Ouija Bords Games or a Portals to Hell Eps. 411

222 Paranormal Podcast

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Since the beginning of recorded time, man has claimed to be able to communicate with the spirit world. However, it would not be until the heyday of the Spiritualist movement that he would begin claiming to do so as an everyday occurrence. That particular movement was founded by two young girls, Kate and Maggie Fox, who established a way to communicate with a ghost. They used a series of knocks and raps that answered “yes” and “no” and eventually assigned a code for letters of the alphabet. In this way, they were able to spell out longer and more detailed messages.

As Spiritualism grew in popularity, those with an interest began to establish what were called “home circles”, small groups of friends and family members who would gather around and attempt to communicate with spirits. They experimented with the knocking and rapping sounds and later with Table Tilting, which was accessible to everyone and no professional mediums were needed. The knockings and rappings of the early movement continued to spread in other directions as ordinary people began experimenting with their own skills as mediums. Soon, the tiresome and time-consuming method of knocking and tipping tables began to fall out of fashion and so mediums began a new form of contact called “automatic writing”. While practiced almost solely by spirit mediums, it still became very popular at séances as a direct line to the spirit world.

The open circle

When Vince, now 30, was a child, one of his friends goaded him into playing with a Ouija board in his basement. Young Vince didn’t expect anything out of the ordinary to happen, so he went along with it. Once they started to play, however, the lights began to flicker, the air around them grew cold, and a spirit began to communicate with them through the board. The spirit spelled out a Russian name and claimed he had been murdered.

“We took a break to make some pizza rolls,” Vince says, “but we forgot to close the circle when we were done.” (If you’re new to Ouija board stories, that’s a giant no-no!) “After returning to the basement, the energy was much heavier, and books and things were sprawled out on the floor.” And yet, the board remained perfectly still in the center of the room, just how they had left it. “Upon looking at a mirror that we had nearby, the eye of the Ouija board was moving sporadically in its reflection.”

Solo play

Most people play with a Ouija board in groups, or at least with one other person. But Ossiana wanted to try to use it on her own. She put her hands on the pointer and asked questions, but nothing happened. She took her hands off of the pointer and was about to put the game away when the planchette began to move around on its own. “I’ll never try that again,” says the 30-year-old from New Jersey.

In 1933, Dorothea Turley and her 15 year-old daughter, Mattie, were convicted of the murder their husband and father. On the witness stand, Mattie stated how the Ouija board, which had been directed by her mother, had told her that it was all right to kill her father so that her mother could marry "cowboy". Mattie later killed him with a shotgun. The jury determined that the crime had more to do with insurance money and Dorothea's lover than a Ouija board and Dorothea went to prison and Mattie for reform school, where she stayed until she was 21. Her mother was released on an appeal three years after the original trial.