The Ghost Posts ~ Ouija Boards

I've got pretty split feelings about the Ouija board. On one hand, it can be a very powerful channeling device and on the other hand it is an exceedingly dangerous device. It's also misunderstood a lot.

I remember going in to a very well known New Age store here in KC searching for one. After not finding one, I asked the girl at the counter, who was a total snot and said to me, "We don't sell those toys here. I suggest looking at a toy store." Stupid @^%$#!

Yes, the Parker Brothers "toy" has entertained giggly girls for years, but it is most definitely not a toy. It won't tell you who your next boyfriend will be or who is talking about you behind your back, but the "harmless fun" in it is what's so dangerous.

Ouija's like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get. And that's bad.

Spirit medium boards have been around for centuries. The Chinese had them, the Greeks had them and the Europeans had them before the Parker Brothers ever thought to market them.

Even Edgar Cayce, the best known American psychic, warned against them. They can be, in the hands of certain unsuspecting people or in certain places, a conduit for demons, according to him.

I don't disagree. I seen people and heard stories of others who got "addicted" to playing with the other realm. It's not a toy and their intentions are not usually good. Only someone very powerful can guard themselves against things they shouldn't mess with.

My freakiest story concerning the Ouija occured in the summer of 1997. I was one of 4 Summer Conference Staff Members (Summer RA's) for the college I attended. This was between my sophomore and junior year of college and I mostly did it because another summer at home with my mom was an unbearable thought.

Our "staff" consisted of 2 guys, another girl and myself. Handsome, my still new, hot boyfriend also hung out with us a lot in the evenings when we were done with soccer, theatre, basketball camps, whatever. We were all really good friends and decided it would be cool to hang out together that summer.

One of the guys, I'll call him Todd, got a Ouija. I was just getting into really exploring the whole "other realm" at the time so I was game. We all knew that one particular dorm, the one we happened to be staying in, was particularly known for the paranormal happenings, especially one floor of the building. This floor was unused for most of the summer and it's where we played most often.

At first we thought it was all fun and games and interesting. The normal goose bumpy kind of fun that only 20 yrs can scare themselves with.

And then it got serious. We started playing it way too often and one particular spirit would get on the board and he wouldn't leave. He called himself Darkman and said he was going to fight for Todd's soul when he died.

Todd wasn't freaked out at first. We were all good little Catholics and didn't believe it.

Then there was the night that we were sitting on the floor, Todd across from me (we were usually the two on it most because we seemed to have a really good "connection" for channeling.) We were sitting Indian style and not touching the board or the planchette at all.

As we were reaching down to make contact with it, the planchette jumped half way across the board. Again, I will tell you neither of us touched it. There was no way it could have moved and it certainly couldn't have "jumped". That was the freaky thing number 2.

Number 3 occured a few nights later. The other girl, I'll call her Jane, was on with Todd. Darkman was of course hogging the board. Todd asked what he was doing and Darkman spelled out, "Playing Deathwatch". When asked where Darkman was he said on top of our building. He said he was waiting to fight for another soul.

Todd and Jane freaked out and that pretty much ended the night. They immediately left to go see a movie and Handsome and I wandered off to do our own thing.

A few hours later, Todd knocks on my door. He comes in and says he's destroying his board. When I asked him why, he said that when they had been leaving our parking lot, an ambulence whizzed by them and turned into the old folks home down the street. Todd said it was just getting too intense for him.

I was kind of disappointed, but I was supportive. The others of us weren't as ready. Jane bought a new board and one evening when Todd was off campus, we were on-duty for an event in the theatre. We sat up in the light booth and started talking to the resident theatre ghost. All of a sudden, he spelled out "Stop playing, Todd's coming".

None of us wanted to really let him know we were still playing because he was kind of shook up about everything still so we put the board away and went outside the theatre to smoke.

We were outside maybe 2 minutes and Todd, the security officer, not our friend came up to patrol the building. Right name, just the wrong guy we were thinking the ghost meant. Had we been caught, we would have been in HUGE trouble, no doubt.

We all decided after that we should quit playing. We took it as a sign that there was just cosmic stuff that wasn't meant to be disturbed. We also didn't like hiding something from our really good friend.

I've played the Ouija a few times since then, but never was a board as strong as that summer. You aren't going to get something evil every time, or anything at all sometimes, but there is a great risk in it.

I caution people against it all the time. If you don't know what you're doing, it's just too dangerous. I can truly believe that people can become possessed from them. It's rare, but I believe it can happen. It is addictive and it's hard to break once you're so focused on it.

We're just lucky our stupid invincible-feeling asses didn't get in deeper than we did.

The Ouija is not a toy like a Magic 8 ball. Don't screw with it.