Is 'Charlie Charlie' a harmless game? Exorcist says absolutely not

[anthony022071]

catholicnewsagency.com/news/is-charlie-charlie-a-harmless-game-exorcist-says-absolutely-not-49686/

Lima, Peru, May 27, 2015 / 04:14 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A game that purports to invoke a Mexican demon – known as “Charlie, Charlie” and considered to be a simplified version of the Ouija board – has gone viral on social media among young people, prompting one exorcist to warn of its dangers.

The game, which has gained significant traction online in recent days, involves a pair of pencils or pens, a sheet of paper, and the invocation of a spirit named “Charlie.”

Scores of short video clips, posted mostly by teens, show players shrieking and running out of view when the pencil apparently moves on its own and points to a “yes” or a “no” after they say a phrase inviting the demon.

Spanish exorcist Jose Antonio Fortea told CNA that the so-called #CharlieCharlieChallenge involves the very real, occult practice of “calling on spirits.”

In an interview May 27, he warned that “some spirits who are at the root of that practice will harass some of those who play the game.” Even though the priest thinks that players “won’t be possessed” necessarily, the spirit that has been invoked “will stay around for a while.”

 

[Murmurs]

Wow.

It’s interesting how people believe in such stuff.

Not that I mean to disrespect the real work of exorcists, but this game is really not something they need to be concerned with. You can have the same effect just by laying the pencils out appropriately and not saying anything at all. Or you could pray the Rosary over it for all the good it would do (though I can’t think why you would). It’s gravity, and a finely balanced pivot. The slightest breeze, or your breath, or a not-100%-level table will move the pencil. I hardly think it matters even if the people playing this silly game even think they are calling up some demon; it’s just a childish thing that will pass in 10 minutes. You might just as well as say a Magic 8-Ball is dabbling in the occult.

 

[Smfm]

It may appear innocent, I only caught a whisper of it on FB, wouldn’t touch this stuff with a barge pole, once you invite him in it’s very hard to get him out, no matter how innocent people think it is, I’ll take the Exorcists view over it than those less qualified !

 

[GEddie]

The Oujia is also just an alphanumeric board with a pointer.

It does not matter.

Give the spirits an inch and they will take body and soul.

ICXC NIKA

 

[truetofaith]

I thought we hashed out this ‘Charlie’ garbage on another thread.

Forget about this demonic junk & get a hobby. Saying a decade of the rosary won’t hurt, either!

 

[truetofaith]

P.S. you have to be stupid to play with fire!

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

This thing with the pencils has been going on for a while.

Check out this 6 minute video from the 70s show “That’s My Line” where James Hydrick tries to convince people he has psychic powers by moving a pencil and the page of a phonebook “with his mind”. James Randi demonstrates it’s simple physics.

youtu.be/7CASghTzNhc

 

[truetofaith]

This thing with the pencils has been going on for a while.

Check out this 6 minute video from the 70s show “That’s My Line” where James Hydrick tries to convince people he has psychic powers by moving a pencil and the page of a phonebook “with his mind”. James Randi demonstrates it’s simple physics.

youtu.be/7CASghTzNhc

I think ‘Charlie’ is marking yes & no with a pencil to answer questions.

Not the same thing.

 

[oldgraymare2]

It may appear innocent, I only caught a whisper of it on FB, wouldn’t touch this stuff with a barge pole, once you invite him in it’s very hard to get him out, no matter how innocent people think it is, I’ll take the Exorcists view over it than those less qualified !

I agree with you.

I always find it interesting that people will believe in God–when they can’t see Him–but yet they can’t seem to have an open mind that demons can exist, too.

They have been mentioned in Scripture too, where Jesus has cast them out, so I guess I just find this hard to understand.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

I think ‘Charlie’ is marking yes & no with a pencil to answer questions.

Not the same thing.

While the end goal of the Charlie is different than what the fraud did in the video I linked to, the video demonstrates how easy it is for a precariously placed pencil to move. A few minutes into the video James Randi shows how normal air currents can be enough to move a pencil not on a sturdy surface.

 

[Mintaka]

It’s a stupid game, but stupid games suck kids into the occult sometimes.

More to the point, we’re forbidden to try this junk, and trying occult stuff is a mortal sin. Who wants to commit a mortal sin over a game?

It’s also open to kids using the game for mean purposes, so it’s sort of a trifecta of bad ideas.

 

[esieffe]

I don’t know about Charlie Charlie, but I know for a fact Oujia boards work, if you do it the right way, or maybe it’s just doing it with the right person. It worked for me when I was young and we both knew that clearly it was not one of us.

The pointer started making a figure 8 over and over again. Then my friend who did not believe it would work, and had invited any spirit to come in, good or evil, asked if it was evil. It went to yes. Then he asked another question and it spelled out gibberish. By this time I had enough and threw the thing out the front door, pointer and all into the front yard. Then we said the Lord’s prayer. Never did an occult thing ever again, and it taught me not only was this stuff real, but dangerous.

Now if you think I am saying this for attention, or if you believe one of us pushed it around [it moved in such an ornate way and so fast, I knew it was not possible he was pushing it.] or if you feel you will sleep better not believing it, that’s fine with me. I was young and thought I was some worldly mystic hotshot, and let me tell you I got over that in a real hurry.

They say not believing in this stuff won’t help you, but maybe if you don’t you wont mess with it, and that is just fine. You adults know better anyway, but our kids need to be warned all the same. I consider myself fortunate that it ended there. Others might not be.

I consider it imperative to share this when it comes up. Listen to the Exorcist.

 

[mikekle]

I don’t know about Charlie Charlie, but I know for a fact Oujia boards work, if you do it the right way, or maybe it’s just doing it with the right person. It worked for me when I was young and we both knew that clearly it was not one of us.

The pointer started making a figure 8 over and over again. Then my friend who did not believe it would work, and had invited any spirit to come in, good or evil, asked if it was evil. It went to yes. Then he asked another question and it spelled out gibberish. By this time I had enough and threw the thing out the front door, pointer and all into the front yard. Then we said the Lord’s prayer. Never did an occult thing ever again, and it taught me not only was this stuff real, but dangerous.

Now if you think I am saying this for attention, or if you believe one of us pushed it around [it moved in such an ornate way and so fast, I knew it was not possible he was pushing it.] or if you feel you will sleep better not believing it, that’s fine with me. I was young and thought I was some worldly mystic hotshot, and let me tell you I got over that in a real hurry.

They say not believing in this stuff won’t help you, but maybe if you don’t you wont mess with it, and that is just fine. You adults know better anyway, but our kids need to be warned all the same. I consider myself fortunate that it ended there. Others might not be.

I consider it imperative to share this when it comes up. Listen to the Exorcist.

I know where you are coming from, I hung out with a group of friends in my late teens and we dabbled in the Ouija board, I too know it is very real, I still worry about what we may have done back then and may have to pay for it when we die…Dont worry about people who dont believe this kind of thing, just remember Satan loves people he is able to trick easily, and his greatest trick is fooling people into thinking he does not exist, and/or not involved in certain things.

I never used the board personally, it was always these 2 specific girls in our group, it worked best with them, and the rest of us stood around, asking questions, When it answered my question correctly, I knew right then it was real, it kind of scared me, but at that age, its like I wasnt even worried about it…go figure?!

 

[esieffe]

I know where you are coming from, I hung out with a group of friends in my late teens and we dabbled in the Ouija board, I too know it is very real, I still worry about what we may have done back then and may have to pay for it when we die…Dont worry about people who dont believe this kind of thing, just remember Satan loves people he is able to trick easily, and his greatest trick is fooling people into thinking he does not exist, and/or not involved in certain things.

I never used the board personally, it was always these 2 specific girls in our group, it worked best with them, and the rest of us stood around, asking questions, When it answered my question correctly, I knew right then it was real, it kind of scared me, but at that age, its like I wasnt even worried about it…go figure?!

Thanks. I would not worry too much, you turned your back on such things, like I did, and our Lord is merciful. Confession ain’t bad either!

 

[Murmurs]

Ouija Boards don’t work. It was a board game designed by a game-inventor called Elijah Bond and the patent and trademark is now owned by Hasbro.

The Charlie Charlie game also doesn’t work.

Which isn’t to say the pencils don’t move, but it’s an entirely rational phenomenon which to excitable people (esp adolescents it seems) has a much more fun but very much less correct explanation, to wit, demons.

Exorcists shouldn’t sully their reputation by railing about something that they have no power to effect, except to take away a teenager’s pencil case.

 

[mikekle]

Ouija Boards don’t work. It was a board game designed by a game-inventor called Elijah Bond and the patent and trademark is now owned by Hasbro.

The Charlie Charlie game also doesn’t work.

Which isn’t to say the pencils don’t move, but it’s an entirely rational phenomenon which to excitable people (esp adolescents it seems) has a much more fun but very much less correct explanation, to wit, demons.

Exorcists shouldn’t sully their reputation by railing about something that they have no power to effect, except to take away a teenager’s pencil case.

When we were using the Ouija board, except for a few times when we had the real board, most of the time, we used a piece of cardboard with the letters/ numbers drawn on it in marker, and a piece of broken glass…it worked just as well, so it doesnt have to be an actual mass production board…spirits, evil or not, have alot of ways they can get into our lives, kind of dangerous to debunk that.

I thought of a question that would tell me if it was real or not back then, the group of friends I was with at the time, were relatively new friends, they were from a different county, none of them knew me in the past, yet when I asked the board what pattern/ color of the dress my mom had on at her funeral 5 yrs prior…it took about 2 seconds to answer correctly…the 2 girls with hands on the board did not even know my mom was dead, nor did anyone else in that group, as I did not talk about this, there is also a time the board instructed us to a specific spot in our neighborhood, told us what we would find if we dug down in this area about 4ft down.

A few people in this group were really getting into the board after awhile, its all they wanted to do, some even wanted to start doing other things, they wanted to actually summon a spirit, so they could see it with their own eyes, thankfully this was never done. The Ouija board is a tool that is kind of a tease…the spirits impress its users by answering questions correctly and by other things, in hopes the users will get interested in the occult, try other things.

God grants the spirts, satan, demons a certain amount of power to influence our lives, there are multiple ways they can find their ways into our lives, Satans greatest trick was/ is, people believing he is either not involved or does not exist…trying to debunk or explain away the spiritual realm is exactly what satan wants.

 

[CaptFun]

P.S. you have to be stupid to play with fire!

Or young and inexperienced.

As a substitute teacher, several kids in my classes had the tell tale “yes-ses and no-es” on pieces of paper with pencils arranged so as to “play” the game. I was also asked skeptically if I knew what “Charlie” was.

It was an easy call for me to outlaw it … as kids are supposed to be doing classwork or homework and THAT is clearly non-curricular. Hopefully I did it in such a dismissive spirit (implying it was childish … kids like to feel more grown UP) that I didn’t make that “rule” of mine an enticement for them to pursue the forbidden.

While I didn’t share this with “the kids” (average age … about 5th grade) – the occult, be it ever so harmless looking – is nothing to be messed with.

That said … many of my friends when I was that age had an “Ask the magic 8-ball” in their homes … which we “consulted” though I never believed for a second it had any power.

I also have enjoyed the occasional nonsense of waving a rally monkey around to enhance my rooting for the LA-of-A Angels … though I hope I haven’t contributed to anyone’s weakness toward superstition.

On a serious note again. Pray for our young people. They are assaulted with more temptation and promotion of temptations than we of the baby boom years ever would have dreamed could exist!

 

[esieffe]

Ouija Boards don’t work. It was a board game designed by a game-inventor called Elijah Bond and the patent and trademark is now owned by Hasbro.

The Charlie Charlie game also doesn’t work.

Which isn’t to say the pencils don’t move, but it’s an entirely rational phenomenon which to excitable people (esp adolescents it seems) has a much more fun but very much less correct explanation, to wit, demons.

Exorcists shouldn’t sully their reputation by railing about something that they have no power to effect, except to take away a teenager’s pencil case.

Ok, so the Exorcist / Catholic priest doesn’t know what he is talking about. Several people in the Vatican whose job it is to deal with this stuff don’t know what they are talking about? That is what you are saying with your statement. I don’t care about Charlie or pencils, even though they seem to, my experience and that of another poster is the O board. What are your credentials please? Thanks.

 

[mikekle]

Ok, so the Exorcist / Catholic priest doesn’t know what he is talking about. Several people in the Vatican whose job it is to deal with this stuff don’t know what they are talking about? That is what you are saying with your statement. I don’t care about Charlie or pencils, even though they seem to, my experience and that of another poster is the O board. What are your credentials please? Thanks.

You have to remember the bible tells us a certain number of people will never believe in things like this, they allow themselves to be fooled by modern science ‘explanations’ that try to deny God and the spiritual realm altogether, even if Jesus himself performed an exorcism right in front of these folks, its likely they would still claim there is some natural explanation for such a thing.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

Wow.

It’s interesting how people believe in such stuff.

Not that I mean to disrespect the real work of exorcists, but this game is really not something they need to be concerned with. You can have the same effect just by laying the pencils out appropriately and not saying anything at all. Or you could pray the Rosary over it for all the good it would do (though I can’t think why you would). It’s gravity, and a finely balanced pivot. The slightest breeze, or your breath, or a not-100%-level table will move the pencil. I hardly think it matters even if the people playing this silly game even think they are calling up some demon; it’s just a childish thing that will pass in 10 minutes. You might just as well as say a Magic 8-Ball is dabbling in the occult.

From this site.
catholic.com/quickquestions/are-ouija-boards-harmless