Universal released Ouija in the United States on October 24, 2014. [30] A tie-in novelization for the film by Katharine Turner was released on September 16, 2014. [31] Home media [ edit ] a b "Daren Kagasoff Joins 'Ouija' ". Deadline Hollywood. December 4, 2013 . Retrieved February 5, 2014. Ouija is a 2014 American supernatural horror film directed by Stiles White in his directorial debut, produced by Jason Blum, Michael Bay, Andrew Form, Bradley Fuller, and Bennett Schneir and written by Juliet Snowden and White, who previously together wrote The Possession. [4] It stars Olivia Cooke, Daren Kagasoff, Douglas Smith, and Bianca A. Santos as teenagers who have unleashed spirits from a Ouija board.

According to Smithsonian Magazine, the Ouija board stems from Spiritualism, a belief that the dead can communicate with the living. Of course, this idea is something that has existed on a global scale for thousands of years. But, it became quite prominent in the United States during the 19 th century when childbirth, war, and disease among other things led to shorter life spans and frequent deaths. Many people desired a pathway to connect with lost loved ones and get answers to unresolved issues and questions. Another reason this study can hardly be considered good proof that spirits intervene with Ouija boards is that the subjects all knew where yes and no were on the board, and as long as the answer given landed in the ballpark, researchers marked it down. Really it was just left and right. If spirits were guiding the planchette, they should be able to move it to specific letters on the alphabet, even with subjects blindfolded, and spell out sentences and other non-ambiguous intelligences. Clearly, nothing remotely like that happened here. Feature Film Study" (PDF). Film L.A. Inc. 2014. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 1, 2016 . Retrieved July 2, 2016. These experiments easily demonstrate that the Ouija board only works when the participants are able to manipulate the pointer themselves. If a ghost or spirit were really in the room, it would be able to direct the planchette to spell out coherent messages without any assistance. But there is no ghost, and when the Ouija board users are deprived of their ability to spell out words they can see, the game rapidly devolves into gibberish. The ideomotor effect is actually a powerful subconscious toolDonguines, Arvin (February 7, 2015). " 'Ouija 2' Plot Spoilers, Rumors: Producer Jason Blum Talks Sequel Development". The Christian Post . Retrieved July 14, 2015.

Grove, David (September 9, 2016). "Exclusive Interview: Mike Flanagan Talks Ouija: Origin of Evil: "I Understand the Skepticism" ". iHorror . Retrieved July 11, 2022. The effect might also make the Ouija board an effective tool to help you tap into your own subconscious. In one study published in 2012, scientists found that using the Ouija board allowed subjects to recall factual information with more accuracy than if they weren’t using the board. Participants were instructed to answer a series of yes/no questions and to rate whether they were confident in their answers or merely guessing. Later, they were subjected to another round of questions but used a Ouija board to indicate “yes” or “no,” once again rating their confidence level in their answers. In cases where participants believed they didn’t know an answer, they were able to give more correct answers, more often, when using the Ouija board than when they believed they were only guessing on their own. Lussier, Germain (August 23, 2011). "Universal Says Goodbye To 'Ouija' ". /Film . Retrieved January 29, 2022.What the team found surprised them: When participants were asked, verbally, to guess the answers to the best of their ability, they were right only around 50 percent of the time, a typical result for guessing. But when they answered using the board, believing that the answers were coming from someplace else, they answered correctly upwards of 65 percent of the time. “It was so dramatic how much better they did on these questions than if they answered to the best of their ability that we were like, ‘This is just weird, how could they be that much better?’” recalled Fels. “It was so dramatic we couldn’t believe it.” The implication was, Fels explained, that one’s non-conscious was a lot smarter than anyone knew. UBC’s experiments show that the Ouija could be a very useful tool in rigorously investigating non-conscious thought processes. “Now that we have some hypotheses in terms of what’s going on here, accessing knowledge and cognitive abilities that you don’t have conscious awareness of, [the Ouija board] would be an instrument to actually get at that,” Fels explains. “Now we can start using it to ask other types of questions.”

The effect is very convincing. As Dr. Chris French, professor of psychology and anomalistic psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London, explains, “It can generate a very strong impression that the movement is being caused by some outside agency, but it’s not.” Other devices, such as dowsing rods, or more recently, the fake bomb detection kits that deceived scores of international governments and armed services, work on the same principle of non-conscious movement. “The thing about all these mechanisms we’re talking about, dowsing rods, Oujia boards, pendulums, these small tables, they’re all devices whereby a quite a small muscular movement can cause quite a large effect,” he says. Planchettes, in particular, are well-suited for their task—many used to be constructed of a lightweight wooden board and fitted with small casters to help them move more smoothly and freely; now, they’re usually plastic and have felt feet, which also help it slide over the board easily. Orlando, Eugene. "Ancient Ouija Boards: Fact or Fiction?". Museum of Talking Boards . Retrieved 24 April 2012. In the 1960 supernatural horror film 13 Ghosts the family Zorba plays the game "Ouija, the mystifying oracle." The idea is that you're dealing with a spirit, and the spirit is causing that little — whatever they call that thing — it goes around to letters and spells out words, and so you feel like it's some dead person. But actually it is communicating with demonic spirits. It is a dangerous thing, and I would strongly urge people not to get involved in it.According to Peter Popham of The Independent: "Everybody here has long believed that Prodi's Ouija board tale was no more than an ill-advised and bizarre way to conceal the identity of his true source, probably a person from Bologna's seething far-left underground whom he was pledged to protect" [50]

However, several stories began to surface about Ouija boards and murder. In 1930, Clothilde Marchand was killed by Lila Jimerson, who was having an affair with Marchand’s husband. Jimerson used a Ouija board to convince an associate, Nancy Bowen, that Marchand was a “witch” who caused Bowen’s husband’s death. Jimerson and Bowen later pled guilty to manslaughter. Despite dark stories involving the Ouija board, many people did not see it as an inherent void of evil. In fact, forty years after Fuld’s death, Ouija boards outsold Monopoly games. The Exorcist Effect Changes the Ouija Board Forever

Former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi claimed under oath that, in a séance held in 1978 with other professors at the University of Bologna, the "ghost" of Giorgio La Pira used a Ouija to spell the name of the street where Aldo Moro was being held by the Red Brigades Barton, Steve (June 16, 2011). "Universal's Ouija Spells Out the Name of Another New Writer". Dread Central . Retrieved July 11, 2022. Raphael, Matthew J. (2002). Bill W. and Mr. Wilson: The Legend and Life of A. A.'s Cofounder. University of Massachusetts Press. p.159. ISBN 978-1-55849-360-5 . Retrieved 24 August 2011. a b c d Rodriguez McRobbie, Linda (27 October 2013). "The Strange and Mysterious History of the Ouija Board". Smithsonian Magazine . Retrieved 16 October 2023.