Ouija Danger
 

Our Employees' Association had a silent auction this week. Most of the stuff for sale was shite, but my eye caught a Parker Brothers Ouija "Mystifying Oracle" talking board. I picked it up for $1.00.


http://www.wildfreshness.com/brian/archives/ouijab.jpg

Anyhow, I put the game box on a chair in my cube, not thinking much of it, until my nutty coworker, Jane Doe, saw it and informed me in hushed tones and with a frighteningly serious expression on her face: "Don't play around with that, especially since you're a Cancer. You'll attract bad things to you, believe me." "You can't be serious," I replied. "Dead serious. I've seen it happen, Brian, just don't play it. Put it on your wall as a decoration but whatever you do, don't play it."

Then today she sent me this e-mail:

"This is not a joke or just another instance of the pearls and the swine. This is a warning. You will be opening a door to forces that you clearly don't understand. You might at least google it and get some additional info before you simply assume that what you don't know can't hurt you, because it can."

And this is what baffles me about Jane Doe; she is otherwise very intelligent and would never strike one as other than a totally rational person, but she goes off on these astrological and UFO tangents that really make me wonder. I've learned that I can't joke about stuff like that around her because she gets so wound up. She really got into that "What The Bleep" movie, and she was convinced that it had "proven" that one can change the form of ice crystal formation with positive or negative mind energy. Crop circles too. What the bleep indeed.

:eek:

Don't forget to tell her to warn the other 25 million owners.

Now Jumanji, that's really dangerous.:lol:

Indeed, oxo'me'lad.

Those rhino's were real killers....

oh, and pangloss.... just remind Jane Doe she's off her f'kin head.

Oh, Lord...I'm going to be one to step in it, aren't I?

Yeah...don't fuck with Ouija boards unless you know something about shielding, psychic defense and just plain not being a dumbass.

Fortunately, you aren't a hyperhormonal teenage girl, so you've got that in your favor, but if you want to commune with the Spirits, there's better ways...more selective, controlled ways, to be sure.

Like Yahtzee.

Jim Beam
Bud Weiser
Jose Cuervo
To name a few. As for control, that's all covered too:cool:

If I believe in Ouija at all (not sure I do) my assumption would be that it's moved by unconscious reflexes from the participants' wrists. Which would mean the greatest danger you face is messages from your own and you friends' minds.

Hmmmm, might be better off with the Jim Beam after all - the message will simply be, "I love you SO much, you're my best friend!"

What Elspode said. I wouldn't recommend fooling around with one.

Doesn't anyone (besides the pagan's here) believe in the spirit world?

Yes, I do...along with a number of other mystical teachings.

I'm with Elspode and Brianna on this one.

Here's why:

I, along with some friends, fooled around with a Ouija board as a teen and we ended up scared witless. It didn't really talk to us or tell us anything amazing, but the board itself refused to go away. We became scared of what we were doing and threw the board away. The next day it was back on the table. So we cut it into pieces, but again, a day or so later it was back in one piece on top of one girl's dresser. It was definately the same board as it had several distinctive marrings on its surface. We decided we were in wayyy over our heads and asked an older, more experienced person to take the board away for us. There were several other odd incidents which occured during those couple of days, but its very possible they were just paranoia from scared teenagers (so I'll leave them out of the story).

In any case, I don't mess around with the spirit world anymore.

Stormie

When I was a teen, a group of us used a ouija board. They all got scared. That might be because I kept making the board spell "kill" over and over again.

Otherwise intelligent people believing in irrational mumbo-jumbo?
I hate to say it, but this sounds pretty familiar. :::leaves it at that:::

But just remember, this time they aren't Christians.

I look at it this way. Have you ever walked up to the door at the back of the movie theatre? There's no handle on your side of the door. There's a good reason for that.

Now, put yourself on the other side, the inside, the safe side. Do you really want to be the schmuck who gets conned into opening it? I mean only one of two things can happen if you open that door: nothing or something. The nothing is pointless and the something is.. well... think about the missing handle.

One needn't suddenly accept the idea of ghosts, demons or spiritual abysses to come to the conclusion that neither outcome justifies opening it. Don't be the toddler who finds a hand grenade - it could just be a paperweight but...

I think a Ouija Board might be a way to magnify the good or bad energies within yourself. Or, it might also be a piece of cardboard. It depends.

If you can prove that something metaphysical moves the ouija marker, you can make $1,000,000 from the James Randi Foundation. Seems like a pretty good outcome.