010 - The Ouija Board

​There are some people who believe that a simple wooden board with letters printed on it can be used to communicate with spirits. Those who exist on the other side or somehow able to spell out messages, answer questions, or even predict the future Ouija board. Could be a fun game to play with your friends. What is it? I didn't think so until one day when I saw a Ouija board spelling out a message with no one touching it. I'm Tom Stewart and this is my paranormal story. Before I start this episode, I want to thank you for. Listening this podcast only exists because of supporters like you. But unfortunately podcasts do cost money, so I'm hoping you'll show your support by visiting my website myparanormalstory.com and clicking on the donate button every little bit helps keep us on the air. Thank you so much for your support. Spirit boards or Ouija boards, as they're commonly referred to today. Have been around since the 1800s. At first they were thought to be harmless parlor games and had nothing to do with the paranormal. But a spiritualist named Pearl Curran started using these wooden boards to communicate with the dead. It was right around the time. Of World War One. And so many families were willing to do anything to hear from their lost loved ones. From there, these spirit boards started to become popular, with cults and alternative religious groups. Some claimed they could not only contact lost loved ones, but pretty much any spirit. Some groups would use the messages to prophesize the future. Others were just looking for messages of enlightenment from angels. And even gods. The Catholic Church started seeing these boards as a threat and quickly started warning people against their use, claiming that the messages were from demons posing as friendly spirits. Over the years, there's been some debate as to who invented the Ouija board, and what the word Ouija means. American inventor Elijah Bond is believed to have invented his version of the Spirit Board and called it Luigi Board. He had many inventions, but the patent he received for the Ouija board in 1891 was his most famous. The company was passed down to one of Bond's employees, William Fund, who mass produced the board's claiming that he had invented it. And by 1920 there were many competing companies putting out their own versions of Ouija boards. The official Ouija board was eventually taken over by Parker Brothers, and today it's owned and produced by Hasbro, which is headquartered right here in my home state of Rhode Island. And love when stories come full circle like that. Now what does the word, Ouija even mean? Elijah Bond, the first inventor, claimed that the board named itself while using the board with his sister-in-law, Helen Peters, a self-proclaimed spirit medium. They simply asked the board what it wanted to be called. And it slowly spelled out OUIJA. And when they asked what that word meant, the board told them, good luck. And they claimed to have researched that word and found that it was an ancient Egyptian language. The word Ouija did mean good luck. But years later, when William Fun took over the company, he claimed the word, Ouija was from combining both the French and German words for yes, we and J. So can a piece of wood that means good luck or yes and produced by a toy company really communicate with spirits? The first time I ever used a Ouija board was when I was. A teenager, like most teenagers, I was curious. I had seen the Ouija board in its box, stacked in people's closets with other board games over the years, but I'd never owned one, or used one. It was my friend Freddie, who first showed one to me. His brother at bottom one and the two of us would sit up in his room trying to communicate with spirits. We would sit facing each other with the board on the floor in. Between us and. We both place our hands on the heart-shaped planchette, which is the indicator used. For ouija boards. Planchets were originally used for spiritual practices like automatic writing during seances. It would be a small hole towards the tip that would hold a pencil. And all of those at the seance would lightly place their hands on the planchette. As it slowly wrote down letters and words on a piece of paper placed underneath. That practice is what inspired the Ouija board. In the early days the planchette would just point to the letters on the board instead of writing them with a pencil. But today most planchets have a larger circle by the tip that is big enough to see each letter on the board. Through it Planchette is usually raised up slightly on three legs with felt on the bottom so it will slide around the smooth board easily. Freddie and I would lightly place our hands on the planchette and it would zip around the board, spelling out the answers to our questions. Occasionally the spirits of relatives would come through, but usually we would end up talking to spirits who just happened to be listening. One of them was Hank. We usually had a strong connection with Hank and we would ask questions like Hank. Am I going to pass or fail my algebra test tomorrow? And the planchette would move around under our fingers, and you would spell out PASS. OR Hank. How am I going to do in the baseball game this weekend and our fingers would be dragged around the board and it would spell out HOMERUN. But one day? We decided to ask Hank about himself. And we learned a few things that he died at home in his 40s. Relatively young had something to do with his heart. And when we asked where he lived, he gave us an address that was literally half a block away. All this time we had been talking to a spirit. We used to live in a house. We walked past almost every day and from that day on we never looked at that house the same. Quite often we would see an older woman in the yard tending to her flowers. And one day, Freddy worked up the courage to go and ask her if she knew Hank. She looked at us kind of funny but said. Yeah, that's my late husband's name. Why do you ask? Freddie and I were stunned. He quickly dismissed the whole thing by saying no, no, no hank's much younger. We were looking for someone else and we. Just took off. We ran upstairs to his bedroom anxious to communicate with Hank again on. The Ouija board. We wondered if he had a message we could pass along to his wife, or maybe he just wanted to know if she was doing well, but for several days we had no luck getting in touch. With Hank again. It was as if he wasn't even listening anymore. Occasionally Freddy's half brother Kevin would do Ouija board sessions with us, and that planchette would fly around the board when he was hosting my fingers. Could hardly keep up. It would move so fast that I could barely keep track of what was being spelled out. It was as if Kevin had some sort of stronger connection with the spirits. And some of them would talk to him regularly like they. Were old friends. But he hated using those cheap Parker brother Ouija boards, so he invited us to his apartment to do a session with his personal spirit board. You told us to come by on Sunday night so we could help him with something. Kevin lived in a small apartment on the 2nd floor of a two family home. Yet a small living room, a couple of small bedrooms and a pantry. It felt a bit confined with the slanted ceilings, but I suppose it was just enough for a 20 something year old single guy. His apartment also had a set of stairs that folded down from the ceiling that accessed the attic. And he would use that attic for his witchcraft and warlock spiritual practices. He explained to us that he needed our help with a spirit removal. So he led us up into the attic and he explained to us what was going to happen. The attic was dark and warm. There was a small window on one end that was darkened by a thick curtain. Only a small floor lamp lit the room. The wooden floor was partially covered by an old maroon colored rug. There was some random old furniture in corners and up against walls. But in the middle of the room on the floor there was an old mirror propped up against a kitchen chair. The mirror looked antique but nothing fancy. It had dirty glass and a wooden frame around it, something you would hang up over a Bureau in a bedroom. On the floor around the mirror was a bunch of candles in the shape of a circle. He explained to us that he was going to be removing a spirit that was possessing that mirror. And at this point. I had no idea. What was about to happen? He was going to lure the spirit out of the mirror and into a small box by reading some sort of religious texts. It was a small wooden box like an old jewelry box with red felt inside of it. And Kevin placed the box with the lid open in front of the mirror and instructed Freddie to quickly close the box when he gave him the cue. Kevin then handed me a large crucifix hanging from a leather string. It reminded me of one of the ones my grandmother always had hanging around her house. He told me that once he gave me the cue, it was my job to hang that crucifix over the front of the mirror so that the spirit wouldn't be able to go back inside. Kevin then lit the candles one at a time, going around the circle, skipping every other one until they were all lit. Then he shut the lamp off. And I just stood there in the candlelit room, waiting for something to happen. I watched as Kevin knelt down on the floor with the felt box in between him and the mirror. Freddie was sitting on the floor off to the side, but close enough to the box so he could close it quickly. I stood behind the mirror, holding the crucifix by the leather string. And Kevin opened up a small book, small leather bound book and just started reading from it. But it was in a language I didn't understand. Latin, I think. He would read a few lines, close his eyes, and then read a few more lines. Occasionally he would stop and look up at the ceiling and then back down at. The book. Never raising or lowering his voice, he always kept the same tone with every line he read. This went on for at least 1520 minutes. My arms were getting tired from holding the crucifix over the mirror. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Kevin yelled, now now? I didn't know if he was talking to me or Freddie, but I just quickly draped the crucifix over the mirror and stepped back. And at the same time Freddie slammed the box shut, causing a couple of the candles. To blow out. Kevin sat there in silence for a moment and Freddie and I just. Looked at each other. Finally I spoke up and said. Did we get it? And Kevin calmly said. He brought the closed box with him and put it on his pantry table. What are you going to do with it now? I asked him. He explained that later that night he would do a prayer ceremony asking some spiritual counsel to take the spirit away. I wasn't sure what he meant by all that, but he told us that if they were successful, they would give us a sign by putting some fresh dirt on home plate. As Kevin and Freddie continued to talk in the pantry, I was standing off to the side, leaning up against the wall in the doorway connected to one of the small bedrooms. The room was kind of small for a bedroom. Maybe OK for a kids room or a small office. So for Kevin it was the room where he used his spirit board. I could see it from where I was standing. It was set up in between 2 wooden chairs. The chairs were facing each other and the Spirit Board was laying on the seats of the chairs like a bridge between them. And underneath it was 1/2 melted unlit candle. I could tell this wasn't one of those Ouija boards you buy at a toy store. It was much larger and thicker, looked a lot heavier and the letters were burnt into the board. The planchette looked like it was wooden and not plastic. I asked Kevin about it and he brought us. Into the room. He told us a warlock who was his mentor gave him the board many years ago. He claimed that the Spirit Board was made from the wood that came from a tree in Salem that had been taken down after it was struck by lightning. His board was one of only about a dozen or so spirit boards made from that tree and was handed down over several generations. It was beautiful too. It was like a piece of art, really. But he didn't want to do a session right then. He said he was still kind of tired from the spirit removal we had just done. So we went back into the pantry as we were all standing around chatting I I kept looking in the other room at the. Spirit board. For some reason I just couldn't take my eyes off of it. And then suddenly I felt like. I saw the planchette move just a little bit. I thought maybe it was just my eyes playing. Tricks on me? But then I saw it move again. Suddenly it started moving around the board. It slid over one letter, then another, and then another and stopped. I couldn't make out. What it said. So I raised my head a little higher and it moved again. This time I could see it spelling out T. M and then stopped. Suddenly Kevin looked at me and said. You see something. I cook who said no no, I don't see anything and in a startled voice. I told Freddie I had to get home because it was getting late and I left. That was the last time. I've ever used a Ouija board. The next day I went over to Freddy's House to play some Wiffle ball in. His backyard, he didn't say a thing. I thought for sure he'd asked me what I saw. The night before. But he didn't say anything. He headed out to the pitchers mound and I grabbed the Wiffle ball bat and went up to our makeshift home plate to take a few swings. I got into my stance and looked down at home plate and suddenly noticed it was covered by a fresh pile of dirt. My paranormal story is written, produced and narrated by me. Tom Stewart. Music from this episode, courtesy of [email protected]. If you enjoy my stories and would like to. Support the podcast. You can go to buymeacoffee.com/my paranormal or just click on the donate button on my website at my paranormal story.com. I also have T-shirts and coffee mugs for sale. Unfortunately, podcasts cost money in your support helps me keep this podcast running. Thank you for your support. Please don't forget to subscribe so you'll know when I've added new episodes and feel free to follow me on Facebook and Instagram. Just search for my power and normal story. If you have a podcast and you'd like to have me as a guest, or if you would like to ask me a question or tell me your paranormal story, you can e-mail me at [email protected]. Thanks for listening. I'm Tom Stewart and this is my paranormal story.