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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:
Aeroflotgirl · 07/01/2015 14:54

YANbu at all, I woulden't want it in my home either.

dustarr73 · 07/01/2015 14:57

Well what happened to me was i was about 13,14.My cousins and i made one up.Spread the letter and numbers all over the board.
We were only messing and the glass flew across the boards.We got a fright and ran down the stairs in to the kitchen.Where we seen their grandad who was dead at the time.

Didnt stop there for about 3,4 months after we got the impression someone was following us.
Like a dark cloud.We had no energy.In the end we went to the priest,who said some prayers and gave us a prayer to say whenever we felt afraid.
It took a while to stop but it did eventually.
I would never mess with one again.No way.

WerewolfBarMitzvah · 07/01/2015 14:58

Could you compromise and play ' Light as a feather, stiff as a board?'

Solo · 07/01/2015 14:59

I am very woo, but a Ouija board is probably one thing I won't touch.
YANBU.

Hakluyt · 07/01/2015 15:07

I don't think anyone is denying that mass hysteria isn't a "thing". And teenagers are very prone to it.

capsium · 07/01/2015 15:15

*If ghosts are real, then what are you messing with? It might be dangerous.

*If ghosts are not real, what is the actual point? Very boring game.

*If the game works by some other force again could it be dangerous?

So I would say no too, regardless of beliefs. However I am Christian so would say no due to my Christian beliefs.

IrianofWay · 07/01/2015 15:17

If ghost don't exist and the OP is being daft that begs the question why the guests wanted to use an ouija board in the first place.

granny24 · 07/01/2015 15:20

Was this NYE 2015 or 1915 when lot of grief stricken parents tried everything to contact their dead? If the former then you were being daft. If the latter then understandable. I despair that this kind of superstitious bollox is still around in 21st century. Could not OP just have clutched a lucky shamrock to cancel things out. WE DON'T UNDERSTAND BECAUSE THERE IS NOTHING TO UNDERSTAND. END OF.

bananayellow · 07/01/2015 15:22

I was as unwoo as you possibly could be at 20, and was mocking my parents who were saying they would never do it again as they had some bad experiences when they were newly married. As I was so disbelieving they were goaded into proving it to me.

Put it this way I would never do it again. Five of us did it for 4 hours. Lots of times there were only two of us with our fingers on the glass - different 2 people. It was certainly not being pushed. It wasn't making sense unless you asked questions with a yes or no answer, but if you asked it to redo a letter if it went midway between two, it would do. We didn't get any concrete messages but it was compelling enough to continue doing it for that long.

i like to think there was a scientific explanation rather than it being ghosts. After all we only use such a small part of our brain, but now I have to have an open mind.
25 years later, I avoid anything in that department.

peeveddoesntcoverit · 07/01/2015 15:57

bananayellow, you were all pushing it. But subconsciously. So you're not lying, but you were definitely pushing it. This has been proven countless times in experiments etc.
Please google the ideomotor effect. Or Penn & Teller did a great episode of their Bullshit show about it.

KidLorneRoll · 07/01/2015 15:59

There is nothing - nada, not a square sausage, sweet fuck all - spiritual or evil about a bit of cardboard and a glass. There just isn't. They are cheap bits of tat turned out in the same type of factories that produce scrabble and monopoly.

The glass moves because the people touching it make it move, either voluntarily or involuntarily because of effects like the Ideomotor phenomenon.

BeCool · 07/01/2015 16:03

I've never had Monopoly pieces moving themselves all over the board, so it is a little bit different to Monopoly.

And I'm not that 'woo' but my one experience with an Ouji board there was certainly something moving the glass around quite forcefully. Spooky enough to kill any interest in me doing it again.

Screwballscrambled · 07/01/2015 16:04

I'm glad a couple of you thought my comment was funny Grin

I might be slightly narsaccistic to have got a little thrill from it Blush

Bulbasaur · 07/01/2015 16:08

Everytime something weird happened with a Ouija board, there were a few of us in on it. We got one friend worked up because alluded to a few secrets we weren't suppose to know, and friend freaked out thinking the Ouija board was real. Good times. Grin

It's a game. But DH has an interesting story where they tried to get rid of the board, went as far as burning it and it kept ending up in his friend's bedroom on the bed when they went back in. I think someone was secretly home, but he doesn't.

peeveddoesntcoverit · 07/01/2015 16:08

But you have had Monopoly pieces moving around when your hand is touching them. *

Exact.same.thing.

You are moving the glass!!

If your Monopoly pieces are moving when you aren't touching them, I suggest you apply for James Randi's $1 million prize for proving psychic phenomena. Which, not surprisingly, is still unclaimed after many years... Grin

KidLorneRoll · 07/01/2015 16:10

Monopoly pieces move when people touch them, just like a glass on a ouiji board does. If the glass moved when nobody was touching it, then their may be an argument for it moving of it's own accord.

It's a old parlor game that was around long before anyone associated a load of spiritualistic nonsense with it.

TedAndLola · 07/01/2015 16:18

YANBU. I don't believe that anyone can talk to the dead but I understand your fear. When I was a child I wanted to buy some tarot cards and my mum reacted so strongly - "NO! Those things are evil!" - and it made such an impression on my little mind that even to this day I feel wary of them.

BlueberryWafer · 07/01/2015 16:41

Yanbu. I would also have said no.

liketohelp · 07/01/2015 20:05

Agree with capsium - I`d say no due to my Christian beliefs.

Charlie97 · 07/01/2015 20:32

Complete non believer here, but YANBU'

arkestra · 07/01/2015 20:33

YANBU. I don't believe there is anything real to Ouija, but you are totally within your rights to not want it in your house!

Some people can get very distressed by this stuff and although I'd personally happily do it for a laugh anytime, I'd never force it on anyone who wasn't totally comfortable with it.

Theboodythatrocked · 07/01/2015 23:47

So you got a catholic priest to chase away ghosts.

Mmmn so one load of old bollocks to chase away another.,

Theboodythatrocked · 07/01/2015 23:53

However op your house your rules

Ludways · 08/01/2015 00:05

I don't believe in ghosts, they simply don't exist. That said, it wasn't about that, they wanted to do something in your home that would've scared you, that's all that matters, YANBU

QueenTilly · 08/01/2015 00:12

I do not believe in spirits (although I must acknowledge that I don't know they don't exist). I would have no truck with a ouija board at my house. This doesn't make me hypocritical, because the issue is more complex than "do ghosts exist? Y/N". I don't believe in ghosts, but I do totally accept the human capacity to attribute normal events to supernatural phenomena, as well as the possibility that people will play exceedingly unpleasant tricks consciously, or that players' subconscious motivations will assert themselves through little taps on the glass. Having a ouija board in use is just setting events in motion (heh) for a ruined evening.

I completely agree with Wannabee
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...