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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To have refused to let them use a ouija board in my house

234 replies

FrankWelker · 07/01/2015 12:19

We had some friends over for new year and one night they got out a ouija board. I'm scared off them (never done one so don't know why) and point blank refused to let them play it in my house (nicely). I was telling my cousin about this today and she said I'm a right wuss! I know it's my house and I can refuse but do other people have the same kind of fear with this sort of thing?

OP posts:
hoobypickypicky · 07/01/2015 13:49

"I ask to use the toilet.....its manners. If they said no to a perfectly innane request, I'd think they were twats."

nunks, so would I.

I think it's clear to all that we're talking of guests making controversial or unusual requests - e.g. "May I bring a complete stranger to the family meal/can I smoke in the house/can I bring my child-disliking dog when I visit you and your toddlers/can I smoke dope in the house/can my child have a potty in your sitting room/can I use a Ouija board", not "May I use your loo please?".

Well, it was clear to me, anyway.

CPtart · 07/01/2015 13:51

To those with negative experiences of using a ouija board, what happened?

expatinscotland · 07/01/2015 13:52

YANBU

nunkspugget · 07/01/2015 13:52

Lettuce, would you move house if I came and summoned a ghost? Or does your 'fear' stop when you have to do more than flap hands and be all scared and girly? Its all or nothing if you ask me. Either ghosts are real, or not. My bet is not one of the 'no way' camp would actively DO anything if I let a ghost out of a shot glass.

nunkspugget · 07/01/2015 13:55

Hooby....I'm guessing as it was new years, they were merry....and it was suggested as a laugh. Not a sage sitting down to chat to the restless dead.

iamthenewgirl · 07/01/2015 13:58

No, lots of people report strange/unsavoury things happen when they've used a ouija board.

Negative entities do exist. Best not to open the door to them. I wouldn't let anyone bring a board into my house. Let alone use it.

LettuceAndPotatoes · 07/01/2015 13:59

Nunks; just because there is no physical evidence to support the theory that ghosts are real doesn't make it eliminate the fear.

Religion for example, people believe in different things and I respect that therefore my fear of ghosts is relevant to me and in my home where I am most safe I would not want to summon the dead because I believe in bad spirits and I do not believe in disturbing things like that.

I would expect my guests to appreciate that and play the game somewhere else.

Fullpleatherjacket · 07/01/2015 14:05

I'm fairly non woo but I wouldn't have one in the house either. Just in case Wink

nunkspugget · 07/01/2015 14:05

So you would move house then? Or does your belief in ghosts conveniently stop when it would actually affect your life?

WannaBe · 07/01/2015 14:07

Thing is, if you didn't believe or at least hope something would happen then you wouldn't use one would you? So the people saying that there are no ghosts or spirits and that using a ouija board is just a bit of fun presumably haven't used one. After all what's fun in spreading out the letters and putting the glass on the table and then ... whatever it is that you do after that, just for ... ... nothing to happen?

People who use a ouija board do so with the expectation or hope at the very least that something will happen, otherwise there is no purpose to it. so it is somewhat disinjenuous to suggest that anyone not wanting to use one is being unreasonable...

I've never used an ouija board and I wouldn't have anything like that in my house. There are IMO things out there which are beyond our understanding, ghosts, spirits, dark forces, who knows what they are, but I believe there are some doors which should remain firmly shut.

BoomBoomsCousin · 07/01/2015 14:17

Oujia boards (or at least the pointer you all touch) move easily Wanna, they don't actually need a spirit to make them. As a sceptic, the fun is in making up stuff around the supposed communication and in trying to nudge the pointer a certain way (which is tricky on good ones and even trickier when everyone touching the thing is aiming for a different answer). At least it was fun at 15. Not sure if I'd find it quite as hysterical now.

nunkspugget · 07/01/2015 14:23

Agree boom, its more of a group mentality thing. 'Spirits....does Jenny fancy Charles??'. Pointer moves to yes. The ghost element just stops the game being called 'what your friends really think'.

MagratsHair · 07/01/2015 14:24

Be that take your shoes off before you come in or don't summon the fucking dead is besides the point, rules are rules

Grin Grin Grin

peeveddoesntcoverit · 07/01/2015 14:25

YANBU to say it's your house and your rules.

But all this "just in case" and "meddling with things we don't understand" is bollocks. The ouija board is 100% proven to be moved by the ideomotor effect. Nothing more, nothing less.

Hakluyt · 07/01/2015 14:27

"dont mess with things you dont understand"

I'd be fine with a ouija board then- I understand everything there is to understand about them. I'd better not put oil in my car, thought, or heat up a cup of tea in the microwave.........

elfycat · 07/01/2015 14:31

I'm woo.

No way.

From a non-woo point of view it's something that someone can use to create fear in others (they never have Granny says her jewellery is in the toilet cistern do they).

From a woo point of view you do not just invite crap into your house. Ouiji board users don't tend to do a whole load of protection. I do a shed load of energetic protection just to meditate quietly by myself.

Adarajames · 07/01/2015 14:32

There was some interesting research years ago, think it was in Canada, where they proved that a collective 'belief' or 'consciousness' was enought to make things actually happen - ie when enough people together believed there was a ghost present, there were all sorts of unexplained bangs and things falling over and the like. Can't recall all details now, but it made for very interesting reading

CatCushion · 07/01/2015 14:33

Your house, yoir rules.

Ouija boards are used by some as a way to play nasty pranks on people. I'd have let it go on but depending on how it went, might feel differently about whether they were friends.

Hakluyt · 07/01/2015 14:33

I suspect they were using "research" in its loosest possible meaning...........

qazxc · 07/01/2015 14:38

Your house, your rules. You are entitled to your beliefs and to speak out if anything makes you uncomfortable.

nunkspugget · 07/01/2015 14:38

Adara, like some sort of self fulfilling prophecy sort of thing? Like when people hurt themselves more on Friday 13th on account of them thinking it will happen?

BeggingYourPardon · 07/01/2015 14:43

Awww I bloody love them! Great fun, have a read on Wikipedia, not woo in the ghostie sense.

Very woo in the sense of what our brains are capable of doing consciously or not.

BUT if I took one to a friends house and it frightened them, I certainly wouldn't push to play it! Your house, your rules.

'John Candy' once told us he was wearing a purple hat with flowers on and we also spoke to 'Tosh' from the Bill. Honestly, I find them hilarious.

Adarajames · 07/01/2015 14:47

Here was something in the research about hatching chicks also able to have a collective consciousness that gave them control over s mobile heat lamp. Not very nice as they first made the chicks imprint on the mobile heat lamp rather than a mother, but found that, without the imprinted chicks the lamp moved in a totally random way, but that with the imprinted chicks, it moved to the area most chicks were in in a non Random and more controlled way. Was done by some university scientists, with control groups and statistical analysis etc, so really did seem to suggest there was some level of control of immediate environment when focused on by a group of people / minds in that space. Someone wrote a novel based on it too, but ME brain means can't recall more detail; may have to go googling!

MagratsHair · 07/01/2015 14:47

What Adara said, isn't that the same thing as Peeve mentioned, the ideometer effect?

Which as I understand it is an unconscious movement made because the mind is focused. So in this sense, because everybody is expecting the glass to move someone does actually move it but is not aware that they are doing so?

Theboodythatrocked · 07/01/2015 14:53

Love a good seance myself and we all use the board as it's a good laugh but your house your rules.

It's just as daft as religions isn't it?