wynalazki: Ouija

Evidence: 100 • authority: 72

The Ouija ( WEE-jə, -⁠jee), also known as a Ouija board, spirit board, talking board, or witch board, is a flat board marked with the letters of the Latin alphabet, the numbers 0–9, the words "yes", "no", and occasionally "hello" and "goodbye", along with various symbols and graphics. It uses a planchette (a small heart-shaped piece of wood or plastic) as a movable indicator to spell out messages during a séance. Participants place their fingers on the planchette, which is moved about the board to spell words. The name "Ouija" is a trademark of Hasbro (inherited from Parker Brothers), but is often used generically to refer to any talking board. Spiritualists in the United States believed th…

Evidence: 38 • authority: 72

Numerous new religious movements have formed in the United States. A new religious movement (NRM) is a religious or spiritual group that has modern origins and is peripheral to its society's dominant religious culture. There is no single, agreed-upon criterion for defining a "new religious movement". Prior to the American Civil War, new movements included Mormonism, led by a prophet; Adventism, which used biblical scholarship to predict the Second Coming of Jesus; New Thought, which promised that mental powers could provide health and success; and Spiritualism, which offered communication with ghosts or spirits. By 1900, flourishing movements included the Jehovah's Witnesses, a group that e…

Evidence: 22 • authority: 72

A séance or seance (; French: [seɑ̃s]) is an attempt to communicate with spirits. The word séance comes from the French word for "session", from the Old French seoir, "to sit". In French, the word's meaning is quite general and mundane: one may, for example, speak of "une séance de cinéma" (lit. 'a movie session'). In English, however, the word came to be used specifically for a meeting of people who are gathered to receive messages from ghosts or to listen to a spirit medium discourse with or relay messages from spirits. In modern English usage, participants need not be seated while engaged in a séance. Fictionalised conversations between the deceased appeared in Dialogues of the Dead by G…

Evidence: 20 • authority: 72