The desire to communicate with the spirit world is not a new fad in our society. Indeed, since the very first caveman crawled from the sea, humans have been trying to find that there is more to life than running away from carnosaurs, angry herbasaurs, larger cavemen, and various stampedes. How depressed would they have been if they couldn’t believe in a spirit world, intangible to them, and yearning to share spirit secrets with the living? Cavemen begat shamans who could commune with these spirits by drinking poisonous plant mixtures and chanting a lot. Through the persuasions of these “spirits” or DEMONS, PERHAPS?!, societies were built, machines were invented, and scientific reasoning began to rule us all. I believe this is what they SHOULD teach in Sunday Schools across America, if they don’t already.
You know what ELSE is taught in Sunday Schools? That Ouija Boards are BAD. MAYBE. Do they teach that? I have actually never been to a Sunday School.
But what IS a Ouija Board? It is a game, of course, made by Parker Brothers. You basically have a board with letters, numbers, and some words on it, a planchette (which is a pointing device), and two or more friends trying to put their fingers on the planchette and decide what it will spell out, while pretending that it is a spirit force doing the directing. The word “Ouija” is owned by Parker Brothers and is entirely made up. It is French and German for “yes.” A yesboard. The idea and use of “talking boards,” as they are commonly known, has been going on for a thousand years or more, but “ouija” has become like “kleenex” or “coke” these days, and I am sure the Parker Bros are happy about this, as any company would be.
The board game was invented at the end of the 1800s, when spiritualism was a fun pastime for those kooky Victorians. They’d have seances and automatic writing sessions and be quietly shocked. This was a merry little outlet for their repression, and I’m sure those mediums had a good old time giving those gentlefolk something to talk about. Along came the Ouija board game which probably had less to do with contacting the dead and more to do with sitting two people of the opposite gender across from each other with their fingertips so scandalously close. You ask questions, try to believe, and then quit trying when nothing ever happens. Then, later, Christians and occultists got scared for some reason and called them evil! EVIL!! And movies created riveting plots about this game resulting in demonic possession and people believe what their eyes see, even when it’s only a film. So a lot of scary mystery enveloped it and Parker Bros didn’t complain because I am sure they made quite a profit off of this little nothing.
Methods to MADNESS and… DAMNATION?!
The use of Ouija Boards is open to personal choice. Parker Brothers intends it to be a party game where people ask questions about crushes and maybe to see if it can read minds or something. Other people use them to contact dead relatives, dead celebrities, or spirit guides − those kinds of things. Still other people, or other times, use it as a way to look into their own subconscious thoughts, or as an implement with which to write poetry, or some sort of divination method. There are a lot of reasons WHY to use them, but only about three main ways HOW. Read on.
Traditional Method – Obtain a Ouija Board from the toy store, older sibling, or some other manner. Invite friends over for a good old-fashioned spooky time. Get all psyched up for doing something you think might be spiritually dangerous. It’s best to work it all up in your mind like this so you can feel the special sort of disappointment that follows. Select two people to place their hands on the planchette while everyone asks questions into the air. Be sure to address the air, because the spirit is not in the board, it is sitting next to you with its little ghost fingers on the planchette, too. You have to use two living people, by the way, because if you don’t then everyone will accuse the one person of FRAUD. This totally destroys the good vibes surrounding this activity. But I digress. What follows is a scene where the group rapidly becomes disenchanted with the board, as it either does not move at all or only spells out gibberish, and lose interest, usually forever. Candles are put out and a film is selected for viewing. The end.
Advanced Technique – Sometimes you happen to have a group of friends who somehow Get Results. In these cases, the board quickly and easily spells out everything you need to know, all the answers you want. In my experience (because of course this is what happened with me, which is why I can guide you on how to be a Master at this), you have to believe that you are involving yourself with the Real Deal, you can’t be particularly skeptical, and you have to have friends who agree or at least one unscrupulous friend who is willing to guide the planchette and laugh secretly at how gullible everyone else is. It helps if you also happen to be twelve years old at the time. Marvel as you open a door to all of the knowledge of the universe, brought to you by some unknown spirit that has bad intentions or maybe it’s just bored or likes you or something. Eventually you will realize that everything is a little weird or maybe it’s starting to get pushy or you get bad dreams about it, so you stop. Then you forget all about it and grow up and then one day talk to a friend and start talking about Ouija Boards and then you realize that you had a Very Uncommon History with them. Then you write an article about it.
Solitary Use – In this way, you use the board when you are alone in the house or in your room. You put yourself into some sort of trance, and “commune with the spirit world.” Asking questions, zoning out, remembering to write down the messages as they come − it’s sort of a boring way to use one of these games, and sort of Serious in nature. You can probably get yourself to believe that you are really getting messages, because people can get themselves to believe all kinds of things. This is probably also how the “possession” stories got started because some dumb little impressionable teens were probably wanting attention and what better way than to be like THAT WITCHBOARD MADE ME DO IT and then all of the faked-possession act and ugh. Please. There are better ways to act out, kids. Anyway, you can use this method if you want to do a sort of automatic writing in a roundabout sort of way. Automatic writing, incidentally, is when people “go into a trance” and allow their hands to write stories or messages or something. It is supposed that a ghost is writing through them, or it could be their own subconscious doing it.
But I Can’t AFFORD a New Game Right Now!
People don’t realize this, but you do not have to use a store-bought board. The Parker Bros don’t have a special device that makes their product imbued with dark magical properties. Quite the opposite, probably. Nor do you have to seek out a roaming band of gypsies and trade some orphans for an authentic board hewn from the trunk of a cursed Hangin’ Tree. Indeed, when I was a kid, we used to just use ordinary notebook paper (college rule), an ink pen of any color, and the planchette was either a triangle of paper or a soda can tab. I suppose you could actually get fancy and paint one, or carve your own or whatever whatever whatever. Or you can print out this nice paper-sized one I have drawn with a Sneer Campaign style. It is up to YOU.
If you choose to craft one for yourself, there are only a few things that you must remember to do. You should include the alphabet so that it can spell for you. Numbers are useful so that it can answer math problems. Yes and No are pretty good word recommendations, and you can also add other useful phrases such as “I Don’t Actually Know,” “I Don’t Wanna Talk About It,” “What Are You Trying To Say?,” “I’m _____, How Are You?” (so it can spell out how it is doing), “Listen, I Have To Go,” and “Shut Up Or I Swear To God I’m Gonna Possess Your Hand And Make You Slap Yourself!” among other things that you will be able to come up with on your own. Also, the Goodbye, in whatever version of the saying you wish to inscribe, is also handy so that it can quickly tell you when it has to go.
Hot Tips on Winning the Ouija Board Game
I think a lot of people fail at Ouija Boarding because they do not have a natural talent for it and don’t realize that they need to practice, just like with skateboarding, wakeboarding, or surfboarding. It is important that you start small and dedicate some effort to it so that you can enjoy success in the future. If you hop on the board and instantly get results, then you are a natural, kid, and you don’t need help from me. But the rest of you… well, take my hand.
Keep an Open Mind
Even if it seems VERY likely that your friend is fooling you, you should just keep pretending that this is the real thing going on. I used to suspect that my friends were maybe unconsciously controlling the planchette until once when we asked our spirit friend to prove that he was really there. We put our fingers on the planchette with supreme lightness. I promise you all that I 100% saw the slip of paper slide UNDER her fingers, and felt the paper tug my fingers along, as though an invisible force was actually there, actually moving it. My friend and I were both spooked by that, and since then, I have never really doubted her again.
Create a Bond with Your Spirit Pal
Most of my friends had a special spirit that kept talking with them. Being a trusting little kid helped, because back then we didn’t question things like, “Who are you REALLY?” And, “So why are you spending all this time talking to US?” We were just like hey this is awesome, we can confide in it and it will spy on distant houses for us and it will tell us the nice things we want to hear. We never, ever thought that hanging around with tween-aged girls might not be high on the list of what a good ghost should want to do. But nevertheless, no matter how creepy these spirits were, they were there, possibly, and would help us out. One actually helped us put a puzzle together once. We would put our fingers on a puzzle piece as though it were the planchette, and it would lead us through the pile of pieces and go directly to its match. We thought this was great, and did not even consider how strange this actually is.
Remember to Use the Board like a Telephone
Wanna talk to your dead grandma? Just ask for her, someone will put her on. Want to talk to John Lennon? Ask! He’s not doing anything important, apparently. Maybe spirits can be in several places at once and time is not even a thing to consider. I don’t know because we never thought to ask things like THAT of course. God. And if you think maybe you are just talking to an impostor pretending to be anyone you want them to be, it’s no big deal. I mean, this is only a game, after all. Don’t start wondering if maybe they are lying about their entire identity, then what else are they lying about, because then they’ll suddenly have to go. Don’t say out loud that you think that is very suspicious, they’ll hear you and then the board will be dead to your touch for quite a while, until you apologize. Oh also once, and I can’t remember if it worked, but we tried to work the board like it was a spiritual walkie-talkie and tried to get our spirit to get a hold of the spirit that was talking to our other friends, who were using theirs at another house. We just wanted to say hi and see if it would be a messenger like that. I’m pretty sure it either changed the subject or left entirely at that point. Hey, talking to the disembodied dead is almost exactly like talking to cchris!
Know When to Say No
I have generally had a good old time with this game. Our spirit friend was generally friendly and possibly on the up and up. It didn’t freak us out except once or twice when it would cause a printer to start printing in class, in the middle of our teacher lecturing us because we were in trouble. Printing out someone’s research paper ABOUT paranormal experiences! !!! Hot damn! I think it did that twice. And once, it was like, “Check your cassette recorder” and our tape recorder had started recording us talking right in the middle of us laughing over a thing it had said fifteen minutes ago. And it was located ACROSS THE ROOM and it was just the two of us and wow man that means that something that wasn’t one of us had the ability to press a record button! How about THAT??
Another set of my friends, however, had a much different experience, where supposedly TWO spirits would visit them through the board. One was light with airy movements when it would spell messages to them, but then there would be a strange struggle, and the planchette would get very slow and heavy (I felt it once, it really DID feel heavier) and it was a far more menacing fellow who was full of threats and demands. I recommended that they perhaps stop playing until it went away, but they were intrigued and kept up with it. Eventually they started having ridiculous demon nightmares and would get scarred up with weird things and I think it was something of a mess. At around this time, my other friend and I were starting to ask questions about what was going on with those other two and the answers would be unpleasant, so we decided to stop seeing the Ouija Board. We wished it well, etc, and to this day, I can’t really use them anymore because nothing happens. It’s probably for the best.
If It Doesn’t Work, Try Try Again
Sometimes it just doesn’t work. Even back in my heyday it wouldn’t work some nights. These things happen. Or maybe you just aren’t meant to mess with such occultist hoodoo. Find another hobby. And if you do find that you are good at this game, don’t take it for granted. Ask it interesting questions, and for goodness sakes don’t be the kind of weenie that is open to possession. I don’t even believe in it necessarily, but if it can happen, resolve to not let it happen to you, or I will be so disappointed in you, I can’t even begin to describe. But let’s just suppose that my disappointment will trouble you way more than a demon ever would and leave it at that.
Also if I’m totally wrong, and Parker Bros are totally wrong, and it ISN’T a game, then be careful because I was probably lucky. I mean, I think I was lucky? Maybe I traded in my soul somehow, in some way, if that is even possible. And maybe that’s part of my problem with living life? Maybe if I start thinking that could be true I’ll become a real mental case though so tra la la nothing ever happened and nothing ever went wrong. Now I can keep not-remembering and not-considering it forever again.