The Ouija Board—How Can It Affect You?
“THE year 1967 was a historic mile stone for the United States toy industry,’’ writes John Godwin in Occult America. “In that year Americans ditched their longest-standing favorite among board games, Monopoly, and elevated Ouija boards to its place.”
During the following six years Americans purchased some ten million Ouija boards, which, in turn, lured an estimated twenty million persons to try them out. They are also popular in other countries.
What is the Ouija board? Why does it attract so many people? If you were to use it, how could the Ouija board affect you?
What Is the Ouija Board?
The Ouija board, about two feet long, a foot and a half wide and a quarter of an inch thick, contains on its surface the letters of the alphabet in two arcs, one under the other. Below these in a straight line from left to right are the numbers 1 to 9 and 0. Underneath the numerals is the phrase “Good Bye.” In the top left corner is the word “Yes,” and in the top right corner “No.”
Upon the polished surface of this board rests a small heart-shaped indicator mounted on three felt-tipped pegs with a transparent disk toward its pointed end. Usually two persons place their hands lightly on the indicator and ask questions of the board. In many cases the indicator moves from letter to letter spelling out words and sentences in answer to the questions. Sometimes the answers are amazingly accurate, even foretelling events that actually take place.
A Result of the “Subconscious”?
What makes the indicator on a Ouija board scurry back and forth spelling out messages? Is it due to the “subconscious” of the person (or persons) working the board, as some have suggested?
Evidence indicates otherwise, for information received through the Ouija board often is not and could not be known or produced by the person operating it. Russell Chandler, religion writer for the Los Angeles Times, explains: “A reporter tried unsuccessfully to get any of three physicists queried at Caltech in Pasadena to offer a scientific explanation for Ouija power.”
What Makes It Work?
The Bible, however, sheds light on what makes the mysterious Ouija board work. How so?
As a way of probing into the unknown, the Ouija board is a form of divination. The Bible, at 1 Samuel 15:23, places divination parallel with the use of “uncanny power.” Many who use the Ouija board attest to acquiring “psychic” ability, a truly uncanny, mysterious power that enables them to know things about other persons and events without using normal means of communication. What could be behind that power?
The Bible book of Acts of the Apostles pinpoints the source of a certain servant girl’s ability to predict the future as being “a spirit, a demon of divination.” When the apostle Paul ordered the spirit to “come out of her,” she lost her power of prediction. (Acts 16:16-19) Could the Ouija board, too, involve wicked spirits, or demons?a Consider some effects of its use.
“Some researchers warn,” observes Russell Chandler, “that the game can lure the susceptible into the weird world of spirit communication—even demonic possession.” Harold Sherman, president of the ESP Research Associates Foundation in Little Rock, Arkansas, observes: “The majority who have become involved with possessive and other spirit entities came by this experience through the Ouija board.”
Writer Alan Vaughan, who never had a psychic experience until the age of twenty-eight and had been skeptical about such things, relates what happened to him:
“It began on November 7, 1965, when I was trying out a newly purchased Ouija board to amuse a friend convalescing from an operation. . . . ‘Spirits’ began to appear on the board. One, who called himself ‘Z,’ answered our questions accurately and with a peculiarly old-fashioned vocabulary.
“Later, I began to experiment alone with the Ouija and soon found myself ‘possessed’ by a rather neurotic personality who called herself ‘Nada.’ . . . But then, both to my fascination and fear, ‘Nada’ got inside my head. I could hear her voice repeating the same phrases over and over again. . . . I took my Ouija to visit a friend to investigate further what was happening. I felt the presence of ‘Z’ and across the room my friend announced that the pointer was starting to move. It went to ‘Z’ and then spelled out a message: ‘Awful consequences—possession.’ At that point I became alarmed, for it had not occurred to me that having a strange voice in one’s head was tantamount to possession.”
A Pennsylvania woman tells of an experience in her family as a result of using a Ouija board:
“It told us many lies but it also told us many things which were true. . . . Then one night when we were all in bed, my mother was having her usual bedtime snack before turning in. All of a sudden we heard a crash, a yell and a cat hissing and spitting and running like mad around the kitchen. When we got up to see what was wrong, we found my mother on the floor, tea spilled all over her and the cat half out of its mind.
“Immediately we got out the Ouija board . . . We asked, ‘What happened?’ Answer: ‘I broke your mother’s chair and I scared the cat.’ ‘Why?’ ‘For fun.’ ‘Who are you?’ Then this thing slowly spelled out ‘D-e-v-i-l.’ . . .
“It also (previously) made many indecent proposals to my sister, spelled out filthy words, and scared her half to death!”
“Psychological Russian Roulette”
Some object that most people do not have such unusual experiences with the Ouija board. But should that make any difference? Should you explore something that both the Bible and real-life experiences show can be related to “wicked spirit forces”? (Eph. 6:12) Surely the Scriptures are reasonable when asking: “Can a man rake together fire into his bosom and yet his very garments not be burned?”—Prov. 6:27.
Many indeed have been “burned,” adversely affected, by experimenting with the Ouija board or in other ways trying to develop psychic powers. Says Dr. Harmon H. Bro, social scientist and specialist in psychology: “Psychic development is like playing psychological Russian roulette—like being hypnotized by a stranger of unknown training and intent.”
The connection of the Ouija board with divination, spiritism and “uncanny power,” all of which God disapproves, along with the frightening experiences that many have had, makes it plain that experimenting with the Ouija board could have only a detrimental effect on you.—Deut. 18:10-12.
[Footnotes]
a See The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life, chapter 7, “Are There Wicked Spirits?”