Ask Erin: Are ouija boards real?
February 21st, 2006 by Erin Pavlina
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Question: I’m curious to know if you believe in ouija boards. Can they be used to connect with those who have passed on? I know some people say they are demonic and lead to possession. What is your opinion? - Scott
Answer: When I was about 10 years old I cajoled my mom into buying me a ouija board. I figured it would be great for talking to spirits. I used to sit and “play” with it and nothing ever happened. I put it away for years. When I was 15 and hitting the heights of my psychic abilities, I had a couple of friends who seemed to be into the ouija board and asked me to try it with them.
There were three of us. We darkened the room, lit candles, made the room spooky and scary, the whole nine yards. I didn’t expect anything to really happen. We all put our fingers on the planchette (the pointer) and asked if a spirit was there. For a few moments nothing happened and we repeated our request that a spirit attend us. The middle of my palm started to tingle and I could feel something like static electricity in my hands. The planchette began to move and I could feel a tugging in my palm like something invisible was pulling it.
No one was more shocked than I was! But I really felt something. You might be wondering if the other two girls were pushing the planchette. We all accused each other of pushing it, but I know we weren’t. We switched to putting just one finger each on the planchette, very lightly, there’s no way we could have moved it without someone noticing the effort. We also experimented and discovered that the planchette only moved when I was touching it with one of the other girls and not when the other two girls touched it without me. I refused to touch it alone because I thought a spirit could possess me if I did.
So what came through? We were channeling a spirit who identified itself just as “T” and supposedly he was hanged in the 1800s for murder. Stupidly, we continued to chat with this spirit. We asked the spirit who we were going to marry, what was going to happen to us in the future, and all the lovely things teenage girls want to know. He responded by telling us we were all going to Hell where we would burn for eternity and that he was going to kill us. He described in great detail how he was going to torture us. It wasn’t pretty.
That put a damper on things, believe me. We tried to get rid of him but it was tough and he would interrupt other spirits who were talking to us and take over the planchette. In hindsight, we should have stopped, but we didn’t. We were too curious and we thought we could force him to tell us the truth.
Since we never got any real information we could use and it was all just posturing and poppycock from this T character, I couldn’t really say if the ouija board was “real” or not. Until one night that I received confirmation that the ouija board really does work, and after that night, I threw my board away. Here’s what happened.
My parents were out of town and my 17 year old brother threw a party. One of those nice, big raging high school parties you see in the movies. He told me and my twin sister that we could only invite a couple of friends over and that we had to stay in our rooms so we didn’t annoy the older partiers. Yeah, whatever. So I invited over these two friends and we went into my room and brought out the ouija board.
We were doing the usual and getting a lot of spiritual chatter, as I liked to call it. Suddenly, three guys from the party just walked into my room, holding their beers and laughing. They said, “Oh we didn’t know someone was in here. Sorry. Hey, what’s that you’re doing there?” We told the guys we were channeling spirits and they all laughed at us. I didn’t know any of the guys from school. For all I knew, they didn’t even go to our school. The party was spilling into the street and there was probably over 100 people in our house partying.
The boys mocked us and told us to prove it was real. So we asked the board a question and the planchette was moving around all over the place. That gave the boys pause but they thought we were pushing it. So one guy, Frank, said, “I know! I’ll ask a question that you couldn’t possibly know the answer to and if you get it right without me touching that pointer thing then I’ll know this is real.” That seemed fair. This is the question he asked, “If I had a son, what would I name him?”
The ouija board moved quickly and spelled out “Chase.” We looked up at Frank and it was like he’d seen a ghost. His mouth hung open and he nearly dropped his beer. He said, “No freaking way! No freaking way!” His hands were shaking. One of the other boys said, “Dude, what’s the big deal?” Frank said, “It’s just that, well, I never told you guys this before but I actually DO have a son, and his name is Chase.” With trembling hands he took out his wallet and pulled out a picture of a young woman (a teenager herself) holding a baby boy and on the back of the picture it said, “This is your son, Chase. Love, Tina”
Frank was beside himself. He said, “There’s no freaking way you guys could have known that. I’ve never told ANYONE about my son. I cannot freaking believe this thing is real.”
Frankly, we were pretty shocked too. Chase isn’t that common of a name so it was unlikely we’d get it just from guessing. Frank was so struck by the experience that he sat down on the floor with us, grabbed the board and said, “You guys do this with me. I want to know more!” We spent about 15 minutes doing the board with him and then we wanted to be done, but Frank just couldn’t stop. He told his buddies to get on the floor with him and do it and they did. No one was laughing or mocking us now. We left them alone and went to my sister’s room for the rest of the party.
By dawn, the house was clear except for Frank and his buddies who were still doing the ouija board. My brother found them in my room and said, “What the hell are you guys doing in here? I thought you left the party hours ago. No one knew where you were. Have you been in my sister’s room this whole time?”
They didn’t even realize dawn had come! When the boys left they looked at us like we were witches (oh how I recognized that look). They were at once terrified and in awe of us.
But I realized something after that experience. The ouija board does work. I think it takes a certain energy or a certain type of person to work it. And I also think that allowing spirits to work through your body without protecting yourself first is a really bad idea. I decided that it was too dangerous to continue doing it and my friends agreed with me. We stopped “playing” with the board after that experience.
So, in summary, yes I believe ouija boards can be used to have contact with the spirit realm, but I don’t think they are the best way to accomplish that connection. You need to resonate at a very high frequency/vibration in order to attract spirits of a good nature. Higher energy beings don’t prefer to contact people with ouija boards, but the negative, low energy spirits do, and they like to be deceitful and tricky. Plus you need to protect yourself since you’re giving the spirit access to your physical body (at least your hands and who knows what else). So consider yourself warned.
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February 22nd, 2006 at 6:31 am
This seems to unbeleivable . Because it is.
And the story has some glitches in it, huh?
I’m interested in lucid dreaming, nontheless. That sounds to be a lot more real…
February 22nd, 2006 at 8:43 am
How was Frank able to get it to work on his own?
February 22nd, 2006 at 8:47 am
Frank wasn’t doing it alone. First he did it with two of us, then he had his two buddies do it with him. As to how he was able to get it to work, I’m not sure. After a short while we left him and I have no idea what his experiences were like after that.
February 22nd, 2006 at 9:30 pm
My sister and I used to do the ouija and it sure seemed to work for us too. It did get kind of creepy and we also stopped using it.
The one incident that stands out in my memory is that we were “speaking” with this one spirit who said its name was Seth Freeman. We talked to it for awhile, and then went downstairs to watch TV. The ending credits from the show “Lou Grant” was on. And there, rolling down the screen was “Producer Seth Freeman.”
Needless to say we freaked out!
February 25th, 2006 at 11:03 pm
This is difficult for me to beleive. In fact - it really disturbs me. Since I read your husbands blog regularly and I trust him, I also transfer that trust to you. From any other blogger I would have tossed this aside as nonsence. From you - I’m just not sure.
One thing is for sure. This is not a story that can simply come and go. You really owe it to your readers to discuss the subject of spirituality more. Because of this blog entry, I now must reassess my own agnostic beliefs and do more research on this. It makes me a bit afraid and a bit curious - thus curiously disturbed.
Trouble is - when I do my research, how do I decide who to beleive and who to ignore.
Can we believe you? If so, I must reassess everything.
February 26th, 2006 at 6:14 am
@Curiously Disturbed: I appreciate why you are disturbed. I will spend some time next week talking about spirituality, religion, and the paranormal. To answer your other question, reading from books is fine but it can’t replace personal experience. If you do decide to read about this from books, keep an open mind but not to the point of gullibility. There is definitely a lot of garbage out there. Nearly everything I know about the paranormal was learned through personal experience; and after I had those experiences I went to books for an explanation or clarification. If you, yourself, are not having paranormal experiences then I can see why it would be hard to believe this stuff.
But if this story disturbs you… well… you ain’t heard nothing yet. I’m easing into it so I don’t scare people.
February 26th, 2006 at 9:18 am
Curiously Disturbed,
I don’t think you have to worry - this is probably a case of “Columbus’s Ships” or intention manifestion (as some like to call it). When columbus landed, many of the natives could not see the ships until one pointed out the ripples around the ships - then instantly the ships all appeared. Probably, she wanted to contact the “spirits” so much she manifested it. As for the chase story, it could just be intense manifestation - not necessarily contacting “spirits.”
Read the latest on bioquantum mechanics and you’ll see that there is an equally likely chance that the whole thing was manifested by Erin.
So - to answer whether Ouija boards real? - I don’t think so - chances this could have been created by any other “device” as well. No need to get rid of your daughter’s Ouija board (yet)
February 26th, 2006 at 8:41 pm
In terms of who to trust about this subject or any other, you need to really decide that for yourself, imo. If Erin (and Steve) feel credible to you, and their experiences make sense and mesh with yours, then it makes sense to trust what they say. It doesn’t make it any more true than others experiences, but it’s good to find others who you feel a connection with one way or another.
I find when I read various spiritual or self help books, some hit home with me, and others don’t. I prefer to stick with those authors where when I read them I just nod in agreement the whole time because I just know it’s true.
Then there are other ones creep me out because they say and have experiences that seem to go against my own beliefs. So I simply choose not to believe in what they say. Although I’m quite sure they’re not lieing or making stuff up, they just come at things through a different perspective. Other people coming from their perspective probably would connect fine with those thinkers. They’re just not for me.
June 16th, 2006 at 11:03 am
When I was younger my friends and I used to play with the Ouija board quite a bit. At first I was very skeptical and quite frankly I didn’t believe it really worked. This all changed one day when myself and two other people asked the Ouija board to “prove” to us that it really worked and gave it specific instructions as to where we wanted to see this “proof”. At the time we presented this challenge to the spirit we were in the basement. When we came upstairs to the room where we asked to see the proof we found on the full length mirror the word “Die” scrawled in red lipstick. The letters were drawn to appear as if they were liquid (blood). From that day forward “Die” began appearing on various mirrors within the house. Nearly every time I showered, when the mirror became fogged, “Die” was written on the large mirror in the bathroom. I thoroughly examined and cleaned the mirror many times before and after the writing would appear and never found any indication that this writing was due to a real-world explanation. The writing continued until the day I moved.
June 21st, 2006 at 11:34 am
Very interesting to read about. I’ve experienced it myself, but I’m not sure I believe it or not.
August 16th, 2006 at 1:10 pm
Having had a great interest in the paranormal in my youth, I’ve experienced the Ouija board on a number of occasions and each time met with “success”. I put that in quotes because i’ve been shook up by a number of pretty unfriendly spirits which led me to quit using it. Each of these experiences were very real and I believe what Erin is saying is true.
August 28th, 2006 at 10:32 am
Erin,
Thank you for sharing your stories. If nothing else, I appreciate knowing that my past personal experiences are not just “figments of my imagination” — which isn’t always a good thing!
Now married, and age 46, I can attest to the ouija board (OB) being a tool that can bring answers to those whom are open enough to receive them. However, rest assured, for some… it’s more than they bargained for; playing with such a device does not happen without repercussion.
I implore you (and others) to proceed with caution!
To Non-believers:
If you find yourself unable to believe that a Ouija Board is B-A-D to play with, based on what Erin divulges here — I must also ask if you’re quick to shrug off miracles simply because you don’t get to witness one first hand!?
To me, this seems to be an ongoing struggle with the mind set of today. That is — If I can’t prove it, it isn’t real. Yet, many visit churches on Sunday and don’t have a problem with tithing or bowing their heads in prayer. Again, one must ask, “How many Christians have seen the divine in physical form?” Yet, each Sunday, the pews are filled with believers.
One doesn’t need to SEE in order to FEEL something to be truth.
But, take a look around you; the world is full of opposites!
- Black and white
- Night and day
- Salt and pepper
- Happy and sad
- Laughing and crying
- Married and single
- Good and bad
- Wealth and poverty
…and the list continues.
To Erin:
Youre making “perfect sense” to those whom it matters most to hear through you.
Yes, you are truly here for a reason. Your purpose is to teach and share with those most receptive to you. True, you won’t reach everyone — and this is acceptable. However, your instructions will resonate with a select audience and to me, this is the best path.
Good luck with your journey. I applaud your walk!
November 4th, 2006 at 9:47 am
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