The Ouija Board

[Hercules]

Pfft theres no sequence. Just relax, free your mind, let the board take over.

Some really freaky stories going on here.. I will have to try some rounds of Ouija tomorrow night.

[Beltruckus]

Originally posted by flutter_girl
i dont know if someone has written this, but you have to break the connection.. blow into the shot glass... at our year 10 retreat... my friends made a oujia board... they got my friends mum, then she all of a sudden went, then they got this guy that my friend jen used to get all the time... i think he was the reason her and her mum stopped using theies... long story... but they couldnt get rid of him... then he told them to get out of the room (there was a tiny room they were in connected to our cabin) and they asked if he was going to do something if they stayed in there, he said yes.... they slammed the door as they ran out, and wouldnt go to sleep or go back into the room. we went in when it got light and tried again and asked if he was going to go, he said no, then we said we were leaving so he said bye... then my friends tried at school (stupid idea- catholic school) and they got him again. one of my friends was being stupid and asked if he could break glass again (um.. this is linked with my friend jen and why she doesnt use it anymore...) and he said 'dodge it'.... they were sitting under a window..... nothing happened... but even so... it freaked them out pretty bad.....

I really wish I could understand what was said here.

[dy156]

We played with a oiji board one night in high school with a group of four, and I freely admit I was trying to move it. I was trying to get with a girl, and made it give her the answers she wanted and that confirmed things I had said. My tactic worked, by the way, though, it might have even without the board. Nothing remotely weird or anything.

[Hercules]

I also heard something recently that they coat Ouija boards with some kind of paint or something that hisses or screams when you burn it?

Anyone know of this? hehe

[flutter_girl]

ok Beltruckus i will explain a few things... first off.... typo theirs*.... jen and her mum got this guy named steve, and they always used to get him whenever they used the board, so they stopped. when they told steve they were going to stop, all this glass started breaking... apparently... um.... did that sort of help?

Ouija boards are corny, there is usually 1 person that has to move it themselves.

[Beltruckus]

that helps a bit original message i thought they were contacting the mother....

[Harmonia]

I believe in Ouiji boards and everything...I'm skeptical but I believe given the right timing and the right consentration and spiritualness it could work...

But do you think it's possible for a person to maybe move it using energy? Just pure energy between two people and the item that is being moved? You can heal with energy and feel others energy...maybe you can move something with energy? It's just a thought I had.

Then again, maybe your energy is connecting with the deceased?

[psicon]

From my personal experience I will give you a piece of advice DON'T MESS WITH A OUIJA BOARD. Even people that has tons of knowledge on the subject don't mess with them.It opens a gateway that no one has ever been able to close completely.The "spirits" you contact are not what they claim to be.My advice to those who have them is to burn them.

[GakFace]

I know thats the whole thing, I haven't messed with them since I was little, and so I feel intrigued to find one and try it out. Problem is, I'm kind of aware of what I could be getting myself into, and I have made some not so good friends in the Demon Heirarchy... Don't think it would be a smart idea.

[sadistikdreams]

It doesn't open a gateway, so much as it yanks someone the fuck outta there.

[GakFace]

I dunno.. See the chance to get an evil spirit seems to be rather high. Well an evil spirit as far as I'm concerned is a Demon, and last I heard, lots of demons are pretty free as they want.. So if it were a gateway, it would merely pull one that didn't have much power... then maybe another evil spirit would noticed and push him outta the way. Of course yanking them to you could get the same reaction...

[a_guy]

Originally posted by Baldrick
While I'm a true believer in the paranormal and supernatural, I find it hard to believe that Ouija boards are anything more than capitalism at it's finest.

I put Ouija boards right up there with the hula hoop, frisbee, and Monopoly for true tools of the occult.

The ancient Egyptians used a device LIKE a ouija board. They used a ring attached to a strand of thread, held over a circular table with symbols on it, and the ring would strike the table to spell out answers.

The Ouija board, the kind we see in toy stores today, came about in 1889 when William Fuld of Baltimore, Maryland, and his brother Isaac, marketed Ouija boards to the American public. They had a small operation and the board was the hottest item they would ever produce. People bought the board not as a game, but as a device with which they would talk to their loved ones killed in battle (note the two World Wars happening; this was where the board's popularity really soared). During this time, the fad spread, and so did Ouija's notorious reputation as being more than just a "game."

Finally in about 1960 or thereabouts, Parker Brothers approached the two Fuld brothers since they were having trouble making enough boards to satisfy the demand for them. PB then took over the rights to the ouija board and the rest, as they say, is history.

Ouija came about as kind of a by-product of the whole spiritualist craze that was all the rage in the early 1900's, and during Houdini's time as he debunked many 'mediums'. Table-tipping was being done back then, and a Frenchman, who's last name was "planchette", produced a device that looked like a small table like a ouija pointer, that stood on two small stilts and a pen or pencil at the third point. The operator would sit with his hands as lightly as he could resting on the planchette, this device named after it's inventor, and the thing would move, producing writing.

Ouija replaced the messy planchette (the writing was messy cursive scrawls) when a board was used in place of the sheet of paper, and all three stilts on the planchette were covered with felt enabling it to slide in any direction. This made the communications fast, clear, and easy. And specifically meant to be done with a partner, "gentleman and lady preferred."

Eugene Orlando adds:

"William Fuld died in 1927, Isaac in 1939. Since Parker Brothers didn't take over the William Fuld company until 1966, it would have been quite a trick to take it over from the brothers. But then it is alt.folklore.ghost-stories isn't it? Actually, Parker Brothers saw a bargain when they saw one and bought the business from William's kids. They had moved the factory into a smaller building and sold out not because there was so much demand for the ouija, but just the opposite. Ouija sales had never been worse. It took a Parkers advertising blitz to put the popularity back in the Ouija board."

[panamaus]

Destroying or discarding your board and its planchette, and then finding it again (or rather, it finding you), over and over, seems like an incredibly implausible tale of paranormal activity to me. Still, it makes for a good Halloween story. It's as believable to some as are claims of the Ouija's authenticity, I suppose. Yet it seems like the tale of a skeptic trying to stretch their own disbelief in the Ouija's power into something that otherwise reasonable believers would find hard to swallow. Here's my personal take on the Ouija board, prefaced with a little history.

Ouija, "The Mystifying Oracle," is a board game used to contact and communicate with spirits that exist beyond our physical realm. That is to say, if you subscribe to a belief in such things. It requires no special training or skills to operate, and can be used by anyone from "professional" mediums, psychics and other spiritualists to college students, teenagers and even children. It is a gateway into the world of the paranormal, much like a divining rod; it works for some people, and not for others.

Conceived by E.C. Reiche and Charles Kennard, the Ouija board was first marketed in its current form by the Kennard Novelty Company in 1890. Reiche received a message while using his new invention to call the board Ouija, after the Egyptian word for luck. Unfortunately, that isn't the Egyptian word for luck, but the name sounds exotic and mystical, so it stuck. Kennard's shop foreman, William Fuld, orchestrated a hostile takeover of the company in 1892, and began manufacturing the board game under his own name. Fuld reinvented the history of the Ouija, claiming that the name comes from the combination of Oui (French) and Ja (German, Norwegian, etc), making the name of the board "Yes, yes." While this doesn't make much sense, it is at least a somewhat better explanation of the name's origin.

The device itself consists of two parts. The first is a board (usually about 18" x 12" in size) with the letters of the alphabet, numbers 0 through 9, and the words YES, NO and GOOD BYE printed or painted on one side. If hand made, the board may be constructed of almost any material (including paper), but most commercially sold versions are made of laminated wood particles with a printed paper label affixed to it.

The second component of the Ouija is called a planchette (or "little plank"), allegedly named for the French spiritualist who invented it in 1853. It is a pointing device about the size of your hand, and generally shaped like a heart. It rests on padded feet to elevate it above the surface of the board, and usually (though not always) contains a window. The feet were originally made from pencils, as the device was invented as a means to communicate with the spirits via automatic writing. The planchette is made of plastic in manufactured versions of the game.

The Ouija is used by placing the board on a flat surface with the planchette in the center. It is meant to be used by two people, but can be operated solo or by up to four players (any more would be impractical). The players lightly rest their finger tips on top of the planchette. When more than one living person is present, questions to the spirit world are generally asked aloud. The planchette will move, guided by an entity or entities inhabiting the spirit world, and spell out answers to questions that are asked. There are a lot of variables at work here, and using the Ouija successfully often takes a good deal of patience and practice. An open mind helps too. As with many things in life, your mileage may vary.

That the Ouija actually works is a difficult faith to impart upon most people, even those who witness one in action. In spite of those who would casually dismiss the Ouija out of hand as a mere plaything, or those who might condemn it as an instrument of evil, I am relatively certain that it is neither of these things. The Ouija is quite simply a conduit. But a conduit to what? Some believe the spirits of the dead speak through the Ouija, while others contend that they are spiritual beings such as angels or demons. Most skeptics maintain that it is merely the subconscious minds of the players that produce the results.

I have owned my personal Ouija board since 1985 when it was passed down to me by my mother, who owned it since she was a teenager in the 1950s. My board was manufactured by William Fuld, Baltimore, Maryland, whose company was sold to Parker Brothers in 1966. I have used this board on many occasions, both with friends and alone, and I can attest to its authenticity. I have watched it reveal facts which were unknown to me, but which were verified by skeptical participants using the board with me, or by impartial observers. I have seen the planchette "freak out" when used atop a tomb in a cemetary at night, explaining only with a YES that there were too many spirits present to communicate coherently. I have seen its power amaze and frighten those who doubted its genuine nature, and have had the planchette physically yanked out of my hands by unseen forces communicating through it.

When using the Ouija with some regularity, it is unusual for you to end up communicating with the same spirit more than a few times, unless you commonly invoke the board in the same location, or unless you call upon the spirit by name. I have often experienced instances where multiple spirits would fight over control of the board, making it difficult to discern exactly whom you were "talking to" at any given moment. It has been my experience that the planchette becomes sluggish and quite unresponsive when it is being accessed by multiple spirits at the same time.

I have never spoken to any spirit through the Ouija board that I actually believed to be the Devil. As this is a construct of the many Christian religions, I do not know whether or not such an entity really exists. I have encountered many separate spirits using the Ouija who have professed to be the devil or a devil of some sort, but which did not appear to me to be what they claimed.

To expound upon this point, each spirit that communicates through the Ouija has a separate and distinct personality. They respond to questions differently, use different language and grammar, have different moods, and express an attitude that becomes clear after even the shortest period of conversation. For example, I have spoken with the same spirit (in this case, his name was "Waldo", although he is not the only example I have) on at least five separate occasions in the late 1980s and early 1990s. While I could identify him not only by the name he claimed, but by his use of language and his general demeanor with regard to the responses he gave to my questions, his attitude and mood varied greatly from session to session. Still, both I and my Ouija player knew it was the same spirit; "he" had made references to earlier conversations and spelled out things which "he" had mentioned in earlier sessions, but also things which other named spirits had mentioned to us in other sessions. This leaves open the possibility that the same spirit can claim multiple identities and personalities, and for Christians at least, undoubtedly reopens the Devil factor.

Regardless of all this, I have never had a "bad" experience with the Ouija. There have been some frightening experiences (particularly the one in the graveyard), and some which were frustrating due to the inexperience and skepticism of the person participating with me in channeling the planchette's movements. Also, there are many times when the planchette is simply unresponsive, which I have attributed to location and other mitigating factors.

While I have a friend who claims that his Ouija board is "horribly mean", I feel this perception is based on his relative inexperience with using it. While many entities who communicate through the board do express themselves as angry or unkind spirits (And why not? You've woken them up!), some are quite friendly and genuinely pleasant. It all depends upon location, the state of mind you and your partner(s) are in when engaging in communication using the board, and the willingness of the spirits to speak.

As an interesting side note, I have never had a Ouija partner that claimed to have intentionally moved the planchette, or believed that I was controlling it in order to fool them. In most cases, the planchette moved so rapidly and with such force that it would often be nearly yanked from my fingers while responding to questions posed to it by myself, my partner, or other observers. This in itself was enough to convince every skeptic I have ever run across that the power displayed by the Ouija was genuine.


Source information: http://azaz.essortment.com/ouijahistory_rltn.htm
Portions of this post were originally published on the web at http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=Ouija
This material is copyrighted ©2001-2003 and may not be reproduced
in any manner or distributed without the author's express written consent.
All rights reserved.

[guypunkr]

I used to be highly active in Wicca... But I met a nice girl who was the pastor's daughter... And now I find myself strongly Christian... I've had so many experiences with the supernatural that I can't deny its existence, but I'm really torn up as to how I should feel...

I most certainly believe in Ouija Boards, as for a few years of my life, that's where I got most of my advice... Oh well... The only thing I have to say about what you've done is something already said seven thousand times, so... You get it already...

[cchris]

So at the end of the day when it's all said and done.

No closer to what we don't want to know anyway.

[Snakebyt]

ok, here is my story, i have messed with them off and on since highschool, nothing really freaky really happened to me per say, but i was with a friend, and we went to another friends house, they started playing with the board. I sat and watched since there were only 2 chairs at the table. they were joking around and Kyle (it was his board and his house) asked it if he would go to college, it said "yes", he asked if he would graduate it said "no"
He asked why he wouldnt graduate aqnd it responded "ded" welll. that freaked us all out.. so he went into his backyard and burned the board, and his initials KM, were the last letters to burn.. was quite freaky...



not sure if it is related or not, but he did die in a car accident while in college

[Big Chief]

Good topic. Anymore ouija stories. Anyone knows "Gakface" the board members email adress or contact information. I would like to know more about his ouija session.. Any info??

[The_Jazz]

Originally Posted by Big Chief

Good topic. Anymore ouija stories. Anyone knows "Gakface" the board members email adress or contact information. I would like to know more about his ouija session.. Any info??

I do, but there's no way that I'd share it with someone with only one post.

[Big Chief]

Originally Posted by The_Jazz

I do, but there's no way that I'd share it with someone with only one post.

Oh boy. Don't worry, I'm not a stalker. Don't really care for it. The reason I asked for his contact was because a friend of mines had a ouija story similar to his. I just wanted to find out some more info. If you can, could you give him my email addy. He can create a new email addy if he wants to, if he doesn't want me to know his real contact info. I could care less, I just wanted to know some things from him about his Ouija session. Can't give email addy. Not enough post. Will post more, then give you my email addy. Thank you.