Then prove it. You’ve been asked several times in this thread to substantiate this claim, and you’ve declined. Prove it, or let it go.
Well, Vanilla, I dunno about the notion that the ouija board is made solely for the purpose of divination of the future. My impression is that most serious users of ouija boards are not trying to forecast the future, but to get in touch with the dead. That’s not condemned in the bible – Saul contacts the spirit of Samuel after his death, and Paul talks to Jesus after his death.
I also find a serious problem with your claim that any attempt to divine the future is, per se, evil. I consult the newspaper every morning to try to divine the weather, am I committing a sin? Is my newspaper evil or demonic for daring to try to forecast the weather? The My stockbroker attempts to divine the future of various stocks; is that satanic? Most politicians try to figure out whether they will win the next election, is that satanic? Wait, don’t answer the one about politicians, they probably are all pure evil.
And finally, I have a problem with your main premise that the board itself is demonic. I can understand your point that some people use it for what you consider to be evil purposes; but does that make the thing itself evil? After all, not everyone uses it for the “evil” purpose of foretelling the future. Some use it to try to contact dead loved ones, some use it for the fun of playing a rather silly game, or for reading the past (“Where did I lose my ring?”)
Some people use money for evil purposes; does that mean money is itself evil? Some people use computers for evil purposes; does that mean computers are themselves demonic? Some people use baseball bats to murder their spouses, does that mean that baseball is satanic? Seems to me that an object cannot be good or evil, it’s just an object, that is put to good or evil purposes by different people.
The dangers regarding ouija boards, or any other superstitious beliefs, lies not in the item, but the persons who attribute them with power, and then choose to act on those beliefs.
Want examples? see http://www.dangerousideas.net
Like you said, vanilla, they’re not going to listen. You are right of course. Certain things were made specifically for occultic purposes. Ouija boards were made for communication with the spirit word, just as tarot cards were made for the purpose you stated above. These things are forbidden in scripture. But, of course, these guys probably aren’t going to listen no matter what we say.
Apparently, neither are you. Do you just focus in on the posts that agree with you, or do you bother to read what others have to say?
Of course I read other people’s posts. How coud I answer them if I didn’t read them? Of course I don’t read every post on the whole board, I’d be on here forever. Don’t have that kind of time.
Then somehow you missed all of the posts actually discussing whether or not the Ouija Board is “evil”; instead, you keep bleating that “they’re not listening.”
SkepticRob said:
Well said. And welcome to the Board! Haven’t talked to ya in a while. (This is David from REALL, in case you didn’t know.)
His4ever said:
You know, if you’re gonna keep whining that nobody listens to you, why do you bother to post here? I mean, seriously – you know this board exists to fight ignorance. And, yes, superstition is ignorance. Yet you insist on perpetrating it and then complaining that people aren’t paying attention to you. You have yet to show us why we should listen to you. First, you can provide evidence that the Ouija board does anything other than what I described in my Staff Report. Then, once you’ve claimed your million dollars from James Randi, you can further show us that it’s inherently evil.
Until then, you’re right, we’re not going to be very inclined to listen to you.
Hi David! I Hope all is well with you! Yeah, I’ve been reading the site daily for a couple of years, but just recently signed up to the boards.
I work late nights in a university library; it being the night before Thanksgiving break, I’m pretty much the only person here and have no work to do, so I thought I’d kill some time by looking for Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research. The Barnett article cited here was indeed from the September 1914 issue–tucked right between a “Note on Philosophies and Revelations from the Spirit World” and an article on spirit photography, accompanied by some evidentiary photographs that any elementary school student in today’s world would recognize as obvious forgeries. I realize that doesn’t necessarily put to rest any claims about the potential dangers of the Ouija board (personally, I think it’s dangerous largely because it promotes sheer stupidity), but it should raise some questions in your mind about the competence of authors like Gruss. If he’s willing to accept such an obviously poor journal as a valid source, what does that say about his ability to do research in general?
Deuteronomy 18:10
No one among you shall practice divination (which is what you do with an ouija board), soothsayer, medium, or contactee of the dead. Whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord."
SO divination and contacting the “dead” are forbidden by G-d.
Excuse me, but just because the article in question is tucked between other articles that you say are suspect that automatically makes any article in the vicinity suspect also? So what if you think some other articles have fake pictures. What does that article have to do with the one in quesiton.
Vanilla, right on with that scripture. How the board is used is wrong and against God’s command, period.
<< Deuteronomy 18:10
No one among you shall practice divination (which is what you do with an ouija board), soothsayer, medium, or contactee of the dead. Whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord."
SO divination and contacting the “dead” are forbidden by G-d. >>
Hmmm. I didn’t realize that Deuteronomy mentioned the ouija board, that bit about “which is what you do with an ouija board” is not in my bible.
Deuteronomy 4:16. “[Do] not act wickedly and make for yourselves a sculptured image in any likeness whatever: the form of a man or a woman, the form of any beast on earth, the form of any winged bird that flies in the sky, the form anything that creeps on the ground, the form of any fish that is in the waters below the earth.”
So, I guess modelling clay is likewise evil, and should be forgiven to children? You agree with the Taliban, that we should be destroying statues in all the museums and churches?
Vanilla: The devil can cite scripture for his own purposes. Even if you accept the biblical command that divination is forbidden, that is NOT a condemnation of the ouija board per se. I repeat – the ouija board is NOT only used for divination. It is sometimes used to find lost objects, it is sometimes used as a silly game. You are making an enormous leap from condemning divination to condemning a child’s game, an inanimate object.
Some people use tea leaves to read the future, should tea be condemned? Some people read the intestines of chickens to tell the future, should we never eat chicken?
Don’t confuse the act with the object, huh?
Excerpt from the book Entertaining Spirits Unaware by David Benoit and Eric Barger, about the end time occult invasion.
"Perhaps the first prominent channeler of our time was Jane Roberts, a housewife from Elmira, New York, whose use of the Ouija board initiated her journey into the occult. Roberts and her husband began searching for spiritual answers and to their surprise the entity they came to know as ‘Seth’ spoke back to them through the Ouija. Over the next two decades they recorded and chronicled over fifteen hundred experiences with Seth. Having turned away from Christianity and to Eastern mysticism due to bad experiences while in a Catholic school, Roberts began compiling the 'Seth Materials; in 1963 and continued until 1984 when she died.
During that time, Seth channeled a total of twenty-three books (totalling over six million volumes sold) as well as several tape series and interviews through Roberts. The 1972 best seller Seth Speaks catapulted Roberts into the national spotlight. Springing from the relativist theme that all humans actually create their own reality based on their personal beliefs, the ‘Seth Materials’ have been called the “Blueprint for the New Age’ and rightly so. Roberts work continues to this day through Seth Network International headquartered in Eugene, Oregon. As of the year 2000, Roberts’ widower, Rob Butts, 81 (who still uses a Ouija board), is compiling and releasing betweetn eight and ten new volumes of Seth materials comprised of the first five hundred and ten sessions which Roberts had with Seth.”
Oooh, ask the Board Board if Cecil and Ed are one and the same!!!
Oh, and it’s NOT Milton Bradley-it’s PARKER BROTHERS! Sheesh, get it right people!
Some boards, I have to say, are downright beautiful. They’re works of art.
Lots of Ouija things to be found at that link back there at the beginning of my sentence. Concerning the name…from that site:
Guinastasia is right, many of them are works of art. Check the galleries.
Regarding C K Dex’s remark:
I’m…not quite sure, but what I think you’re getting at is that no one has ever thought merely writing the alphabet did summon demons. Am I right? If so, I’d remand to your custody for inspection some of the beliefs surrounding the Enochian alphabet, one of which was that the letter shapes did indeed hold the power to conjure spirits whose names they spelled out. I’m not saying it worked, mind you; only that it was believed.
Finally, while I don’t have your answer for you, Delphinus, I wish you luck in finding it.
Of course, I’d forget this…Ouija for your PC. NOW what’s evil???
Sorry for the double negative, Dijon, yes, I meant that merely writing the alphabet was never considered to invoke demons.
It is true that many mystics believe that the letters of certain alphabets (Hebrew, for instance) have power. But this power lies in certain arrangements of letters, or in stories about how the letters have personalities and identities, not in merely writing the letters in order.
Some kabbalists did think that writing the alphabet in order was a way of achieving a meditative or trance state, by the calm and quiet of repetitive action. But that’s different from summoning spirits.
CK,
Yes, divination is evil, according to the Bible.
I don’t know if you agree, but on your other point, what exactly do you think asking where your lost keys IS but divination?
So asking where your lost keys is evil? Huh?