Ouija Boards

[CRUSADER_KING]

Am I the only one that gets super creeped out by ouija boards? I don’t understand the appeal. Get those things away from me. I already have enough nightmares, thank you very much. I guess temptation leads people to do some weird things.

 

[Mike1955]

Bookcat’s first answer is very good – his second answer (“got to run”) isn’t so great.

The ouija board is evil. Presumably in its use, and not just sitting on a coffee table in someone’s home or on display in a museum. But its intended purpose is to communicate with the dead and/or demons. I would not use one, even though they are often used as some sort of supposedly harmless party game.

There is no reason to risk opening a gateway to Hell. Because we cannot control the opening and we might not be able to close it.

The entire purpose of the ouija board it to open a gateway. So I have never “played” with one.

As to coloring books, I would avoid them based on subject matter. If the artwork was inappropriate (pornographic, for example), I would not allow my child to play with it.

No one here has suggested that ouija boards be banned. We are simply recommending that people avoid them.

As to Barnes and Noble, they will sell Satanic and blasphemous books. Why not toys? I am not suggesting that B&N is wrong in selling these things. i just will not buy them or play with them. Although I am more inclined to read Satanic books than to touch a ouija board!

 

[on_the_hill]

I refer you to the Catholic Answers article and the various responses of Exorcists.

No more time than that.

Got to run.

Stay away from them.

The article doesn’t answer my questions. Simply putting it as “stay away from them,” is sufficient for a child and a hot stove.

 

[on_the_hill]

Bookcat’s first answer is very good – his second answer (“got to run”) isn’t so great.

The ouija board is evil. Presumably in its use, and not just sitting on a coffee table in someone’s home or on display in a museum. But its intended purpose is to communicate with the dead and/or demons. I would not use one, even though they are often used as some sort of supposedly harmless party game.

In other words, I could buy the one at B-N and hang it on my wall. No harm, no foul. It could be a conversation piece. I could tell people I bought it from an old soothsayer in a hidden alley of New Orleans who told me it was over 200 years old.

 

[on_the_hill]

Wow. What a complete and all encompassing answer.

I happen to think that the previous poster asked a very good question.

Thank you.

 

[Tim_D]

In other words, I could buy the one at B-N and hang it on my wall. No harm, no foul. It could be a conversation piece. I could tell people I bought it from an old soothsayer in a hidden alley of New Orleans who told me it was over 200 years old.

What if someone used a Monopoly board, the dice, money and the little shoe to conjure up a spirit??? Does that mean that we should all avoid those, too?!?!?

 

[Tim_D]

Thank you.

 

[on_the_hill]

What if someone used a Monopoly board, the dice, money and the little shoe to conjure up a spirit??? Does that mean that we should all avoid those, too?!?!?

In my estimation, yes.

Not being facetious, actually. I think the danger of divination lurks within, not from the props people use. That’s sort of like what Jesus said about sin–it’s not what goes into the person but what comes out. So if you were to use a Monopoly board for contacting dead relatives, then you are the problem, not the board.

Same as those silly Magic 8 Balls. My kids used to have one. My mother-in-law lumps them with ouija boards. She says, “We were told not to mess with them.” I tell her I use it to foretell my future. “Should I wear blue socks today? Magic 8 Ball says,“No.””

 

[GEddie]

What if someone used a Monopoly board, the dice, money and the little shoe to conjure up a spirit??? Does that mean that we should all avoid those, too?!?!?

Art thou serious?

That’s kind of like saying that because someone can be poisoned by vitamin A, (they can) that vitamin A and arsenic are comparable in our bodies!

I don’t know how someone would use the Monopoly board for divination. No doubt, you **can, **but it would require a lot of effort, and someone who could do it is probably heavily into divination already.

Whereas the Ouija board is a “user-ready” tool of divination for the unwary to get sucked into. It is sold as a board game, but is not the same!

ICXC NIKA

 

[CatholicFireman]

I’ve been told the Ouija board is a gateway to possession (you can laugh, smirk and ridicule all you want. I don’t care ). It was also what the boy who The Exorcist was based on used to try to contact his deceased aunt. It went downhill from there.

 

[Gertabelle]

Golly, people, cut Bookcat a break. Seriously, most of us here do have lives offline that do occasionally need to be tended to – you know, that thing called “reality”?

OK, so why not use a Ouija Board?

Well, it’s not checkers, is it? It’s not a competitive board game like Sorry, or Monopoly, or chess.

What’s the point of the Ouija Board? – to ask a question and receive an answer.

And what sort of questions are being asked? Math problems such as might be (name removed by moderator)ut onto a calculator? Or questions I might ask Google, such as how do I remove a St Benedict medal that’s jammed in my garbage disposal? – No. The questions are usually related to information that is in what I’d called “God’s domain.”

Everyone I’ve ever known who’s used one has asked questions about the future or questions that should be answered through seeking the Truth through God and His Church:

“Will Bob ask me to prom?”
“What’s the name of my future spouse?”
“What will I be when I grow up?”
“Is there life after death?”
“Did my friend betray me?”
“Who is answering these questions?”

And how do people participate in this activity? They place their fingers on a pointer and concentrate on the question and wait for the pointer to start moving.

Well sure, it could just be that people consciously or unconsciously lead the pointer to the answers they want or expect. Or it could be evil spirits taking advantage of people seeking information that is reserved to God until we seek the answers from Him.

Just my two cents.

And now I have to get back to reality – second and third graders singing for all the district big-wigs tomorrow morning. :bounce: – and I still have things to get done for my wee singers.

God’s blessings to all y’all.

 

[Gertabelle]

Art thou serious?

That’s kind of like saying that because someone can be poisoned by vitamin A, (they can) that vitamin A and arsenic are comparable in our bodies!

I don’t know how someone would use the Monopoly board for divination. No doubt, you **can, **but it would require a lot of effort, and someone who could do it is probably heavily into divination already.

Whereas the Ouija board is a “user-ready” tool of divination for the unwary to get sucked into. It is sold as a board game, but is not the same!

ICXC NIKA

I very much agree with your assessment of the Ouija Board here. And the observation that someone who uses Monopoly or chess, for example, as a divination tool are probably already heavily into the occult.

The OB as a user-ready tool is an apt description. Marketing it as a “game” does indeed make it seem an innocuous pastime.

And now, I really need to be outta here.

God bless and keep you all!

And thanks for everyone sharing your thoughts and questions here – good stuff, peeps.

 

[Tim_D]

Whereas the Ouija board is a “user-ready” tool of divination for the unwary to get sucked into. It is sold as a board game, but is not the same!

It is meant to be for “fun.”

“Following its commercial introduction by businessman Elijah Bond on July 1, 1890,[1] *the Ouija board was regarded as a parlor game unrelated to the occult *until American Spiritualist Pearl Curran popularized its use as a divining tool during World War I.” Spiritualism became huge during and after the First World War, touted by no less than Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes.

“Paranormal and supernatural beliefs associated with Ouija have been harshly criticized by the scientific community, since they are characterized as pseudoscience. The action of the board can be parsimoniously explained by unconscious movements of those controlling the pointer, a psychophysiological phenomenon known as the ideomotor effect.”

Hardly sounds like a tool of Satan.

 

[lynnvinc]

We had one when we were kids. One time when some friends were over, we had our 3 younger brothers go into the hallway and come out in any order they chose – the experiment was repeated 5 or 6 times and EVERY TIME the spirit of the Ouija Board predicted the order correctly (using the initials of each boy).

Then I asked what I would major in in college (I was about 14 at the time), and it started to name a subject, then another, then another. As it turned out I did major in those subjects then change and change again.

Finally we asked it who it was and I think it gave us a name (not sure). We asked where it was – “in the ground.” We asked how it had died – “by hanging.” For what, “horse theft.”

Then it went off the board and wouldn’t communicate with us.

This is real and really scary stuff. Not a kid’s game.

 

[lynnvinc]

We had one when we were kids. One time when some friends were over, we had our 3 younger brothers go into the hallway and come out in any order they chose – the experiment was repeated 5 or 6 times and EVERY TIME the spirit of the Ouija Board predicted the order correctly (using the initials of each boy).

Then I asked what I would major in in college (I was about 14 at the time), and it started to name a subject, then another, then another. As it turned out I did major in those subjects then change and change again.

Finally we asked it who it was and I think it gave us a name (not sure). We asked where it was – “in the ground.” We asked how it had died – “by hanging.” For what, “horse theft.”

Then it went off the board and wouldn’t communicate with us.

This is real and really scary stuff. Not a kid’s game.

Note that there is only a 16.7% probability of being right by chance each time on that 3 boy experiment, and the chance of being right on all 5 times is even much much smaller.

 

[mommy_k]

My sibling had one. .against my will, we played as teens…
The answers we got from it were things my sister and I would never know…when we asked who we were talking to and where they were from, it gave a location it was ancient place that we both had to look up.
I could not sleep with the lights off for a week after this occurance.

The affects of occult use sometimes is not dramatic, but I think people can be affected negatively with opening the door and inviting evil into thier lives. Using this, may not lead to possession, but there are degrees of demonic influence…this opens the door too, for some people to continue to expand on the use of occult things under the pretense of harmless fun, and more and more evil creeps in.

If the Catholic church and excorsists warn about the use of some items, I think it would be wise to listen…when in doubt do without.

 

[mikekle]

Yet they are sold in stores and not one incident has been reported by a major news network of anything bad happening. Again what next coloring books?

Would you actually expect to hear such a thing on the news?

Remember, satans greatest trick was to convince so many he does not even exist.

I have first hand experience with the board, back when I was younger, the group of kids I hung around with started using it over the course of a couple months, it proved itself real to me, but the thing is, you do not need the actual board game for it to work, the one we used was made from cardboard, magic marker and a broken piece of glass.

 

[Sarcelle]

I tried using one once when I was an atheist.

Nothing happened. Eventually I got bored and threw it away.

 

[ConfusedLucy]

With my mothers experience it predicted one of her friends would break their arm and it happened a week later but what freaked her out was how silently and smoothly the glass moved (they didn’t actually use a board, they used the upturned glass and bits of paper with letters method) and it didn’t seem to possible for it to move like that by people pushing it.

It doesn’t seem to have caused her long term harm to be fair and I suppose a skeptic might point out that she was only eleven and had and still has a vivid imagination.

I imagine the reason there isn’t an epidemic of demonic possession in the news is because 99% of people are just messing about. A bit like when teenagers play Bloody Mary in front of the mirror which I have done without anything happening.

 

[Sarcelle]

With my mothers experience it predicted one of her friends would break their arm and it happened a week later but what freaked her out was how silently and smoothly the glass moved (they didn’t actually use a board, they used the upturned glass and bits of paper with letters method) and it didn’t seem to possible for it to move like that by people pushing it.

It doesn’t seem to have caused her long term harm to be fair and I suppose a skeptic might point out that she was only eleven and had and still has a vivid imagination.

I imagine the reason there isn’t an epidemic of demonic possession in the news is because 99% of people are just messing about. A bit like when teenagers play Bloody Mary in front of the mirror which I have done without anything happening.

I remember seeing the same thing as a child. It was an upturned glass and people would hold their hands about a foot away. No one was touching the glass yet the glass would float to the letters or numbers. Yes it would float and move without anyone touching it.

Of course me being an atheist remembered thinking there must be a natural explanation for it, like someone moving it by unknown means.