Do You Doubt the Ouija Board?

When I was younger, I used to sneak in the middle of the night to watch horror movies while my parents were asleep. There was this one movie that involved an
evil Ouija Board where everyone around the main character dies and it has something to do with the board. It
didn’t scare me, but only had me curious as to what would happen to me if I used a Quija Board.

Ouija comes from the German and French words, meaning yes. (oui and ja). I have seen many variations of the Ouija Board, displaying different layouts and made out of various materials. When you pay a little more, you can get a visually pleasing wooden board, but if
you’re on a budget like I am, you will settle for the cheaper game board version.

The board usually has letters of the alphabet; the numbers 0-9, as well as the words Yes and
No. I believe the one I used had the words Goodbye on it. The way it works, is that one or more people lightly touch a pointer, also referred to as a
planchette, and when the users concentrate, the pointer moves and spells out the answers to questions that are asked of the board.

I was always intrigued with the Ouija Board and longed to get my hands on one and use it, but I didn’t dare on my own. It wasn’t until college that I encountered my first Ouija Board experience. A friend from school had one and asked me if I wanted to join her. She said she had been communicating with someone who identified herself as
Ruby. I was skeptical, but I had to try it.

Some believe that when you use the Ouija, that you will be contacting spirits. Others reject this belief and say that Ouija encounters are a manifestation of the unconscious mind belonging to one or all of the users. 

Before we used the Ouija, there was this sort of prayer or chant that was said that is supposed to protect you from
evil spirits. This made me feel better about my first time. I was told that the Ouija Board works when you are focused and concentrating on the board. It was the weirdest thing that I had ever experienced. I could actually feel this magnetic pulse surge through my fingertips. Since I had to be convinced, I lightly touched the pointer and made sure that I was not forcefully guiding it. We took turns asking questions and I began to realize that it felt like we were actually talking to another. The answers took on a personality of their own where you could even say that
Ruby, the spirit even had a bit of an attitude.

After my first time using it, I continued to ask the Ouija Board questions with friends and offer my
energy to my friend when she wanted to ask questions, but I never used it on my own. I quickly became convinced that you really do contact others when using this board. There are some things that cannot be explained, you just have to experience them. I began to test the Ouija Board. I would ask questions that I knew the answers were something my friends would never be aware of. I was amazed with the results. I was never dissatisfied.

Odd things that I noticed with the Ouija Board included the speed that the board would spell things out. I could not imagine how the pointer could move so fast, almost violently; and that we were the ones directing it. Another odd occurrence was that
Ruby would get mad at people, not respond when certain people were in the room and spell normal things in a weird way. One of our conversations abruptly ended when we found out that we were not speaking to
Ruby, but another who was toying with us. That only happened once.

My interest in the Ouija Board diminished after I was speaking to my roommate and mentioned that I had used the Ouija before. She then told me how the board could be powerful. She described how a former resident living in the same on-campus house that we lived in, was playing with an Ouija Board and one of the participants went
temporarily crazy and freaked out from the experience. It was stated that an Ouija Board should never be used in this house and even a religion professor visited the house soon after and said a few prayers. That was enough to make me think twice about the board.