Posted on 11/17/2020 7:06:00 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The Ouija board almost always emerges amid discussions about the pitfalls of playing with fire. Some dismiss the game as simple and harmless, while others see it as a diabolical window into the spirit world — a tool that can open users up to demonic influence.
There are countless stories of people claiming unexplainable phenomena after playing the game. These claims, which are understandably met with skepticism, seem to challenge the common framing of the board as a mere parlor game.
Dr. Michael Brown is among those who warn people to be wary of the Ouija board. “You’re trying to get in tune with supernatural knowledge, with supernatural information; you’re trying to make contact with another realm,” he said. “And even if for a lot of people nothing really happens and it’s just a piece of wood or whatever, the goal is to make something happen.”
Sold by toy giant Hasbro, the Ouija board’s official sales language promises to let users into the “world of the mysterious and mystifying,” offering people ages eight and up answers from “the spirit world.”[iv]
“Ask your question with a friend using the planchette that comes with the board, but be patient and concentrate because the spirits can’t be rushed,” the description continues. “Handle the Ouija board with respect and it won’t disappoint you!”
This description hasn’t changed all that much since 1891, when the toy was advertised in the Pittsburgh Dispatch. An ad at the time said that the board’s “mysterious movements invite the most careful research and investigation — apparently forming the link which unites the known with the unknown, the material with the immaterial.”[v]
One of the most remarkable facts about the Ouija board is that its general design and appearance hasn’t radically changed much over the years. It has essentially always been a board with letters of the alphabet, numbers zero through nine, and the words yes, no, and goodbye.[ix]
And there has apparently always been a planchette — the device that is said to move around the board, exposing letters and numbers in ordered fashion. But its origins have always been a bit clouded in uncertainty.
The roots of the board were set in the mid-nineteenth century when America experienced what Smithsonian magazine called an “obsession with spiritualism” and the belief that the living could communicate with the dead.[x] By 1886, the Associated Press was reporting on the new emergence of so-called talking boards, and by 1890 a group of businessmen led by Charles Kennard, from Baltimore, had come together to figure out a way to monetize the new tool.[xi]
At that point, Kennard and his team — which included attorney Elijah Bond and Col. Washington Bowie — formed the Kennard Novelty Company, but they hadn’t yet come up with a name for the talking board. Murch told Smithsonian magazine that it was Bond’s sister-in-law, Helen Peters, a purported medium, who is said to have conjured up the name after asking the board what they should call it.[xii]
A US patent granted for the Ouija board on February 10, 1891, includes images of the board and lists Bond as the inventor.[xiii] The patent describes the toy in detail and proclaims that the men sought “to produce a toy or game by which two or more persons can amuse themselves by asking questions of any kind and having them answered by the device used and operated by the touch of the hand.”
The creators used the fact that the Ouija board was granted a patent in advertising language to help sell the product, with one newspaper ad in the late 1800s proclaiming that “Ouija was thoroughly tested at the United States Patent Office before the patent was allowed.”[xiv]
It didn’t take long for these so-called talking boards to become a big hit, with San Francisco’s the Morning Call reporting in 1893 that “planchette fever” had broken out in Northern California, noting that people were “anxious to hold communion with the dead and distant living.”[xvi]
The Kennard Novelty Company eventually expanded to a second factory in Baltimore and opened locations in New York, Chicago, and London. Within a few years, Smithsonian noted that Bond and Kennard were no longer involved with the company, and that it was being run by a man named William Fuld.[xvii]
Now, Fuld’s story is one of the strangest elements in the history of the Ouija board’s evolution. His life came to a tragic end on February 26, 1927, with the New York Times publishing a February 27 obituary titled, “Ouija Board Inventor Dies in Fall Off Roof: Fuld Loses His Balance While Placing New Flag Pole on His Toy Factory.”[xviii]
According to the obituary, Fuld fell “three stories to the street from the roof of his toy factory.” The Times article, which seems to incorrectly label Fuld as the creator of the board, doesn’t mention some of the other purported details of the story — mainly that Fuld claimed the board told him to build the very factory from which he fell and died.[xx] It’s a strange story indeed, but one worthy of recounting in light of the board’s ongoing infamy.
The popularity of the Ouija board has ebbed and flowed over the years, with times of uncertainty such as war purportedly driving more interest and usage. Spiritualism itself exploded during the Civil War, with the mass of American deaths fueling people’s quest to connect with their deceased loved ones.[xxi]
Remarkably, Parker Brothers sold 2 million Ouija boards in 1967 after the company bought the game, and decades earlier in 1944 — a time of international strife — one department store is said to have sold fifty thousand units.[xxii]
But why has the board lived on and maintained its place in culture? Murch has argued that the 1973 movie The Exorcist transformed how people view the Ouija board, as the film “terrified America.”[xxiii]
At the end of the day, not everyone believes the accounts of those who experiment with Ouija boards. Are they lying, delusional, or simply imagining what’s unfolding? Regardless of where you stand, it’s impossible to deny that millions of people claim to have experienced something seemingly otherworldly. Either way, why risk playing with fire?
Scripture implores us to “put on the full armor of God” so that we can “stand against the devil’s schemes.” It also tells us that the real struggle we face is a spiritual one. It’s easy to forget these truths in our hyper-material world. But I fully explain the dangers of this perspective in Playing with Fire: A Modern Investigation into Demons, Exorcism, and Ghosts where you can explore how this all manifests and why faith truly matters.
Excerpted from PLAYING WITH FIRE: A MODERN INVESTIGATION INTO DEMONS, EXORCISM, AND GHOSTS. by Billy Hallowell. Published by Emanate Books, a division of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.
There are somewhat similar concepts you can use to get in touch with your subconcious thought processes.
I played around with one a bit 40+ years ago. It gave some surprising and surprisingly accurate answers to questions.
Nothing which seemed supernatural, simply things that did not seem likely, from a personal perspective, which later turned out to be absolutely correct.
Again,not prophesy, but attitudes and preferences which became important.
i never get the title to this book correct but in the “darker side of supernatural” the researchers found that this and drugs were the fastest way to demon possession. like many teens, i used one of these with a group of my girlfriends. every time i was near the thing, it would say, “i hate you” repeatedly. needless to say, i didn’t use it for long.
Anyone who believes an inanimate hunk of metal can kill someone is just dumb...
It's not the board itself, so much as the intent to communicate with spirits...which is warned against in Scripture:
"Or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you.
Deuteronomy 18:11-12
"Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour."
1 Peter 5:8
oh that’s cute. Stupid. But cute.
It isn’t the tool...it is those who wield it...
But a $20 mass produced toy is NOT a tool. It’s freaking Monopoly for people who can’t do math.
Ouija boards are demonstrably more trustworthy than Dominion election systems. Would the courts accept Ouija boards to count votes?
I believe Satan is real and he has many minions at his command. I believe demonic possession is real but it is more in line with stories from the New Testament where it is by-and-large freakish, uncontrolled behavior. I believe there are those under demonic influence (different from possession) who can and do act normally but do evil. I believe it is possible to invite in dark spirits as well as it is possible to cast them from you.
Because of my personal beliefs, I choose to avoid anything I consider trifling with Satanism, be that a game, movie, music, novels, etc. I don’t believe any such activity will result in possession, but I believe it can open one to influence from the dark side of supernaturalism and that can have devastating effects on a person and those around him or her. Everyone has a right to make their own decisions.
If one doesn't believe in the preternatural or supernatural, then one can be excused for not taking seriously the struggle between the good and the dark forces that goes on around us.
For the rest of us, however, we know that the dark forces (the Devil and his minions) hate us and will use any device to try and influence us to, if not turn to evil, to abandon the fight against evil. This includes the media, politics, and inanimate objects like drugs, pornography and, yes, Ouija boards.
My personal evidence is anecdotal, of course, but I've know both people that played with Ouija boards and nothing happened to them, and those that played with them and suffered disturbing and sometimes dire effects.
Many exorcists have noted that if you open yourself up to the Devil, he will take you up on your invitation. Some of these gateways include the media (especially pornography) and occult practices (like New Age, mediums, psychics, etc). The book and movie, "The Exorcist" was based on a true and well documented case (except the possessed child was a boy) and, yes, his troubles started with his using a Ouija board while staying in his aunts home.
Please...tools do not have to be expensive or well made to be effective.
If you don’t believe in other realms, fine. I am guessing that you are not a Christian or a Jew since the Bible has several accounts of interactions of a supernatural nature. By being dismissive, you are being disrespectful of those who do believe.
Does a string of cheap beads with a charm in the shape of a man being tortured have significance?
Is a bunch of paper and ink bound in leather worthy of respect?
There are objects that help us focus on our Creator and Savior and their are objects that help us focus on His counterpart.
Choose wisely.
"I steered the pointer around myself, so I know it's fake.
LOL. You mean you know it was fake in your particular situation.
But it’s NOT A TOOL. It’s a TOY. A stupid toy that has NO PROVEN effectiveness for doing ANYTHING.
I’m disrespecting MORONS who believe stupid crap. Being a Christian doesn’t mean you can’t use your brain and realize that there’s nothing to a ouija board. It’s a just a dumb little chunk of plastic and a cardboard. All your false equivalencies show even you know it’s junk.
If it was real the blindfolded upside down board test would work. But it doesn’t. Every time you blindfold the users and flip the board they go to all the wrong spots.
I’ve chose wisely. So can you. God gave you higher reasoning faculties for a reason. USE THEM.
OUIJA boards work because of a phenomena called ideomotor response.
The human mind has the inherent ability to split into multiple parts, each of which may not be consciously aware of the others.
I know how odd it seems but people do it a lot.
From Wikipedia ------------ The ideomotor phenomenon is a psychological phenomenon wherein a subject makes motions unconsciously. Also called ideomotor response (or ideomotor reflex) and abbreviated to IMR, it is a concept in hypnosis and psychological research.[2]
It is derived from the terms "ideo" (idea, or mental representation) and "motor" (muscular action). The phrase is most commonly used in reference to the process whereby a thought or mental image brings about a seemingly "reflexive" or automatic muscular reaction, often of minuscule degree, and potentially outside of the awareness of the subject.
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.
People who use Morse code sometimes become aware of this phenomenon. Morse is an obsolete method of communication these days so those noticing this effect are mainly Ham Radio operators.
If you lose your train of thought while sending Morse your subconscious can sometimes fill in the rest of the message without the direction of the conscious mind.... this has been referred to as "Brass Doodling" (Morse keys were once made mostly of brass metal)
In psychiatry ideomotor response is sometimes used as a way to get info from the subconscious using finger responses. It is a simple technique where the hand is rested palm-up and slight movements of the fingers signal answers such as "No", "yes", "I don't know"..etc
Some people use the finger responses to help when taking multiple choice examinations...ie if the pinky twitches the answer is A or 1, if the ring finger twitches it is B or 2...and so on. The idea is the subconscious has better access to memory than the conscious mind.
Ideomotor response is a rather odd but very common phenomena that hints at abilities we all possess but rarely utilize or take notice of.
Isn't the question actually "can trying to reach the spirit world be dangerous?"
Exorcists tell us that it is.
Not sure if it matters whether a Quiji board is used or not.
BTW, the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung used a planchette (Quiji board pointer/writer) for "automatic writing" in an effort to reach his own unconscious mind and the "collective unconscious."
It’s a mass produced piece of cardboard and plastic.
Case of mind over matter.
You are half right. The problem is not the board. The board is just a vehicle for the problematic heart, which always goes seeking what God has forbidden. Look at Eve in the Garden of Eden. God gave her every tree in the garden except the one tree, and which one did she go for? The one tree. Any heart that goes seeking demons (whether she calls them demons, or knowledge, or ghosts, or whatever) will find demons.
That’s a great post, thanks.
They say that if you put a million monkeys in front of a million typewriters one of them will eventually type out the works of Shakespeare.
I think the Ouija phenomenon is similar: with so many units sold it's inevitable that sometimes real words will be spelled out that will dovetail with events in the lives of those playing the game.
This will happen even more often if people "cheat" and force the Ouija board to spell out the words they want.
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