ouiji board question

[kitten_uk2]

when i was a teenager i dabbled into the ouiji board with some friends. may sound abit far fetched but i can remember talking to some kids who had been killed by a woman they named helen hitchford. one of the childs names was brian. how do i go about looking to see if all this was true or just someone pushing the glass. it got me pretty spooked out at the time. i felt like they were with us all the time. so to find out they were real people would be great.

[radiogaga]

didi the child who told you this info, state where this happened? or do you think its local and what year did they say?
your local library has archives, going way back.
my mum done the ouiji board, she felt she had to contact a older aunt who'd passed 2 weeks previously. she did contact the aunt betty, who told her about an envelope shed passed to my gran (mums mum), this envelope contained money ment for my mum. as my mum hadnt received any envelope she went to my gran and confronted her, my gran went chalk white, as shed used the money for somthing else and had been caught out. weird and creepy if you ask me. mum hasnt used the ouiji board since.

[kitten_uk2]

i think i was just 14 at the time so talking a few yrs bak now(im 27) cant remember much, they may have said a year but cant remember it and where it happened i dont know. we use to ask stupid question to them, like who am i gonna marry and how many kids will i have. it was fun at the time but really freaked me out.

[taperface]

Go back and pose the question to the spirit of the board again. Bear in mind that if you get a reply, spirits can be mischievous and may not always tell the truth. If the glass or marker swivels round in a figure of eight shape - don't carry on. If all seems well, thank the spirits before packing up.

[kitten_uk2]

ive thought about this taperface, but i dont think i could dabble again as im on my own at night as my hubby works, and like i said i got pretty freaked out about it, when it seemed the spirits we were talking to seemed to be with us all the time. id tell the story but honestly it would seem too far fetched and you probably wouldnt belive me. so i couldnt really use the board again.

[naomi24]

I don't know how it works, but I know it does. Don't dabble with what you don't know. Leave well alone.

[chakka35]

Oh naomi, you know how I hate to disagree with you but ouija boards are just as pathetically silly as other forms of spiritualism.
How do you know "it works"? Chapter and verse please.

[naomi24]

Hello Chakka, you old cynic you. I won't give it to you chapter and verse, and I've never seen it done with a manufactured plastic ouija board. However, I have seen it done with an upturned glass and letters and numbers written on paper, and many moons ago, out of curiosity, twice tried it myself. Of course you'll say someone was pushing the glass - but no, they weren't.

Have you ever tried it to see for yourself if it works, or are you dismissing it without investigation simply because you believe it's 'silly'?

[radiogaga]

speaking to a collegue over the weekend, she said shed done the ouiji board when younger, using a upturned dart board and paper numbers, they got a glass and shouted out if anyone was there from the spirit world... then the glass moved around then shatterd!! and they all jumped out there skins,screamed. never done it again.

[chakka35]

naomi, the last thing I am is a cynic: I love life, the world and my fellow humans too much to be that.

What I am is a skeptic, which is quite a different matter. A skeptic is someone who sensibly refuses to believe unnatural things until he is shown convincing evidence for them - at which point they cease to be unnatural, of course. All attempts to produce evidence for life after death and the claims of spiritualism in its many forms have come to nought.
Yes, with a group of friends I tried the ouija method years ago with, like you, an upturned glass and pieces of paper. We got "messages" all right, but it makes no sense to assume that they came from some spirit world when there are so many rational explanations to be dismissed first.
How do you know that no-one was pushing the glass? You cannot possible know that there was no subconscious pushing.
Read the entry on the subject in Robert Todd Carroll's book The Skeptic's Dictionary. You'll find that the unnoticed movments involved are called the "ideomotor effect", well-known to physiologists.
The whole thing can be debunked by blindfolding the participants so that they have no control at all over where the board or glass moves. The resulting "messages" are always gibberish.

[naomi24]

Chakka, I stand corrected, you old skeptic, you. As I said, I've no idea how it works, and I haven't heard that blindfolding participants produces the results you claim, but I am willing to keep an open mind. I still wouldn't do it again though.

[kitten_uk2]

i supose as a kid i didnt really know what i was getting myself into. now though even though i wouldnt go through with doing it again, it is tempting, after my friends dad died recently wouldnt it be the perfect way of contacting him. and back to my question in hand if i ever found out everything the board told us was true it would probably really freak me out. its just the not knowing

[chakka35]

kitten_uk2, if you read my last post you'll be able to say "Now I do know!"....and relax. Forget it.