it's just like, yeah, the idea is a 13 year old, 13 year old boy. And he has this possession. And that's what this story is based on. And then someone makes a movie. It's a girl in the movie, you know, and so on and so forth. But then in the wake of that, you've got movies like Witchboard and things like that straight up about these things. But at this point, you've got a culture that has a bunch of stories around it because figure, okay, 1860s, you know, onward, really, you've got these things available. And so you've got a whole culture with stories around this stuff. And then anyone that's had any kind of like weird mishaps or things, because I mean, you've got kids doing these things. Kids have imaginations, you know, and that's not to cast dispersions on any kind of, quote unquote, legitimate phenomena around this. But kids have imaginations. They, you know, they're much more prone to getting into this kind of theatrical setting. And you put people in the dark with low lighting and the scary story, you know. So by the time you've got this going on in the 60s and the following decades, you know, it's like you've got all these stories around. And I tried to summon whatever, you know, and this scary thing happened. I came across so many stories when I was delving into a little bit of this. It's like we could talk about this for like a really long time.

MM: Can we back up real quick? Can we talk about what about the phenomenon of the whole like idiomotor like functioning thing, too? Like, can we talk about that a little bit? Like just say where it's like, let's go. Jump into like here's the weird, creepy stuff like you're saying people's active imaginations sitting in the dark doing this type of thing.

Baba: You've got this thing called idiomotor phenomena, idiomotor responses, and it's basically it's it's the minor movements of the muscles that are difficult to detect, but that actually can control the minor movements of things like the the planchette or if you're talking about things like a pendulum that's supposed to also work on idiomotor response. In hypnosis, we'll use an idiomotor response that's supposed to be like an involuntary response of the of the person's unconscious mind. Some so that's kind of the idea behind idiomotor response on some unconscious level. There's some thing you're trying to convey and that minor twitches and things in your muscles actually cause these things to move around. Now, with a I actually played around. They say not to do it just by yourself, but I actually played around with it a little bit. Just to see if I could just get it to go using just idiomotor response and self hypnosis. And I actually didn't have much luck with it. And that's not to say that idiomotor responses aren't the mechanism. But so so let's talk about this for a second. We're actually we're going to come back to that because I think we should talk about, well, what if this is a real thing, you know, beyond the you know, what if this is a real thing on on several levels. But talk about some of the spooky stuff. So the idea is that, you know, you can open this gate and it lets things in and then they can be hard to get rid of. And most of the stories I encounter actually wind up being something like poltergeist stories where it's like it's not like it's not like the board gave me spooky stuff. And then I became obsessed with it and kept going back to the board. And it's like the planchette flew across the room or all of a sudden somebody got scratches across their back or like it's always the back.

Danny C: I want to add to it's never their arms, never the stomach. It's always the back, which I find very interesting. Yeah.

MM: Well, something to like, isn't it like sometimes it's not just like that. I mean, this is like one of those things where like I remember hearing about is like people will go to places they think are haunted and they think already a ghost is there and then they'll use it to communicate with like a ghost in a specific haunted area. That was always the like, you know, playground story of this, like, you know, like that I would think of growing up, you know, like to it's not just it wasn't so much like summoning. I don't remember hearing about the demon things and stuff in that whole thing until like later on, you know, like probably like older or something. But like as a kid, kid, Ouija board thing, it was always like, oh, like so and so lives in this old house and it's haunted and they're going to do like a Ouija board thing to talk to the ghost because like, you know, like at least like in my school, like first the school I went to was very old. And then like some of the kids lived in like that I went to lived in like the old historic kind of houses and stuff like that. So of course, old means ghosts, right? You know, it's like, you know, it's like, so there must be like in my spooky attic that just like, you know, because we didn't renovate it or whatever the spooky basement, like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, it's like, it's always like, of course, there's like a ghost there or like, you know, it's like, so it was more like less about like the opening a port on more like, well, there's a ghost there. More like, well, there's a ghost somewhere here and this is a way to talk to the ghost that lives here or something like that or is residing here or whenever you're however you want. He's just chilling out. It's easy. Yeah. Yeah.

Baba: Well, that's the thing. I think oftentimes when people use it now, it's kind of like we're gathered here, blah, blah, blah. If there's any spirit out there that wants to talk to us, you know, use the planchette to, you know, tell us your name or whatever, you know. And it's like it's just a general call for

MM: any old spirit that might be the thing. Right. That's more of a.

Baba: Yeah. But it's more like how people use it now. Like, like they don't tend to be like, let's go to a haunted location because it's like, oh, no, it's like something they they drag out. It's a slumber part. Like, it's largely a slumber party thing among kids. Like, you don't really get adults, you know, talking like us weirdos talking about these things or dragging them out. At parties as much.

Danny C: We're having a business retreat next week. I'm going to bring the Ouija board with me. Yeah. Right.

Baba: I mean, you might start seeing it more as the world becomes less predictable. You might see more of it.

MM: But that doesn't mean that the spirits will be very helpful there. Like, I don't know, man, like long term investments. I guess.

Baba: Well, it's kind of like so when you go back to the idea of like summoning spirits and the tradition of like psalmonic conjuration and things like that. Where you're conjuring things up and commanding them by spirit name lists and things. There are these there are these processes for rigorously testing the spirits and finding out you don't have, you know, something weird or than you expected.

MM: You know, and so you just say, so jump up for me off the slumber party, like, think like or whatever. Is it like there also is probably an element of why it's like focuses like like I think it's probably more in the like middle school, early teenage kind of thing because it's like it's that spooky rite of passage like the again. We're like, well, this is spooky and this is something that's scary and like you're going to get scared. We're going to watch a horror film and then we're going to play it. We're going to like prime the pump on every single thing that could like freak us out while we're and see who bails first. You know, like it's like he was like, he was like, I don't want anything to do with this or like, you know, he gets upset and has to call their parents to get them or something. Like it kind of feels like it's that kind of that's probably why it has that kind of element to it, too, like there's just like, well,

Baba: and I think also like people that have limited access to various forms of entertainment, like actually some of the stuff I encountered as I was looking into this were stories among military people using the Ouija board and instances in which like supposedly, because I mean, I don't know how to. I don't know how to independently confirm these reports, you know, because so they're they're anecdotes, you know, about how like at a given barracks or whatever Ouija boards got banned because basically like they were causing disruptions, not so much like the not so much like the commanding officers or whatever, like there's causing spirits to do things, you know, but it was kind of like it's correcting this. The office is not the right terms for this at all. It's distracting these military folk. You know, it's causing problems. People are like, it's just causing this as a spirit of restlessness where we can't have this nonsense. You know, whether it's not necessarily like, you know, it's causing poltergeist phenomena. But a lot of times when you look at like the stories that allegedly resulted in a Ouija board getting banned or whatever it is. The reason is because it caused some kind of poltergeist phenomena. Someone gets attacked or something gets thrown across the room or you disembodied voices or lights going on and off and things like that. But yeah, so when you get to like the slumber part

MM: of your electrical bill, I

Baba: guess we're paying that bill if it's a military barracks. But yeah, so but so this kind of idea behind again, like folks that have limited access to entertainment, doing these things or in these these weird kind of scenarios. And you've got. Yeah, so you've got bored people oftentimes late at night because you're not supposed to be doing this stuff. And that's like whether you're like a teenager or whether you're like, you know, like, I don't know, a marine, like, you're not supposed to be doing this kind of stuff, particularly in this, I mean, for a grown adult in a so-called, you know, scientific society to be doing this kind of thing. But but it doesn't really go away. And in fact, like, I mean, at times of uncertainty, these things become more popular. And actually, like the idea of it being games that get haunted. That's often how these things show up like tarot cards. They're just playing cards and they get haunted. They start getting used for things they're not supposed to be used for, you know. And so the whole like fortune telling world.

MM: And that's also true. It seems like the Ouija board is like the barrier to entry is exceedingly low because all you have to be able to do is read and talk. Like you don't need to have like like tarot. You need to understand like layouts or the symbolism or like and it's often tarot is often approached like an expert who has been doing this a while. Like they have some kind of intuition. Like they know something or you know, like they are a spiritualist person or or they're just like the person that like, you know, that's that knowledge of that. Like, you know, all the insights of like what this card means and what does it mean in this position? Like we'd be any of that. You just need to be like two people, your hands, this like the planchette in the board and be able to read and ask questions.

Baba: And that's where and that might be again, like it's that democratization of magic that kind of freaks out the authorities. And maybe that's why it gets rained in when it does talking about like the escalation of the production of board games and things. You know, by the time you've got a counterculture forming, there's all this fear around the counterculture, drugs and, you know, different religions and things showing up. And so you've got this like weird kind of clapback that eventually probably shows up in the satanic panic. Again, a topic for another conversation.

Danny C: I have two thoughts. So for the first one, it's interesting that in all the stories that I've heard of people using Ouija boards, it's always making contact and it's always about the past. I'm surprised that no one tries to, you know, because again, we're assuming, you know, you talked before, like what if this were real, you know, and I think sometimes, you know, if not all the time, people go into it thinking like I'm going to contact a real spirit. You know, why would you use that to your advantage? Why don't you try to like learn about, you know, what's what's in store for me tomorrow? What's the the winning? What are the winning lottery numbers here for tomorrow? You know, why wouldn't you try to, you know, game the system of life, not the game of life. The system of life. People are trying to get ahead. Yeah.

Baba: But then you had a second thought there, too, I think I didn't want to cut you off on that.

Danny C: I did. I don't remember what it was.

Baba: If there's anyone listening, how that can remind Mr.

MM: I guess like the thing is like probably like like my thought would be that it just seems to be that like if you're contacting spirits or ghosts or people that are dead, like what are they going to know about the future? You know, I mean, like you have like, you know, it's like I think just like I mean, that's leaving aside like this idea of like, well, what is with timelines? I mean, like if you're like and but then I guess if you're contacting like humans or whatever like that, like, which is like that again, like that's not my general hard experience with what people typically do with this. It's like, well, wouldn't they want something if they're going to give you the like secret type knowledge, I guess, you know, like wouldn't because I mean, isn't that the whole idea is like demons just want packs or something like that? You know, like so it's like they kind of feel like the probably more benign thing would be like, oh, there's a ghost here. And what is it? How did it die? Or who did you know what would happen to them? Or why are they haunting this place? Or you know, like, like it's like they're not going to know anything about the lottery.

Baba: People still try because it's like what kind of a world do you have to step into where this thing I mean, this is a perfect point to jump into. Okay, like if this were real, I'm not saying it's not. If this is real, how could it work? Okay, and so one way is that that doesn't involve spirits or anything like but let's go from the most scientific to the most scientific. The most the opposite. Okay, so the most scientific we'd say what it's it's just idiomotor response. The projection of the people doing the activity, the cultural narrative around this thing and all this baggage you bring to it. And sort of people just psyching themselves up and also experiencing the the cold reading effect where it's kind of like, well, maybe the hits you remember, and the other things you don't or you just assume they haven't been revealed yet. So there's this eschatology kind of aspect, you know, eventually it'll be revealed and, you know, that kind

MM: of give a little quick. Cold reading explanation just though yeah, that is like a very specific term.

Baba: Yeah, so cold reading is it's giving ambiguous information that can be interpreted. So, normally, it's a tech, it's a technique most commonly used in mentalism, which is a form of stage magic that attempts to replicate psychic effects.

MM: And also weird like that the pseudo Christian preacher people they do.

Baba: psychics are accused of it, particularly by skeptics will say while they're just doing cold reading and the idea is I'll say, Okay, I'm all right. I'm the psychic on this show. Someone in the audience has someone that recently died. They're getting the letter M. Okay, and so you start getting this. Okay, well, well, somebody's got somebody that died with a letter M. Well, there's probably because these people are at the show and they want to. There's like a good likelihood that someone does right and then it's, oh, well, it's might say, oh, well, it's something that you've recently done or someone you know has recently done. You kind of like widen the circle a little bit, you know, you might use ambiguous statements that people can interpret like a lot of people could say, you know, oh, well, you always feel like you had a special connection to this person. Well, oftentimes, if you're seeing that a lot of people have that. So it's like, there are things that apply to a lot of people, but when they hit, they seem very specific. That's the idea behind cold reading. I'm giving a very sloppy version of it.

MM: Just the sense of some of you know, for, you know,

Baba: so the idea is, you know, you, you encounter this information, you distort it enough that you can fit it into a puzzle piece in your life. It gives you some kind of explanation. And okay, so that's the most scientific doesn't involve spirits does include idiomotor response. I mean, you can even go further than that and say, the most scientific one is just straight up fraud. Just somebody's pushing the thing, you know, that's not very interesting, you know, okay, but then you take a step over and you say, okay, well, let's say it's idiomotor response, but it actually is tapping into something.

MM: Like a subconscious type of

Baba: a subconscious thing. And actually, let's step beyond that, because we're going to go a little more into what I like to call woo woo into the non scientifically validated non confirmed stuff. So let's say we don't involve spirits and things yet, but we do involve something like intuition. Or some kind of, like, let's say on some level, we might have access to more information, either just unconscious information or psychic information that's out there somewhere that we're tapping into on some level, but we're not aware of that then gets translated through our unconscious processes. And we're using this mechanism for tapping into things that are beyond our ability to actually take in all that information. So, real quick, the sense organs bring in 1.2 million bits of information per second, of which 134 bits per second are rendered experience. So you're losing like 99% of the things coming in through the sense organs. It's probably for the best. Some of us should consider more. We're still active batter. Yeah. The idea is, well, what's all this other stuff? Okay, so maybe we won't go too far into it because we're short on time. Maybe some of that stuff is the information, the psychic information that can then be transmitted via idiomotor responses through these this board game. And somehow coordinated between the two or more people that have their hands on the planchet. Planchet. And, you know, that it creates some kind of intelligible response. That's that's the next explanation. The third would be that there are spirits out there. Sometimes they show up. To do these things that is as advertised, you know, working with those people either through their unconscious awareness or possessing their hands or something in some way as advertised that they're bringing this information. And then finally, it's it's always spirits, you know, and they're always there, you know, and so that's like the other extreme of it's never spirits, you know, and so. But then where are these things? Where are these spirits and things? And that's where it's kind of like, well, could they know the future? Well, maybe because maybe on the other realm or other side of the veil or whatever. See, you've got to create a metaphysics to say what's possible with these things and say, okay, that means you need an explanatory model that says I've got this ghost world and this physical world. And ghosts live in the ghost world and people and other non-ghost things live in the physical world. Or you could say, oh, well, the ghost world and the physical world are always overlapping. Oh, and the ghost world is only recordings of things that you can tap into. Or the ghost world is an actively functioning thing that's got its own timeline going on. There are so many things you have to unpack in order to, you know, get it's like, okay, well, if you tell me what you think it can do, I can probably tell you what your metaphysics are that would be required for that thing.

MM: Well, this is the weird thing I find is like the thing of this. It's like, you know, like you're talking about like, oh, well, when people use it, right. And then it's like, then like, Poltergeist activity starts to happen. It's like, well, why? It's just happened anyway. Like, if you were just like sitting around holding hands or something, why is it like a piece of injection molded plastic and cardboard is going to like trigger Poltergeist? Wouldn't there have to have been like some like I'm going to this is going to be a big leap. But like, let's just say like I'm going to say fine. Let's believe that the Poltergeist event is real. Like, let's just say, okay, that did happen. Right. What like, like, why is it like, why wouldn't that just happen anyway in that spot? Like, period, like regardless of the way you do better of the of the mass market mass manufacture. I mean, thinking about this, it's got to be really cheap for Hasbro to make that because the mold, the the like the injection mold thing has probably been around since like, you know, 60s, at least. And all it is is like the most basic of board game boards that we've been making forever and ever, like one sheet of printed paper, like, slapped down to like a folded piece of chip. It's like, that's all you get.

Danny C: Yeah, it's like, I do some thoughts on this. Okay, so, so from what I've heard, there's before you start using the Ouija board, you're supposed to open it, not not not literally open it. But there's like, ceremoniously, you open it. And again, when you're done, there's like a ceremonious kind of closing to it. And that's supposedly supposed to keep, you know, the spirits from like wreaking havoc, like a poltergeist type way. So, so in my head, it's like, it can't just happen if you're holding hands, you have to actually invite it in. And this kind of reminds me, if you ever heard stories about the black eyed kids, where, you know, allegedly, they they come to your door, they knock, and essentially, they want you to let them in, they cannot come in on their own, you have to let them in, invite them in. So I must wonder, you know, if this something this were real as advertised, do you need that? Do you need to say to the other side, like, yes, I, I want to hear what you have to say, please, please come join me. Let's have a conversation. And maybe, maybe it needs that maybe it doesn't. And maybe that's why just, you know, holding hands or whatever, it doesn't work. You actually have to get invited. It's like a vampire, but different.

MM: Yeah, yeah. Why are spirits so polite? You know, it's like, oh, you're like, you know, they're not just going to break into your house. Yeah, it's just a real good question. The thing about this, like, Dan, you actually prompted an interesting thought, Chris, you have a Ouija board sitting around, right? Like, what's the instruction math? I was wondering that too. And like I said, specifically invite the demon to then perform

Baba: the closing ceremony. When it was first published, it didn't have instructions.

MM: Yeah, that's what I mean. So it's like you had to know, like, it's just like, again, this is the most cheap ass game in the world. It's like, it doesn't even have the little metal pieces and houses that Monopoly has, you know, it's like, it's, it's got, it's like, forget about like, you know, modern board games with their like multiple figures and text, multiple decks of cards and various sizes and things. It's like, this is just like, oh, instruction manual and piece of plastic and cardboard.

Danny C: I would have loved to be in the boardroom or whatever when they were pitching this idea. No, listen, it costs like nothing to make. It is hot right now. We are going to make so much money. And they're like, all right, I guess what? We'll give Johnson a try. He's the new guy. Let's watch his fans.

MM: Yeah, that's like, I'm surprised they didn't print the instructions on the back of the box, like, like in the, like in the inner flap, you know, it's like, it's like,

Danny C: I do remember what I wanted to say earlier. I was wondering if there are ever cases where you had a number of people with their hands on the plan chat, but someone else not that was hands off was actually asking the questions and they were the only ones that knew the answer. That would be an interesting test.

Baba: Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. I mean, you can do some really weird and interesting experiments with it. And different people make different claims. Yes. This is the, for those that are seeing the video, that is our very basic, actually says we do on there. You can't really, it's not coming up on the camera, but and you know what the instructions are? Nothing. There's a board.

MM: It's not even pretty on the inside of the box lid or anything. Nothing.

Baba: It's actually pretty sturdy.

MM: Like inside, like on the, like nothing. Yeah, this is like, Ask the board. Yeah, like, but it doesn't even say like, you know, put your hands on the plan. Like do a thing like it doesn't even tell you how to operate. Like it just assumes you're going to operate. It tells you nothing.

Danny C: It tells you nothing. That's a part of it when it doesn't work and you go to get your refund. It's like, well, you weren't doing it the right way.

MM: Yeah, there is read the instructions.

Baba: There is actually a thing. So the, um, I think it was, uh, who was it? It wasn't flood. It was, uh, Charles Kennard. Was one of the original creators of this. They had to get a patent on it. So because they didn't want anyone else to steal the talking board thing. And so the patent person wanted them to prove that it worked. And they allegedly proved how it worked with the unmarked non sequential bills. But yeah, so that was the idea you had to, um, but they, um, I shouldn't put this on the floor. I'll get the spirits upset. we go. Um, now that it's out, I'll have to play around with that again later. Maybe after I, maybe tonight, maybe once the sun sets, watch the heart of the first spirits of the night are upon us. Um, so yeah, so, um, so if it's, and then going back to the idea of like, just to wrap up the poltergeist loop, it depends what a poltergeist is too. Because a poltergeist could also be psychokinetic activity of somebody else in the group that's stirred up by the narrative and the dark and the ghost stories and things that emerges as spontaneous power, you know? So they're like, there's some everywhere you go in these things, it seems like there's a can of worms that contains within it another can of worms. It's like worm, can of worms all the way down. Um, but yeah, it's, uh, so if it worked, if it, if it legitimately, if there's a way to get it to work, um, if this is real, how could it be exploited beyond the obvious government stuff? Cause like everything always goes to warfare.

MM: But you gotta, you gotta have wars and stuff. You're not bombing people. How's the economy work? You know, it's like, you know,

Baba: I mean, it's like, it's interesting that like in the, and just from an exploit perspective and talking about something that you mentioned, Bill, is the idea of like, spirits often want something when you work with them. And so why haven't people, or have they, uh, I have to do a little more research on this, used it to initiate the means of communication. Actually, I'm sure people have done this. Okay. So you get means of communication through the Ouija board and then you get it to go do things, you know? So let's say you have a metaphysics that says, well, spirits can do things. That's why they can scratch backs and things like that, but you gotta invite them in first. So would we have like a division of the military that was like, that did that? You know, that specifically was human spirit communications, like a specialist that would, you know, like, they have their own supplies, you know, like you'd have, um, just like the military has its own munitions. And things like that. You'd have like, I need rum, I need rum, so that I can offer it something, you know, before and after it delivers, you know, or whatever. But, um, and if that were the case, well, what does that open question marks on? Like what, what does that mean? If you can use these things to get spirits to do things once you've picked up the phone. What does that mean about Mothman? What does it mean about some of these other things?

MM: It doesn't answer the phone. It's a…

Baba: Or it did, and that's why all that happened, you know? The bridge was actually, you know, taken down by some hostile power.

Danny C: Yeah, well, I think too, if it were in fact real and it did work as advertised regardless, I mean, you wouldn't necessarily need, from a military perspective, you wouldn't need like spies anymore. You wouldn't need intelligence anymore. Your intelligence is in front of you and made of, you know, cardboard. Um, and from an everyday person, you know, you could… lovers got to make all of your decisions, you know, should I drive today? Should I walk today? Should I, you know, should I go to this place for lunch? You know, is anything bad going to happen if I go to the movies tonight? If I invest in this stock, is it going to go up or down? When should I sell? I mean, you could have the… have it run your life in the most literal sense, and… But then it'll bring up an interesting other point. So, what happens if it is real, but it's run by an entity that has no loyalty, you know, where maybe it just wants to have fun. And maybe that's why some of the readings are real, like true, and others come up for all. Because like, I'm going to mess with this person.

Baba: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's a… it's a bunch of good questions. And actually, it's like, I think the uncertainty about what exactly it is you might or might not be communicating with is one of the things that lends to the… to the lore. You know, it's kind of like, well, it's secretly something other than what you think it is. It's not really Grandmom, it's the devil, or, you know, it's…

MM: Or your Grandmom goes to the…

Baba: Or it's a… It didn't ask you to leave food in a particular location or something. It's a… you know, it's some kind of…

MM: I think it's just like the vagueness of it all is very, you know, again, like, bizarre, like, you know, like, is it poltergos? Is it demons? Is there a ceremony? Is there not? There's no instructions. What is even Hasbro's current marketing campaign around this?

Baba: They have no marketing campaign around.

MM: Is there even… is it even listed on their website or anything? Like, we got…

Baba: I'm sure it is, and it probably says, like, classic party game. Fun for all ages.

MM: The prize is nothing at all. Yeah, it's like, it's just very, like, I don't know, just it feels very… Yeah, I think if… Yeah, I think, like, yeah, like, if you're using it to, like, make your… but it's like, the whole thing is like, well, if you did, like, how would you know if, like, someone used it to make their story? Like, like, stock market tips? Because, like, most of the time, if it is messing with you, you're probably gonna, like, lose a bit, you know, if that was the case. And then, two, if it did work all the time, no one would admit to that anyway, you know, it's like… And I have to be… When it

Baba: comes to all this stuff, like, there's the thing of, like, okay, so, general thing, let's say there's a magical world. That involves things like Ouija and Tarot and… Spells and things like that. But there's this other force out there that has incentive for telling you it's not there and not real. And the incentive would always be because they don't want you to use it because they're actually using it and they don't want to lose their advantage or whatever, that kind of a thing, you know?

MM: Or they're just, like, afraid of the unknown, which is, like, also, the, you know, probably the satanic, moral panic stuff, you know? They just don't really want to lose advantage. They're just, like, scared of everything, you know? It's like… Yeah, yeah. Even something that might even be benign, like, let's, like… Because that's the other thing that I haven't talked about like this. Maybe it's just, like, completely benign. Like, forget about the idiomoto part. Let's just, like, let's pretend this… Let's just pretend this… it is real. Like, maybe you are just talking to spirits. They can't really help you about the future. It's, like, they're ghosts. They're just like, Yeah, I'm just kind of floating around here doing my thing, you know? Ghosted it up. I was stabbed by somebody in a mugging or something. But I can't really help you. I can help myself. So, yeah, thanks for calling. Like, you know?

Danny C: Yeah.

MM: It's…

Danny C: Like, you know… But the question is, like, why wouldn't they know the future? Like, there's no, like, scientific reason. There's no, like, fact that it's, like, they cannot know. Like, they could know the future.

MM: Yeah, but I mean, there's also, like… But it'd be, like, I don't know. But if you're going on, like, the more literal ghost, like, idea of, like, I'm stuck in a place because something tragic happened to me, right? Like, whatever it was. Like, I got bound to this plane of existence, right? Because, like, you know, I had a horrible, you know, like a piano fell out a window and crushed me, you know? And, like, so that would hear, like, Piano in the streets. That's how you know it's the ghost. And it's like, and then you saw me, like, why would they know the future? They didn't know enough to look out for the piano that crushed them. Like, it's… Okay. They didn't… They weren't very lucky in life. Why would they… And they're clearly not lucky in death. Why would they… Why would they know anything, you know? Like, it's like, you didn't get to go to, like, the next plane of existence. Like, why would you know anything about stock picks? Like, I don't know anything about stock picks now. What am I going to know? How am I going to know about it when I'm dead? And that's not… That really sucks. Why would I get all of that knowledge all of a sudden? I can't do anything. Like, I mean, I guess as a ghost you could clean up in, like, investments if somehow you could come back to reap the rewards. But, you know, it's like…

Baba: I mean, I guess it goes around the idea of being able to access the future at all. Yeah. So it's kind of like, like, if anything in this world can allow us to access the future outcomes, then how would it be different on the other side, you know? So there's that idea of, like, kind of like, well, what if there's this super-sigh idea that we all actually do have access to this psychic information? We do have epistemic access to the future in a way that we don't seem to from our sense experience. And therefore, once you're free of the filters of having to pass it through a limbic brain and, you know, rely on a physical neocortex, maybe you can do more things with your consciousness. Or maybe you're exactly the same as you were. You know, it's like, it's just cans of worms. It just keeps going. But it's… But we'll have to talk at some point, again, remote viewing, which is a little patchy because it involves the government and stuff, but it also does deal with picking stocks in the future using remote viewing and an interesting pancake experiment that allowed the picking of silver prices accurately. So, again, we have to rely on stories and accounts for these things, but that's probably a perfect time for us to kind of weigh in on rating systems. So I'll go first. So I'll jump in with… It's branding, how scary it is then. And I think it has a lot to it, actually, despite the fact that it's a mass-produced thing. It brings with it a lot of the elements that are useful for ghost stories and otherworldly phenomena, the experiences of those things. The dark stories about the unknown, the dead. Ghosts are like one of the classic things that people are scared of. The dark is one of the… So I think it brings a lot when it comes to that. And then as far as… What's our number… What's our next…

MM: So that was like… Yeah, like, is it real? Like, that's where you've laid on that.

Baba: Is it real? Yeah. Okay. So here's where I land on it. I'm not sure if it's what you'd call like a super-sci explanation or a spirit explanation, but I do think there's something going on there that is not just… …idiomotor effects and people fooling themselves and… …and that kind of thing. I think I'm going to put it pretty high, but I'm going to say it's a sometimes thing. I think a lot of the times it's not the case that you've got connection. I do think there's at least the possibility that sometimes it's spirits that you're communicating with. I would recommend for folks that want to check it out the channel, The Paranormal Scholar has done a bunch on Ouija, and they were doing it as a… came up in so many stories. They were just telling these ghost stories, and then they decided, Well, let's give it a go. They've got a little recommended, Here, if you want to give it a go, here's a way to do it, and their best practices kind of thing. I think anyone's welcome to give it a go and decide for themselves whether there's anything to it. Any of the questions or the experiment-type things we can talk about, I think that's definitely something. If you do it, put it in the comments or the reviews or whatever. Let us know what you do and what the outcome was.

MM: Obviously, this is a weird question for the Ouija board because it's so popular and stuff like that. I imagine we all… it's like, But do you want to encounter it? Obviously, you've played with the Ouija board, so it's like… Yeah, so this question for the rating system, it's like, Do you want to continue using it? might be the thing. We've probably all had some kind of Ouija board activity, I'm assuming. We've played with it at some point in our lives. Is there something you're interested in encountering? How high would that be in your… You think it's another… You're already going to play with it, after all.

Baba: I'm going to say, in a legit sense with more than one person, I'm going to say there's a 9 on a scale that I want to ask for. Probably similar with myself. I have to go pick up Sharon later, so I maybe don't want to summon anything until we get back home.

MM: At least make sure you un-summon it. There's a… oh, yes, yeah. What's your Ouija board overall rating?

Baba: Scale 1 to 5. I'm going to give it like 3 plus a headless monster. Not quite 4 monsters, but definitely over the middle point. All right.

MM: All right, Dan. What do you think about the… As far as recognition and scary factor, what's your take on it?

Danny C: I think recognition, if we're keeping with monsters, I'd give it on a scale of 1 to 5 monsters, I think 5. Because I think everybody knows what it is, I think. I could be wrong, but I feel like if you were to survey 1,000 people, I think 9 to 20.

MM: What about the kids these days? I think so.

Danny C: I bet a hard-ass might have, but I would say, Oh, yeah, yeah. Scaryness? I think I would give it like 4. I think I'd give it 4 monsters out of 5. Because I think there's the possibility it is just like that. It's like your unconscious motor skill is doing its thing, but I don't know. And then is it real? I think I would also give that 3 monsters and 1 headless monster, because I think I've heard… No, I think I've heard. I definitely have heard a lot of stories. And to me, I have this general idea when it comes to hearing stories about paranormal stuff. It's like there are so many out there that either they're all making them up, or at least one of them is true. And if at least one of them is true, what does that mean? So when I think about stories that I've heard about Luigi boards, it's like maybe they're all fake. Maybe they're all making them up. Maybe they think they're real, but they're actually subconsciously moving the plane chat. But then I've heard stories about the polar guys' activity afterwards. And it's like maybe it's coincidence. Maybe they're embellishing. You don't know. But what if just one? What if just one of them is true? So is it real? I'm going to give it 3 monsters and 1 with that a head.

MM: Obviously, the Do you want to encounter it? You've played with a Luigi board before. Are you likely to use one again in the future?

Danny C: I don't think so. I think on a scale of 1 to 5 monsters, maybe 2 monsters, because again, it's like I don't know. I like the idea of seeing weird things, experiencing weird things, but I don't like when it starts to get physical. And I think that's the part that kind of keeps me at bay a little bit. So if we're going to open the metaphorical door to like alter guy stuff, I kind of draw the line there. When people can get injured, that's where I draw the line.

MM: So to your overall thoughts, Luigi board, what do you got?

Danny C: I think I had 2 that were like 3 and 1. I think I had 1, 4, and 1. Maybe like 3 and 1 to 4 monsters somewhere in there overall.

MM: Yeah. I mean, I think for me, like on the recognition front, it's like obviously it's pretty old board game, and it's constantly being made, and people buy it. I would like to see the statistics actually on the buying it. So I'm going to give it like, you know, it's got the marketing factor behind it at least, which a lot of general occult things don't. I mean, there's lots of various tarot cards, but there's no like Hasbro branch and tarot card, you know, like that everyone buys. Or there's no like, so I think like, yeah, it's like, it's, you know, whether the cultural phenomenon is like, you know, that important. And it definitely is like, up there with like monopoly of the like staples of the closet, you know, shelf that has like old board games on it, you know, so it's like, so I think that's probably like a 5 for me on that. The scary factor, it's like, it is, I would say like, it's probably like 3, simply because like, the time you encounter it is like, usually when you're a kid, you know, and those types of things are scary, you know, and like, so the scary might just be like, informed Trump, you know, like, you just got scared by something. It's like, yeah, like, you know, I don't know, I just, it's like, I think like, so I think 3 is definitely in the scary factor, just because it's like, that's that time when those things are very scary, like, you're still scared in the dark, you're still scared of things, like, you know, it's like, or you're just out of like, you know, you're doing an activity where it's very primed that something scary is going to happen. Like, so I think it's like, 3 is probably just for the scary factor, because like, it's like, I think most people probably have that experience. Is it real? I mean, it's a definitely a board game. So I guess that's the real I, I'm, I'm gonna probably do the opposite of Dan and say, like, I think what you bring to it is what you get out of it. And I think like the priming of it, like, and I think like, I think people are who I think some people, they have an encounter with it, and they say, yes, this is real. And I think some people have an encounter with this, like, no, this isn't. But I think like, a lot of it is what they're like, and I don't discount whether people think it's real. But I think it's like, they just think it's real, you know, I don't think that they're like, I think it's like, they've already been primed up and pumped, you know, to do this. It's like, it doesn't feel very, you know, I'm gonna end the fact that like, it's so variable, like, like we talked about, like, well, maybe there's an opening ceremony, maybe there's a thing, maybe there's it's like, well, what are we doing with this? Like, we could do this with anything then, right? Like, you know, it's like, it doesn't have to be this mass marketing thing, like, it could be like any type of any type of object at that point, you know, it's like, so I kind of feel like, probably, it's gonna be like in the two worlds. Range for me, like, I don't think it's like, I think, if there's a second phenomenon, like you were saying, Chris, like, this doesn't like, why not just do it with a different thing? Like, what this could be like, you know, it feels like, is it ghosts? Is it demons? Is it spirits? Is there stuff? It's like, it doesn't have very clear methodology for what it is. And I think that just leaves it open to like, whatever thing you're scared of at the moment, makes it like, you know, makes the thing seem like it's happening, you know. So it's like, and then obviously poltergeist phenomenon, we could talk about that in different things. Yeah, yeah. It's like, do I want to encounter it? Not really, like, probably the same thing. It's like, it is relatively like, just one of those things where it's like, I don't really like, you know, it's like, it's one of the things you did when you're a kid, and it's kind of like a scary thing, and I'm not gonna like, you know, and probably still has some kind of like, loo goo, like spooky, and I'm not really into like, I don't even like, I know, J'onn de Halsin, but I'm like, I'm not gonna do that. I'm like, I know H'on de Halsin are fake, but I also don't like going to them. You know, like, it's like, like, you know, I don't, I don't really go in for the kind of like, jump scare kind of things. It's not my, it's not my form of entertainment. So I've probably be a low bar for me on that. So probably a one. So yeah, I'm gonna give it a, I'm gonna give Ouija board a two, an overall two, I think is where monsters, monsters. That's, that's, yeah, as far as slumber party games go, you know, might be able to do better.

Baba: So when we have our slumber party, we'll do that. Bill, he doesn't think it's real. So he's fine.

MM: You know, I still don't want to do that.

Baba: I'm still anti-encounter.

Danny C: I was gonna say it's interesting, but you guys both brought up slumber parties, because I was thinking earlier when we were talking about slumber parties, my mind immediately jumped to the whole like Bloody Mary thing. And how that is also like a very common in like the slumber party arena, you know, you have someone in the, you know, they're, they're in the, you put them in a bathroom, and they got to stare at the mirror, and they got to do the incantation. And so I was just thinking about that. And …

Baba: there are different rules around it, and you're not supposed to do it. I don't know if there's stories of Marines summoning Bloody Mary, but …