Experiences With The Ouija Board (IHTM)

[nickedoff12]

Hmm...

I typed 'How was the pudding?' on the virtual board linked to a while back, and got the response

'David is my boyfriend.'

 

[krobone]

But now I'll officially get this thread back on track - has anyone else ever used a Ouija board and had nothing happen? At all? Like me?

 

[Anonymous]

Aye...It was when I was with a couple of thoroughly decent and sceptical friends. We sat there for ages and ages noting only the slightest twitches. The thing is, we all resisted the urge to "Get on with it" and relaxed our fingers. We even asked over and over again for something to happen etc..

On the other hand, I've done the boards on hundreds of occasions and with many different people in different locations and more or less the same things have happened. On the occasions that I have purposely pushed the pointer, and made it spell out half evil names, *Devil, Satan..etc..* someone else has tried to deviate and change it to gobbledegook. Just looking at the hands and the arms and face can give you an idea of who's behind it. On other occasions, I've half spelled words which can be predictable and watched the others automatically finish them.
It helps if you know the people and their preferences and tendencies...One session was with a woman who I know hates snow so I asked the board if it was going to snow this Xmas...the pointer went immediately to NO! lol...When she wasn't part of it, I asked if the weather was going to get colder and it said YES, snow? YES...lol
Same with table toppling. (Derren Browne demonstrated this on a grand scale not long ago!)...Watch any footage of table toppling etc and notice at least one of the people are quite blatantly pushing hard on the thing and moving in the direction it moves slightly in front.
Other table toppling footage clearly shows a sleeved person pulling their arms away from the lip of the table after the activity, in a manner that smells of guiding rods up the sleeves!
Watch Johnathon Creek sometime and you'll get the jist...albeit fictional, it gives a good example of how easy it is to be mislead even when it's not intended.
That's me penneth worth ..oh aye.

 

[Wundawend]

Hi all.

I have been reading this board for ages and finally decided to contribute my own experience. (There have been a few over the years but this one was the one which convinced me of the existence of the 'spirit world'.)

When I was about thirteen I lived with my Mother and brother in a small village in Wiltshire. We had some family friends - Janet and John, who had always said they did ouja and Janet was a medium.

For a long time my mum resisted her curiosity but eventually she decided to have a try and see what happened. My brother who was nearly fifteen didnt want to join in so he sat with the pad and pen to write down what, if anything, happened.

We didn't have a ouija board so we improvised using a polished wooden coffee table and paper letters. The word yes and no were top and bottom and the alphabet arranged in a circle around the edges of the table, an upturned wineglass was our 'planchette'. We didnt try to adjust the atmosphere in the room other than not having tv or music on - the overhead light was on as it was about eight in the evening and dark outside. We all placed our fingertip on the rim of the base of the glass and Janet started off by asking is there anyone there a few times. To start with nothing happened but then the glass smoothly slid to the word yes. I was so shocked i giggled a tad hysterically and the glass slid slowly round the table in circles a few times. Janet told me not to laugh or i might upset whoever we were in contact with. At that i shut up. She asked a few questions and we ascertained that we were speaking to a man called Fred Smith and that he had been a local man. I think he had actually lived in our house but it was a long time ago and some of it is rather vague now.

After a while Janet asked us if there was anyone we would like to contact and my mum said her mother, who died when I was about 6. Janet asked Fred if she was there and like a telephone exchange all went quiet for a few minutes, Then the glass started circling again and my mum said is that mum? - yes. My mum naturally felt a little cynical and asked a few questions which not even me or my brother knew the answers to. She always says the thing which proved it for her was that the glass then spelt out 'Dont test me Segnorita', which was what Gran called my mum till she was about ten and which none of us knew, but mum later showed me letters to 'Segnorita' (same spelling) from her mum.

After Janet and John had gone home the three of us tried to slide the glass with our fingers and found that however we tried the glass jumped and jerked along and tipped over fairly easily.

I did a little legwork the next week and went to local churchyards etc to try and find a trace of the man who had apparently lived locally, Fred Smith.
I didnt find a grave or any records but at thirteen I didnt know to look in records offices and it was a fairly random search.

The following week we met up again and repeated the experiment. This time instead of the lazy circling of before the glass took off like a scalded rabbit and sped across the table to the letter X. We wrote it down and waited for the next letter. Back to the middle of the table very fast and then straight back to the letter X. It did this four or five times with Janet saying we dont understand - is it kisses? - back to X, faster this time. She asked a few different questions then is it a cross? - straight to yes then no
and back to the X
Do you mean cross she asked, - straight to yes and stays there. Do you mean you are cross asked Janet. Quickly it went to yes then spelt out do not check up on me. I was so scared. We finished the session shortly after that and i didnt have the courage to join in with any more.

We entered into the whole thing with open minds and came out of it satisfied that it wasnt a hoax. Sadly we lost contact with Janet and John a few years later.

 

[Redhead666]

Interesting tale, Wundawend.

I was always interested in the Ouija board and have had my fair share of sessions with it over the years.
It pretty much convinced me that we were indeed contacting the dead. Some episodes were downright scary.

All that changed though since joining this FT board. After much discussion on a previous Ouija thread debating whether it was authentic communication or not, I decided to test it.

During the next Ouija session, I had all particpants blindfolded ( including myself). The result was pure jibberish. Only proper words were spelled out when we took the blindfolds off.
This leaves me to conclude with 99 % certainty that it is our minds which dictate subconciously what the planchette points to and that there is almost certainly no contact with the dead involved.

Too bad....I was hopeful. I like to be scared.

 

[OFIN73]

During the next Ouija session, I had all particpants blindfolded ( including myself). The result was pure jibberish. Only proper words were spelled out when we took the blindfolds off.
This leaves me to conclude with 99 % certainty that it is our minds which dictate subconciously what the planchette points to and that there is almost certainly no contact with the dead involved.

Too bad....I was hopeful. I like to be scared.

I'm not sure what this demonstrates myself. Assuming spirits exist and they have to use your hands to move the planchette, isn't it also likely that they need your eyes to see the planchette?

 

[krobone]

I'm not sure what this demonstrates myself. Assuming spirits exist and they have to use your hands to move the planchette, isn't it also likely that they need your eyes to see the planchette?

Assuming spirits exist is a huge assumption, dude.

Myself, I would think spirits, if they exist, would be able to move the planchette by themselves or by some kind of telepathy, not through our bodies. Seems simpler than taking posession of several human bodies and looking thru several sets of eyes, working with several sets of hands, etc.

The fact that blindfolds produce gibberish indicates to me that something else is going on, something not involving ghosts.

 

[Wundawend]

:lol:
To be honest I think it much more likely that spirits exist than that my mum telekenetically moved the glass painstakingly from one letter to the next to spell out the message - and it would have had to be by telekenesis if what you are suggesting is true because it wasnt possible to manually move the glass smoothly, wherever the fingers were placed and however many hands were on the glass.

 

[Redhead666]

Well that is precisely what I meant, Wundawend. I am just about totally convinced that the particpants move the planchette or pointer with their minds, unknowingly. When you think about what our brains are capable of, it is not a far stretch to understand that we are certainly able to expel energy and thought in this way.

I have witnessed spirits/ghosts with my own 2 eyes, so yes they exist. ( No i dont have pictures to prove it sorry). But I am pretty sure, as krobone indicated, the spirits are not moving the pointer around on a Ouija board. If this were true, why wouldn't they continue to do so while the players were blindfolded?

If you look back through IHTM, you will find a great discussion on this topic ( if it hasn't been lost in the "upgrade").

 

[Wundawend]

For a while when I was fifteen we had some 'poltergeist' activity within our house. Furniture rearranging itself while we were all asleep in bed etc.
In this case (and in hindsight) I definitely think it was telekenetic energy rather than any 'presence' at work. I was the architypal 'disturbed teenaged girl' at the time. We had just moved house and the activities centred around me. We never saw the furniture moving but we often saw doors which were stiff to open swinging open seemingly unaided. The cat's toys used to leap into action and the cat used to go through all the motions of greeting fresh air with the sort of rapturous greeting usually reserved for my mother alone. It continued while I humoured it and (at the time I thought it was a ghost) made it welcome. As soon as I ridiculed it it disappeared never to reappear.

I have a fairly strong electrical field (at least thats what I think it is) with streetlights switching off while i am walking under them on occasion when I am upset or angry and i have to get other people to handle the more sensitive electrical equipment if I am particularly emotional for whatever reason. My printer never works first time for me yet it does for everyone else. I have to take some deep calming breaths get into a particular mindset or it refuses to play ball. Its a weird weird world.

I retain an open mind about the ouija - not tempted to do it again as I am much more cautious about these things now and do definitely beleive there are ghosts - whatever you choose to call them. I wish I had had all the knowledge and information about these things then which we access so easily these days though.

I would just like to thank you all for your interest and for not considering me quite mad. - I love this forum!!!

 

[Graylien]

To be honest I think it much more likely that spirits exist than that my mum telekenetically moved the glass painstakingly from one letter to the next to spell out the message

Why? The first possibility requires you to believe in ghosts with telekinetic powers. The second merely requires you to believe in living people with telekinetic powers.

I only once tried using a Ouija board (when I was much younger) but it really unnerved me. The glass was quite merrily spinning around the board but was just spelling out gibberish. My friend then thought to ask the "spirit" how old it was, and the glass went straight to the number 2. We packed it in for the evening, both feeling rather uneasy about troubling the spirit of a two-year-old child with our silly questions.

Nowadays, I take Ouija boards a lot less literally. Suppose that some kind of entity really is communicating with us through Ouija boards and trance mediums. Should we necessarily assume that it is telling us the truth when it claims to be Fred Smith, or Napoleon, or the Ashtar Command?

 

[krobone]

Also, why don't the dead ever communicate something useful? Why can't we get ahold of Einstein's ghost and see what he thinks of chaos theory? Why can't we ask Jefferson's ghost about his views on current politics in America?

 

[Redhead666]

Good point, Krobone.

I have come to realize that certain spirit activity ( for example, hearing invisible cars and people at my mother's house on numerous ocassions) is probably a replay in history of a moment from long ago. This would also explain why sometimes people see a ghost ( myself included), yet there is no significant conversation, usually only a fleeting glance of the apparition. My mother and I used to joke about why the ghosts in her house would never help with the housework or otherwise make themselves useful. (lol) But I guess this IS why. They aren't really there. It is more like we, the living, are experiencing a moment in time gone by.

I think the most important question to ask is: Why would the dead want to contact us? If there is an afterlife ( and I believe there is), I am confident it must be grandiose beyond anything we can imagine and I cannot foresee any spirit trying to come through to us from the "other side" because we whipped a Ouija board out.

While it is fun and exciting and scary to think that is what is happening, my experiement proved to me that it isn't possible. ( in my opinion anyway)

And lastly, if spirits could contact us on a Ouija board, then they must also be able to write letters and call us on the phone and email us and write notes in the steam on the bathroom mirror while we shower. Right?

 

[Wundawend]

...unless they need to use our energy to enable them to move things.
ie - automatic writing??

 

[Malfinka1]

When I was a teenager, there was a year or so where my three best girlfriends and I were OBSESSED with the board. It really became an addiction for us, every chance we got we used the board. We started with the usual gibberish, but eventually words started making sense, then sentences and accurate answers to questions, then even physical manifestations (a voice, a shadow, a candle blowed out on demand, for example.) Ultimately, we'd work the board this way: two girls blindfolded with their fingers on the planchette. One girl not on the board with pen and paper wrotee down the letters being called out by the fourth girl, whose fingers were also not on the board. We had the planchette moving so quickly and accurately that we'd have to go back afterwords to divide up the pages and pages of letters we'd written down into words then sentences! We ended up with pages and pages of perfectly coherent information.

I still have several of these pages somewhere I think. It was a long, long time ago but here's what I seem to recall how the board itself told us it worked:

We were given this info by a "spirit" named "Violet." She told us that they used the board by entering into the nail in the planchette--something about the metal was easy for them to enter, and they'd pop in and out of the nail to answer questions. As for the "plane" she was "existing" on--sometimes she felt she did not exist at all, but when she concentrated on "remembering to be," she would "exist." There were other spirits with her, not necessarily from the same time period. She said it was like being born--you don't get to choose who you live with, and you all just have to try to get along. It was actually Violet, I think, who told us how to do automatic writing (we didn't even know what it was--she explained that the spirit enters the pen.)

I am still not convinced that we were talking to dead people--I often wondered if we were simply tapping into the collective unconcious and coming out with accurate information, and if we were creating the manifestations but this idea is just as wierd and scary as talking to dead people if you ask me.

I swore of boards after a very frightening experience which I posted here once in the It Happened to Me titled Inhuman Shadow Creature or something like that.

 

[Redhead666]

Interesting, but it leaves me to wonder how "spirits" got into my the planchette my mom has. It is just plastic with no nails or anything in it.

 

[krobone]

We were given this info by a "spirit" named "Violet." She told us that they used the board by entering into the nail in the planchette--something about the metal was easy for them to enter, and they'd pop in and out of the nail to answer questions.

Okaaay... :?

See, that makes even less sense than possesion or telekinesis. A nail?

And what, they don't have anything better to do? The next world must be Dullsville. I'd hate to think I'll spend the afterlife popping out of nails to answer questions for a bunch of schoolgirls...

 

[ElishevaBarsabe]

The next world must be Dullsville. I'd hate to think I'll spend the afterlife popping out of nails to answer questions for a bunch of schoolgirls...

Didn't Kurt Vonnegut say something about a "turkey farm"?

And, of course, the epic of Gilgamesh -- "the place of dust and darkness."

Don't think about that too long.

 

[Graylien]

As for the "plane" she was "existing" on--sometimes she felt she did not exist at all, but when she concentrated on "remembering to be," she would "exist." There were other spirits with her, not necessarily from the same time period.

That sounds rather reminiscent of John Keel's description in the Mothman Prophecies of the mysterious Mr Apol:

[He] did not know who or what he was. He was a prisoner of our time frame. He often confused the past with the future. I gathered that he and all his fellow entities found themselves transported backward and forward in time involuntarily, playing out their little games because they were programmed to do so, living--or existing--only so long as they could feed off the energy and minds of mediums and contactees.

Perhaps Ouija board entities are nothing more than confused psychic tulpas, baffled by their own existence. What a depressing thought.:?

 

[Anonymous]

I just think it wouldn't make evolutionary sense to have an afterworld or ghosts.
One could argue that life forms exist to pass on their genes and the whole meaning of life is just a random array of survival and competition to keep alive, thus ensuring one's genes survive and , ultimately...are passed on into the afterworld. But this wouldn't make sense if ESP, telekenesis, poltergeists etc were true because we would evolve in such a way as to pass on our genes, then bugger off to the afterworld.
This would make all life on Earth quite meaninglessly technical.
IMHO

 

[BuckeyeJones]

If all we are here to do is breed, then life would seem rather pointless.
Being that I do believe in the "soul" , I see this time in human form as more of a test for the soul.
I know plenty of people that think when we die, we are just worm food, and they are fine people who care about others and do the right things. As far as contact from the other side....... I think the jury is still out on that and it is up to each person to see and feel as they may. I have had personal dealings with a ouija board and I will never use one again, I have my own reasons for that.
I think many paranormal events come from within ourselves, ouija included.
One thing is a fact, everyone of us reading this will, someday cease to be human, so death being the great equalizer, will be the only true thing shared by us all.
Peace
=^..^=217

 

[Graylien]

oops.

 

[ArthurASCII]

Ideomotor Effect

Perhaps the force that produces Ouija Board messages is the Ideomotor effect (we had a bit of a chat about it on the Dowsing thread).

For a taster, here's a link to a somewhat sceptical, but very interesting article:

Article here

MUCH interesting info on the Ideomoter effect can be found on the Web.

What do you think?

(edited for spelling...D'oh)

 

[krobone]

The next world must be Dullsville. I'd hate to think I'll spend the afterlife popping out of nails to answer questions for a bunch of schoolgirls...

Didn't Kurt Vonnegut say something about a "turkey farm"?

And, of course, the epic of Gilgamesh -- "the place of dust and darkness."

Don't think about that too long.

Ah, crap. Well, I guess it'll be Ouija for me, then.

I'll be sure and contact someone who can post to the FT board for me and confirm the nail thing. :cry:

 

[again6]

Began reading the ideomotor article, but I'm also in the middle of making dinner, so will have to return to the article later tonight. The 'Toftness' (sorry) apparatus sounds very like the boxes described by Chucky Cosimano, by the way. Presumably Cosimano reintroduced them after reading about them when young. I've made a couple in the past, but have never been able to succeed with the stick-plate (so much for the power of suggestion). Cosimano's newer designs don't have the troublesome stick-plate. Chucky's on the Web; funny man.

But back to dowsing and ideomotor; it's always been my understanding that the pendulum is just an item of appartus, not the 'source' of information derived via it. There are practised dowsers who have no need for the pendulum or twigs; they're able to arrive at the information they seek simply by asking themselves a question, at which point their chosen finger will rise or fall to indicate 'yes', 'no', etc. I've never believed a 'spirit' dictated the movement of the pendulum or twigs. To my mind, the information is known or obtained by the subconscious/superconscious. Where the sub/super-conscious gets the information is something else again.

So it seems pointless to debate the validity of the pendulum when that item is really just a prop; just something people can use as a means of separating themselves from the source of information. Not everyone is able to comfortably accept that our minds (or at least an element of what we term our mind) is able to access information consciously unknown to us. By placing 'responsibility' upon a pendulum or planchette or hazel twigs, the individual is able to make himself one step removed.

People have successfully used dowsing for thousands of years. Those who have success with it know it works and they use it to sex chickens, to test foods for freshness or for allergic reactions, to find water and lost objects, etc. Pendulums can also be used in much the same way as the ouija board and this is quite common practice with many.

Every generation throws up those with natural ability with these tools, just as it throws up those curious about it ... and those who for some reason have a vested interest in advising the curious that the accessing of information via these means, or communicating with those described as 'dead', is impossible and to be regarded with cynicism and disdain.

Best way is to work it out for yourself. Some people have a natural gift for music, or languages or archery. Some do not. Some achieve competence after a struggle. Same with divining; same with what we term 'paranormal'. But it would be a mistake, I feel, and in a sense would rob individuals of the opportunity of discovery, if they were to accept without question, the sceptical pronouncements of another.

Anyway, I've burned the dinner; can smell it from here :-(

 

[Wundawend]

Well thought out and well put post there Again. Have to say I agree with what you say. I have never played with a pendulum but had a successful go at dowsing for water pipes.
You are absolutely right about 'props' in that far from using the correct type of wooden dowsing sticks we used bent knitting needles sitting in empty biro casings. I think maybe I would rather call them tools than props, they are tools which help us to focus the right kind of energy.

As for an earlier point about death being the end and people existing on the one level I would have to disagree. I think we are only just beginning to really find out what people are capable of, and on how many different levels.

 

[ArthurASCII]

Hi Wundwend and again6.

I'm afraid I don't agree with you about "focusing energy" in the dowsing process (sounds a bit "new age"(, or even that dowsing works. But that's another discussion that's rightfully covered on the Dowsing thread.

Tha article that I linked to was designed to offer one possible answer to the ouija board phenomenon. The fact that the ideomotor effect might just as easily account for most dowsing success is interesting, but not pertinent.

What are your thoughts on the validity of the arguements for an Ideomotor-type effect during ouija board sittings?

 

[Wundawend]

Evening Arthur.
Ideometry and the ouija?

Well in our case we tried with the same and different numbers of people to glide the glass around the table and we just couldnt make it glide. It felt almost like the difference between something that was switched off and something that was switched on. We tried all sorts of different ways to make it glide smoothly, including polishing the table and the rim of the glass - which we hadnt done before the sittings. We were open minded but wary of being gullible and were determined to give the thing a fair and balanced look, so we looked very hard for reasons not to beleive what we were experiencing. Also in the case of my mother speaking with my grandmother - only my mum knew the answers to the questions she asked her mum, and only she understood the significance of the answer she was given, but there were four people with their fingers on the glass, so if ideometry was at work it would surely have needed at least one other person to know the answer or the glass wouldnt have been directional at all.

I seriously dont know the answer to your question but I have tried to apply it to the situation at the time.

I would be interested to hear the views of anyone else who has tried ouija and read the article.

 

[Anonymous]

Ouija, pendulums

Hi Wundawend, hi everyone else!

Hmmm, pendulums.... I'm not sure about their accuracy. If I hold one I can make it spin either deosil or widdleshins simply by desire. Whether this is down to infinitessimal muscle movements in my fingertips of which I am not aware, I can't say; although I do try to keep my fingers still.

My friends and I (all with a healthy(?) interest in such things) did a number of ouija boards when we were younger.

They do say that you can always tell if the glass is being pushed because it rotates - that is pivots - on the finger of the pusher.

We quite often used to get a character called Relkin on our board - he was always cagey about who he was, but he did seem fairly well informed; he used to call me 'Moonbeams' (I'm Wiccan)...

Nothing terribly exciting happened during our experimentation other than 'one dark and stormy night' when there was a very oppressive atmosphere around the board, and suddenly there was a very angry rapping on the window behind us - this window was not reachable from the ground, and no one was there when we looked.

 

[Sadescha]

I had a friend with a ouija board when I was a kid. The board never worked for me if I was alone, it only worked for her.

I did try some experiments, though. I had her close her eyes, and it still came out with real words and answers. I also had her lay down so her head was almost even with the board- the answers again still made sense.

Of course, she may have been peeking when I wasn't looking.

When I was visiting her, we did have an incident where the planchette moved. We'd turned our backs to it, and then got up to get pizza, and I noticed it wasn't where we'd left it (I can't remember how I could tell, though, I think it might have been on the floor when we'd left it on the board.) Again, it's possible she moved it when I wasn't looking, but I don't think she did.

I've wanted to get another board, but my husband won't let me. I saw this beautiful slate board on ebay last year sometime, but he refuses to let me bring one into the house. He alternates between saying they're bunk, and between saying that they often invite things in that you don't want. I could sneak one in, but I'd rather not, so I just have to live vicariously through other people's experiences.

Personally, I see the ouija as a doorway that can be opened or closed, and abusing it can lead to bad things. Whether or not ghosts actually speak through it, though, I can't say. It could be tulpas, or subconscious control, etc, but without being able to use one, I can't make my mind up firmly one way or the other.