Is the Ouija Board a Game or a Gateway?

Here's a question for everybody: Are Ouija boards a harmless toy or an instrument of extreme horror that you should never, ever play with? You might be surprised to learn that Google predicted the modern version of the Victorian-era "spirit boards" would be a sellout this Christmas. The search engine confirmed the game is one of the top trending gifts on its price comparison list this year, likely due to the recent release of an Ouija horror film. I’ll tell you exactly which side I’m on: It is not a toy. I believe this is one of the most terrifying things ever, and I totally think that playing with it can open some sort of doorway to the spirit world. You know, there’s a Chinese saying that goes: "It’s easy to invite a spirit, but making it leave is difficult."

The Warning from the Clergy

Apparently, a Catholic priest who specialises in the occult agrees with me. The priest and exorcist, who spoke to the Sunday Independent on condition of anonymity, pointed out that people, especially young folks and teenagers who are likely to experiment with Ouija boards on a whim, can be very naive. They think they are only contacting the departed souls of loved ones when they attempt to communicate with the dead using the boards. "It’s like going to some parts of Africa and saying, 'I’m personally immune to Ebola,'" the priest said. "It does leave people open to all kinds of spiritual dangers." He stressed that even if people don’t intend any spiritual harm, "We live in a spiritual realm, and you have no way to control what may impinge on you." The chilling part? The priest claims that evil spirits and even demons will "masquerade as departed loved ones" as a means of gaining possession, leading people to believe they are just communicating with family when they are actually "getting infected." This, of course, is on the basis that you believe the Ouija board can communicate with the dead at all.

Scientific Methods and Personal Experiences

Paranormal investigator Darran Insull, from the Paranormal Study and Investigation (PSI) team, is another person who personally "wouldn’t touch a Ouija board with a bargepole." He’s witnessed some wild stuff, even claiming he has seen tables walking down the hall on their own with only fingertips touching them. Insull’s team, which has been featured on BBC's Greatest Haunts, uses scientific methods and high-tech gear to figure out if unexplained phenomena have natural or paranormal causes. Some of PSI’s controlled experiments confirmed the popular theory that the board's answers are sometimes due to subconscious muscular movements. But Insull has also interviewed many users, and almost all of them report very negative experiences during or after sessions. These range from hearing demonic voices to unexplained feelings of anxiety and depression, relationship breakdowns, hearing weird noises, and seeing objects flung around or moved.

My Own College Spook Story

I do have a personal Ouija board story I want to share with everybody. In college, I took a class called Parapsychology and Hypnosis. (And, by the way, you may not believe me, but I was, and probably still am, a pretty great hypnotist! You can go "whatever," but hypnotism is real and powerful, though I never used it for evil.) The class was pretty spooky itself, talking a lot about demons, past lives, and things like that. So, one day after class, a friend who was in the course with me suggested, "Hey, let’s play with a Ouija board." I had never played with one before, so I was like, "Yeah, sure, that's not a dumb idea at all." There were five of us. We were kind of spooked about playing with it in any one person's dorm room, so we decided to play with it outside. We put our fingers on the little pointy thing, and yeah, it started to move. It was my first time, so I’m thinking, "Okay, somebody is moving this thing." It was spelling out people's names and answering questions. To test it, we had one of our friends step away from the board, and the rest of us closed our eyes. She was the only one who could see what was being spelled out on the board. You know what? That bloody thing kept moving and kept spelling out things! We asked basic questions like "How old are you?" and "Are you a good or evil spirit?" Nothing crazy happened, we didn't get possessed, and none of us died. I don't remember exactly what we asked, but some of the answers that came back spooked the absolute crap out of us.

After about an hour of this, we were all ready to pee our pants. We packed up the board, but nobody wanted to take it with them, so they decided to stash it in my dorm room. This was over winter break, and I was staying because I was an RA, so the dorm was mostly empty; I was basically the only person in the whole building. I know this would be a better story if I told you that my broom became possessed and I heard hounds scratching at my door, but nothing like that happened. However, that was the only night in my adult life that I slept with the lights on. I actually remember having to turn on Friends episodes to try and squeeze the creepiness out of my head so I could sleep. The next day, I threw the Ouija board out into the garbage and have never touched one since.

The Two-Way Channel Theory

Some people say, "Oh, it's a toy, it's made by a toy company!" Yeah, well, certain creepy, possessed dolls are toys too, and you probably wouldn’t want to bring one of those home. I totally believe that because we all have certain amounts of energy, and when that energy comes together between several people, we are able to open some sort of channel. But here’s the thing: it's a two-way channel. I think once you open it, things on the other side can have access to you as well. If you don't think this is creepy, go Google "Ouija board scary stories." I guarantee you won't want to buy one.