Are Ouija Boards a Gateway of Evil?

theRiverGoddess
Try sitting down by yourself to do the ouija board, or with some one else!
It will never ever ever work!!! I'll tell you why!!! The Ouija board is a load of bull *snip*.


Mod Edit: Profanity/Circumvention Of Censors – Please Review This Link.

[edit on 13-5-2007 by 12m8keall2c]

I've never used one myself, but my sister and her friend were years ago. They asked when they were going to have a kid and if and it gave them the years. On the same year she had a kid, and then on the other she had another kid. Coincidence? I dont think so. It also said my sister was going to die when she was 62, I'll just have to wait and see ;p

Originally posted by Judaz_Escariot
so why does it remain one of the top selling board games in the world?

Because people don't know any better OR because they want to play with the occult.

Why does someone shoot-up with drugs? They know better and they know it's very dangerous .. but they do it anyways. Same thing IMHO.

Originally posted by Densha82
No demons are going to get you, no ghosts are going to haunt you.

You can't say that. You don't know that. Especially since the EXPERTS in this area - Ed and Lorraine Warren - say just the opposite.

Originally posted by SKUNK2
The Ouija board is a load of bull s**t.

Well, isn't this a nice find!!!

An 'edumacated' response backed up with the use of censor circumvention.

Denying ignorance

For a board game to gain such fame means that there must be something to it. I've used them on occasion without any results, so I'm on the fence with them.

Do I believe in ghosts and poltergeists? Yeah, I do.
Do I believe in 'possesion'? Well, kinda, in a psychological sense.

So, going by that, I'd have to believe that ghosts/spirits can manipulate things in the material world and a board like that could just be the medium to do it in.

They've been around for a very long time and used by millions of people. I used one in high school and in college and it was a lot of fun.

I came across an explaination of how they work, and it was pretty consistant with what we had experienced -- involuntary motions of the hands, and "knowledge" from one of the people (usually sort of a "group mind" effort... the more freaked out you got, the freakier the answers got.)

Here's Cecil Adams with some thoroughly checked out stuff on how they work:
www.straightdope.com...

So, if you're inclined to imagining dark things (the father who got those answers about his daughter probably fished out things he was worried about from his subconscious) then the Ouija board will deliver that to you. If you get "obsessed" with it, then you get all sorts of wild stuff from your subconscious (which can be a pretty ugly thing.)

As Cecil says, if you want to prove that it has absolutly no connection to any spirit world, do it blindfolded and film the results (or have a reliable and skeptical friend tell you the results.) What you'll get is pure nonsense letters.

Bottom line: You're just scaring yourself (like kids do with the Bloody Mary story) with a parlor game.

Originally posted by ignorant_ape
...put them to a " blind test " , as recounted in this ATS thread they were singularly incapable of producing any coherent message

[sarcasm] i wonder why that is [/sarcasm]

if "oouiji " tapps ` the ultimate evil ` as claimed - why can ultimate evil not work blind ?

I found more supporting information on the effect:
skepdic.com...

The original "talking boards" worked the same way and got all sorts of mystical nonsense as a result. I know some "channeled" things on Atlantis were obtained through these boards. The statements were wildly ridiculous to everyone except the channeler.
www.museumoftalkingboards.com...

The originals, by the mediums of the 1800's, were simply tricks designed to separate the clients from their money.

You can't say that. You don't know that. Especially since the EXPERTS in this area - Ed and Lorraine Warren - say just the opposite.

I can say that, I did say that, and I know it for absolute fact.

Lets take a look at your experts:
en.wikipedia.org...

Of course it's obvious that I'm having a good chuckle that you're calling self-proclaimed "clairvoyants" and "deomonologists" *experts* at all, but these particular bunk artists have even lost credibility among their own misinformed kind:

the Warren’s most famous case, the Amityville horror, has been thoroughly investigated by other researchers and revealed to have most likely been a complete hoax. Despite such evidence, the Warren's continued belief in the events surrounding the Amityville case seriously strained their credibility in the eyes of many other paranormal researchers.

...

Such criticism is not without merit in that having a financial stake that is dependent on a particular outcome to an investigation (whether it be a new or older case, as inferred by their continued support of the Amityville story in light of new evidence pointing to a hoax), creates an obvious conflict of interest.

Listen, the fact is is that demons and ghosts are not real. No evidence has ever been produced proving anything beyond the ability of humans to have an over-active imagination and to fool themselves into magical thinking. The Ouija board remains popular throughout the world and even history, there has never been any evidence of anyone ever being harmed by using the board, unless you count urban legends as evidence (which wouldn't surprise me if you do). Plus the Ouija board would be really easy to prove as true if it were in fact true, but in reality it turns out that under testing it falls far short of anything paranormal.

Densha82
I completely agree with you.
It's like saying the easter bunny and the tooth fairy are real, not forgeting santa claus of course.
IMO it's just mentally unstable people that think it works.

Originally posted by Densha82
I know it for absolute fact.

You are wrong.

the fact is is that demons and ghosts are not real.

:shk: Wrong again. Ghosts are very real. Demons are very real.
Can they be proven scientifically? I don't know. But I've had my
encounters with both of them. A large number of people on this planet
have.

Your well intentioned but erroneous judgement is clouded due to your lack of experience in this matter.

I'm kind of on the fence with this one. I've heard the evil stories about the boards and I've heard the few stories about it doing good. A scientific way of explaining this is that even as you walk around, eat or work your subconcious mind is at work. Kind of like your heart and lungs, its working without you forcibly doing the work. I've often likened our essence as a sort of frequency that our physical shells at particulary attuned to. Like radios though you can get bleed over, which could be why some dark thoughts can be found at deep subconcious levels. These can be brought out because of the patternistic way of moving the pointer on the board, which is likened to breathing or your heartbeat. As for specifically evil or good I believe its in the eye of the beholder as to what their mind believes.

-Aza

Wrong again. Ghosts are very real. Demons are very real.

Can they be proven scientifically? I don't know. But I've had my
encounters with both of them. A large number of people on this planet
have.

You can say it all you want, but that doesn't make them real, it's just that you've made yourself believe it. The proof of burden is on you, remember, because I am not purporting the existence of something, so I have nothing to prove (and of course it's impossible to prove a negative). If they did exist and interacted with human beings in some way then their existence would be well within the bounds of science and their existence should be provable.

One major fallacy of any true believer, and not just within the paranormal community, is that personal experience or the testimony of others does not constitute evidence of anything. Read this quote from Problems and Materials on Trial Advocacy:

Eyewitness testimony is, at best, evidence of what the witness believes to have occurred. It may or may not tell what actually happened. The familiar problems of perception, of gaging time, speed, height, weight, of accurate identification of persons accused of crime all contribute to making honest testimony something less than completely credible.

This is about eye witness testimony in the context of a court case. Now imagine eye witness testimony in the context of people who want to believe in certain things or are at least predisposed to believing in certain things. This is clearly, absolutely and completely, unreliable and faulty and does not, in any case, constitute evidence. It can be honest, 100% honest, and still be completely wrong. This also applies to personal experience, your brain is far to complex to take everything you see or experience as 100% real independent of you. You don't experience the world as it is, you experience a model of the world as constructed by your brain, and sometimes our brains misfire, misinterpret, or tell us something is there when something is not.

If this is what you choose to base your world-view on then that is your choice, it's just important to remember that you really are basing your beliefs on the misinterpretations, gullibilities, fantasies, preconceptions, and biases of others (and probably yourself as well).

Your well intentioned but erroneous judgement is clouded due to your lack of experience in this matter.

I've never actually "experienced" evolution either, but there is so much evidence to support it that I am compelled to believe it. But not only to believe it, but actually to understand it. My direct experience is unimportant in both matters, as the absolute lack of evidence for demons/ghosts and the overwhelming evidence for evolution both let me know which to believe and which not to. If your mind must be directly influenced by personal experience (which is faulty, especially when dealing with the paranormal and people who want to/are predisposed to believe) in order to come to believe in demons and ghosts, then that only serves to prove my point here.

[edit on 13-5-2007 by Densha82]

I agree with Densha82... its all psychological. When I get the time, I'll make a ouija board and try it out, alone. And chances are... nothing will happen.

I also had friends, telling me about demons, exorcisms, ghosts... but I never saw one and no-one could/would show me one of the above. So its my conclusion is its bs.

Hmmm...I want to believe that its 100% Psychological, but I still say its 50/50 some truth to it...

There are some cases where the future is predicted through the Ouija. I myself have seen a 10 year prediction come true at my highscool reunion...so are we all capable of Seeing into the Future with our Conscious Thoughts or does the Ouija carry some weight?

My parents used to do them when I was young. I can remember trying to sleep upstairs while hearing the glass slide and the continued spelling out of letters. I think that's why I have an adversity to spelling now

I have not given them much thought since. I have seen them used but have just been a neutral observer. I think belief is a major part of it. OK some say science can't prove this or that but science can't prove God and religion still survives. In fact legislation and the core of modern western society has been founded over the years in the name and belief of something that we can't prove exists.

Scientists can't find all the matter and energy that their science says is there. They give it titles like dark matter or dark energy but these are terms disguising their ignorance. So I would not say that other dimensionality, therefore other existence isn't a possibility.

As for Ouija working only due to thought or mindset. Thought is a powerful thing, all that man has created began as a thought, an idea. Who knows maybe there is some other interface that the mind can access. The 90% or so of the brain that doesn't seem to do anything, must be doing something, in nature use it or it falls off

Originally posted by junglelord
although some say ideomotor motion is the cause of the pointer moving.

Yeah I had this explained to me by someone once. They said that they believed that the board and dowsing were coming from the operator but it was the subconscious getting through. I have also had it explained that this is why the blind test doesn't work. Its the same as trying to write or type with a blindfold on..unless you are a touch typist...........Go on try it!!
If your lucky you will get a scribble with a few discernible words. Yet you know what you want to write!!!

I think this is where the confusion comes from, its not the spirit above the board looking down moving it to the letters. The operatives are picking up feelings or whatever and acting as a kind of translator. Well maybe. Sometimes in Wales sessions come across in English despite the "spirit" having a Welsh name and claiming to be from a time when only Welsh would have been spoken. But I guess this is answered by the fact that the operatives are picking up the feelings of the spirit and feelings are not language dependant, pain is pain, despair is despair......

Originally posted by tom_roberts
why has no one won the lotto with it if it works?

Good point!! I have only witnessed interaction with boards and on those occasions it seemed to indicate that the "spirits" were from the past and not really aware of the "now". Good cop out eh?

As I have said I don't have much to do with Ouija boards but I am not arrogant enough to believe that Humans know everything there is out there. Maybe its for real maybe its a delusion. All I know is I have had some experiences that my rational mind is still questioning. Things I have seen, felt and heard that don't make sense. Maybe I am just mad

The last word I will say on this for now is that I was sceptically at a "Ghost Hunt" when the guys and girls thought it would be an idea to get out a glass and table. No Ouija board just show yes and no by glass movement. I thought why not? Good for a laugh. Well it ended with the glass spinning very fast with peoples hands flying off the moving glass eventually just my partner and I's fingers on the glass, until it flew off the table. I trust my partner and they said they were not moving it and I assure you I was not moving it. So who was? Was it just momentum? Kind of made me wonder about the ideomotor theory.

I just really don't know. I am more open minded now and I never store glasses upside down in the cupboard

I have only seen one used once by my aunts at my grandma's house when I was younger. I've looked at the board from time to time, but never did anything with it.

I don't feel that our pursuit in science has been able to explain and understand everything in our world and universe and thus the paranormal should not so easily be brushed aside.

What I have been wondering though, what about them draws evil spirits if it does so? Is it the arrangement of the letters and numbers or what exactly?

They give it titles like dark matter or dark energy but these are terms disguising their ignorance.

Actually scientists are quick to tell you that they are very ignorant about what dark matter is. All we really know is that it exists and that it makes up most of the universe. There are postulations as to what it consists of but for now there is no definitive answer. Remember that one of the ideals of science is to revel in ignorance, ignorance of this or that gives scientists jobs to do and is why they need grant money; to experiment and reduce the amount of ignorance we have little by little. Which brings me to my next point...

I don't feel that our pursuit in science has been able to explain and understand everything in our world and universe and thus the paranormal should not so easily be brushed aside.

Science has most definitely not explained every explainable thing in the universe, but to say that because of that we should leave room for the unsubstantiated world of the paranormal is wrong. It's basically the god of the gap theory: god exists to fill in the gaps left by science, but as science progresses those gaps become smaller and smaller until someday there may be no room for god anyway. Science needs a lot of time and money to work, but we have made so much progress in the last few centuries that skeptics/atheists like me realize that there really is no need for a god or paranormal even to fill in the gaps. Science takes time, it takes work, it takes money. The gaps will fill in eventually, in the meantime we can admit our ignorance of some things without falling back on paranormal postulations.

Originally posted by Densha82All we really know is that it exists and that it makes up most of the universe.

Yeah, as I see it they know it exists because math and science say so. But what if math and science is wrong? The very fact that the scientists are educated by a system that exists because of its keystone discipline foundations could make them ill qualified to look "outside the box."

All through history the view that is counter the contemporary one has been considered wrong. The barriers in the past were mostly doctrinal and religion based. Is contemporary science a barrier to discovery?

Originally posted by Densha82
Remember that one of the ideals of science is to revel in ignorance, ignorance of this or that gives scientists jobs to do and is why they need grant money; to experiment and reduce the amount of ignorance we have little by little. Which brings me to my next point...

There is truth there. Ignoance is keeping a lot of people employed...not just scientists

Originally posted by Densha82
Science has most definitely not explained every explainable thing in the universe, but to say that because of that we should leave room for the unsubstantiated world of the paranormal is wrong.

A very enlightened view by science. Surely any idea or hypothesis is a start. The use of the word paranormal as I understand it is something like, that which cannot be explained by science? Surely then by such a definition that makes dark matter / energy paranormal?

Originally posted by Densha82
Science needs a lot of time and money to work, but we have made so much progress in the last few centuries that skeptics/atheists like me realize that there really is no need for a god or paranormal even to fill in the gaps.

I think you would have difficulty explaining there is no god to the fast expanding Islamic population

I think that the scientific community are just set against the paranormal world. I am not a full convert to it myself but I have had experiences that I cannot explain and personally I would rather have some sort of hypothesis / postualtion to start from than just say "Dunno Guv."
I think the paranormal gig is in part differences in observation or sensory sensitivity and perception. I still believe that there is more going on in the brain than we are aware of and that thought is a powerful thing.

Theres a thing. What is a thought? We cannot prove they exist either. Having no mass does that mean that thoughts do not exist? Perhaps there is some quantum element to them yet to be discovered. That Heisenberg and Schrodinger's cat stuff. Can an observer really effect an event by mere observation? Sounds paranormal to me

I feel that if there is a psychic element to the paranormal maybe its a bit like having to be streetwise in certain urban environments. I have been in some dodgy areas and am fully aware that I do not pick up all the warning signals given out. I am not streetwise. Now, I am not saying that those that are streetwise are operating on a paranormal level. Obviously they are able to pick up none verbal and verbal signals. Not paranormal but until some psychologists sorted it out it must have seemed mysterious. So perhaps science will prove that the paranormal has more to it or perhaps prove all the believers are all mad

I don't mind either way...I am a blissfully ignorant bloke..........

I have spent longer on this than I intended sorry!!!

First of all a good thread for this site.

Secondly, I hope I can add something new here.

I am not an expert on Ouiji or other devices but I understand some issues are at play when using them:

1. you must believe in them
2. you will access spiritual energies reflective of your own spiritual development
3. you will encounter problems and deceptiveness due to dark forces wanting to use you
4. anything you obtain from the board must be interpreted as others here say
5. the best results when contacting spirits is to not ask for things for yourself but others in a positive light
6. the board is not going to work for everyone anymore than everyone can surf the astra plane
7. some people do not need ouiji and in fact those that use ouiji and make it work probably don't need it in the first place, just ask your sub-conscious the same questions
8. never invite any spirit or energy into your realm because giving them permission is like giving them over to you. Positive spirits will respect your free will and do not impose themselves on anyone.
9. learn more about the occult before you use the board as knowledge is power and part of your protection against it.
10. it is better to use this kind of device in a group for newbies if you bother at all.

On the topic of demons, I've summoned one in past while in a trance state as a dare and believe me, you do not want to do this ever!

Only the pleas to Christ to save me prevented this horrid ugly evil from invading me in a moment of weakness.

You do not have to be a 'religious Christian' to know the love and knowledge and power of Christ to protect and guide humanity back to the source... the one our creator.

When I was a kid we had one at home and played with it all the time. It is a great "slumber party" game for girls. You can scare the crap out of each other.

Do I think we actually communicated with anything, no. Nine times out of ten if I was one of the ones with my fingers on the little slide and we asked a question I "knew" what the answer would be. I am sure I controlled what was spelled out, it was NOT something else controlling the board.

Do I believe in spirits? 100% Those experiences though were not brought about by some board made by Milton Bradley.

There is a point about the board not working if you don't believe in it. My one friend invited me over to drink some beers one night, and I accepted. So we were sitting around talking and he asked if I ever tried the board before. I had not at that point and it piqued my interest. He explained some ground rules and him, his wife and myself each put two fingers on the pointer piece. We asked it "is there anyone here who wishes to communicate" and it moved slowly to YES. After a while the conversation with the spirit got boring and well I still didnt believe that it was working - I thought my friends were moving it. So I wanted to try it by myself. At first it did not work. So I shut my eyes and cleared my mind and took a few deep breaths. My friend told me it only works if you beleive in it. So I starting thinking OK I beleive this is real.

As I sat on the floor indian style, put my fingers on the pointer and I asked is there anyone who wished to talk to me. Sure enough the game piece moved to YES. Well this freaked me out because I am a skeptic. So my next question of course was "did I know you when you were alive?" Sure enough the piece moved back to YES, this time very abrubtly. After this I ended the "session". My friend, who is sort of an occultist, told me that if you do not end the session the spirits can cross over to this reality of even take over a person's mind and body.

So yes there is some sort of phenomenon that occurs, whether it is spiritual or self manifested, I am still not sure. But I do know that since then I have had a slight urge to go over and play the board again - which leaves me to beleive that something does attatch itself to your psyche. If you have an overly obsessive or addictive personality I would not recommend under any circumstances using the oujia board, but this is just from my brief experiences.