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Experiences With The Ouija Board (IHTM)

escargot said:
As I stated earlier, I'm not afraid of any ghosts or what have you, but not willing to participate in other people's daftness.
This is despite both having my own Ouija-related spookiness and hearing about them from people I trust.

We'd like to hear more about your experience, please, if you're up to describing it!
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So in college did lots of Ouija with 2 or 3 other eager for knowledge but open-minded, semi-sceptical peers. We didn't get any historical celebrities (Eleanor of Aquitaine, etc), mainly beings whose answers were annoyingly non-commital & usually surly. They would claim to be spirits of dead humans but they couldn't answer any specific questions (who was the President at any point during your life? in what state of the US did you reside when alive?). What we eventually figured out was they seemed interested only in keeping the channel open until more & more "spirits" could arrive. We'd ask: how many spirits are present? (that's a key question, folks). They would initially answer (including us pointer-workers, I guess) "4" or "5". After being on the board for 1/2 hour, the answer would be, like, "35", & they seemed to be battling to be the one who controlled the pointer & got to interact with us. If we were on the board long enough, we'd get a "spirit" that was clearly extra powerful and evil-sounding. The pointer would no longer move fitfully but fast & smooth (no more arguments on their end about which "spirit" was in control), there would often be temperature drops in the room; occasionally- small items knocked off shelves, & I will never forget a powerful "spirit's" suggestion that we "play a game". We asked what game & the answer, spelled out in a blur of pointer moves, was "Halloween fire burial".
We came to the conclusion that we were contacting beings who A)were NOT spirits of dead humans B)had no valuable knowledge to impart C)were malign D)were basically rats keeping a door open until a wolf could arrive. We eventually gave it up & burned the Ouija board, we were so convinced it was a dangerous thing. My own opinion is we were actually in touch with some sort of energy beings who are made stronger by our contact with them & mean us (humanity) no good. That's why I counsel not to do it; if you think you're talking to Teddy Roosevelt you're being lied to, & though I do believe in beneficient energy beings, you won't reach them through Ouija.
 
I can imagine an alternative explanation of that where your own unconscious minds are the entities. I don't think the existence of demons/spirits is needed to produce such phenomena. The mind is freaky-weird and complex, and the more you plug into it, the weirder and more complex you realize it is. I believe that, overall, cultivating self-awareness is a positive thing, but there's a point where it feels wise to let things slip back into darkness. It feels like there is a deep dark place where all the decomposition/regeneration kind of gunk seems to happen, and that it's not a bad idea to leave it alone to do its thing.
 
Yes, while my experiences didn't feel like it was all in the subconscious, I must remain open to that possibility, bc the mind IS definitely freaky & complex at times. I'd like to think that from the compost heap of our subconscious, flowers can grow as well as deadly nightshades. Maybe prayer, or casting of spells, or meditation, or even intensely focused visualization are some things that tap into that deep mind strata.
 
My outlook on such things runs as follows:

The evidence that I have seen, on balance, does not seem to support the claim that communication is possible with discarnate entities, nor indeed that such entities exist outside of people's minds. On the other hand, many purely mental or theoretical entities are demonstrably real, and influence the material world in significant ways (e.g. love, mathematics, and money). Those who say, dismissively, "It's all in your head," are missing the boat.

I also don't believe that my home will be consumed in flames soon; and yet I buy fire insurance. By analogy, I employ an abundance of caution when dealing with alleged spiritual communications. It would really stink to prove the existence of spiritual entities by being the first scientifically verified person to be killed, mangled, or possessed by them. If this approach to life seems unscientific, then I take comfort in the anecdote of Bohr's horseshoe.

As a slight digression from the purpose of the thread, how would one go about proving (or disproving) that someone has been possessed? My point here is that if some group "on the other side" wanted to conquer the world this way, then the first few insorcised spirits should behave as "normally" as they can, while doing everything in their power to expose more people to the experience that allows possession to occur. Once a sufficiently large group has become possessed, then coercion and force may become more attractive strategies. Have there been any rumors of mass forced Ouija events?
 
Aether Blue said:
My outlook on such things runs as follows:

The evidence that I have seen, on balance, does not seem to support the claim that communication is possible with discarnate entities, nor indeed that such entities exist outside of people's minds. On the other hand, many purely mental or theoretical entities are demonstrably real, and influence the material world in significant ways (e.g. love, mathematics, and money). Those who say, dismissively, "It's all in your head," are missing the boat.

I also don't believe that my home will be consumed in flames soon; and yet I buy fire insurance. By analogy, I employ an abundance of caution when dealing with alleged spiritual communications. It would really stink to prove the existence of spiritual entities by being the first scientifically verified person to be killed, mangled, or possessed by them. If this approach to life seems unscientific, then I take comfort in the anecdote of Bohr's horseshoe.

As a slight digression from the purpose of the thread, how would one go about proving (or disproving) that someone has been possessed? My point here is that if some group "on the other side" wanted to conquer the world this way, then the first few insorcised spirits should behave as "normally" as they can, while doing everything in their power to expose more people to the experience that allows possession to occur. Once a sufficiently large group has become possessed, then coercion and force may become more attractive strategies. Have there been any rumors of mass forced Ouija events?
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Not that I've heard but it's a hell of a film plot.
 
A supernatural version of:
bodysnatchers.jpg
 
Aether Blue said:
if some group "on the other side" wanted to conquer the world this way, then the first few insorcised spirits should behave as "normally" as they can, while doing everything in their power to expose more people to the experience that allows possession to occur. Once a sufficiently large group has become possessed, then coercion and force may become more attractive strategies. Have there been any rumors of mass forced Ouija events?
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Ouija aside, how do you know that's not happening in our world now? C.S. Lewis' "Screwtape Letters" explores a somewhat similar possibility from a God/devil - good/evil perspective. Discarnate beings could also describe poltergeists, fairy folk, or in some cases the influence of ETs. They live among us.....?
"The other day upon the stair I met a man who wasn't there; he wasn't there again today, I wish that man would go away."
 
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I don't think you have to go far to find malevolent influences operating among us--psycho power freaks are everywhere! (And thankfully in the minority.)

On a lighter note, here's what it might be like if one tried to contact a deceased and beloved pet via ouija board:
Breaking Cat News on Ouija boards.jpg
 
Reminds me of HG Wells' short story The Inexperienced Ghost.
Read it as a child and was struck by this very conundrum: many who scoff at the paranormal and dismiss it still won't take the chance!

Here is an excellent dramatisation on the BBC website -

The Inexperienced Ghost by HG Wells

(No spoilers please, not everyone has read everything. Even me.)
 
I may have posted about this before.
I've only ever used one once when I was much younger with the neighbours.
When we put our fingers on the glass it felt like an electric jolt. The siamese cat began running around crying.
I wondered if you could influence it with your mind and decided to try and make it spell out the name we would use if I had a boy as I was pregnant.
The glass moved but it spelled out the name of the daughter I would have later then it just refused to move any more.
That night I felt like something was pressing on my chest and I decided not to use it again.
Some of the neighbours continued to use it for awhile then one told me it had spelled out really bad things although she refused to say what they were.
 
We did it in college way back 30 years ago and I have not done it since. I got a fright from it as the I cant remember what maybe a glass moved on its own and really freaked us out. It ended up with me in a bed with the two girls (one is now my wife, the other sadly I no longer know) afraid to even move or stay in our own rooms because of the board. I know another group of students were using it at the same time and it told them that some of them would die young etc. I personally wont ever use it again.
 
Tried it. Nothing happened.
But I used to live with a couple of brothers who also tried it. One really didn't want to do it but was heavily persuaded not to be so chicken. Just as they asked if anybody was there, there was water hammer from the radiators (not an unusual occurrence), which led to the brave brother taking off and running off as fast as he can, straight out of the house!
 
Ouija boards are fascinating. Ive heard many tales from friends who have all had disturbing experiences usibg them. I tried a home made ouija board once - at a petrol station I once worked at. We asked if the petrol station was haunted. The pointer moved to yes. We asked what by? It pointed to the letters BP. Considering we were working in a Shell petrol station it was an interesting answer.
I found an old Ouija Board once, outside a house due to be demolished- in a boc with planchette and everything. I found out it dated from the 1940s. I was abit wary taking it home and never used it - but it didnt give me any negativr feelings at all. I never used it. The strangest thin that happened to it was I misplaced it and never found it again.
The most interesting aspect of thr Ouija board to me is my own attitude toward it. I'm an agnostic when it comes to the spiritual (and by that I include all those subjects I have bern fascinated by in my 50 years of existence; ghosts, the occult, tarot cards etc etc) but my biggest fear is that therr is nothing there. No afterlife, no deeper reality - just atoms, cells, molecules and the stories we tell ourselves - and this despite experiences that intimate there are deeper levels to.our reality - at least our consciousness - than purely physical. I am very wary of using a ouija board though - even in the spirit of an open minded exploration. What I'm afraid of I'm unsure of - it's like the existence of the ouija board forces me to confront the fact thatI'm not as comfortable with my agnosticism as I might - but again my fear of there being nothing interesting is not particularly comfortable anyway. Odd, and interesting.
 
I and a friend used the Ouija Board regularly in the mid 1970s. It did unusual things -- but never scary stuff. I'd had one since I was in second grade when m mother gave it to me for my birthday. I had used it at PJ parties and on Halloween as a kid in the 60s, still nothing bad came from it. (The main question at the PJ parties was "Will I ever meet John Lennon?")
 
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