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Ouija
Boards. Harmless bit of fun? Or something more sinister?
I
have certainly had a scary experience with a homemade variety, many years ago,
in my misspent youth. As a result, I will never go near them again. But more of
that later.
My late mother used to tell a story of when
she and some ATS friends, during World War II, decided they were going to have
a bit of fun and set up their own homespun Ouija board, using a pack of Lexicon
cards and a thick glass tumbler. Each of them placed one finger, lightly on the
glass. It worked almost immediately. At first they asked it relatively mundane
questions and received predictable answers, but then, out of the blue, the
glass suddenly started shooting around the board, circling faster and faster.
Mum said something felt different about the glass. Up until then, she could
easily have believed one of them could have been manipulating it, but now, it
was as if the glass had a mind of its own.
Then it started to spell something out.
Just one word that struck fear into all of them.
“Die”.
They stared at each other for a few moments
until one brave soul (not my mother, she was too scared) asked, “Who?”
Suddenly the glass shot out from under their
fingers and across the table, coming to rest in front of a quiet young woman
called Desiree. The others looked at her in open-mouthed horror, but she
laughed it off. “Silly game”.
Two weeks later, Desiree deliberately rode her
bicycle into the path of the London express train.
She had been one for keeping her personal life
very much to herself and it was only after her death that her friends learned
how violent and unhappy her marriage had been. She came from a well-to-do
family and her marriage to a young man from another similarly connected family
had been presumed since the two of them were children. She had done what her
parents insisted upon and married him. He had a drink problem and regularly
beat her. In her world, divorce was unthinkable. She could see no way out.
Could she have thrown the glass at herself?
Maybe as some last ditch, but too subtle, cry for help? The young women
considered it, but it seemed impossible owing to the angle at which she was
sitting and the position of her lone finger on the glass. We will, of course,
never know, but neither Mum nor any of her friends ever played with a Ouija
again.
I had known of this story for maybe ten
years, but still I had to have my own experience, didn’t I? Two female work
colleagues and I did just as Mum and her friends had done and used a lexicon
pack, plus postcards with ‘Yes’, ‘No’ and ‘Goodbye’ on them. Needing a fair
amount of space and lacking a table big enough, we set up on the (thankfully
clean) floor of the Ladies’ washroom. We placed a heavy glass water tumbler in
the centre and each positioned one finger lightly on the glass. Giggling with
nervous anticipation, we started.
My colleague Mary asked the usual question,
“Is there anyone there?”
The glass began to move, gently circling the
board.
Mary again piped up, “Who are you?”
Now it started to spell out something, until
the name “Richard” emerged. Although a relatively common name, this rang no
bells with any of us.
I gained a little confidence now. “Do you have
a message for one of us?”
The glass moved to “Yes”.
“Who is your message for?”
“M A R Y”
My other colleague, Josie, and I looked at
Mary. She had gone a little pale but nevertheless asked the inevitable, “What is
your message for me?”
Nothing. The glass didn’t move. We sat in
silence for a few moments, exchanging glances. Then Mary asked, “Are you still
there?”
The glass skimmed around the floor, pausing at
letters and moving off so rapidly it was hard to keep up. The words were
mainly four letter expletives – and they were directed at Mary. This did not
feel the same as the seemingly innocuous Richard. Under my finger, I felt the
glass pulling away. Josie said she felt the same. So did Mary.
Random words now. ‘Devil’, ‘Satan’, ‘Evil’.
But then it spelled out, ‘Devil F***s Mary’. She let out a scream, took her
finger off the glass and backed away. The glass pulled even stronger. It
tugged itself away from Josie and I - who were sitting next to each other - hurled
itself across the floor and smashed against the far wall. The impact shattered
the glass. We stared at it like idiots for a minute or more and I am certain I
did not imagine the chill in the room. We all experienced it. That was the
first and last time I ever messed around with a Ouija.
Oh I know, mass hallucination. One of us must
have pushed the glass. There are a myriad of perfectly sane and logical
explanations but… you weren’t there. You didn’t feel that glass tug away from
us. You didn’t see the way it shot across the room, as it someone had hurled it
with all their strength. This was a heavy Duralex glass. The sort you could
often drop on the floor and they would virtually bounce. At the time it made
its dramatic exit, just two of us had one finger each, lightly, on the glass.
One was me and I know I wasn’t moving it at any time. The other was Josie.
Trust me, it would have taken far more than one of her fingers, plus a degree
of skill in the art of throwing, for her to have achieved that result.
You only have to tap in ‘Ouija boards’ in your
favourite search engine to find a whole host of cautionary tales, warning
people not to use them. Some have had far more violent and frightening outcomes
than I have. Whether users really do tap into something supernatural or not,
it’s clear that some highly undesirable results can – and do – occur.
If you’re still determined to go ahead and
‘have a bit of fun’, nothing I say will stop you.
But don’t ever say I didn’t warn you...
We are the Thirteen and we are one
4 Yarborough Drive looked like any other late
19th century English townhouse. Alice Lorrimer feels safe and welcomed there,
but soon discovers all is not as it appears to be. One of her housemates flees
the house in terror. Another disappears and never returns. Then there are the
sounds of a woman wailing, strange shadows and mists, and the appearance of the
long-dead Josiah Underwood who founded a coven there many years earlier. The
house is infested with his evil, and Alice and her friends are about to
discover who the Thirteen really are.
When death's darkest veil draws over you, then shall shadows weep
The Darkest Veil is
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