What is the very first thing that most people think of when they hear the words Ouija board? Most (but obviously not all), people think of horror movies like the Ouija board scene in “The Exorcist”, or any one of another countless horror movie genre, that has used the Ouija board as basis for its story-line. Or they automatically think of horror stories they may have heard from people who have used the board – or they may believe whatever religious teachings they have learned about the use of such devices. Then again some simply consider them nothing more than a toy or a parlour game.

But, are Ouija boards a toy? Really, are they? The subject of Ouija boards (otherwise known as ‘talking boards’, ‘spirit boards’, ‘communication boards’, ‘clear channel board’, ‘charmed spirit boards’, and ‘Walpurgisnacht witchboards’, amongst others), has come up again and again. So I seriously thought about doing this episode for some weeks now. So, are you ready to walk with me into this part of the shadowlands and see what awaits us there? Let’s begin.

The Ouija Board: Is It Really Just A Game?

Firstly, though I feel it is important to give at least a very condensed history on what they are and how they came about. Likely there are few who have not heard of an Ouija board, or who do not know what they are, thanks in large part to all the TV movies notably ‘The Exorcist’ mentioned before, amongst others.  But for those who perhaps have not, here is a description of an Ouija board.

Physically an Ouija board is a flat board with the letters of the alphabet arrayed in two semi-circles above the numbers 0 through 9; the words “yes” and “no” in the uppermost corners, “goodbye” at the bottom; accompanied by a “planchette,” which is, generally these days,  a teardrop-shaped device.  It usually has a small window in the body. The planchette is used to manoeuver about the board. The idea was that two or more people would sit around the board, place their finger tips on the planchette, pose a question, and watch, as the planchette moved from letter to letter, supposedly moved by a spirit, spelling out the answers.

The boards and planchettes used to be made out of solid wood. Now they are cardboard and plastic, for the most part. However, when I was a young and stupid kid, we created talking glasses, which were simply letters of the alphabet and numbers 0 -10 written on pieces of paper and placed in a circle on a flat surface, generally a table top. A simple kitchen glass was used as the planchette. Other than that, it functioned in exactly the same way as the Ouija board did.

How did Ouija boards come into popular use?

Well, in 1848, two sisters Kate and Margaret Fox   who lived in upstate New York, claimed to have receive messages from spirits who knocked on their walls in answer to questions. This eventually reached the media who spread it throughout the country and spiritualism was born. Millions across America and the World turned to spiritualism as the answer for connecting with loved ones that had passed.

We have to realise, that this was an era when very few people lived past the age of 50 years old due to the living conditions and standards, health care etc. in that era.  The average lifespan in that era was less than 50 years old. Women died giving birth, children died from diseases, men died in wars. During the American Civil War, spiritualism gained millions of people who were desperate to connect with their loved ones that had gone to war and never returned. It was a time when people seemed to be ready and wanting the comfort of belief in a continued existence. Spiritualist communities and groups were established world wide and mediums (a very large percentage of them who were fake and merely capitalising on the current trend), began holding séances.

Table tipping and other means of communication with the dead were at the best cumbersome and noisy and in order to be able to communicate with loved ones who had passed, people had to rely on séances lead by these dubious people. Mostly fake mediums, who were simply out to fleece money out of desperate people. People who were grieving for their loved ones and simply wanted to know that they still existed and were ok. So what forms of communication did they use initially?

Forms of communication

Table tipping and rapping – was a form of a séance where people sat around a table. They would place their hands on it and wait for it to tip, tilt or otherwise move in response to questions to spirit. There is a  very old picture on this episodes page on the podcast website, www.walkingtheshadowlands.com, of a table tipping session.

Other forms of attempting communication were tried. One of these was spirit writing, or psychography. Today, it would be called automatic writing . This was done, initially anyway, by holding a pencil in an upside down basket or planchette. And, the idea was that the spirit took control of you hand and wrote things automatically.

After a while someone invented the talking board, it’s original origins are shrouded in mystery – however in 1891 a person by the name of Elijah J Bond submitted a patent for the first official “talking board” calling it a toy or a game. A copy of that patent can also be seen on the website. The term “talking board” that Elijah gave to his patent, is generally used these days as more of a generic term for any message board that has numbers, letters and a moveable message indicator. Whether that is a planchette or an upside down glass (in this case as previously mentioned is called “Ask the glass”), this movable object is lightly touched by one or more persons, and will slide or pivot along the surface of the board to spell out words or messages.

The Ouija board got its name from the sister-in-law of the board’s inventor Helen Peters. Helen was supposedly a very strong medium and she asked the board what it wished to be named. It spelled out Ouija in result. When they asked what that meant, supposedly the board responded with the words “good luck”

Some would argue that an Ouija board is just another divination device, like divining rods, table tipping, automatic writing, etc. Also, there are other boards that use pendulums, fixed spinners or rolling boards – these latter are not technically regarded as “talking boards”, although the effect is definitely the same. And these days, you could also add to that list ghost boxes

There is great debate about whether the messages given on these boards indeed come from supernatural entities or they are solely a psychological / physiological phenomenon, one that is created by the users of the board. According to some scientific sources, there are two factors that come into play when using an Ouija board

• There is a strong, generally subconscious need for an answer to any specific question the user has
• There is a phenomenon called the ideomotor effect.

What is the ideomotor effect?

Wikipedia has this to say about the ideomotor effect:

“As in reflexive responses to pain, the body sometimes reacts reflexively with an ideomotor effect to ideas alone without the person consciously deciding to take action. The effects of automatic writing, dowsing, facilitated communication, and Ouija boards have been attributed to the phenomenon.”

So therefore the ideomotor effect says that people can move or move something without their conscious mind realizing it. In the case of the Ouija board, if you really want the answer to a question to be yes and any other person also on the board with you knows it, they could all push the planchette to “YES” without anyone consciously applying any force.

Certainly I do not disagree in the least that probably a large percentage of talking board communication can be put down to this effect.  On this episode’s page on the podcast website www.walkingtheshadowlands.com there is a link to a YouTube video that explains this effect very clearly. Whilst I personally agree with most of what they are saying, I do not agree that all Ouija experiences can be explained away by this. Here is where science and my personal experiences diverge greatly.

Personal Experiences

When I was in my very early teens in the late 60’s, we did the talking glass thing at our kitchen table. The glass would not move, unless I was present in the room, even if I was not actually on the board itself. When I was in the room it would “talk”. We contacted what appeared to be a young lad our age. He told us his name, that he had lived in Japan and had died from small pox. He even gave us the year of his death. Although of course there was no internet then so checking any of this out for validity was nigh on impossible. A group of us had contact with this kid for a number of weeks, and I felt a real kinship with him – and he deliberately targeted me. Looking back, I can see why. I was very young, vulnerable and a developing medium. So this entity totally played on my sympathies and my vulnerability, telling me often how lonely he was, where he was. Although I was not aware of this until after the fact and a few years later when I was more experienced.

Anyway, one day the group of us were chatting as normal with this kid, when he tells me that I should commit suicide so that we could be together as friends forever, and he would no longer be lonely, I felt so sorry for him, because he was lonely. As he finished saying this my Mum walked into the room. She heard what he had just said and she went to reach for the glass to take it off us. It flew out of our hands and smashed against the wall on the other side of the table, just shot out of our hand. That was the end of my experimenting with a talking glass / Ouija board. It took weeks before our house felt clean again, and we were no longer freaked out.

Home Investigation

Fast forward to two-thousand and seventeen. My paranormal investigation team and I were approached to check out a home of two of the team members, that were experiencing supposed paranormal activity. This included, cold spots, objects moving, disembodied voices, shadow figures, apparitions of a child and others, and physical touching (including intimately), foul smells amongst other things. So we did an initial interview with the clients and had a tour of the house. The female of the house I will call her Sophia, was the one experiencing most of the paranormal activity, but her partner also was very aware of events that were happening in the home and had seen some of them himself. The house was in a cul-de-sac shaped street and was as all of them at that end of the street, it was a two storied, duplex unit with each house joined by a shared wall.

On our initial visit we were very aware of cold spots, in the house (in 30C summer heat), and of spots in the house that literally caused the hairs on our arms to raise – along with a sense of being unwelcome, and downright hostility in some of the places. Only in certain spots of the property though and not all over. Also a door slammed by itself, with no breeze in the house. It was a very still, quiet, summer day.  As is our norm, we took a digital recorder and recorded our interview with the client. On this we captured some very clear EVPs or Electronic Voice Phenomena. This is when voices which are not heard audibly are captured on digital recorders. In some of these EVP, we captured voices that were very negative towards Sophia.

We asked when the activity started and what they feel caused it to begin. Sophia mentioned an Ouija board that she said belonged to her ex-flatmate who had only recently moved out of their home. She commented that she felt this flatmate had used the board and performed some sort of ceremony over the board and this all started from there. We asked Sophia if she had ever participated in the use of this board, she categorically denied it and said that in fact she would never, ever touch one. At the same time, she is saying that, we get an EVP calling her a liar, along with deep growls and guttural sounds. Obviously we did not hear this audibly, and it wasn’t until we were back home going over the interview tape and subjective and objective experiences that we heard the recording.

We organized an investigation for their home, which Sophia cancelled on us the night beforehand. Not a problem these things happen. Meantime, those of us who initially visited the home started having different things happening in our own homes. Things like disembodied growls, guttural noises, bangs, scratching our our windows and doors, foul smells. At the beginning none of us mentioned this to the others, but we all experienced them. We soon dealt with the entities, once we realized the source of them and what was actually happening. We subsequently found out that Sophia was still actively using the board. Her partner was unaware of this actually. She was deliberately inviting entities into her home.

Now we cannot do anything for people who actually want and invite these phenomena into their lives. That is entirely their choice. Sophia was enjoying having the attention having these entities in her home brought her. We withdrew from the case after sitting them both down together and being frank and honest with them. The husband was actually gutted about this all, but we cannot help people who invite this activity in and want it. And I also removed them from the investigation group.

In Sophia using the board, she deliberately and knowingly invited entities into her home and allowed one of them to attach to her. Now these entities are very low life entities – and the type that enjoy creating fear and discord, and attaching to people where they can to feed off their energies. This was definitely not a case of ideomotor effect, this was and still is, spiritual parasites.

Now three years later and I am prepping for this episode. I ask the members of my Walking the Shadowlands FB group ­– (big shout out to you all, who are listening), if any of them had any experiences with an Ouija board that they might like to share with everyone in this episode. And this particular member who lived the next small town over from me, messaged me to say that she had experienced so much activity in her home that it caused them to flee the property because of her neighbour using an Ouija board, also that I actually knew the place she was referring to. That was when I realised she was referring to the Sophia’s place. I am keeping her anonymous, but these are the words she shared with me.

The Next Door Neighbours

When we first moved into our house we found out very quickly of the little spirit girl that floated between houses as she played happily with our daughter nothing else was out of the ordinary. Friends of ours moved next door a year later and from the get go weird stuff started happening, once their boarder moved in all hell broke loose so to speak.

Paranormal activity amped up in a big way, from the sweet little spirit girl who played so nicely with our two-year-old, turning quite mean and nasty, to shadows and black mist type sightings through our adjoining bathroom wall (these houses were all connected).

My daughter would go to the neighbour’s house and return home screaming about the mean man at the top of the stairs. Or the yucky man with the horns that followed her. We asked constantly what they were doing to cause these sighting, and found out they had an Ouija board. The boarder used it for dark reasons but none of them knew how to close it off. 

For months our home was filled with a presence that turned us all into angry violent people, we were pushed down stairs, things moved, dolls and toys possessed, our daughter became a shell of her normal happy self.  I confronted the neighbours, our friends, pleaded with them to stop.  They were provoking the spirits that had always been there, bringing new ones in through the board and we were suffering.

The last straw came for us when a dear friend came over and told us we weren’t safe anymore, he went next door told them what they were doing was going to hurt people, they claimed they would stop but as he was leaving he looked upstairs and didn’t like what he saw. We were driven from our home, we moved in with relatives, I always thought the boards were harmless, how wrong was I.

Anon and I talked a little bit more about her experiences there. I asked her what it was her friend saw at the top of the stairs, she said:

A dark shadow of a man [with a] menacing look and he [friend] got the vibe of they are mine! You will not win! That’s where our friend found him when my daughter refused to go upstairs one night, our friend got woken up and felt he needed to come to our house, when he got there my daughter was hysterical. We went through hell…. The only reprieve was actually when your group were around, it settled for a little bit ‘round that time. But it amped up as soon as Sophia was kicked out of the group.

I then asked anon about the little girl in spirit that we had picked up on in our initial investigation and she said;

Some research we did with a lady who had lived in the street for years, said the little girl had been seen in nearly every house and there were stories of a little girl that died falling down the stairs. She didn’t like adults, but was drawn to kids.

We then had a small conversation about how the wee girl spirit was later being impersonated by the entities to gain their daughter’s trust as until events started amping up in Sophia’s home, the wee girl had been loving and playful, but definitely not mean, evil, or malicious at all and she concluded with:

“The one [spirit] that worried us the most was the devil like man. He followed the car to my friend’s house.  We went there because my daughter would not settle till she saw him, Sophia was with us and tried to tell him she knew what was happening.  He told her to shut up and she was the problem not the solution, soon after that we moved. I doubt if [Sophia’s house] has been cleansed. The street has gone to ruin and they can’t keep tenants in that particular one [house].”

Racquel

This is Racquel. She and I had a very long conversation, almost an hour actually so I am not including all of it in here and I will summarise parts of the conversation in places.

My name is Racquel, I’m from New York. My mother can talk to spirit, see spirit. So, this is where I got my interest from. One day I decided I’d like a Ouija board. We went to ‘Toys-R-Us’. At the time I think I was about fifteen years old. I went to ‘Toys-R-Us’ and I brought a glow in the dark Ouija board. I thought at the time it was just going to be fun, it wasn’t even going to work. You know? And my mother told me you’ve got to be careful with this, I really don’t want you playing with this. I’m going to buy it for you, but hopefully it doesn’t work and it’ll get you to just, you know, get that, that interest out of you. Just so you can do it and after that hopefully nothing happens.

When I played the game, I tried it myself at first and it never worked, until one day I was in school a couple of years had passed actually and the board never worked. A couple of years had passed, I was in high school and I was with my friend and we decided to skip school and stay in my house and I said; “Let’s pull out the Ouija board? Let’s play!” When we played the board was actually active! For the first time. And, I asked, “Who am I speaking too?” and it spelled out Luis. L. U. I. S. And I asked Luis, you know, “How old are you?” He put thirteen. But then when he put thirteen, he went and put the planchette at the middle of the board and he went back down and put the word –  the number seven. When I asked, I said; “Seven? What does seven mean?”

He said, it’s been seven years. I said, “Seven years since you’ve passed?” He said yes, but in form, in his form he said he was as a twenty-year-old. He looked like a twenty-year-old. At the time I’m like ok, “How did you find me? Like, how are you here?” He said, you woke me up, I was lost. I was lost and you, like I found you. I heard your voice.  I kept asking, “Is anyone here? Is anyone here?” And that’s when he said he had heard my voice and I had woke him, I guess.

Time had passed and I started talking to Luis daily and I felt more comfortable with him. Every time I went to the board, it was always Luis. And it came to a point that when I played, when I pulled out the board I didn’t even have to ask, I’d just take out the board and say; “Hey Luis. How’re you doing?” And we’d talk. And it became more of an addiction. Every day I was talking to Luis. Until one day Luis told me that he was sad, that his mother had stopped visiting his grave.

He told me he was from the Dominican Republic and he was, he died in a car crash. He was a passenger and his father was the driver, but his father was the one that stayed alive and he died. He told me that he was so sad that his mother was not visiting his grave, if I could call his mother and tell her to visit him? And at the time I thought, how am I going to call this woman and tell her that her…. That I’m speaking to her dead son and he’s you know, upset that his mother hasn’t visited him and he’s and as if she’s sad, as if she kind of gave up on him? She was so miserable she didn’t want to go to the grave anymore.

I actually ended up calling her and the mother stayed shut on the phone. She stayed quiet and hung up on me.  I didn’t want to call again, because, I felt that was the confirmation that I needed. I said what I said on the phone. I said hi my name is whatever. It was in Spanish; I spoke this all in Spanish. I am bi-lingual. I spoke to her and I said; “I know your son. I spoke to your son and he said…. I don’t know if this is the right person. He gave me your phone number.”  He gave me a phone number to another country. I actually brought a phone card and called his mother. And she stayed on the phone. She stayed quiet as if she had to soak everything in? Maybe? I’m not sure, she just stayed quiet and hung up and I never bothered her again.   

Time had passed, I talked to Luis and then one day I had went to RiteAid and I had had a corn on my toe, like from wearing tight shoes. And I was so embarrassed to go to a RiteAid at a store. I was so embarrassed to buy these corn bandages for your toes, I was so embarrassed to buy it at the cashier. I made somebody else buy it for me. I when I went home and I told the board. I said “Hey Luis, how you doing?” He said it was funny today. That you didn’t want to, he wrote, it’s funny that you didn’t want to buy the bandages. And I said; “What do you mean?” He said I was there. I laughed!  He said I laughed when you didn’t buy the bandages.

And it took me back and that’s when I thought how is he not?  How is he not in the board? Like how is he following me now? So I kept that in and I pretended to laugh, yeah that was funny, that was so funny. But, I kept in my mind like, Luis is not, you know, not in board any more. Luis is now following me. I remember saying I have to tell my mother. I have to tell my mother, now this is scary. So, I’m coming home from work and I’m with my mother and I tell my mother; “Mom, I need to talk with you about something.”

And she said; “You’re playing the Ouija board and you let out a spirit. Didn’t you?”

And I looked at her and said; “How did you know?”

She said,” There’s been a man standing by the door of my ho…. Apartment.” I live in an apartment. She said; “There’s a man standing by the apartment door for the past week! He doesn’t do anything. He just stands there.”

And I immediately started confessing. “Mom, I. . . . Let me tell you what’s been going on.” I started telling her like everything that’s been going on, that I hadn’t told her, because, she always told me she didn’t want me to play it. So because I’m finally wow, she understands, she’s seeing it. I’m like this is not just me. You know, like when I play with my friends, they always thought I was the one moving the planchette or something. You know? That there must be a science behind it that we’re all just unconsciously moving it. But then my Mom gave me the confirmation that she was…. You know, that this guy had been standing there. So I…. So she brought me to the room and I was actually in tears because I was so scared. I’m like wow, I actually brought a spirit out. This is real!

She tells me, “This is how high he is. He’s dark, dark-skinned. He’s a teen, he looks like a teenager, a young man and he’s actually standing right next to you!” She’s like…. She, “The way that he see’s you is more like a little sister. He’s standing by the door. He’s telling me he’s standing by the door because he’s protecting the house. He’s more like securing the house. Like he’s security, he has to stand by the door, to protect us.”

After all of this happened, she’s telling us what he looks like, she’s telling me…. I told her the story about what he told me. She said, “Yes, that I…. He’s telling me the same story.” She actually gave me more details about what happened that night that the kid, that Luis at the time that he was thirteen when it happened. When I would sleep…. My door. I slept in my living room. We only had a one bed-room. My mother had the bedroom and we’d, me and my sister would sleep in living room. And, in the living room there was a hall and down the hall is where the front door is, where Luis would be standing. Every night we would see the silhouette of a man and it got to the point that I didn’t even care anymore. I actually felt safe, seeing the spirit.

One day we decided to go to Florida and I decided, let me take my board with me. I couldn’t…. I couldn’t not take it. One night I was with my cousin and she never played the board. It seemed as if my cousin had this bolt of energy, of…. Of so much like energy in her hands that as soon as she moved, as soon as she put her hands on the planchette Luis was able to, to talk so much faster that we had a harder time keeping up with what he was saying. One night, it was maybe twelve o’clock at night and it’s me and my sister and my cousin. She got a call. While we’re playing, she got a call. And, her boyfriend had fell down the stairs. Oh this is so weird, he fell down the stairs and is in hospital. And I remember as we were playing the game, she asked the board, “Was that you?” And he said yes, that was me. And she said, “Why would you do that?” and he said because he hit you! And she said, “Like, how did you know that?”

I didn’t even know that. I didn’t know she was getting abused. Like he said, he hits you? She said, “Why would you push him down the stairs? He’s in the hospital.”

And behind us the door – my back was against the door, we’re sitting on the floor Indian style. My back is behind the door and he kicks the door! I hear a (Racquel makes a loud banging sound) and we all jolted. We’re like, what’s going on? And I said, is that you? And he said yes that’s me, I’m upset right now. And I said, “why would you do that?” I told him, “Why would you do that?” I can’t believe that he actually did the door, like this is my door (bangs door), that’s what it sounded like. It was very hard and because my back was against it, I was so scared. I opened my door and there was nobody there. The thud woke up my father. Luis said your father’s coming and he himself put goodbye, he swiped it goodbye. And no more than maybe 30 seconds my dad opened the door and I slid the Ouija board under my bed.

From this point Racquel began to have mixed feelings about her conversations with Luis she was scared and she continues:

“Luis can actually touch things now. We went from playing in the board and now he’s following us. He came with us to Florida. He knew what my house looked like. He came with us everywhere it was, it was, really scary.”

Racquel realised he could manipulate physical objects, but she was still obsessed with him and started skipping classes in high school nearly every day and spent days talking with him, hosting what she called ‘Ouija board parties’ in her home. She was at this stage about eighteen years old.  She was totally obsessed and justified her actions by saying that it was really to prove to herself that this was real. But at the same time there was some fear there. And his manipulation of Racquel and control began to show. She says of how it was then:

Luis knows everything. Like, Luis knows things that are going on. Like, he’ll be talking to us here, but he can tell me what someone is doing in their house. Luis would be so, like jealous he wouldn’t want anybody else to come through [on the board]. He’d say no, only I can come through. Only I can speak with you guys. That it got to the point where he would just do that all the time. And a lot of people like, our boyfriends, or people who did stuff to us in school – who were bullies or anybody who did mean, or just rude to me throughout the day, Luis would say he would handle them.

He would tell me, if anybody did anything to you, I will hurt them. And at the time, I thought that was so cool. At the time I thought wow! I have a spirit that I can manipulate. I can ask him to do favours for me. This person is willing to protect me. This person is willing to do things for me. This person talks to me like a normal person. He’ll talk to me about people that I spoke to. Hey that person is not good for you. I don’t like that person for you, this person is not good for you!

I think after that, I had put into my mind that this isn’t and it wasn’t fun anymore. Because a lot of people and I didn’t want them to get hurt. You know? I didn’t want things to happen to these guys that I was dating and if they hurt me, you know, just bad things would happen. A lot of bad luck would happen and I would ask Luis, “Are you responsible for that?” And nonchalantly he would say yes! And that’s when I thought oh this is not fun anymore, because, I didn’t…. He didn’t deserve that; you know? There were just some people I just don’t want to punish. I understand they did me wrong, but I don’t need to punish every single one Luis. I don’t need to do that.

And eventually I stopped playing the game. I stopped playing the Ouija board and I’m twenty-seven now, it was getting dangerous. Can’t say nothing about him. Don’t say nothing bad about him, ‘cause, he’ll hear it! You know? Don’t say nothing bad about me. You’ve got problems with me? Please don’t have no problems with me, because, you don’t want to deal with Luis. That’s how it was. Controlling, he was very controlling. Definitely I see how so into I was and I didn’t care about the information with Luis anymore. It was more about growing up; you know?

It opened up my mind to the spiritual world and what spirits can do and the things that can come from an Ouija board. You know, I always thought I was in control. I put the candles. I lit the sage. I did everything. I did everything. I went online and looked up the Ouija do’s and don’ts. I did everything, all the research you can do on Google. But it doesn’t matter, because, it doesn’t prepare you for who you’re going to come in contact with when you actually do it. And, I thought the candles, the white candles, was going to protect me. I thought the sage was going to protect me. And, maybe they do? Maybe they do protect you? But, I didn’t put the intention I was supposed to, to protect me. I didn’t put that white light around me. I didn’t do any of that. I just thought at the time, you know, it said put white candles and I did it. But, I didn’t put that intent, that meditation and praying into you know, say what I wanted. I didn’t do that. Now that I’m grown up I ‘m like oh my God! [Thinking back on it]

Racquel still has mixed feelings about her ‘relationship’ with Luis. A part of her recognises that she was being controlled and in part manipulated by Luis, whilst part of her still sees him as a friend.

The Birthday Wish

This next experience comes from Corena.

A small group of 6 of us got together for our friends 15th birthday at his house. We decided we’d try create a Ouija board, writing it all on a piece of paper and using a 50c coin as our mover. Some were too scared and watched so 4 of us partook.

We didn’t know what we were doing. One friend spoke up and said “are there any spirits present?” Nothing happened for the first minute but eventually the coin slowly moved. We initially started blaming each other for moving the coin or started to think it was nerves moving it subconsciously. After persevering, as it started to speed up, we realized it was spelling words between gibberish.

We took a break ‘cause, we were all a bit baffled and frightened. After a while, we couldn’t stop thinking about it and had another go. It would say Hello, we’d ask their message and it would say “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” Wow – that was cool! We thought. We then asked who it was? The reply was “DAD”.  Our birthday friend needed time out so we exited. Some of us knew his Dad took his own life about 10 years prior and we felt sad for him.

Once again, we had another go. This time we got an innocent but very scared, 5-year-old boy. We felt sorry for him & tried to piece together the sad life he once lived. He had a bubbly loving mother but horrible abusive father, he wouldn’t disclose how he died and was getting more distraught with every question we asked…. Eventually he told us he needed us to do something. Our anxiety levels started to rise but we had trusted this poor sad little boy. “What is it you want us to do?” a friend asked, thinking it’d be harmless.

The board spelt these words, continuously, over & over until we exited the board. ‘SATISFY MY REQUEST, SATISFY MY REQUEST.’ By then, we knew we certainly had tapped in to something sinister and that it wasn’t one of us playing around.

We took a half hour breather, but were still intrigued, so jumped back on the board. This time, we got a 90year old lady. We were very alert that something might be playing around with us pretending to be a child or elderly. This one was short, as we asked her name. Her response “666”.

We exited immediately and destroyed the handwritten paper board, vowing that we had come across something evil. We didn’t sleep much that night, talking about happy things to distract us. Luckily nothing further came from our experience but looking back, it was such a bad idea & one that certainly taught us a lesson.

The Shadow Under the Door.

From Christina

I was thinking about this a couple weeks ago and thought about posting my experience…. Not a super traumatic one but freaky at that.

I was living with a friend of mine at her parent’s house when I was I think fifteen or sixteen years old, (I’m thirty-four now). so it was me, her and another friend but I can’t remember who right now. It was day time and we decided to have a go at making our own Ouija board. I think it was with a mirror. So obviously we decided to give it a test go.

I don’t remember what we asked it, probably something like “Are there any spirits here with us?”

My friends dog was in the room with us and suddenly jolted up and looked at the bedroom door and run up to it and started franticly barking at it. We saw a shadow at the bottom of the door but no one opened it to come in. It just stayed there while the dog kept barking. Our hearts were pounding! The dog eventually stopped barking and we opened the door to see clearly no one was there. We were so freaked out. To this day I think about this occasion often.

Nick

Finally; this next experience shows that you don’t even actually have to use a board yourself to cause issues in your life, as with the experience shared earlier this episode. This was one that a friend of mine had. Nick messaged me pretty much immediately he had the first experience in his home and I saw the whole event unfold and saw the aftermath of it all.

Nick: My name is Nick and I live in Michigan, which is in the United States. I’m friends with Marianne, but I wanted to give my experiences with the Ouija board. I’ve had quite a few, I don’t mess with it any more. Probably the earliest I started playing with the Ouija board, probably in my late teens, early twenties. It was right when I met my girl, well my wife now.

We went over to a friend’s house and would go play with it over there. One of the main – I guess, big events that I knew it’s not anything to mess around with is one time, you know, we were playing with it and we didn’t have the planchette, we couldn’t find it. So, we had the candle lit, that was next to the board and on the top. It was a glass candle, so it had like that rubber ring around it and we took that off to use that as the planchette.

And within a few minutes of using that, all of a sudden we looked down and there was blood forming on the other side of the ring. And you know, it wasn’t there [before]. We’d seen it with our own eyes appearing! And then from one corner of the room to around the whole room it went completely black! And like, the candle was lit and the flame shot up. It was just a normal flame and then it was probably a good maybe two feet tall! You know, it was huge and it wasn’t even…. The flame was off the wick. And so that was weird. But, the one thing is, like the whole room was blacked out and there was no reflection of light anywhere. Like the light from the candle was just in that spot where the candle was. And then after that….

Marianne: How did that make you feel Nick?

Well, at the time I was…. Well at the time I kind of…. I wasn’t afraid, but it was more so like interesting. ‘Cause, I’d never seen that happen before out of all the other times that we’d used it. And what happened too is, we’d had this one spirit who’d every time we used it, he would come up. And he, you know, he torments us and we knew at that second who was coming when the room blacked out like that. 

And he started talking to us through the board and then our friend, she was sitting on the bed and it was just me and my well, girlfriend at the time – now my wife. We were using the board and all of a sudden, she started choking and she was like, she couldn’t breathe. And we looked over and on her throat there was finger prints, and it was to the point where her face was turning blue! And so finally we were, ok stop it! Leave her alone! And then finally, you know, whatever it was let go of her and she could breath again. And then from after that, you know, we stopped playing with the board.

Actually, after that we were walking home and my girlfriend ended up getting possessed by whatever was following us from that night. And I knew she was possessed, because, we were walking and all of a sudden she just completely stopped! And she let go of my hand and she put her head down and I was like…. You know…. I looked at my friends and they asked like, what is she doing? Like, so I asked “Hey, what are you doing? Are you ok? What’s wrong?”

And she didn’t answer so I asked a few more times and she didn’t answer. And then finally, I grabbed her arm and then I was like what’s wrong? And she lifted up her head and her eyes were completely red! Like blood, crimson red! No pupil nothing. Just complete, really red. And her voice…. Her voice was like…. I wanna say like three voices in one! As they say it, you know? And it wasn’t her voice, it was a dark, like heavy raspy voice and she said; “Don’t fucking touch me!” And then she threw my arm down and put her head down.

And then I was like…. I looked at my friends again and I’m like “Did you see that?” And they go like…. They didn’t know what to say either. And so then, I tried again. And I was like, you ok? All of a sudden she looked up and her eyes were normal and she was like, “Where are we?”, you know.” Like what are we doing?”

It’s like, “We’re walking home.” And she’s like, “Why are we here?”

She’s like, “Last I knew, we were in the, in her room playing with the board!”

Wow. That must have been really scary?

Yeah, so that’s one experience that we had and then the main one I was going to talk about. It was probably…. What was it? Three years ago now maybe?

Well close to three years, yeah.

Yeah. My wife ran into one of our old friends and we’re…. You know us, we’re into Halloween stuff and gothic stuff and all that. And so, she ran into a friend and she was selling some of her stuff and she had an Ouija board. And, it was a different one than…. You know, it wasn’t a wooden looking one. It was one, I dunno, probably one that you could get at hot topic or some kind of weird design like that. She thought it would be cool just to hang up in the house.

So she brought it home and after she brought it home, like that night, I was laying in bed and all of a sudden I heard my son’s voice saying, “Mom, Dad! Where are you?” And we knew, you know, we had put him in bed and he was sleeping. So like, that’s strange. It’s the middle of the night and he’s asking for us.  So I got up to check on him and he was sleeping. Not making a sound or nothing. And then, so I went back to bed.

And then probably about twenty minutes or so later I heard his voice again. And I thought what is that? What is he doing up again? So I went and checked on him and he’s still sleeping, you know. But, that time when I went back out of his room, I seen a black shadow dart from his room into the living room. And I was ok, there’s something here! And well, I’m kind of used to spirits ‘cause, I’m a medium too. But, I could feel this is not an ordinary spirit. I could tell this was a darker spirit. And this was when I talked to you about it.

And from there, the next day, same thing. I heard you know, my son’s voice and I was like that – I know it’s not him, you know? And so we’re trying to figure out what’s going on. And then you said that you also felt like a male spirit in here that’s not so good. And from there he kind of let himself be known. And you’d seen that there was this nasty spirit that was in here, that was hiding and he was just messing with us. And we both felt that, you know, things might get worse. We then figured out it came with the board. So even though we didn’t play with it or nothing. Something was already attached to it from you know, whoever played with it and it came through. And so, even if you don’t play with something you know, and you bring it into your house, you still can have troubles with it.

Yes! Absolutely! And I remember, it took a little bit of effort to get rid of that entity out of your home and it did cause you physical harm.

Yep! Yeah, when we finally finally figured out where he was hiding I tried to use…. I didn’t have sage at the time, but I tried to use incense. And he didn’t want to get out of here. He was having fun, you know, tormenting us.

Yeah he was.

So while I was trying to get him out yeah, he punched me in the face and in the chest. I even had red marks, where I took the pictures and showed you. So that was my, actually my first time you know, being attacked by a spirit like that. And it’s weird because you don’t think it’s going to happen to you. You know, that something like that. I mean, I’d heard being scratched and stuff like that, but being hit like that? It felt like someone actually hit me. But eventually, you know, we did get rid of him. That was the last time I had anything to do with the board. I don’t even want one in the house now, ‘cause, you just never know.

I saw the aftermath, the images of Nick after he had been assaulted by the entity. He had very real, very red nasty marks on his body where the entity had hit him. He sent me photos immediately after it had happened. He naturally, was pretty shook up about it. Nick removed the board from his home after this experience, but before he did, he cleansed the board and closed the portal that had been left open allowing the entity access to his home. He then destroyed the board and has had no further issues in his home. So you don’t always have to physically use a board to allow access. If as in his case, if you purchase a second hand one, you have no idea what it was used for beforehand, or if it was left open as this one was.

In this episode we’ve heard a number of experiences that people have had using, or being around someone who is, or has been using an Ouija board. Some seem pretty harmless; some are pretty scary. But the question is, are Ouija boards merely a game with very clever marketing? Or are they actually a door through which your worst nightmare could step? And if they are, then one would have to suppose that the “ghost boxes’ and other forms of communication with the spirit world are actually the same, or rather could produce the same results? What do you all think? Let me know your thoughts. You can email me shadowlands@yhoo.com, or flick me a line through the podcast website: www.walkingtheshadowlands.com

I want to thank all the members of my Walking the Shadowlands Facebook group who were kind enough to share their experiences with us. There were so many stories shared on the post I made asking members if they had any experiences, that it was actually really hard to leave them out, so for those whose experiences didn’t make this episode, it wasn’t because they were not interesting, it was merely a matter of time constraints. And who knows? If there is enough interest in this episode, I may do another one with just experiences, and yours will be used in that episode. In the mean time for those of you listening to this episode at night, sleep well.

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• Are you scared yet? by Sascha Ende (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/saschaende/59247 Ft: Admiral Bob