Guin: I may well try it. I’ll get back to you.
Well, do you know for an absolute fact that there has never been a case of true paranormal activity associated with the board game “Monopoly”? I can’t see how you could possibly know that, but I don’t see anyone citing fear and terror associated with the little shoe or Community Chest. Well, why not? It’s a board game, just like Ouija, made of the same materials.
For that matter, do you know for an absolute fact that there has never been a case of true paranormal activity associated with refrigerators? I can’t see how you could possibly know THAT. But does that mean you don’t have a refrigerator?
When I see some EVIDENCE that Ouija boards (or anything else) can be paranormal items, I’ll believe it. Until then, argument from ignorance is still baloney. Ouija boards were invented as toys. That’s what they are.
Hmm… so lack of evidence that they do work is reason enough to believe that they never work?
Also, I take issues with your sig!
I’d say in this case that the burden of proof is on those who say they DO work, since there has never, ever, been one single well-documented case of them working. The question, to my mind, is not “How do we know they don’t work?” but rather “Why the heck should I believe they DO work?”
You make some interesting points in your longer post up above (the one that started “OK, all just my opinion / theory”), but personally I’ll go with Occam’s Razor on this one; there very well could be a complicated sequence of mysterious, gossamer connections from the spirit world (or whatever) to the human psyche to the human hand to the cardboard, but that seems like an untenable stretch when the obvious answer is “Someone’s pushing the thing around.”
Bingo!
Or maybe the spirits are getting confused about which letters they’re supposed to use. 
I think an interesting experiment would be to have everyone close their eyes while they touch the planchette. Presumably the message will be gibberish. Then have the other players open their eyes, one by one, and see how many of them need to be watching the board to get a legible message.
Well, I think this is all debated out here. Thanks for all the opinions. I’ll post the results of any experiments I do, assuming my hair doesn’t turn white and I run screaming into the street only to be knocked down by a truck.
Must…stop…demonic…keyboard…
Besides, why would random spirits what to speak to people. In English? Show me an Ouija board with pictograms…
I’m also guessing that once a partial word has been found, everyone subconsciously beings to fill in the blanks.
My point is that there is no evidence to conclusively prove one way or the other. I don’t believe that Oiuja boards are a hotline to the spirit world, but I’m not willing to say that they aren’t, either. I don’t think reserving judgement when there is no conclusive proof is foolish.
Well I’ve been reading al of these replies and have decided to “put in my penny” (or was it nickel?)
Anyways … the rest is all true and occurred on 1994 in a little High-school in Arizona:
My friend was in his 6th period class when the teacher for some reason brought up the subject of Ouiji Boards. Some kids made fun of it…others said it could be done only by a wizard…until some Gothic kids said that they could disprove everyone and that they’d do it right then! So as many high-schoolers began to get offended, these goths began to create the so -called boards but out of folded paper with Satanic encryptions. When they finished it, my friend felt brave enough to try it. So when he tried it, he asked it to prove itself. So it did. What began to occur was unexplainable, by far disproving the own teacher’s words! The speakers turned on of the P.A system and unintelligible voices began to emitt out of there. The doors locked, the shutters shuttered (pun?) and extremely low frequencies were being heard! HOW? Don’t ask me, but these voices were going on and on about that they were going to kill all of them. This is just the beginning of what later happened.
Later on at my friend’s house: The Next Day:
He was at home when his aunt brought over a Ouiji Board. He didn’t want anything to do with it, but his friends thought differently… They went outside and began using it, they got the crap scared out of them. The questions they asked… I don’t know (he said they were sort of inappropiate) but later on at night he felt very scared and burned the board. The next day the board was on his bed right next to him! How it got there? WHo was it? Was it his friends playing a sadistic low-life joke? Who knows? He put it in his closet and forgot about it throughout the day. When it was afternoon, he was watching television when all of a sudden, the channels were all the same… they were showing a viewing of a finger pointing at him and reading, “You’re going to die!” And while reading that voices were laughing. He was scared but turned the tv off but it kept turning on. He left his house and brought a priest. What next happened was over the course of a day. The priest came and asked to see the board (it currently was in his closet) but when he sat down at the table, it was opened and set. He began to rebuke the demon that was over it and stuff. But then the demon or spirit spoke out and said a few words in another language or dialect and left. What was this?!! What happened? Why do stuff that are really frightening always happen to him? Well anyways…this story was and is true. You be the judge in any formation you want. Judge it or just don’t pay heed to these words.
~ Mike
Ouija boards both fascinate and depress the hell out of me. They proliferated during and after the First World War (along with seances and all sorts of spiritualist nonsense) because so many bereaved families saw them as a last ditch link to their departed sons, husbands and brothers. Imagine how compelling that board would be with the significance of each movement of the planchette magnified by the family’s loss.
fauxpas: Quick question: Did you witness any of that yourself?
You know how people love to yarn and exaggerate. Everything your friend told you could have any number of non-Satanic explanations.
I’d take that story with a big grain of salt, myself.
To be honest: I already told you that he told me. And I respect and believe him, as well as his entire family believe him. But if you wish not to, I don’t blame you. And no I didn’t stretch the truth. Word per word.
fauxpas did you speak to any other participants/witnesses of any of those events?
Just wondering.
An eyewitness account of events like that is a great start to validating the theory. The next thing to do would be to interview other participants-other students in the classroom, other students in the school who weren’t in the classroom but may have noticed the odd events without knowing their causes, and the priest who performed the exorcism.
However much one may trust a person’s veracity, verification must be obtained before marking an unusual story as definitively true …
Okay, I just have to pipe in here too. My story is on the lame side, but sort of “proof” that it’s all really just someone intentionally moving the planchette (who knew that’s what it was called?!).
I was with two college roommates. We were all sitting around the Ouija board on enight, very willing to accept whatever “the truth” was and just let ourselves be open to it, man (I should say, for atmospheric background, that there were candles and incense and a fair amount of wine consumed).
So we all put our hands on it, relaxed, and opened ourselves up to the spirits to have them tell us what they would.
They told nothing. Diddly. Bupkus.
So it seems if everyone involved is TRULY participating honestly and as intended, the Ouija’s bogues-ness is revealed! We were so disappointed.
I burned a Ouija board once. Not only did it scream, but it filed a lawsuit, including pain & suffering compensation and punitive damages. Never again!
Uh, should be “one night”
And that should be bogus-ness. D’oh!
Me: “Ouiji board, how can I prevent such syntactical tragedies?”
Board: P-R-E-V-I-E-W
more like,
humans - don’t play with their minds
it’s amazing what can happen if you believe, and enough of your friends believe.
just the fact that science haven’t quite gotten our own minds figured out yet shows how much we don’t understand about ourselves…
even though i know it’s hocus pocus i still get a thrill reading horror stories; fascinating.
Actually, once when I was in middle school, a Ouija board spoke to me and two friends (all of us intelligent and not credulous) in French.
We had just started French in school but we had to get a dictionary to look some of the words up. I don’t recall that they had any cosmic significance, but we were puzzled by the experience.