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Just thought I would bump this as there is another topic in General perhaps a merge is in order?
 
I would say proceed with extreme care. The advice given by Wopppittess does seem very sound.
 
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Again, thanks for all the support and kind words regarding my (100% unsuccessfull) attempts to witness the paranormal. It's nice to know some people are interested, even if nothing has happened in the 5 years I've been doing this. I'm starting to wonder how long one continues before asserting to themselves that they have done their best and it's all just bull crap. At the moment I'm totally happy to find myself under the stars in stunning locations with good company and a tidy campfire, regardless of the the lack of paranormal activity.

Anyway, onto the subject in hand. I have indeed searched ta' forums for ouija info, but (and I'll say this at risk of offending some people) a good whack of it does indeed stink of anecdote, as Titch suggested earlier. However, there are also a good number of posts that sound quite reliable and have a very human sound to the descriptions, rather than reading like a fictional account by a wannabe novelist.

I am torn over the Ouija board, hence my interest. I'll come clean now and state that I don't believe in it's abilities, but I cannot ignore the number of people who report paranormal experiences when using them.

@wopppittess: I truly would appreciate any suggestions that you recommend. I'm building up a small library or "Ouija user manual" with some different techniques.
 
As an example of how unwise it can be to try to set up paranormal incidents, you might have a look at the EVP threads. We tried recording EVP and scared ourselves silly with the resulting sounds. I was all for sleeping in the car. :shock:

We had of course turned up the recording levels to the limit and thus had actually recorded the dog trying to chew a hole in the back gate. :oops:
 
escargot1 said:
As an example of how unwise it can be to try to set up paranormal incidents, you might have a look at the EVP threads. We tried recording EVP and scared ourselves silly with the resulting sounds. I was all for sleeping in the car. :shock:

We had of course turned up the recording levels to the limit and thus had actually recorded the dog trying to chew a hole in the back gate. :oops:

Lol! You are of course totally correct though, there is nothing scientific about what I'm doing, and I'm clearly forcing situations and mind sets to achieve desired results. The fact nothing has been experienced should prove something but as yet i'm unsure what!
 
Sometimes it's less trouble to just wait for something to happen or not rather than trying to force it. The universe is bound to cock the fuck with you gun sooner or later.
 
BlackRiverFalls said:
Sometimes it's less trouble to just wait for something to happen or not rather than trying to force it. The universe is bound to cock the fuck with you gun sooner or later.

Actually this is precisely WHY we are orchestrating these events. My friend and I have a combined age of 60 plus *cough!* and those years have thrown up nothing of note. Hence we are going to try to force the issue somewhat. A Ouija session is perfect for this as it is not reactive (like a ghost watching vigil) but is proactive in the sense that we are pulling the spirit world forwards to interact with us in a method practiced over generations.
 
Maybe when you try to force it and it doesn;t, that is the universe cocking the fuck with you gun. :lol:

I really don;t know. Nothing that paranormal has ever happened to me either.
 
gncxx said:
BlackRiverFalls said:
Everett was also a devout catholic, so you'd think he wouldn;t hold with stuff like ouija.

Not that being catholic ever stopped him doing anything else he wanted to though. Everything about him was some strange kind of surprise. :lol:

Everett's wife was a psychic, she wrote books on spooky celeb encounters, so it's not entirely unlikely he'd dabble with the ouija.
The story is it was his girlfriend contacting him though. ;)
 
She wasn't a very good psychic if she didn't know he was gay when she married him.
 
Ronson8 said:
She wasn't a very good psychic if she didn't know he was gay when she married him.

....it appears that love blinds even the spirit world ronson8.
 
I read years ago that Everett later admitted that he was trying to suppress or conceal his gay tendencies by marrying, as a lot apparently used to do. Poor lad. Maybe the wife was in on it - I think they stayed friends after they split up and she seemed a sport.
 
Been reading up on Ouija boards and they have a fascinating history going right back to 1100 bce in china where some religious texts were passed to the population from the spirit world.

In terms of hard science it is generally thought that the boards are controlled by idiomotor responses from the operators. Although relatively little research seems to have been done to arrive at this explanation.

Also been surprised to learn that the board itself is a relatively recent invention (1800s) whereas the planchette is the central piece of the equation that dates much further back.

Struggled not to laugh when I read on Wikipedia that the founder of alcoholics annonymous was a famous Ouija user....he really couldn't leave the spirits alone!
 
:lol: Hahaha, love it!

Have you seen this?

Our Techy had a phase of collecting them a few years ago and has lots. He mounted them on the wall over the stairs, facing his neighbour's house. His neighbour later complained that his house had suddenly become haunted and his girlfriend left him! :lol:
 
I often wonder if all the negative stories and anecdotes you read and hear regarding the ouija board lead people to expect that outcome and therefore look for it (on a purely sub-conscious level)...
 
Well either its evil spirits messing about, or your own sub-conscious messing about...i would fear my sub-conscious more then evil spirits.my bog standard conscious is very frightening :madeyes: Either way i wouldn't touch the Ouija with a barge pole. :eek!!!!:
 
Well either its evil spirits messing about, or your own sub-conscious messing about...i would fear my sub-conscious more then evil spirits.my bog standard conscious is very frightening Psychout Either way i wouldn't touch the Ouija with a barge pole. Eek Eek

I'll second that. I'd stay away from it too, just in case i'm about to subconsciously play some kind of unpleasant prank on myself.
 
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Like any other paranormal tool, the boards are there to focus your energy. Treat them with respect, use the right intent and open and close each session correctly and there should be nothing to worry about - again just the same as with any other 'tool'.

I remember when tarot cards where deemed the work of the devil himself, now the are widely accepted more or less everywhere - perhaps in the future more people will come to realise that working with the ouija board a similar thing, just a different tool.



Blessings to you all.
 
Lawrence Leung did an interesting thing on Ouija as part of his series Lawrence Leung's Unbelievable in the episode on ghosts.
Part I
Part II

Unfortunately, I can't find just the relevant bits.

Also has an interview with Richard Wiseman about ghosts and ghost research.

Note that Lawrence does take a sceptical stance on the subject, but I think his results, especially the discussion with the seance group afterwards, are interesting.
 
I approve of Lawrence Leung! :lol:

Louis Theroux meets Pen & Teller in an east asain australian in scotland. :yeay:

edit: The ouija bit is at 3.10 in part 2. May contain traces of pea soup.
 
jimv1 said:
Why isn't it called a 'Ouinon' Board?

The ouija name is a relatively new thang, they were mostly known as "talking boards" through history. I also am slightly confused by the meaning of the name as it seems to make no sense. However there is some suggestion that it's nothing to do with oui/ja but is a word provided via a ouija board to gaming businessman, and it derives from ancient Egyptian, translating to "good luck".
 
Iamsundog uses an interesting phrase: CREDIBLE EVIDENCE.

Back in the 90s my mums best mate (a freelance journalist with a regular slot in a national paper) did a piece on seances as they had hit the papers through being popular with teens. She did a large amount of research and she had some excellent contacts in the scientific community. She stumbled upon an American researcher who had spent 3 years looking at seances, ouija boards and a few other spirit contact methods. Her first question to him was " do ouija boards work?". His response was "absolutely. But not in the way you think.". He went on to detail endless experiments where he showed that the subconscious and the conscious control talking boards, but never the spirit world.

I think it important to remind ourselves that the ONLY evidence regarding this subject matter indicates it is either false or misunderstood but with a very human control element.

The researchers last comment is one that we have all probably heard before: "as with all paranormal subjects, it tends to be those that WANT to believe who do."
 
I remember reading a book about how too hunt ghosts in which the authors say they sometimes used Ouija board, and on one occasion they started to receive messages from a "spirit" that was spouting extreme right wing crap,they eventually decided the messages where coming from a sitter who had extreme right wing views which he had since repudiated,but there they where still coming through :( Its evil evil i tell ya!! :D
 
I'm not sure that I'm adding anything, but... I'll say anyway.

I don't have a belief in the typical 'psychic' view of the paranormal - I hope if there is an afterlife it consists of something more useful than hanging around in the ether just waiting for the chance to scare my loved ones silly.

But, having been around the sort of people who like to push the envelope all my life, I've dabbled with Tarot cards, ghost hunting, UFO watch and goodness knows what else. I stopped playing with giving people Tarot readings because its too powerful. I don't mean psychically - I learned to read Tarot as a party trick and to impress girls (the motivation for 99% of male effort!). I found that some people took my readings seriously and would make life decisions based on them - I didn't want that responsibility, thank you very much.

I believe Ouija falls into the same category - it doesn't need to be supernatural to affect some people badly.

That's the logical reason for not messing with 'em, but I should also say that for reasons I do not know it Ouija boards still gives me a spooked feeling, even the sight of one. And I've no partiicular reason for that - I don't know anyone who's been driven mad by using one or anything, I just don't want to be about while its being used. Probably someone told me some tale about them when I was too young to remember the details and its still making me hinkey after all these years!
 
Cochise said:
I should also say that for reasons I do not know it Ouija boards still gives me a spooked feeling, even the sight of one. And I've no partiicular reason for that - I don't know anyone who's been driven mad by using one or anything, I just don't want to be about while its being used. Probably someone told me some tale about them when I was too young to remember the details and its still making me hinkey after all these years!

Same here. I've grown into a sceptic over the years, but, as I said before, ouija boards are one thing I'm still very wary of. Quite happy not to test my non-belief...
 
McAvennie_ said:
but, as I said before, ouija boards are one thing I'm still very wary of. Quite happy not to test my non-belief...

See, I can't be like that. I can't just stay away because I'm worried about the implications. I HAVE to find out for myself whether or not certain Fortean "things" are real or not....or at least whether or not there is good ground for speculation. My main concern at the moment is not about letting the evil spirits into the material world but surround more practical issues. There will only be two of us using the board. Believers argue that the more people involved the stronger the energies that are channelled. The sceptics take a different view: the more involved the stronger the mass hysteria element, providing a more "active" response. My second concern is that both myself and my friend (by the nature of our cause) could be broadly defined as sceptics. I worry that this somehow will invalidate the results of our efforts in some eyes. But to be honest the efforts are supposed to prove to us, and largely us alone, the truth regarding this. We aren't in this to profit in any way (in fact we only have an old SLR camera to record any experiences for proof) so I guess it's a selfish exercise in many respects.

Whilst I'm typing.....does anyone have any recommendations regarding the board. The William Fuld classic is proving hard to obtain and many people say the boards are more for convenience sake rather than effectiveness. Hence we might make our own....in which case does the classic upturned tumbler make the best planchette? Any tips are welcome
 
I've grown into a sceptic over the years, but, as I said before, ouija boards are one thing I'm still very wary of.

Ditto, they still creep me out too. if I found one cheap second hand, I might get it and take a dump on it just to prove to myself that nothing catastrophic happens. :lol:
 
BlackRiverFalls said:
I might get it and take a dump on it just to prove to myself that nothing catastrophic happens. :lol:
"Shit happens" is a common slang phrase, used as a simple existential observation that life is full of imperfections, either "Así es la vida" or "C'est la vie". The phrase is an acknowledgment that bad things happen to people for no particular reason'
 
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