Some use this board enscribed with letters and 'yes' and 'no' as a game tool, others use it to deviate or contact the dead. Some believe it is a Satanic tool. What do you believe?
History: The Ouija board was first introduced to the American public in 1890 as a parlor game sold in novelty shops. E.C. Reiche, Elijah Bond, and Charles Kennard ... Created an all new alphanumeric design. They spread the letters of the alphabet in twin arcs across the middle of the board. Below the letters were the numbers one to ten. In the corners were "YES" and "NO." Kennard called the new board Ouija (pronounced 'wE-ja) after the Egyptian word for good luck. Ouija is not really Egyptian for good luck, but since the board reportedly told him it was during a session, the name stuck.* Kennard lost his company and it was taken over by his former foreman, William Fuld, in 1892. One of William Fuld's first public relations gimmicks, as master of his new company, was to reinvent the history of the Ouija board. He said that he himself had invented the board and that the name Ouija was a fusion of the French word "oui" for yes, and the German "ja" for yes.* Although Ouija boards are usually sold in the novelty or game section of stores, many people swear that there is something occult about them.
Ref. https://skepdic.com/ouija.html
Below is the typical face of an Ouija board:
The Ouija Board (Hover)
When I was in my early teens, my girlfriend and I would constantly *play* with the
Ouija Board. During that time I had horrible nightmares, and night terrors. My Mother would find me sleepwalking and crying in my sleep. The same thing was happening with my girlfriend. Then her father, a very religious man, found the Ouija Board and he burned it. My parents were not happy either to find out I had been playing with it.
Once the board was gone, we no longer had the nightmares and I never walked in my sleep again.
Do I contribute it to the Board? YES. Do I feel that it contacts the Dead. NO. The dead can not contact us. Do I feel it is Satanic? YES. Satans minions can contact us and do as often as we invite them to.
My sisters and I and a bunch of neighborhood kids played around with it quite often, but we never had any evil happenings -- other than the made-up ones that my older sisters tricked other people with.
Although, I'm sure if someone is sensitive enough to evil spirits and so forth that just the act of focusing on a board of this type would be enough to conjure up some trouble. It's not a good idea, in my opinion, to be messing with powers we don't understand.
Roz
This kind of stuff is incredibly fascinating to me. I've wanted to mess around with a Ouija board before, but it seems to dabble a little bit too much with the occult for my likings.
I hate to contribute anything I don't understand to the power of he Devil, but in this case I feel a little bit justified in it. In any case it focuses your mind on dark things, and that's something that just isn't good.
The game is a man made game and in my opinion, just a game. Most of the stories we here are just our own imaginations. I remember when I was a kid, my older sisters and a friend brought one home and played with it. Of cource, in order for it to work, two people have to put their hands on the game piece that moves around and answers your questions. Why two? The answer is obvious. Because there really is no spirit there answering your questions. The other person is moving it around and pretending that it is the spirit moving it.
I was just a kid, about 8 or 9 but my sisters and their friend made ups some spooky stories about it. They even made their own game out of paper and cardboard and claimed they were communicating with spirits and were being followed around. They got scared and destroyed the game, tore it into a dozen pieces and dumped it in a garbage bin miles away. The next morning, it was outside their window, all back together again. I think they were just trying to scare me. Anyway, its not that I don't beleive spirits can communicate with us, I just don't think they do it through a man made board game.
My spiritual path does not acknowlege any entity such as "Satan", so I do not view an Ouija board as the product of such a being. Man-made? Yes. So are most magickal and religious tools used throughout all faiths across the globe.
A harmless parlor game? Hardly. There are "spirits" of varying temperments that share our plane. Some will occasionally use a medium such as an Ouija board as a gateway to have access to users' lives. Ouija boards offer no controls as to what type of other-worldly contacts may be made. It's like running one's computer with ports left open and no firewall. Those vulnerabilites are readily exploited.
If one truly seeks to commune w/ the other realm, he/she should find a stable, mature Pagan skilled in the use of a Greenman board. Any type of spiritual mediumship should never be attempted by novices.
When I was growing up, I was taught it was evil. When I got older, I was told it was dangerous. I know several people who have used one to either no avail, or to a response that only they could hear or see. I have yet to ever see or hear of any situation in which someone was truly able to call up spirits with a ouija board. It is my opinion that these boards have no power over spirits and cannot call them. It takes someone who believes in spirits to allegedly call them forth from the board, which gives me good reason to disbelieve.
I was a member of a casual group of people interested in the paranormal, and we used a store-bought Ouija for about four years solid back in the 90s, couple times a week on the weekends. We always got *something*, I was the least "influential", while others seemed to be like mega-batteries. Some really interesting experiences and most of the group believe(s/d) the board involves some sort of spirit or other communication, I myself think it's just ideomotor with the very remote outside possibility of some spontaneous ESP.