I don't believe Ouija boards are for real in the sense that they are used as a means of communication by the dead. However, I do think that people can receive weird responses when using a Ouija board via ideomotor responses. In an ideomotor response, the awareness of a movement is not registered, and the response goes directly to the muscle. In other words, your muscles (in this case fingers/hand) are moving because of your subconscious mind, so you may be absolutely convinced you aren't in control of the movement, but you actually are.

Experiments have been conducted involving Ouija boards to show that this is often the case. One such experiment can be seen on the Showtime program Penn & Teller: Bullsh!t. The experiment involved blindfolding people before using the board to see how it affected their responses. The board was rotated 180 degrees without the participants knowledge. When questions were asked, the pointer would be moved to blank spots at the bottom of the board, where the yes/no had previously been located. This proves that the participants are either subconsciously or consciously moving the pointer. If it was being moved by someone from beyond the grave, the response shouldn't change.

It also has a lot to do with expectations. If you expect something to happen very strongly, it will, and when you have a group of people, that power is just multiplied.

Also, I often wonder why people think that "spirits" would need a cardboard mat and plastic pointer that can be bought at Toys R Us to communicate? If they are able to move inanimate objects, why not just use pen and paper or a computer?

I think I still have my Ouija board from high school around somewhere. Nothing too weird ever happened, but I was always pretty skeptical...even back then. Although, I will admit that I would often secretly move the pointer to freak out my friends.

And as for the pink board...I don't think much of it. It's just a marketing gimmick to target Ouija board's biggest market: pre and teen girls.
Source(s):
http://www.skepdic.com/ideomotor.html


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