Discussion
SpeckledJim said:
People are holding something...and it moves...but you're adamant the people holding it had nothing to do with that?
Did it carry on moving when you all let go of it?
That's what I would do, if I was a magic glass. I'd move around all over the place. Otherwise, well, nobody would believe I was magic.
You're not 'holding' it though, you just lightly rest a finger on top of an upturned wine glass. It was a long time ago now but I don't remember it feeling like it was being pushed by anyone's finger.Did it carry on moving when you all let go of it?
That's what I would do, if I was a magic glass. I'd move around all over the place. Otherwise, well, nobody would believe I was magic.
There was also 1 occasion when the glass ran off the end of the table and smashed on to the floor.
xx99xx said:
You're not 'holding' it though, you just lightly rest a finger on top of an upturned wine glass. It was a long time ago now but I don't remember it feeling like it was being pushed by anyone's finger.
There was also 1 occasion when the glass ran off the end of the table and smashed on to the floor.
The glass moves as a force was introduced to it that was greater than the friction between it and the surface it was on. That force must be able to interact with matter, i.e. the glass. There was also 1 occasion when the glass ran off the end of the table and smashed on to the floor.
Your options for source of the force was either:
1. The fingers touching it transferring this force; or
2. Changes in air pressure leading to wind blowing it about (bit of a stretch I know); or
3. Magnetism if the glass contained sufficient metal; or
4. Something unknown, but undetectable as it does not interact with matter (so therefore incapable of moving the glass).
There really is no other way of saying this sadly, but it can only have been pushed by someone's finger in the scenario you describe.
The cause of the glass falling would be the effect of gravity, at which point the energy of the glass hitting the ground was greater than the molecular bonds holding the glass together.
MikeM6 said:
xx99xx said:
You're not 'holding' it though, you just lightly rest a finger on top of an upturned wine glass. It was a long time ago now but I don't remember it feeling like it was being pushed by anyone's finger.
There was also 1 occasion when the glass ran off the end of the table and smashed on to the floor.
The glass moves as a force was introduced to it that was greater than the friction between it and the surface it was on. That force must be able to interact with matter, i.e. the glass. There was also 1 occasion when the glass ran off the end of the table and smashed on to the floor.
Your options for source of the force was either:
1. The fingers touching it transferring this force; or
2. Changes in air pressure leading to wind blowing it about (bit of a stretch I know); or
3. Magnetism if the glass contained sufficient metal; or
4. Something unknown, but undetectable as it does not interact with matter (so therefore incapable of moving the glass).
There really is no other way of saying this sadly, but it can only have been pushed by someone's finger in the scenario you describe.
The cause of the glass falling would be the effect of gravity, at which point the energy of the glass hitting the ground was greater than the molecular bonds holding the glass together.
Caddyshack said:
It was researched for the paranormality book, it is a subconcious finger movement or more conscious willing it to move by someone in the group - it is all subtle.
Yeah, I was trying to break down why it could only be the finger pushing, by choice or subconsciously using rudimentary physics.MikeM6 said:
Caddyshack said:
It was researched for the paranormality book, it is a subconcious finger movement or more conscious willing it to move by someone in the group - it is all subtle.
Yeah, I was trying to break down why it could only be the finger pushing, by choice or subconsciously using rudimentary physics.Caddyshack said:
MikeM6 said:
Caddyshack said:
It was researched for the paranormality book, it is a subconcious finger movement or more conscious willing it to move by someone in the group - it is all subtle.
Yeah, I was trying to break down why it could only be the finger pushing, by choice or subconsciously using rudimentary physics.Yep, I totally get what you're saying, but having witnessed this moving glass phenomenon, I still can't explain what was causing it.
As said previously, try pulling an upturned wine glass towards you with just your finger resting lightly on the top. Friction with the table just causes it to topple over, or your finger slides off with no movement of the glass.
As said previously, try pulling an upturned wine glass towards you with just your finger resting lightly on the top. Friction with the table just causes it to topple over, or your finger slides off with no movement of the glass.
Caddyshack said:
MikeM6 said:
Caddyshack said:
It was researched for the paranormality book, it is a subconcious finger movement or more conscious willing it to move by someone in the group - it is all subtle.
Yeah, I was trying to break down why it could only be the finger pushing, by choice or subconsciously using rudimentary physics.Like most of these things, ghosts and the paranormal provide such silly answers that it is a wonder anyone would pay them any attention at all.
xx99xx said:
Yep, I totally get what you're saying, but having witnessed this moving glass phenomenon, I still can't explain what was causing it.
As said previously, try pulling an upturned wine glass towards you with just your finger resting lightly on the top. Friction with the table just causes it to topple over, or your finger slides off with no movement of the glass.
From my experience it is genuinely weird. The glass moves around quite quickly and smoothly. It also rotated. As I said before, we were convinced that we were working collectively to move it, albeit not consciously. I don't believe that spirits were acting through us. The content of what was communicated to us was rather vague and dream like. If you were vulnerable or suggestible I think it could be quite disturbing.As said previously, try pulling an upturned wine glass towards you with just your finger resting lightly on the top. Friction with the table just causes it to topple over, or your finger slides off with no movement of the glass.
When we tried to reproduce the movement of the glass by conscious cooperative effort, we were much more clumsy and often caused the glass to tip over.
MesoForm said:
Upinflames said:
A friend caught his kids with one recently, he's gone bats
t over it.
What do you think? What happens if everyone is blindfolded and a camera records it?
It's self-hypnosis, I know it was big when I was in college and some people would swing pendulums around asking themselves questions. It's similar to divining for water where your subconscious thinks there's water there and the sticks cross.t over it.What do you think? What happens if everyone is blindfolded and a camera records it?
Water devining is very real.
Not just with sticks.
oddman said:
xx99xx said:
Yep, I totally get what you're saying, but having witnessed this moving glass phenomenon, I still can't explain what was causing it.
As said previously, try pulling an upturned wine glass towards you with just your finger resting lightly on the top. Friction with the table just causes it to topple over, or your finger slides off with no movement of the glass.
From my experience it is genuinely weird. The glass moves around quite quickly and smoothly. It also rotated. As I said before, we were convinced that we were working collectively to move it, albeit not consciously. I don't believe that spirits were acting through us. The content of what was communicated to us was rather vague and dream like. If you were vulnerable or suggestible I think it could be quite disturbing.As said previously, try pulling an upturned wine glass towards you with just your finger resting lightly on the top. Friction with the table just causes it to topple over, or your finger slides off with no movement of the glass.
When we tried to reproduce the movement of the glass by conscious cooperative effort, we were much more clumsy and often caused the glass to tip over.
The phenomenon is called the ideomotor effect and you can witness it yourself if you hang a small weight like a button or a ring from a string (ideally more than a foot long). Hold the end of the string with your arm out in front of you, so the weight hangs down freely. Try to hold your arm completely still. The weight will start to swing clockwise or anticlockwise in small circles. Do not start this motion yourself. Instead, just ask yourself a question – any question – and say that the weight will swing clockwise to answer "Yes" and anticlockwise for "No". Hold this thought in mind, and soon, even though you are trying not to make any motion, the weight will start to swing in answer to your question.
Magic? Only the ordinary everyday magic of consciousness. There's no supernatural force at work, just tiny movements you are making without realising. The string allows these movements to be exaggerated, the inertia of the weight allows them to be conserved and built on until they form a regular swinging motion. The effect is known as Chevreul's Pendulum, after the 19th Century French scientist who investigated it.
What is happening with Chevreul's Pendulum is that you are witnessing a movement (of the weight) without "owning" that movement as being caused by you. The same basic phenomenon underlies dowsing – where small movements of the hands cause the dowsing wand to swing wildly – or the Ouija board, where multiple people hold a cup and it seems to move of its own accord to answer questions by spelling out letters.
This effect also underlies the sad case of "facilitated communication", a fad whereby carers believed they could help severely disabled children communicate by guiding their fingers around a keyboard. Research showed that the carers – completely innocently – were typing the messages themselves, rather than interpreting movements from their charges.
The interesting thing about the phenomenon is what it says about the mind. That we can make movements that we don't realise we're making suggests that we shouldn't be so confident in our other judgements about what movements we think are ours. Sure enough, in the right circumstances, you can get people to believe they have caused things that actually come from a completely independent source (something which shouldn't surprise anyone who has reflected on the madness of people who claim that it only started raining because they forget an umbrella).
You can read what this means for the nature of our minds in The Illusion of Conscious Will by psychologist Daniel Wegner, who sadly died last month. Wegner argued that our normal sense of owning an action is an illusion, or – if you will – a construction. The mental processes which directly control our movements are not connected to the same processes which figure out what caused what, he claimed.
The situation is not that of a mental command-and-control structure like a disciplined army; whereby a general issues orders to the troops, they carry out the order and the general gets back a report saying "Sir! We did it. The right hand is moving into action!". The situation is more akin to an organised collective, claims Wegner: the general can issue orders, and watch what happens, but he's never sure exactly what caused what. Instead, just like with other people, our consciousness (the general in this metaphor) has to apply some principles to figure out when a movement is one we've made.
One of these principles is that cause has to be consistent with effect. If you think "I'll move my hand" and your hand moves, you're likely to automatically get the feeling that the movement was one you made. The principle is broken when the thought is different from the effect, such as with Chevreul's Pendulum. If you think "I'm not moving my hand", you are less inclined to connect any small movements you make with such large visual effects.
This maybe explains why kids can shout "It wasn't me!" after breaking something in plain sight. They thought to themselves "I'll just give this a little push", and when it falls off the table and breaks it doesn't feel like something they did.
I think before you consider Ouija boards the question 'Can the dead communicate with the living?' needs answering.
No Ouija involved but here's something that happened to me (and wifey) last week.
Four year old son appears with one of his sisters Barbie dolls. Tells his mother the Barbie is called 'Violet ****** ' (name and surname).
His mother thinks it odd. But that's it. Mentions it to me in passing later that evening. I half listen to her, then twenty minutes later have a massive WTF moment while walking to the study. It hit me that I know the name.
The name he told us is his great grandmother's name,
That name isn't in this house, on anything. All family are dead or estranged. I've never spoken to my wife about this great grandma because she died when I was four (yes, four, same age as him).
I haven't really ever given the name any thought. Nor in truth thought about the grandma I pretty much never knew. The only photo of her would be in the loft, and he's never been in there.
Same story for his sister. She's never been told that name, not spoken to about this great grandmother.
I believe in coincidences, but this one is quite something.
No Ouija involved but here's something that happened to me (and wifey) last week.
Four year old son appears with one of his sisters Barbie dolls. Tells his mother the Barbie is called 'Violet ****** ' (name and surname).
His mother thinks it odd. But that's it. Mentions it to me in passing later that evening. I half listen to her, then twenty minutes later have a massive WTF moment while walking to the study. It hit me that I know the name.
The name he told us is his great grandmother's name,
That name isn't in this house, on anything. All family are dead or estranged. I've never spoken to my wife about this great grandma because she died when I was four (yes, four, same age as him).
I haven't really ever given the name any thought. Nor in truth thought about the grandma I pretty much never knew. The only photo of her would be in the loft, and he's never been in there.
Same story for his sister. She's never been told that name, not spoken to about this great grandmother.
I believe in coincidences, but this one is quite something.
Some friends at secondary school lost the plot over one, one girl in particular (scratch marks one her leg after "being puled under water" at the swimming pool being one of a few events following the ouija board sessions).
She's fairly normal these days as far as I'm aware.
Would she have had a mental health break down as it's now termed without the ouija board? Quite possibly although I wasn't aware of her being nutty at the time.
Teenage minds can be delicate things however and I'd go nuts if one of my kids was fking about with one. Not because of any ghosts or stuff but because it can take the tiniest of things to send kids over the edge-if they start believing in all that st they're on a hiding to nothing.
She's fairly normal these days as far as I'm aware.
Would she have had a mental health break down as it's now termed without the ouija board? Quite possibly although I wasn't aware of her being nutty at the time.
Teenage minds can be delicate things however and I'd go nuts if one of my kids was f
king about with one. Not because of any ghosts or stuff but because it can take the tiniest of things to send kids over the edge-if they start believing in all that st they're on a hiding to nothing.
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