That One Time with the Ouija
Fear and paranoia of “forbidden magic”
Every kid I knew growing up in the 1980’s/90’s had at least one experience with the spirit board, what many just refer to as a Ouija board. Hasbro is the one who came up with that name and introduced it as a board game to many American households, but the history of spirit boards goes back further.
It was a game that first showed up in advertisements in 1891. It’s hard to track down exactly how and where these spirit boards first started but that era was full of death and so the American 19th century was filled with ideas that made one want to talk to the dead as a way of life. While when I was growing up, the Christian thought was that these things were evil, that wasn’t always the case. It was an acceptable practice back then and one could attend a séance one day and pray at church the next without anyone thinking anything about it. Understandable that when everyone around you is dying and lifespans are short, that you’d like to be able to speak to your loved ones from the great beyond.
I grew up when there was complete hysteria and media freak out over the “Dungeons & Dragons” role playing game. People actually thought it would make their kids into killers and that those who played it wouldn’t be able to distinguish fantasy from reality. Basically the same arguments that were thrown at video games later on, such as at the 1993 congressional hearings. It’s always been something that will corrupt and turn innocent children into killers, usually with a supposed satanic connection. Needless to say, it was a pretty big thing for us kids and had an element of “don’t do it!” which of course made us want to do it. Same thing back then with tarot cards and spirit boards.
I had many Christian friends and family, so I’d been told that playing with anything like that was inviting evil demons into your body. I was not interested in being possessed but I was inextricably drawn to the forbidden “magic” items. It made me feel powerful and like a rebel when I would sneak into my room and run my hands through my tarot deck. I wanted a spirit board but wasn’t really sure where to buy one and this was Alaska in the early 1990’s, so it isn’t like I had many shopping options. So I made a crude one on cardboard.
So here we were, my younger sister and I and a hand drawn board. We go into the downstairs bathroom, which isn’t finished at this point so exposed piping lends to a creepy vibe. We turned the light off and lit a candle. There was some sort of chant or something we said but I can’t remember now what that was. I do remember us asking a question, a glass upside down was our planchette, and our eyes were closed while we waited for an answer. I heard a weird sound and opened my eyes in time to see my cat had somehow gotten into the room and set his damn tail on fire. I clapped my hands over his tail and put it out, he was unbothered by the whole incident but it freaked us the hell out. We took the board and folded it and I threw it away outside off the edge of the cliff of our property.
I was paranoid for weeks after that. I was sure that the demons came out and possessed me but it really was nothing more than an overactive imagination and an untimely placed cat. As an adult, I can look back and laugh but at the same time it bothers me that anything that isn’t easily understood often gets labeled as “evil” or “demonic”. It is easy to see how many can be so afraid of these things that they won’t even watch movies or read books about the subjects for fear of letting the evil in.
I recently had a conversation about this with someone who I grew up with. He was raised in a strict home and wasn’t allowed to even listen to the radio popular music. I remember coming over there and listening to the cassette he had taped and how he just wanted to fit in and didn’t understand what was so evil about it. Those experiences certainly helped to move him to where he’s now in his thinking and just like me, he doesn’t see what all the fuss was about.
Now I’m not here to discount the experiences of others and many truly believe they have had an experience that was supernatural or demonic. None of us really know everything for sure but this was just my experience and my thoughts because of it. All I can say is that I’m glad that I’ve learned the things I have through research and hope more people stop taking the word of others as fact. Instead, one should find out for themselves what things are truly harmful. Some are just misunderstood games.
I still want a traditional Ouija board and this time I don’t own any cats. Just saying.
