Ouija.....

[Midnight]

Okay, so this is a somewhat childish/random kinda question. I'm wondering if anyone you fellas have ever played with the Ouija board and if you've ever gotten any "true" activity? Maybe we've been watching too many ghost hunting shows lately, but we tried it and nothing happened. LOL. I know we played it a couple of times in high school and came out w/some crazy answers but.... coulda been the booz. Anywho, who has experienced w/this or any other "ghost calling" equipment and if so, have you gotten any responses?

[Tx625]

Yes, I have played with one, and he** no I will never do it again

[Midnight]

Yes, I have played with one, and he** no I will never do it again

lol - why say it like that? Was it too true or too fake? I heard that if you make your own one it works better. So! Curiosity got the best of me and I made one. We tried for a while and "no one" came.

[Tx625]

Be careful what you wish for, you never know what will come through on one of those.

[TXFireFighter]

Never tried it and dont care too. And especially after just watching Paranormal Activity. Thats a jacked up flick, rent it!

[Midnight]

Yeah, still need to watch that movie.

[AndyTX]

Yes, I have played with one, and he** no I will never do it again

x2

[Tx625]

Midnight, I think we need to find u another hobbie

[Bobcat]

I remember a family in the neighborhood having one along with a lot of board games. The older boys had that thing out around Halloween. Never made since to me why a piece of cardboard and cheap plastic toys could potentially channel spirits but they couldn't move anything else in the house?

[Glusk611]

Well I played with a quija board one time and a girl that was there with us said that she doesn't like those type of things because weird stuff always happens to her. Anyway, she ended up doing it anyways and we tried to get it to work. It was me my 2 buddies and 3 other girls. It didn't work with all of us so the guys backed out. And of course as soon as the guys don't do it, it starts spelling stuff out and answering questions. But something weird did happen. All of a sudden that girl that said she doesn't like playing with things like that received a text message from an anonymous phone number that said, "The Devil Out"

I guess she could have set that up somehow, but it was still freakin' weird.

[COPPERHEAD]

U.S. Patent D056,449. Design patent for toys (D21/813) which was filed May 26, 1920. Issued Oct 26, 1920. Patentee was H. McGlasson.The first historical mention of something resembling a Ouija board is found in China around 1100 B.C., a divination method known as fuji 扶乩 "planchette writing".[citation needed] Other sources claim that according to a Greek historical account of the philosopher Pythagoras, in 540 B.C. his sect would conduct séances at "a mystic table, moving on wheels, moved towards signs, which the philosopher and his pupil, Philolaus, interpreted to the audience as being revelations supposedly from an unseen world."[2] However, other sources call both claims into dispute, claiming that fuji is spirit writing, not the use of a spirit board, and that there is no record of Pythagoras or his students actually having used this method of achieving oracles or divinations.[3] In addition, the claim of Pythagorian use is called into doubt by questions of historical accuracy, as Philolaus was never the pupil of Pythagoras, and indeed was born roughly twenty-five years after Pythagoras's death. The first undisputed use of the talking boards came with the Modern Spiritualist movement in The United States in the mid-19th century. Methods of divination at that time used various ways to spell out messages, including swinging a pendulum over a plate that had letters around the edge or using an entire table to indicate letters drawn on the floor. Often used was a small wooden tablet supported on casters. This tablet, called a planchette, was affixed with a pencil that would write out messages in a fashion similar to automatic writing. These methods may predate modern Spiritualism.

During the late 1800s, planchettes were widely sold as a novelty. The businessmen Elijah Bond and Charles Kennard had the idea to patent a planchette sold with a board on which the alphabet was printed. The patentees filed on May 28, 1890 for patent protection and thus had invented the first Ouija board. Issue date on the patent was February 10, 1891. They received U.S. Patent 446,054. Bond was an attorney and was an inventor of other objects in addition to this device. An employee of Kennard, William Fuld took over the talking board production and in 1901, he started production of his own boards under the name "Ouija".[3] The Fuld name would become synonymous with the Ouija board, as Fuld reinvented its history, claiming that he himself had invented it. The strange talk about the boards from Fuld's competitors flooded the market and all these boards enjoyed a heyday from the 1920s through the 1960s. Fuld sued many companies over the "Ouija" name and concept right up until his death in 1927. In 1966, Fuld's estate sold the entire business to Parker Brothers, who continues to hold all trademarks and patents. About ten brands of talking boards are sold today under various names.[3]

Etymology
There are several theories about the origin of the term "Ouija". The Oxford English Dictionary states that the origin is unknown, but mentions three possibilities. According to one of these, the word is derived from the French "oui" (for "yes") and the German "ja" (also for "yes").[4] An alternative story suggests that the name was revealed to inventor Charles Kennard during a Ouija séance and was claimed to be an Ancient Egyptian word meaning "good luck". It has also been suggested that the word was inspired by the name of the Moroccan city Oujda.[5]

Another theory is that when Elijah Bond and Charles W. Kennard (12/24/1856-1/14/1925) wanted to name their board, they were looking for something mystical and other-worldly yet acceptable. Both of these men are associated with its patent, and it is not known whether either of them practiced Wicca, which is often referred to as Witchcraft. (The word "Wicca" is derived from the Old English word for "Witchcraft".) Elija applied for a patent in 1890 after his return from Denver, Colorado. According to his website[6], between January 1883 and November 1887 he visited family in Denver where a large number of Native Americans still spoke Spanish as a result of the earlier Spanish Missionary settlements in the area. The Spanish pronunciation for "Ouija" is "Wicca" (or "Week-ha"), and the phonetic spelling for the word Wicca is Ouija. This play on words works perfectly well, as the spelling "Ouija" does not lend itself toward witchcraft, although that is hinted as the board's source of information, even today, as Parker Brothers' tag line for the game is, "It's only a game... isn't it?"

Despite its common usage, "Ouija" is a registered trademark of Hasbro.[7]

[edit] Explanations
[edit] Spiritualist explanation
Spiritualists who believe Ouija boards can be used to make actual contact with the spirit world feel that the act of hindering a medium’s ability to use his or her own eyes while the board is in use effectively places too great of a handicap on the whole exercise. This argument stems from the belief that contacted spirits actually utilize the eyes of the medium during a Ouija session in order to point to the letters and words needed to form a message. Most believers of this notion believe that the board has no intrinsic power in and of itself, but rather, is used simply as a tool to aid a medium while in communication with the spirit world.[8]

Scientific explanation
Rationalists contend that users subconsciously direct the path of the triangle to produce a word that is in that person's subconscious thought process. This subconscious behavior is known as ideomotor action, a term coined by William Carpenter in 1882. It is also known as automatism.[9] Some people may be convinced that the "powers" of the ouija board are real because they are unaware that they are in fact moving the piece and therefore assume that the piece must be moving due to some other "spiritual force". The subconscious thought process may produce an answer that is different from what the user expected in their conscious thought process—thus perpetuating the idea that the board has "mystical powers". The Penn & Teller: Bull****! episode on Ouija Boards ran an experiment using unbiased participants. Questions were being asked to the late William Frawley with very strong answers. The participants were then blindfolded and the board was turned 180 degrees without their knowledge. With continued questioning, the planchette then traveled to bare areas of the board where the participants believed the "Yes" and "No" marks were located, but in fact were not.

Crowley and modern occultism
Aleister Crowley had great admiration for the use of the ouija board and it played a passing role in his magical workings.[10][11]

Jane Wolfe, who lived with Crowley at his infamous Abbey of Thelema, also used the Ouija board. She credits some of her greatest spiritual communications to use of this implement. Crowley also discussed the Ouija board with another of his students, and the most ardent of them, Frater Achad (Charles Stansfeld Jones): it is frequently mentioned in their unpublished letters.

In 1917 Achad experimented with the board as a means of summoning Angels, as opposed to Elementals. In one letter Crowley told Jones: "Your Ouija board experiment is rather fun. You see how very satisfactory it is, but I believe things improve greatly with practice. I think you should keep to one angel, and make the magical preparations more elaborate."

Over the years, both became so fascinated by the board that they discussed marketing their own design. Their discourse culminated in a letter, dated February 21, 1919, in which Crowley tells Jones, "Re: Ouija Board. I offer you the basis of ten percent of my net profit. You are, if you accept this, responsible for the legal protection of the ideas, and the marketing of the copyright designs. I trust that this may be satisfactory to you. I hope to let you have the material in the course of a week." In March, Crowley wrote to Achad to inform him,"I'll think up another name for Ouija." But their business venture never came to fruition and Crowley's new design, along with his name for the board, has not survived.

Crowley has stated, of the Ouija Board that,

There is, however, a good way of using this instrument to get what you want, and that is to perform the whole operation in a consecrated circle, so that undesirable aliens cannot interfere with it. You should then employ the proper magical invocation in order to get into your circle just the one spirit you want. It is comparatively easy to do this. A few simple instructions are all that is necessary, and I shall be pleased to give these, free of charge, to any one who cares to apply.[10]

[jrfan]

Bad Ju-Ju medicine!!! Be every careful messing with those things. You never know what will anwser.

[keep]

Never tried it and don't want to. Kind of like Tarrot cards. I don't know how that stuff might work but it scares the crap out of me to think it might.
No Thanks, I'll stick to my ignorance and be comfortable not knowing.

[DamonJ]

Never tried it and dont care too. And especially after just watching Paranormal Activity. Thats a jacked up flick, rent it!

That could quite possibly be one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Unless you want to watch two peple video themselves sleeping...

I heard how scary it was, maybe a little creepy, but definately not scary..

[head]

Ignorance is bliss! I agree 100% with you keep, just don't want to know...