The Beyond: Paranormal Articles & Editorials

~ Written By Pattyhap1863 ~

“Is there anybody here?” the voice whispered into the darkness, as the group sat huddled in a circle waiting for an answer from beyond. Nobody spoke.

How many times have we heard this question in séances? Certainly that question is the one that everyone uses while attempting communication with the after-life. The fact is that spirit communication has been attempted for a long time now. Séances were performed by mediums and people usually joined hands, forming a circle around a table. Other kinds of séances introduced letters around a light object or planchette in the center of the table which could be moved around pointing to different letters to spell out the answers. “Yes” and “No” were also included in the layout, in case the spirits didn’t know or want to spell. This form of communicating was the early precursor of the “Ouija Board”. In fact, the name ‘Ouija’ (oui-ja), literally means “yes” in French and German respectively. Nobody really remembers that the board itself was first created by William Fuld in the eighteen hundreds, who later sold his entire company to the Parker Brothers.

Then if you take a look at the Ouija Board in itself, a question comes to mind: What is it about this board that makes it so nefarious? Surely it’s not the Parkers Brothers (now a subsidiary of Hasbro) trademark at the bottom? When I hear all these stories of Ouija boards being dangerous, I think about where I bought it, on a shelf right next to Risk and Monopoly in a toy store and wonder if the people selling it as a toy truly know anything about the board itself?

Before you take the time to think about this (and a series of other questions I’m pondering about in this article), let me introduce you to another scenario. A person standing in the middle of a dark room or area, holding a digital or analog recorder in his hand. The room is very dark, and the only light comes from a video camera. “Is there anybody here?” he asks, peering into the darkness. Doesn’t this question ring a bell? Replace the board and planchette with a digital/analog recorder and you have the same scenario. And this scenario, simply put, is spirit communication.  We are doing the same thing using different tools. This is also true of automatic writing, as well.

So why is it that we aren’t seeing warning signs and words like evil when we capture an EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena/Phenomenon) on a digital recorder if we are basically doing the same thing as a Ouija board? Isn’t a Ouija board simply a tool used to communicate with spirits? What is it about Ouija boards that set alarm bells ringing? Don’t we basically ask the same questions when on an investigation using a digital recorder?

When I googled for “Ouija board”, I got some pretty interesting information that I’d like to share with you all. The first thing that caught my interest was the fact that most people were afraid to use it because of what they’ve read online. Let’s face it, there are some pretty scary stories out there! Ouija boards have also been used in literature as well. Pulitzer Prize winner James Merrill claims that “The Changing Light at Sandover” published in 1982 was written based on his communications with the dead by using a Ouija board.  ‘Paranormal celebrities’ such as psychic Sylvia Brown and paranormal researcher John Zaffis warn us to stay away from Ouija boards. Last but not least, there’s Hollywood, and all the horror movies where Ouija boards were featured as a communication tool used by the devil, elementals and vengeful spirits. No wonder people think the board is evil!

So where is the angry mob that screams evil when it comes to using digital/analog recorders to capture EVP then? Does all this mean that because we use an electronic gadget we are protected from the devil, elementals or evil spirits? Why is it that there aren’t any wide-spread stories about people in mental asylums who have gone crazy after using their recorders to capture EVP? What is the factor that instills fear here? I, for one, have no answers to all this.

The fact is that automatic writing, EVP captures and Ouija boards all fall into one category in my book, and that is SPIRIT COMMUNICATION. ALL these things are used to try to effectively communicate with spirits or the after-life and none of them are evil or bad for us. The thing that makes something bad is the way we use or abuse it. If we use these tools excessively and blindly, we are playing with fire. If we ignore common sense and develop a fixation for one of them, then we are in true danger. For the mind can play games on us and cause us to hear or see what is not there.

Ah, you say, but I have proof that Ouija boards are evil! Something bad happened to a friend of a friend who used it! Or maybe you’ve experienced something terrifying when using a Ouija board yourself? If so, I invite you to please send your Ouija board stories and experiences to us and we’ll publish them on both MY site, Ghostamongus AND here on The Beyond. Send your Ouija stories to BeyonderBill@yahoo.com along with your name (or alias if you’re paranoid), and the title of your story. This will be an ongoing online experiment to statistically record the number of positive, negative and neutral experiences from people who submit their stories to the email address previously mentioned. Then you can decide for yourself if the Ouija board is really an evil tool or not.

Anybody want to play a game of Risk?