October PSA: The Proper Way To Play With Ouija Boards

I Don't Talk About It A Lot But I Have 19 Years Of ...Paranormal Experience.

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I have a long history of cleansing negative energies from houses, and even removing unwelcome visitors from people. Spiritual attachments can be dangerous if left unchecked. Spiritual attachments, in my lineage, are defined as an unwelcome or unknown presence in the form of the manifestation of energy, whether that be spiritual energy or residual energy that is attached to one particular person or place.

Spiritual attachments may attach themselves to one place or person, but they are harmful to all that linger and loiter around it. The chaos and harm, depending on how powerful the energy is and how much it's feeding off its hosts, can spread out to immediate family members and even close friends.

It's close to Halloween. In the United States, Halloween is one of the most celebrated holidays. We go out in droves with children and costumes and bags and it's the ONE day a year where EVERYONE has decided to spend COPIOUS money to give away for free in the form of diabetes, sugar, and cavities (I say it like that, but we all know I'll be stealing some of the tasty treats from my kids when they go to sleep).

Halloween traditions and scary stories are in full swing and Christians are celebrating Pagan traditions in rural church parking lots with Trunk-N-Treats, Jack-O-Lanterns sit sentinel, guarding houses from the ghouls and spirits that come out on the night when the veil between the world of the living and the land of the dead are at it's thinnest.

Teenagers and other various humans are ordering their Ouija and Spirit Boards for that main event at the party on the 31st.

In my years of paranormal experience, one of the most common clientele I've had were people with negative spiritual attachments who didn't have problems... until they played with the Ouija board. Most of the time it's the person who played with the board who didn't believe in any of it. The other times? It was the person who believed too much and left themselves unguarded.

The rules of the "game" are simple, and most people believe that it is, just a game. You say hello, and you and your friends keep your hands on the thing until it 'moves' to the hello position, indicating there is a spirit there with you, willing to communicate. From there you ask yes or no questions, or ask questions that it can spell the answer to. For best results, don't make it tell you detailed things. Then when you are done playing with dead people, you say goodbye and put your board away until next time.

Sounds fun for people who believe in that stuff right? Communicating with the dead is something people have been fascinated by since the dawn of time. And spirit boards on Amazon make it easy to do it, or easy for bored skeptic humans to play around with their friends.

And EVERYONE knows the ONE rule right? ALWAYS. SAY. GOOD. BYE.

Listen, skeptics. Just because you don't believe in ghosts or demons...doesn't mean they don't believe in you, friend.

They say rules are meant to be broken. So when a board game only has ONE rule, it's SUPER easy to forget that ONE rule. Especially, if you're drunk, upset, or scared. But it's the one rule for a reason. The best part of all with this goodbye rule? There's no PROMISE it will protect you and END the communication once you've decided you're done with your multidimensional phone call with the plane of the dead.

Just because you say goodbye, doesn't mean that whatever you phoned home to will hang up.

I don't know about you, but that's not really a risk *I* would make... now that I am an adult... it didn't stop me in middle school. My best friend, we called her Frizzle, had one. One day when I went to her house to play for the weekend, we pulled it out.

We said hello and we were answered. Honestly, I thought it was Frizzle just having fun. I've always had the knack to suck the joy out of pretending for myself, even as a kid. I assumed she was the one who was moving the little spyglass for the board, and I just went along with it.

I remember we got scared during our little session. Well. I thought Frizzle was pretending to be scared, so I pretended to be scared too. I thought it was a game. I don't remember what the 'entity' spelled out to us, but I remember Frizzle saying: "Ok. That's...we're going to go now. Goodbye."

The Spyglass didn't move to the goodbye. And she said it again. Still nothing. Finally, she said it again and moved the spyglass to the goodbye station herself. We went outside to play something else, and we didn't think anything of it again.

When Frizzle began to have bad dreams and her health began to decline, I started getting worried.

Instead of us going to her house, she started coming to mine. She'd have bad dreams, and she only felt safe with me and my mom. She told me she felt someone watching her at her house, no matter where she went. Her room, the basement, the backyard. She began to get really scared and paranoid. She would show me deep long scratches on her back and legs, telling me she'd wake up with them. She stopped eating and became really sad. She just wasn't herself.

I finally told my mom about what I had noticed, and about playing with her Ouija board. And that's when Mom decided to finally let me into the family secret. Mom said that people called us witches, but we weren't. We had come from a long line of medicine women. We would use the earth, the sky, and the energy, and pray to the Gods to help us (we are a converted family line that was separated from our tribe, so we do not know who our original deities were. So we pray to the Christian God). Our chanting has the meaning: Bless my words, so that I may bless others in your name.

My first paranormal event was when I was 12 cleansing my best friend of a bad spirit that we had brought onto her with our innocent play and curiosity.

The proper way to play with an Ouija or Spirit board is simple: You DON'T.

Not for Halloween. Not for fun. Not of curiosity. You don't do it if you believe in it, you don't do it if you DON'T believe in it. You just don't do it. Regardless of whether you believe in it or you don't, you aren't just putting yourself at risk. The people around you playing with you are at risk too.

EDIT: Cindy Caldor made me think of something important. And you guys should check out her profile. A continous challenge runner-up and winner, she's worth the browse!

Protip: IF you're reading this a little too late, and you've already opened a paranormal door that potentially leads to hell, DO NOT BURN THE BOARD! Your board needs to be closed, sealed, bound, and disposed of by a professional. Odds are that same professional can help make things stop going bump in the night for you too. A quick Google or Facebook search can lead you to someone close in your area, or at least to a forum of experienced people who might know what to do.

There are PLENTY of Halloween games and traditions you can indulge in.

Let's stay away from the one that can bring a demon into your house, okay? Because I'll be honest, demons are harder than mean ghosts and exorcisms can be expensive.

You might be able to get a free exorcism from the Catholic Chuch, but they make you wait for over a year to get a 4-month assessment and most likely they will be ineffectual no matter what route they take.

So be safe this Halloween my friends. Stay away from Spirit Boards and just go scare some kids instead. It's a much better option than having your soul siphoned by an invisible entity that you have no clue is there.

Happy Halloween Ghouls and Zomdudes!

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