The mysterious mystery of the bridge table

The bridge table (Ouija board) is used by superstitious people to communicate with the spiritual world or mysterious forces. Now, it can help clarify the secrets of unconscious thinking.

Mechanical bridge - ancient "call soul" board

Mechanical toilet seats are usually manufactured and sold by Parker Brothers.

Mechanical toilet is a wooden board with letters in the alphabet and two 'yes' and 'no' (no) answers. Along with that is a small heart-shaped wooden board (called muscle). The muscle has a small hole, so the user puts his finger in it.

There are two common ways to use mechanical devices, for people who consider it a normal toy, when playing, a group of players put their hands on their muscles and read the questions aloud. The answer is only yes or no. Sometimes the planchette moves to the correct answer of the question, although the people who put their hands on it confirm that they do not use their hands to move the piece of wood.

The necromancer involved using mechanical in another way: putting a finger on the muscle, then through some mystical rituals , they spelled the letters that the unconscious body pointed to forming sentences and the meaningful phrases. It is said that such action is controlled by the souls , communicating and sending messages to us, even though the real reason is because the ideomotor effect causes the player's hand muscles to move. Dynamic while they do not know.

Explanation of science

That is the reason the organizers have attracted the attention of psychologists at the University of British Columbia (Canada) to conduct the test. There is growing evidence that unconscious thoughts play a role in activities that participants do not intentionally create.

If you drive on a familiar road that you still go on every day, sometimes you have arrived and you realize that you are not intentionally driving the car. This is called 'internal zombies' , Hélène Gauchou at the Subconscious Research Science Society (UK), said.

Gauchou's team used the toilet to test the role of the unconscious in controlling action . To simplify the problem, the team only had one volunteer put his hand on the planchette each time. The unconscious effect is maximized if the player believes that they do not use their hands to cause movement - that's why the goal is very successful when the team plays. After that, volunteers announced that they would play with people again. The subject is blindfolded so it is unknown whether the player will not put his hand on the planchette when the game begins.

This test has worked. A few volunteers suspected their players were acting - without knowing that they were the only players.

Goucher's team asked volunteers 'yes' questions by using the toilet table. Then they asked the volunteers the same questions, but the volunteers responded by typing on the computer. Volunteers were also asked if they knew the answer or guessed correctly.

When using a computer, if the player does not know the answer, their answer is half correct. When using the toilet bowl, their exact number of answers was 65% - suggesting that in their subconscious mind they had the right idea, and that helped them express that feeling .