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Ouija Board, Ouija Board....

Started by 23 Daves, November 15, 2006, 07:19:50 PM

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23 Daves

Back when I was a teenager, I did some rather questionable things with my time. Killing time in a dull suburb of an already dull Essex small town wasn't easy, so besides writing bad poetry, playing music and drinking cider in local parks, I fiddled with ouijaboards. I didn't do it for long, admittedly, as it eventually worried and scared my friends so much that I couldn't find any willing partners in crime anymore, but I certainly had many an evening in the local recreation ground fiddling with an upturned glass and some letters arranged in a neat circle.

At one of the last sessions I ever attempted, my friend Mark went into a blind panic because a spirit on the board had an important message to relay to him. The message was "VAKI". He immediately freaked. His father was quite ill in hospital, and although none of us could identify the meaning of the word, he took it to be a medical term that was referring to his dad's imminent death. No, I don't why either - but then when you're sat around a board and a ghost appears to be talking to you about this and that, and a glass seems to be riding smoothly on some sort of air pocket (and not scraping) happily away, you tend be rather stressed out anyway.

The Internet didn't exist in any sort of mainstream way in those days, so we consulted dictionaries and enyclopaedias about what the word might mean. Nothing. It wasn't in a single one. None of us knew what it could possibly mean, and we blithely dismissed it as a piece of nonsense - a piece of evidence to point towards the fact that there was something psychological going on with ouijaboards and not spiritual. Over the years, we simply forgot about the matter, though I held on to the information we'd been given for awhile just in case any fresh meaning came to light.

That was until a few nights ago. Whilst playing Scrabble with Mrs Daves (yes, it's all "go" in the 23 Daves household these days) the word VAKI appeared again on my ruler, and I got to thinking about it again. Perhaps with the use of the Internet I could uncover some new meaning to it that we'd failed to get previously. With this in mind, I turned to google to ask, and lo and behold, result!:

http://www.vaki.net/about.htm

QuoteAbout the finnish word "väki":
The concept of "väki" was firmly established in the world-view of Baltic finns during the 19th century and earlier. All things and all categories of things carried in them a charge of impersonal power; certain things and categories being more powerful than others and demanding a special outlook. This force was called väki. A broad scale of magical practices was connected to this supernatural or transcendental power, akin to the Polynesian mana. Through their bodies women were thought to be always attuned to it. A woman's body was understood to be a two directional gate to other worlds, although other such also existed.

As you can imagine, I was slightly shocked and befuddled by this revelation, and I also think it's safe to say that nobody sat around the board could really have known much about the 19th Century practices and belief systems of Finnish witches. True, it could have been a completely random piece of text-spew from the board which just coincidentally could be seen to have a meaning, but even so, as coincidences go it's somewhere off the map, especially as gateways to other worlds were a central part of their practices and we were playing with a Ouijaboard!

I've just emailed my friend to tell him about it, since the message was apparently for him. I'm not sure where I stand on all this, but it seems only fair to let him know. Perhaps he's supposed to be the new leader for a revival of the belief or something. It would be unfair to deprive him of the career opportunity, especially when you see how well Ron Hubbard's done for himself with Scientology.

For the record, the very same "spirit" gave me a message as well, the initials of a person I should pay close attention to, but so far they have had absolutely no meaning for me whatsoever.

So... have any of the rest of you played with these boards before, and have any of you received any peculiar or particularly relevant messages?  Studies have been done that seem to prove that it may all be tricks being played by the human brain, whereas others swear blind that it's spirits talking and that it's a very dangerous way of communicating with them.  Me?  I'm not sure one way or the other.

Alberon

Quote from: "23 Daves"For the record, the very same "spirit" gave me a message as well, the initials of a person I should pay close attention to, but so far they have had absolutely no meaning for me whatsoever.

Just out of interest what are the initials?

Quote from: "23 Daves"So... have any of the rest of you played with these boards before, and have any of you received any peculiar or particularly relevant messages?  Studies have been done that seem to prove that it may all be tricks being played by the human brain, whereas others swear blind that it's spirits talking and that it's a very dangerous way of communicating with them.  Me?  I'm not sure one way or the other.

I think the Ideomotor Effect is a good answer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideomotor_effect

I seem to recall an experiment where a Ouija board seemed to be spelling out real messages, but when the board was turned through 180 degrees without the users seeing the 'spirits' failed to notice and the board stopped spelling anything.

Brutus Beefcake

Quote from: "23 Daves"Studies have been done that seem to prove that it may all be tricks being played by the human brain, whereas others swear blind that it's spirits talking and that it's a very dangerous way of communicating with them.  Me?  I'm not sure one way or the other.


What do you mean "may be"?  It's been proved quite conclusively (for example the above mentioned experiment of flipping the board) but the kind of people that indulge in this sort of thing are completely shut of to reason.

23 Daves

Quote from: "Alberon"
Quote from: "23 Daves"For the record, the very same "spirit" gave me a message as well, the initials of a person I should pay close attention to, but so far they have had absolutely no meaning for me whatsoever.

Just out of interest what are the initials?

JLT.  And no, not DLT, rather unfortunately.

Gazeuse

Ouija boards will say what you want them to say even if you don't know that you want them to say it.

I had one once, sent to me by my Californian aunt in 1970...I took it to school.  My then primary school teacher (Christian) made me take it home, in case it sold all our souls to the devil.

Luckily it was a 15" by 20" piece of plywood and was therefore completely harmless.

Panic over.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Ouija boards do seem to elicit extreme reactions from people. One of my friends is a christian, but is generally live and let live about most things. One time however, he saw an advert for some crap teen horror about a weegee and quite seriously he said that it was all a ploy to get people to allow the devil into their lives.

Personally I think it's all a load of bollocks, like tarot cards and whatever other superstitions you care to name.

lactating man nips

I agree with Claude, numerous rationale people i know who believe in nothing supernatural seem to have this bizarre fear of Ouija boards. I think its a load of rubbish just like God, the Easter Bunny and Robbie Williams.

Pinball

I wrote a story quite a few years ago about the impact on the world of an electronic, working ouija board - the Sony Spiritman - that became as popular as the Walkman, and had an irrevocable effect on the human race (i.e. if life after death was a proven fact, what would change...?). It was during my Asimov fanboy stage. I've now lost the manuscript but, weirdly, the storyline remains forever etched in my brain. Indeed, on a couple of occasions I've actually dreamt the story in increasing detail, until it became an 'epic' a la Dune or some such shite. Very very weird.

I nearly wrote it up a couple of years ago, but frankly for £50/1,000 words I can't be assed.

23 Daves

It's not such a new or daft idea - didn't Alexander Graham Bell aim to invent something very similar before he died?  Still, the telephone wasn't a bad invention for starters - I suppose he always was going to suffer from "second album syndrome" after that one.

Dr George Meek claimed to have invented the Spiricom as well, an electronic device ghosts could talk through.  I don't think he was related to Joe Meek, though.

I think Karl Ferdinand Braun invented the cathode ray tube for television sets by accident whilst trying to build something to communicate to spirits with, as well (though I can't seem to verify this - there's definitely a component in the technology which was created originally to try and talk to spirits).  It didn't work for its original purpose.  Which I realise makes it sound rather like a Smell of Reeves and Mortimer intro - "He failed miserably!  But as he began to pick up an ancient episode of 'Only Fools and Horses' he rejoiced as he realised... he had invented the television set!"

Al Tha Funkee Homosapien

Quote from: "iandredd"I agree with Claude, numerous rationale people i know who believe in nothing supernatural seem to have this bizarre fear of Ouija boards. I think its a load of rubbish just like God, the Easter Bunny and Robbie Williams.

Okay then I dare you to go to the mirror and say John Candy, John Candy, John Candy.

Ah ha! Not so is it?

MrT

There's some stuff on George Meek here.

http://www.worlditc.org/

It's just a bit too easy to deconsruct their 'sessions'

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Quote from: "Wikipedia"The [ideomotor] effect is extremely powerful and many subjects cannot be convinced that their actions are originating solely in their own minds.
Because it's obviously faaaaaaaaar more plausible that ghosts did it, isn't it.

I wonder if the reason that people believe in shit like ouija boards is because to accept the ideomotor effect is to accept that we're not as unpredictable, unique and in control of our actions as we'd like to think we are.

Quote from: "23 Daves"http://www.vaki.net/about.htm

QuoteAbout the finnish word "väki":
The concept of "väki" was firmly established in the world-view of Baltic finns during the 19th century and earlier. All things and all categories of things carried in them a charge of impersonal power; certain things and categories being more powerful than others and demanding a special outlook. This force was called väki. A broad scale of magical practices was connected to this supernatural or transcendental power, akin to the Polynesian mana. Through their bodies women were thought to be always attuned to it. A woman's body was understood to be a two directional gate to other worlds, although other such also existed.

That's weird, I've never heard of that. Väki has a very common everyday meaning.

Quoteväki s people (mon), folk, folks (mon) kaupunkilaisväki, kaupunkilaiset town folk

SweetRosalyn

This reminded me of something we used to do at school lots, to talk to the dead, but a lot simpler, that I'd completely forgotten about until now.  You'd write 'yes' 'no' and 'maybe' on an eraser, ask questions, and then toss it to get the answer.  Like a magic 8 ball, really, only cheaper.  Apparently the dead that haunted our school were also psychic and interested in schoolyard relations, as they were inevitably asked 'does Emma fancy Chris?' and variations on that theme for the most part.  I think we spoke to Elvis and Buddy Holly a lot.  Elvis I can't understand, but I don't know where Buddy Holly came from...

I'm guessing this can't have been restricted to our school? Any other 'whores used to do that?

We also used to write the alphabet on a piece of paper, and throw rubbers to get letters, as a makeshift ouija board.  Never yielded very good results.

Our teachers used to go absolutely apeshit at us for doing either of these things, which used to drive me insane.  They were just reinforcing the view that there really were spirits talking to us.  We did it for a laugh, not believing that they really existed, but when our teachers treated it seriously I think that gave it weight in some of my friends' minds.

Purple Tentacle

Quote from: "Alberon"I seem to recall an experiment where a Ouija board seemed to be spelling out real messages, but when the board was turned through 180 degrees without the users seeing the 'spirits' failed to notice and the board stopped spelling anything.

'Twas Penn and Teller's Bullshit, and very amusing it was too.

There's also lots of stuff on James Randi's website where people try to set up independent, objective experiments to 'prove' the paranormal and claim his $1,000,000 paranormal prize, but they also weasel out at the last minute and try to change the conditions of the test.

Artemis

Back in my christian days, I was always startled at quite how rabid my fellow religious people would become as soon as someone mentioned a Ouija board. Sinister warnings of all sorts of evil, usually accompanied by the classic "once someone said the Lord's prayer backwards and a moth just died on the spot" chestnut gets an airing.

Didn't Derren Brown also discredit the whole thing in his 'Seance' show?

mothman

Some people would argue there's a distinction between "discredit" and "prove that the effect can be faked." The whole thing is nonsense, however.

Marv Orange

I used to dabble with the board ages ago. Nothing major happened except.

The board spelt the name of my mates younger  brothers imaginary friend. - Probably bullshit as the older brother had his finger on the coin, although everyone in that house had seen a ghost and I heard it once.

My friend started hearing babies crying.

One time four or five cats congregated outside the window of the room we were using the board in and started meowing.


A guy I knew used to be able to do a Ouija board by himself so even taking the Ideomotor Effect its still strange. Strange in the way the Ideomotor Effect works with this 1 guy rather than being hidden amongst a group.

Des Nilsen

We did them at school, out of boredom and perhaps the hope that something demonic would happen. People were pretty scared of it, though by reputation only. Blind fear, despite not having any real faith to grate in doing it.

I did it once and got various detentions for two weeks afterwards, all of which were actually not deserved at all. That's enough to get kids talking though, silly as it is. My friend Mark was very freaked out.
(Actually, one of those detentions was his fault, but it was worth it for the laugh. He drew sperm, absolutely enormous, falling from the sky in a textbook. Like an alien invasion in the english countryside. I couldn't stop laughing at it and got 'done'. Oh well, naughty Ouija!)

Never played it seriously. When I did the questions were vague and the answers were pretty much always 'yes' or 'no'. Nothing spelt out that made sense, I think we weren't into it enough to make anything coherent turn up.

It's interesting, though. One of those things with enormous fear attached to it. It can be funny or disturbing. We all hear about those people who're a bit unstable who have a hard time with it. That's the scariest part for me, the potential for someone who's on the edge to fuck themselves up by getting too into it.

Ideally though, it's a drunken laugh.

-

mothman

I , likewise, heard at school all the horror stories about people who'd experimented, with predictable results. Said stories usually told by one of the chaplains, so not in hindsight an unbiased source!

My attitude in these matters - and here I'm almost heading in the direction of that atheism=faith thread, is that I don't choose to believe in the supernatural because I've never seen anything to suggest there is one. I know people who've had experiences, even my wife, but I find it much easier to believe in human nature - that these people are either lying (and, by implication, crooked), or easily fooled, or have overactive imaginations.

I am prepared to accept that things may happen that cannot easily be explained by what we know of the universe at this moment in time. But that doesn't mean there is no explanation at all, or that what we know now isn't fundamentally wrong.

I'm also scared. Ignorance is bliss. Just as your average Sun reader may choose to ignore the existence of anything apart from what's happening in I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, so I likewise figure that I'm allowed to overlook a few things - my own certain eventual death, for one. I just really plain don't like the idea that there's another world we can't see, and especially that whatever inhabits it chooses to hide and mess with people (this week's episode of Torchwood, for all its crapness, did leave me with a feeling of disquiet).

So, although I may say I don't believe in ghosts, my wife's rejoinder not to say it out loud because it might antagonise them does make me watch what I say! Even though I know it's just a made-up urban legend in a movie, nothing will ever possess me to say "Candyman" five times in front of a mirror. I figure, if I leave the supernatural alone, it'll leave me alone - and I expect the reverse to hold true. If the spirit world wants to fuck with me on general principle, then it's gonna have to expect me to fuck it right back.

Suttonpubcrawl

One thing I don't understand is that if there are supposedly all these spirits out there, why are they so dull and serious about everything? If I was a spirit and I could control a ouija board, I'd get it to say all kinds of rubbish.

"Never shop at Tesco, it is shit."

"What do you think of Lost? I haven't been watching the latest series because I think it's better to download them and watch them all in one go."

"a/s/l? Wanna cyber?"

"Is that Commercial Cars? I'd like a minicab, I'm outside Plaistow station."

edit: I meant to include this in the post originally but hit submit before I remembered. Anyway, I think I'd probably end up trying to get the board to say this kind of stuff anyway if I really played with one, which is why I regard them with a mix of amusement and fear. I feel like I couldn't help but try to mess it up and make it swear at the participants etc. but at the same time I'd be afraid in case something serious did come up on it.

Neville Chamberlain

Exactly. If there's one thing I know about ghosts is that they're pretty miserable company. You wouldn't invite one round to a dinner party cos they just sit there telling you you're going to die soon or something, the stupid impolite buggers.

Totem Hokum

Quote from: "23 Daves"
Quote from: "Alberon"
Quote from: "23 Daves"For the record, the very same "spirit" gave me a message as well, the initials of a person I should pay close attention to, but so far they have had absolutely no meaning for me whatsoever.

Just out of interest what are the initials?

JLT.  And no, not DLT, rather unfortunately.
How could you tell they were initials, and not just random letters one after the other? Was there a ' . ' on the Ouija board that the glass slid to between each letter?

Neville Chamberlain

Are you sure it wasn't BLT. I like the idea of a ghost imploring me to have a sandwich.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

STATE OF THE OUIJA BOARD THREAD!

Totem Hokum

Quote from: "Jim"Are you sure it wasn't BLT. I like the idea of a ghost imploring me to have a sandwich.
Or maybe 23 Daves will die choking on a BLT.

ziggy starbucks

Quote from: "23 Daves"For the record, the very same "spirit" gave me a message as well, the initials of a person I should pay close attention to, but so far they have had absolutely no meaning for me whatsoever.

AY

Purple Tentacle

It would have been a damn sight easier if the ghost had actually just spelled out the name. Ghosts are needlessly cryptic fucking cunts.

Frinky


ziggy starbucks

I've sometimes wondered whether ghosts watch me when I wank.

the thought has never stopped me though.