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Strong personalities, accurate predictions, strange apparitions and a host of other unnerving phenomena manifest when these ordinary people dare to place their fingers on the talking Ouija board
What is going on when you sit with a friend at the Ouija board? Are you, as many believe, opening a door to a spiritual realm -- a door that the uninformed or unenlightened should not open? Or, as the skeptics claim, are you merely being entertained by your own subconscious working through what is known as the body's ideomotor response?
It's difficult to convince those who have had weird -- sometimes terrifying -- experiences with the Ouija that the predictions, apparitions and other unexplained phenomena are just products of their imaginations. And most serious paranormal researchers will warn you that the Ouija is not to be trifled with. Yet science insists that it's all in your mind. Who's right? Here are some stories from readers that might help you make up your own mind.
THE FACE IN THE WALL
In high school, I bought a Ouija board for one of my best friends, Tony, for his Christmas present. He later gave it back to me because his girlfriend refused to keep it in her mom's house, where they lived. We got hours of interesting conversation with the so-called "spirits," but one particular day sticks out in my mind. It was the middle of the afternoon, and I had a few friends over for lunch. One day, my friend Jay and I decided to whip out the Ouija board. Tony sat on the couch and watched us contact the spirit.
We were probably five minutes into it when all of a sudden Tony starts screaming!
All he could get out was, "A face...! A face...! A face...!" Keep in mind that Tony was a year older, and he was sort of the "tough guy" in school. So to see his eyes tearing and hearing him screaming that loud was not normal.
Once we calmed him down a bit, he told us he saw a face coming out of the wall behind Jay and me. At that exact moment, the phone rang. It was my mother's cousin -- a priest. What's strange is the fact that he rarely calls (maybe once a year or so), and when he would, he would call my mom when he knew she was home from work (which wasn't until the evening). Being frantic, I asked him if Ouija boards are for real, and he told me that they're evil and I should get rid of it immediately. He never asked for my mother; it's almost as if he knew what had happened.
I am now 21 (I was probably 16 at the time), still friends with Tony and Jay. Tony still swears on anything that he saw a face come out of the wall, and to this day will not come close to a Ouija board. -- Todd
THE DEVIL BURNED ME
About four months ago, I was down in Devon (my mates live in Devon). We were really bored, so I told them how to make a Ouija board. None of us -- my mates Charlotte, James and I -- had ever played before. We tried it and met a spirit named VGTI. (I think he was a bit confused when he said that.) He said he was from New Zealand. We met many other spirits who told us their names were Dee, Benji, Amber, Kevin, Viper, Charlotte and Upton. They were all someone's guardian angel: Dee is James's, Benji is mine, Amber is Emily's, Kevin is Erin's, Viper is James's, Charlotte is Charlotte's (ironically!) I forgot who Upton is guarding. According to them, we are all the god of something: Erin, Marvin and James are the gods of creation; I'm the god of the mind; James is also the god of spirit love; Loran is the god of love; and Charlotte is the god of words.
We were talking to Upton one night (he's kind of a joker who tries to freak everyone out). We were just talking when all of a sudden it sharply said: DJID. We asked what that meant and he denied saying it. I asked who did and he said, SATIN. (Not Satan, but Satin with an "i".) We asked if we could talk to it and Upton said: IT'S EVIL And then Charlotte said, "Oh, Satin, as in the devil." He pointed to YES. Satin kept interrupting and repeating DJID.
Then I got pissed off and said, "Just die, Satin." I know white magic, so we decided to do a spell that condemned evil spirits. We found a candle, but couldn't find the lighter. We asked if Upton would somehow help us find the lighter. We looked for a bit, then James (who wasn't playing; he was just playing PlayStation2) fell off the bed and got a really bad headache. He put his hand under a duvet and pulled out the lighter. Suddenly his head stopped hurting and he gave us the lighter.
I tried to light the candle and the flame jumped and burned me -- a damn good burn at that. We managed to light the candle and perform the spell -- and it worked. We asked if it was Satin that burned me and it said: YES. -- Michael P.
THE OUIJA KNEW
As a 13 year old, I and my two best friends (J & S), were into anything and everything. We believed that you should try everything once. For about two months every Friday night, we would have a séance at whosever's house we stayed at. One night our Ouija board went on a spelling frenzy. It told us that J's brother would be in a car accident. We were so scared that we rang the hospitals and police to check for accidents.
J's mum woke up and heard us on the phone, so she came to check on us. When she found out what had happened, we were barred from having séances again -- or risked being stopped from seeing each other. We stopped the séances, but we did try to warn her brother from going in his mate's yellow car -- as was described by the Ouija. He laughed us off as silly little girls.
Three weeks later, while he was in his mate's car, J's brother hit a telephone pole and was thrown eight feet into the air. He suffered severe injuries and only narrowly escaped death because he changed where he had originally been sitting in the car. Had he not moved, he would have been killed instantly. I'm now 30 years old and have a child. I raise him to believe that anything is possible, and if it is meant to be, then it will happen. -- Tania R.
THE SPURNED SPIRIT
I had some strange experiences while working in an office about 13 years ago. When I started working in the office, my colleagues told me that one of the filing rooms was haunted and that they always went down to the room in pairs. Curious, I started asking questions about this so-called "ghost," but it was not long until I experienced it myself.
One morning as I arrived, I passed the stairwell and saw what I thought was one of my colleagues out of the corner of my eye.
I stepped back to say good morning, but the figure suddenly disappeared. I was due to get married soon and for some reason, the "sightings" became more regular as my wedding approached. We used to smell a strong scent of lavender in the air just before or just after a sighting, and on the day that I was leaving to get married, one of my colleagues was whistling "The Wedding March" when all of a sudden she heard a woman's voice saying, "Sshhh."
I couldn't get this out of my mind, and when I returned from honeymoon, I decided that I would try and contact this "woman" on a makeshift Ouija board. I know this was silly, but I had to get answers.
As soon as the glass was put on the board, it started moving. The information given was as follows: The spirit's name was Anne and she died in the 19th century; she drowned herself after she was spurned by her lover. She kept saying that she was sorry for what she had done and could not rest in peace. She did not appear to be a "bad" spirit and, funnily enough, after that we did not feel frightened when we felt her presence.
The reason that we felt that the filing room was haunted was that the office had been built on part of a graveyard and Anne's grave would have been directly under the floor of the room. Our department closed down and we had to move out of the building, but I am sure that Anne is still wandering that corridor today. -- Marie F.
THE GANGSTER WHO LOVED ME
I grew up in what was considered a "haunted house" that had links to the Mafia in the 1920s and '30s. I have also always had a strange fascination with the Mafia and never knew why. I remember one of the spirits I saw as a child was a tall, young man wearing a long overcoat and fedora. When I was 17, I found out what this was all about.
My best friend's neighborhood was having a garage sale. There was one house that I went back to twice because I wanted a book that they had. On my second trip back, I noticed this old Ouija board on a table. I thought, "Now how did I miss that before?" It had no price, so I asked the women who were having the sale how much they wanted for it. They were absolutely dumbfounded because they couldn't figure out who the board belonged to. They did not remember putting it in their sale and it didn't belong to either of them. They said, "How about $1?" I took it. (At that time I had a male friend who was a self-proclaimed witch. He told me that someone wanted to contact me and that's why I found the Ouija.)
My friends and I playing with it and asked it silly questions. We each figured that the other was pushing the planchette around the board. We were just having fun.
One night, about a month later, something amazing happened. My friends Christi and Sara and I were in my bedroom playing the Ouija when all of a sudden the planchette began to move with an inhuman force. It spelled out: YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL, then pointed at me. It pointed at Christi and spelled out: MAKE GO AWAY... SHE WITH HER. It pointed at Sara and spelled out: TALK. Sara took Christi's place. The spirit said: GK WAS WITH HER. (We later figured out that this must be her mother, who committed suicide and who had those initials).
The spirit said that he went by G.T. He was 18 years old and lived as a gangster in Chicago in the 1920s. He told us the most amazing story about how he was framed and murdered. He apparently was approached to kill a member of their mob family. Although he turned down the job, word got out that he was asked. His best friend is the one that revealed the info to the man that was supposed to be killed. This man hired a hit man that went by the name of "Fader." Fader shot G.T. once in the back and once in the chest as he turned around. He died on a Chicago street in 1925.
He told us that he used egg whites to slick his hair back, and that he loved jazz. His favorite jazz artist was a local named K.D. Johnson. He was in love with a young woman named Stephanie. My hair looked similar to hers, he said. He saw me and that's why he came through. That's why he told me I was beautiful. He also said he has seen me before (I am not sure, but he may be the young man I used to see as a child).
I didn't quite believe in it all yet. I just thought I had a brilliant screenplay on my hands. It was going on 10:15 p.m. that evening and we had been talking to this spirit for nearly two hours. It was just like having an invisible friend in the room.
In the middle of the conversation, the planchette jerked and began pointing to Sara. It spelled out: GO HOME NOW and went to GOODBYE. After that there was nothing. It was a Friday night and Sara had a midnight curfew. She didn't want to go home at 10! It kind of freaked us out though, so just to be safe she went home.
That night, I got a call at 1:00 a.m. It was a very shaken Sara. She explained to me that her sister had to call the police -- there were people out in the driveway breaking into their cars. It was a bunch of crack addicts breaking into cars and stealing stuff for drug money. They were high and had knives and guns. Her sister looked at the time right before she called the police. It was 12:09 a.m. It takes roughly 10 minutes to get from my house to Sara's. She would have been pulling into the driveway when these drugged up lunatics were breaking into cars.
That's the night I started believing in the Ouija. I never believed anyone but G.T. I talked to him frequently for quite a few years. He said a lot of little things that came true: stuff about jobs and financial matters, etc. He once told me that the future was something that really couldn't be predicted. There are some certainties that are written in everyone's lives, but nothing is certain. The future is constantly changing.
We "lost contact," so to speak, a few years ago. His last wish was that I somehow get his story known to the public, whether I write a book or a screenplay. His last prediction for me was this: YOU WILL MARRY A MAN IN LOS ANGELES. Funny thing is... I am soon moving to L.A. -- Melissa C.
IT KNEW MY FEARS
Some people say it's static electricity or some natural effect, while others claim one of the participants is always pushing it. But I know all too well that Ouija boards do work, and that they are not something to be taken lightly.
My best friend at the time, Kaci, and I went through a stage where we'd mess around on the Ouija board all the time. We used to ask the same old, "Who am I going to marry?" "How many kids will I have?" "Who's got a crush on me?" type of questions.
It was all just in fun.
One day we were at Kaci's dorm, and there were a couple other people on the board with us. For some reason, the "spirit" we were speaking with took a dislike to me. It refused to answer any of the questions I asked it, or even acknowledge I was present. I gave up and removed my fingers from the oracle. Kaci asked the spirit why it didn't like me, and it spelled out: BIG HALO. It knew I was a Christian and it caught what I jokingly called my "Jesus aura."
After a little while, I put my fingers back on and began to ask it various questions about God; I had to test its spiritual knowledge. The spirit knew, without me saying it, that I didn't believe it was a ghost or a deceased person, and when asked, it admitted to being a demon or one of the angels that fell at the beginning of time. I actually began to argue with the demon about God, which, let me warn you, is not a good idea!
It began to taunt me with parts of my family's past that only I knew. Of its own accord, it made reference to my dead grandfather, who beat and molested my mother throughout her childhood.
It was just to upset me. It worked, of course, and I had to leave the room. I felt like I'd just fought a spiritual war, and I was disturbed by the outcome.
That experience didn't stop me from playing again in the future. I was just always careful to stay as far away from the topic of religion as possible.
It wasn't long before I began being "haunted" at home -- far away from Kaci's dorm. I believe that by using the Ouija board, I opened myself up to little demon visitors that followed me home. I can't blame it on any one instance; I think just using it in general opened the door to the nether realm.
Let me explain that I've had a recurring nightmare since I was a child. In it, I'm always in a room that is pitch black. There is a light switch on the wall that glows in the dark. No matter how many times I flip the switch on and off, the light never comes on. Usually there's someone after me or something evil that makes it imperative that there be light in this certain room for my very survival. I always panic, then wake up. I've never in my life been as scared as I am in those dreams.
I've told Kaci this before, in one of our many discussions of our worst fears. There must have been a demon listening, too, because they used that very scenario to get to me.
One night, I was going downstairs to where my bedroom was, and I tried to turn on the light using the light switch at the top of the stairs. It didn't work, no matter how many times I tried. I immediately started to freak out. I walked shakily down the stairs to use the light switch at the bottom. That one didn't work either. All the other lights in the basement worked except for the the ones for the hallway. The next morning, I asked my older brother, whose bedroom was also in the basement, if the lights worked for him. He said yes and looked at me like I was crazy. I told him what happened, but he didn't have any better of an explanation for it than I did.
On another night, I was again going downstairs, and I noticed a light on in the family room at the end of the hallway. I walked back to see where the light was coming from, and saw that the light was on in the furnace room in the very corner of the family room, with the door to the furnace room closed. I didn't think too much of it; I just figured someone had to go in there for some odd reason and forgot to turn the light off. I asked my parents, then my little sister, as they were the only ones home that day, and they all claimed they hadn't gone in there in months. That creeped me out almost as much as the light switch experience. Who -- or what -- was messing with the lights in the basement?
Then it happened again. This time, my friend Nicole was spending the night and we were going downstairs to go to bed. Once again, neither light switch in the basement hallway worked, but all the rest of the lights down there did. Now I was really frightened. I could have called the first time a fluke, some kind of wiring glitch that prevented those lights from working for a few minutes. Now that it had happened again, I knew this wasn't caused by anything natural; something otherworldly was behind it. I tried to stay calm for Nicole's sake. I remarked, "That's weird," and tramped down the stairs and into my room like nothing out of the ordinary was going on.
The third time it happened, I'd had enough. I finally fessed up and told my mother everything. She told me about playing with the Ouija board when she was younger, and that as a result she started to experience astral projection. She had these recurring out-of-body experiences for years, until she went to a Christian conference and heard her situation explained as being the result of having opened oneself to the demon world.
You wonder where you actually are during this out-of-body experience? It's believed that you're actually in the same dimension the demons travel in, like you're walking around in their world. You can imagine that this isn't the safest place to be, even for a short while. The cure? A sort of exorcism performed on yourself. She explained it to me, and told me that would be my answer as well.
She took me into my room in the basement and held both of my hands in hers. She told the demons to leave in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. She repeated it a couple times, then prayed for my protection and comfort. And I was never bothered again. It was that easy. Going forward, I've stayed far far away from anything that has to do with the occult. I know now it isn't just an innocent toy. If you use the Ouija board or would like to try it, I can't stop you, I can only advise you to be careful! - Jaynie F.
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