https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2242894,2242908#msg-2242908

I had a very strange conversation with my middle child right before they left for the Provo MTC. We were talking about Ouija boards. I told her the story of when I was a teenager and I played with them. Now thinking about it I failed to mention I was high as a kite those times. I don't think it would have changed much the arc of our conversation.

My child was adamant that I never dabble with them again.

It was strange how concerned she was about playing with them. I asked her about it and she didn't have a good answer. She said that they were evil and that anyone playing with them was inviting evil influences into their life.

In retrospect I guess she was probably just all hyped up on mission feelings and good spiritual juju and logically was contemplating the bad spiritual stuff out there and focused in on Ouija Boards.

I said to her that Hasbro or some such company makes them. It isn't like it isn't mainstream. But that just made her more upset about them.

I don't know. She wouldn't come clean on why those particular things bothered her. Maybe she did play with one though she denied ever having done so. Strange. But are Ouija boards like something Mormon have a strong aversion to? I remember in the 80s they were considered part and parcel with D&D and Satanism but today?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/17/2019 11:04AM by Elder Berry.

I played with it ONE time in high school with some classmates and neighbors at their house, across the street from where I lived, in their basement.

That thing worked so well and answered any and all of our questions to where the pointer was whizzing around the board at a rapid rate. It was both accurate and became frightening when it told us it was from the devil.

It spooked us so bad we got up and ran out of there into the daylight and didn't return to it.

My children refused to play with it when they were growing up.

My Mormon grandmother refused to have anything to do with it despite some women she knew fraternized with the ouija board like they did tarot cards and palm readings. My grandmother believed it was of the occult and from the adversary so she rejected it outright.

Some people see it as harmless. To each their own. I still remember playing with it that day with my classmates and how much it spooked us, which has left an indelible impression on me. It told us the bible was true. While at the same time it was trying to scare and frighten us.

I will say it disclosed two undercover cops who were working in our high school at the time. They were brothers with a cover. When I asked them the next day at school, giving them the details that the ouija had given us about them ie, where they were really from rather than where they said they were from, they looked scared as hell and left really quickly that day as if their cover had been blown.

I didn't tell them that I knew they were undercover officers working for the feds. But that is what the ouija told us they were working for law enforcement. They looked older than high school age when they came to our school that year, but passed themselves off as high school seniors just moved there from California (they were not.) They had a lot of money though to wheel and deal. Which if they were law enforcement would explain that angle as well, it was meant as show to impress and get in good with the drug dealers. Which was their goal.

Was this at 21 Jump Street?

I wonder if she knew that you're not supposed to smoke the ouija board?

Grown ass adult male cops working for the Feds who ran away scared? I wonder how they reported that to their supervisor?

The proper lingo to use is paranoid, not skeered, in that crowd. They did hang on the wild side.

For undercover officers, they had to be very cool, calm and collected. To see the brother lose his usual cool demeanor that day was rather unsettling as he left school in a hurry to get out of there as soon as I asked him were they from Pocatello? I mentioned someone I knew told me they knew them from there. And you should've seen the look of horror on his face.

Next thing he and his twin brother were racing to get in their late model Bronco trucks and got the ell-hay outta there as fast as they could!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/17/2019 12:40PM by Amyjo.

here is a great true-crime book on high school undercover


https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1332398.Innocence_Lost

Interesting thanks!

The Ouija board disclosed something that you already knew? Do you know how that sounds?

Others have done this implicitly, but I'm going to be explicit in calling BS on this ridiculous story.

I do not for a moment believe that Amyjo uncovered, and blew, a federal investigation. And I do not accept that two federal agents were frightened by the questions that a teenager asked them.

My heavens, this is absurd.

Are you preaching?

I shan’t put up with it, you know! Really I won't; I simply won't!

I don't view Mormonism as a religion anymore than anyone else I know does.

I see it as a guide when it's done with reputable teachers who know what they're doing.

A Patriarchal Blessing is only a blessing not a precursor of things to happen. It is not an occult or a palm reader telling the future. It can shape someone's future and also with often times fair accuracy describe someone's personality and attributes - both weaknesses and strengths.

Used for good a Patriarchal Blessing can be an instrument for good.

It has been reliable for me when I've used it to chart my personal future and those of my family.



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What I have done is to swap out five words in someone else's discussion of astrology. If the message is thus expressed in Mormon terms, its status vis-a-vis the preaching rule should be absolutely clear.

So what do you think, am I preaching?

Amen, Sister!

At the end of the high school year, the pictures and names of the narcs assigned to our school were published in the yearbook. I never heard any rumors that the yearbook staff was working directly with satan. That would have been shocking to me. Truly shocking.

Stuff That Never Happened for $400, Alex...

I faced stern warnings from my mother about Ouija boards from my mother in the 1990s.

Mormons are really crazed about the power of Satan. I guess that makes sense, when you have a God who is getting schooled by Satan in the temple. Why is God asking Satan all those questions? Isn't Elohim all knowing?

That is where I got my fear of Ouija boards. I don't think I've ever written that word. They scared me to death and I still wouldn't use one. All the evil things they talked about in life always scared me and I still steer clear of a lot of them. Crazy as that might sound.

I do remember seeing them sold in regular old stores and wondering what was going on!!! If they sell them in a regular store and in Utah, then what was the problem. I never could figure that one out and I am no longer interested.

I still cringe when I hear about bizarre evil news stories. They really did a number on my brain.

Ouija boards tickle the exact same psychological nerve as the constant stream of horror movies that show up in theaters do, and the board affects the exact same demographic - mostly teens, mostly girls.

I remember hearing dark, whispered stories about ouija boards when I got to BYU. Even then I was thinking jeez, some people are really suggestible. I mean if this was happening with anywhere near the regularity these people are suggesting, there should be tons of documented events.

I guess I was born a skeptic. Clearly not good Mo material :)

The excuse for why this happened so much to Mormons was because they have The Priesthood™ and the Truth™. Satan didn't mess with outsiders, because he didn't want to blow his cover, and he already had a lock on nonMos. If everybody knew he controlled ouija boards, they wouldn't be available in toy stores.

I also had a terrible time remembering how to spell ouija. Still do.

Ouija = oui ("yes" in French) + ja ("yes" in German)

Well, there you go. It's foreign, therefore evil.

Or is it Xenufobia?

If you'll excuse me, I have to pack for my trip to Area 51.

Don’t go!

All those civilians are looking for you!

As a matter of casual interest, Mary Baker Eddy was quite involved in Spiritism when she "discovered" Christian Science and started writing "Science & Health." Eventually, she felt it best to disassociate herself from that movement.

(RfMers, read the following, from "Science & Health (Christian Science textbook) at your peril:

"I entertain no doubt of the humanity and philanthropy of many Spiritualists, but I cannot coincide with their views. It is mysticism which gives spiritualism its force. Science dispels mystery and explains extraordinary phenomena; but Science never removes phenomena from the domain of reason into the realm of mysticism.

It should not seem mysterious that mind, without the aid of hands, can move a table, when we already know that it is mind-power which moves both table and hand. Even planchette — the French toy which years ago pleased so many people — attested the control of mortal mind over its substratum, called matter.

It is mortal mind which convulses its substratum, matter. These movements arise from the volition of human belief, but they are neither scientific nor rational. Mortal mind produces table-tipping as certainly as table-setting, and believes that this wonder emanates from spirits and electricity. This belief rests on the common conviction that mind and matter cooperate both visibly and invisibly, hence that matter is intelligent."
(SH 80:12–32)

I grew up reading this stuff--it took me years to simplify vocabulary and writing. Even now, in fiction, my writing group says, "You're writing like an old man" "...or an academic."

Interesting Spiritist hasn't checked in on this thread.

PS--I'll get back to you on Rome--I have a bone to pick with you--I'm busy with something.

It should be called "yes, yes" lol. Doesn't sound so scary.

I tried the Ouija board once in the 70s. I was scared because I made myself scared. That's how it works. The game depends on people's fears and superstitions, just like the Mormon church. There's really no difference. Is the book of Mormon true? the Ouija/holy ghost board says "no"

It's a gateway game, just like marijuana is a gateway drug.
It's all fun and games until the next morning you see the heeled footprints of a nasty demon walking through the baby powder you laid down the night before. Haven't you people seen movie series Paranormal?

Ouija boards are dangerous—almost as dangerous as patriarchal blessings.

Or astrology.

My Ouija board experiences consist of nothing happening, and a kid trying to prank me with a fake spirit. He moved the planchette. It doesn't move without someone pushing it. There are no invisible powers.

My ouija boards never worked. I want my money back !

Just ask it about your investments and double your money doubling down Ouija style.

Witchcraft and demonic possession are real things. They don’t care if you believe in them. They believe in you. The disembodied spirits giving you answers aren’t the ones you can trust because they’ve chosen to not cross over. For some people, the planchette moves without them touching it. Bad things happen.

On the other hand, this is where a closeness with Christ comes in handy. Though I walk through the valley of death I will fear no evil. If there is transcendent good, there must be transcendent evil.

Although Mormon doctrine is basically hogwash, the methods it stole from elsewhere can still work.

Babylon, I don't think you can demonstrate any of that with actual evidence.

Well, no. It’s all secondhand but I believe the source. Plus it conforms to my own observations about beliefs. There’s also the problem of the dead. I spent 20 years married to someone who could see them. Yeah, I thought she was crazy too but she demonstrated otherwise plenty of times. I grew up in a very non-woo family.

Science is biased against things that don’t happen unless you believe in them. I think that’s sloppy thinking, but maybe including those things is just too hard. Science is hard enough as it is.

> Science is biased against things that don’t
> happen unless you believe in them.

No, science is not. Science only wants to see that your process--whatever process--works prospectively and with greater frequency than random chance.

I always moved the planchette when I played with the Quija board. some of the kids with whom I played were highly freaked out by the answers "it" gave.

scmd1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I always moved the planchette when I played with
> the Quija board. some of the kids with whom I
> played were highly freaked out by the answers "it"
> gave.

I found it interesting that the Ouija planchette spelled only as accurately as whomever moved it.

If the "spirit" or "spirits" influencing it were for real, why would it have needed our hands to touch the planchette?

I say this with no disrespect intended: you were a tool!

Well, that's what I would say if I thought you'd be impressed. Maybe I would knit my brows, too...

I've always been a tool. Just ask my siblings.

The last time I used a Ouija board, I was about 13 and at boarding school. The last message was "Die, Landon" (Landon is my surname IRL). That was when I realized that someone was pushing the "planchette" (actually a glass). Now I know it was scmd1 ;-)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/18/2019 05:31AM by Soft Machine.

Maybe it was a German spirit saying, "die London?"

Yep. Whenever a planchette has moved across the surface of a Ouija board, it has been I who moved it. I was the one who let Amyjo in on the secret of the narcs posing as students on her high school campus. Even before I was born, my spirit made its way here from the spirit world to move planchettes across Ouija boards. Heck, if it weren't such a convoluted process to do so, I would actually change my screen name to "Planchette Mover" since my cover has been blown and anonymity is now a distant memory.

You can always move my planchette.

Someday while Jillian is off paying homage to your alter ego, I may take you up on your offer.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/18/2019 08:01PM by scmd1.

My alter ego?

Me, you big silly!

Lordy!!

What's an alter ego gotta do these days to be remembered?

Oh, I see.

My nemesis (well, my annoying gnat) has been silent so long that I forgot about our identity. But can't I opt instead for Saucie?

She seems such a fine person!

Where is the termite, anyway?

We spoke too soon. The termite is gnawing away again.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/19/2019 05:21PM by Lot's Wife.

If you have read this far in this thread, my Ouija board confirmed you have lost two IQ points.

You should've tried the astrology threads: THOSE killed brain cells!

Here your biggest worry is that SCMD may want to play with his planchette.

OMG, those threads were ridiculous.
I decided to read something more intellectual like Highlight Magazine.
I'll risk scmd's wicked planchette though.

What about the OP?

The OP of this thread is fantastic!

;)

I'm not sure that the planchette would move by spirits or by people on different sides pushing with different pressure.

For future readers: if I die and can communicate using a Ouija board, I will leave a message that will let you know it was me moving the planchette. I will direct it to the letters in the following order: U-P-Y-O-U-R-S.

You are a bad wolf, ookami.

I'll try not to let it go to my head.

ookami Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm not sure that the planchette would move by
> spirits or by people on different sides pushing
> with different pressure.

I won every planchette battle that ever came my way. Brute force usually does the job.

The Spirit of God like a Planchette is moving.

Ouija boards are child's play. Hasbro.

When I was at BYU, it was the fad to read people's "auras." In order to read an aura, you had to first see it. These could be seen only in absolute darkness, like, in a basement room of a dorm or apartment. You can't see these through cloth, so you had to be naked. Couples would get close together, to see if their auras combined. If the auras meshed, they were eternal soulmates.