There it is.
We've got candles, we've got spooky lighting.
What else do we need to summon the forces of darkness?
We need...
a board game from Hasbro! [laughter]
[the modulated rogue] The modern rogue meets the mystifying oracle.
How does this go from a genuinely haunted talisman to a board game?
Well the first written record of
what they called planchette talking, or spirit boards, or talking boards
was in 1100 AD in China.
There's record of it being used all over the world,
in Rome, in Greece and so forth.
But in 1890 in the rise of Spiritualism in the United States,
it was patented by William Fuld and Elijah Bond.
Now this was back when everyone had talking to dead people fever.
- Exactly. - It was an actual medical condition!
Yes, it was like Pacman Fever but with dead people.
Now there are a lot of knock-offs, but Ouija is the one
that is used by Hasbro.
Now I've heard that Ouija at some point,
they were saying it's a fusion of "oui" and "ja" from German and French,
but that's not true, that's like retconned, right?
That's not true, yeah. That's just something that these guys made up
to sound kind of exotic? - Mysterious?
Originally it was one of the guys that they worked with,
and he was saying that "ouija" was an ancient Egyptian word meaning "good luck."
Oh, but even that's BS, right? Just made up. - Yeah!
Exactly, it just sounds spooky.
Gah, man those days must have been great.
Anyone could just make anything up, there's no Internet to correct them.
Oh god, you could just lie to people and make money off of it!
Unlike now, where we know that's totally ended.
[stammering] Oh yeah!
>> Brian: All right, look. We've got to summon, what are we going to ask?
>> Brian: What are we going to ask?
[exhales] I didn't read the rule book... should we read the rules?
- Yeah. Oh, wait. What are the rules?! - Are there rules?
^
Man, those are some carefully selected words.
Yes! [laughter]
And then the tagline...
^
Monopoly, it's a quick game!
[in unison] ...isn't it?
[laughter]
>> Jason: I had always heard when you were a kid that,
like, you never use it alone. You always have to do a figure eight.
We built up this mythology as kids.
>> Brian: Let's do it real quick, then. >> Jason: Okay!
>> Brian: All right, hands on. All the way.
Is YouTube's Content ID policy a pain in the ass?
[through hysterical laughter] >> Brian: You're pushing it! I know you are!
>> Jason: I'm not! I'm barely touching it!
>> Brian: What are you talking about? >> Jason: I'm barely touching it!
>> Jason: You're pushing it! >> Brian: No I'm not! I swear!
It feels to me like you are pushing it.
Uh, it feels to me like you are definitely pushing it.
I'm barely touching it.
- All right. You want to try it again? - Yeah, let's do it.
Different question, what question are we going to ask?
Uhm.
You gotta f---ing focus man.
- Uh, yeah, this is serious! - Dropping f bombs, here.
[laughter]
What domain should we register?
[laughter]
>> Brian: It's definitely moving.
>> Jason: Uh, "D." >> Brian: "D!" [laughter]
>> Jason: Okay!
It's very slow.
I just want it to hurry up.
I know. I'm sorry spirit, I'm sorry!
It feels like you should be doing something.
[whispers] Respect the spirits, dammit.
[in unison] Uh, "D T"
>> Jason: Hmm, not liking where this is going.
Haha, it's an alcoholics anonymous one.
[in unison] "H"
>> Jason: "U... D T H U"
"D T H U"
>> Brian: "I" [laughter]
>> Jason: I broke the connection! >> Brian: We register DTHUI!
It's a company, DTH User Interfaces.
Oh, yeah. So now we have to make a company. Sorry, this was fun.
Traditionally you would sit there and everyone would focus on it
and then you would say, "Is someone there?"
Well let me guess, and then it said, "Yes."
- Yeah. Or, no... - It moves to "No!"
You were supposed to build, like, a bond with the spirit, like, "What's your name?"
"How did you die?" And then sometimes it would get angry, you know, and then
go to "Goodbye" like it didn't want to talk to you anymore.
It is really remarkable the sensation of feeling like the thing's moving on its own,
and it does feel like the other person's moving it.
But you know how all of this works, right?
Ideomotor response.
That's right, and the best demonstration is one you can do that will actually fool yourself.
It's called Chevreul's Pendulum. Uh, do you have a ring on? Okay, good.
This is one everybody should try at home right along with us.
All you need is some kind of string, in fact I've used my earbuds before, and some kind of weight at the end,
so I'm going to use my ring.
So go ahead and tie this off,
and we're going to create what's called a dowsing pendulum.
You know what dowsing is, right?
Uh, that's where you use something to try to find water, right?
Correct, correct correct. So we're going to summon
an actual spirit from Atlantis named Bob.
So I want you to hold it in your right hand
kind of up here, and your left hand underneath to kind of summon the energy.
And ask it, imagine you ask Bob a question
and this will work for everybody trying it at home as well
and Bob's going to answer by moving the ring forward and backwards to indicate "yes,"
so I want you to just, with your mind imagine it going forward and backwards
and it will actually start to move,
even though there is no conscious way you're manipulating it,
it'll actually start moving forwards and backwards on its own.
>> Brian: There it is, there it is! Now watch this.
You can get him to change his mind and say "no" by moving it in a circle.
Just picture it moving in a circle now.
[Jason laughing] >> Brian (incredulously): Is that amazing?!
That is incredible!
So the way this works, is the ideomotor response
is all those tiny micromuscular movements that we don't consciously know that we're making,
but when we imagine something, you eventually make those movements in accordance with it.
You kind of set up a resonance where all those little
movements kind of tie together to cause it to move the way you imagine.
This is what all forms of dowsing boil down to,
is dowsing shows you what you expect to see,
you're picturing something right about here, and then of course the ideomotor response takes over.
So when everybody puts it on here, this is super slide-y, right?
You've got these felt things on here
so as a result it takes virtually nothing to move it around,
and so when everybody puts it down, we all expect it to go to "yes."
We're all having those tiny micromuscular movements
and then eventually this, this kind of consensus happens and we all move to "yes."
It's kind of a snowball effect, so
when you see it heading in a certain direction --
>> Brian: It reinforces the idea.
In fact, it can get so big, this is what causes table tipping.
Remember the end of that movie The Others?
>> Brian: When they're, the ghost gets mad and it's throwing the table around?
That's something that would happen during seances.
Everybody would put their hands on the table
and no one person realizes that they're moving around,
but as it starts to jostle, everybody's trying to stop it, and by trying to stop it
you're knocking over candles and creating a health hazard.
Let's see if we can get a third host on here, a ghost host.
- The ghost host! - The ghost host.
All right, look we've got to find out the name of the ghost.
Better not be, DTHUI!
DT--yeah. Okay, is someone there?
>> Brian: God, it really feels like it's moving on its own.
>> Jason: Uh, yeah I'm barely touching it.
Leave your hands floating there.
It's like a cartoon, like...
It's like you just ran away with the board game.