What do you think about ouija boards?

Some people think they put you in touch with evil spirits.

I think the people using it, consciously or subconsciously, make it say whatever it says.

I had one as a teenager and consulted it endlessly. I don't think know if even then I believed what it said--it was just something to do.

I used to play with them as a teenager too. Creepy, but I am not sure about evil spirits. :shrug:

Of whether you think it's hokum or not, I would not reccomend screwing around with a ouija board. Even if it was made by Hasbro and you got it at the toy store.

I won't go into it but it's like being disrespectful or vandalizing a cemetary. You're just asking for trouble.

My Mum is terrified by them after playing with one as a teenager & having the glass fling itself off the table (well that's how she remembers it).

If you're broadband equipt, look out for a show by the wonderful British magician/mentalist Derren Brown called "Seance", where he puts a group of students through various Victorian Spiritualist tricks, including the ouija boad.

http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsites/M/mindcontrol/trick/seance.html

For a while it was the most complained about show in British TV history (getting over 700 complains; incredible really, when his "Russian Roulette" (where he got a volunteer to load a bullet into a revolver, then fired it several times against his head until he got to the bullet) which only got about 15. (The most complained about show now is "Jerry Springer: The Opera" - a record probably never likely to be beaten for quite some time.

Study up on the Ideomotor effect and the Forer effect. The Ideomotor effect subconsciously moves the puck (or whatever you call it) and the Forer effect convinces you that it's a ghostly spirit doing the moving.

I don't think it's necessarily harmful, as do fundies but neither do I believe that it allows someone to talk to the dead.

something that can have great value, if done properly.

thats just me.

I sometimes cut out magazine clippings with an exacto knife on it, and when I was a kid, it was great to sit on and slide down a snow filled hill.:D

Not a means to contact some "netherworld" where your dead grandma is playing poker with Albert Einstein and Jimi Hendrix.

Christ.

for $10 or something like that.

It's a GAME. It's not a psychic telephone to contact your departed loved ones.

"Hello, this is Adolph."

Adolph? No, no, I wanted Alfred.

"You have the wrong number. You said yes when you should have said no. Would you like to rise up and rule the world, and cleanse the world of non-perfect Germans?"



THAT is why you don't mess with a weejee board.

as being evil. I think it's whatever the inputters put into it. My experiences with the board were endless, and I played for hours with it with friends. We actually had a lot of fun with it. Two of my friends--Beth, in high school, and Carol, for ten years after high school, both worked well with me on the board. We had several spirits who were friendly and entertaining, and never suffered ill effects of nearly twenty years of working with the boards.

If people get disturbing things happening to them while with the board, I think observers should look to the mental status of one of the inputters, and not to the intangible world.

Sort of like any "game"--you get out of it what you put into it.

if you're in place that's known to be haunted.

:evilgrin:

It's bad news. I know it's sold with the games, but don't do it.

Ever notice how in the movies, the die hard skeptic always gets scared/killed first?

:shrug:

think. Better consult my ouija board ...

Because you never know.

:hi:

Things go downhill fast.

:scared:

:P

*cough* necktie?

throughout the last century or so, it's very interesting to see :)

http://www.museumoftalkingboards.com/gal1.html

I have already decided. My own expierinces with ouija boards have been boring at best when I was a child. In this link it could have been boring too but something else took place, something which has blossomed into a segment of society which practices a kind of "New Age" religion...although most practicioners do not see this as a religion at all. The Ouija board has been replaced with automatic writing on a computor keyboard. This is an excerpt from the first chapter of the first book detailing the meeting of the "Michael" spirit with "it's" future students.

http://www.caelumpress.com/mfm_excerpt.html

WEIRD. Really, really weird.

:scared:

with the Ouija. It was really freaky at times!

I agree that it generally comes from the people "playing", BUT the names that came up over and over again, night after night for us, were the same names that came up with all the Ouija players on the campus even years passed. We found this out after a few months of messing with it. It got too creepy for me after a while.

The campus was on the old estate of an unusual family, and there had been (really, not just the same old college tales as usual) some strange deaths in the family/estate history.

That was years ago. I wouldn't mess with it now though, even if it is just the player's minds. I think it depends on who's on the board.

As a teen we were using one while our parents were having a party.
This one kid got really weird about it talking about our primal selves.... Then a voice came out of him that DID NOT BELONG TO HIM....
That kid eventually grew up to be a (and I'm not shitting you) a psychic!

Things don't move by themselves.

what I think of them. B-)

:thumbsup:

I think usually someone is pushing the planchette either consciously or subconsciously.... but I''ve had some odd experiences.

My friend Kelle and I did it. Weird stuff. But we both took it very seriously. Some of what it said has come true....

Khash.

I bought one long ago, used it once, and threw it away. Whether it's picking up subconscious impulses and transmitting them through my fingers, I don't care. It's freaky. I can't even remember the "message," but it wasn't something I felt comfortable with at all.

There is a connection between this natural world and "what's out there" beyond our five senses. Psychokinesis is just fine with me, but the ouija board is weird.

A friend gave it to me when she decided she didn't want anything "evil" around her house anymore.

My cousins tell a good and funny Ouiji story, though. Their mom died unexpectedly when they were teenagers. They were at a party where the boy got really drunk. The kids picked up a Ouiji board, and the planchette started spelling out his name, and sentences like "why are you drunk, I thought I taught you better than that", etc. They asked the board who was speaking, and it spelled out "mom".

It was probably projection from the kid's psyche, but if anyone could haunt their kids from beyond the grave, it would be this particular aunt of mine.

I make the questions, and he does the answers!

I remember as a kid when everyone "knew someone" or "knew someone who knew someone" who had an ouija board fly around the room, or caused them to commit suicide, or made them go insane. I never actually met any of these people, but it sure seemed like everyone knew someone who it had happened to!

It's a primitive, pointless game. It may be a few thousand years old, but it's still just primitive nonsense.

believable encounter with a spirit at a friend's house when she was about 15. This guy knew things about both of their families and the history of the neighborhood. She was freaked and has never touched one since.

I've never played with them, myself.

but my grandmother banned them from the family because she claimed to have seen a dining room table slam a kid against a wall and crush him.

i don't beleive it, but she was terrified of them for some reason.

mass hysteria imo i prefer by far http://www.iching.org/about for my random wisdom B-) duly noted « Follow your inner wisdom »