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AIBU?

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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:
VanitasVanitatum · 08/01/2015 00:17

You were NBU at all. It's your home, and if a Ouija board would make you feel uncomfortable in your own home then you're totally right to say so. If they're good friends they wouldn't mind at all.

Belief in spirits is very powerful, whatever the reality.

Anyone who says they 'know' that such things don't exist are being a tad ignorant, as there is no proof to back this up. I don't believe that ghosts exist but I am well aware this is not evidenced!

HolyTerror · 08/01/2015 00:18

Yanbu. Not because an Ouija board is anything more than stiff card, a shot glass and a side order of slightly drunk, usually teenage, group hysteria, but because I'd be outraged if guests found my parties so dull they started getting out boardgames...

SwedishEdith · 08/01/2015 00:24

Grin Grin @ we also spoke to 'Tosh' from the Bill

SolidGoldBrass · 08/01/2015 00:24

Hmm. I'd ask people not to do it in my house because it's total bollocks but people who want to use a Ouija board are either gullible fuckwits or they want to scare the living crap out of someone else who they know is a woo-head - nd a gullible fuckwit. In a mixed group who don't all know each other, it would be even more of a party killer, because someone will start weeping and blessing him/herself and ranting on about the dangers, someone else will sieze the opportunity to wind other people up, and the rational people will be irritated and bored at having to stop talking/turn the music off/come away from the buffet or whatever. (And TBH if I was at a party in someone else's house and a Ouija board was produced, I would be inclined to sneak out of the room and knock something over loudly at the point where all the idiots had got themselves revved up).

Homebird8 · 08/01/2015 00:27

So, this squeegie board, it's a board game version of Mornington Crescent then?

DodgedAnAsbo · 08/01/2015 00:37

YANBU, I am not a believer in such stuff. But other people are, they even murder a dozen people in France for no reason for crying out loud.

So I would ban it to protect the foolish believers

Canyouforgiveher · 08/01/2015 01:00

I don't believe in woo but would not have an ouija board in my house on the basis that it provides an opportunity for vulnerable people to experience pressure and unpleasantness from their own or their companions' subconsciousness -probably the reason why so many people have ouija board nasty stories.

Am very amused by those people who are sneering at the OP for not wanting an ouija board in her house because she should know that it can't work so is harmless. Presumably they'd be the first to condemn her for using an ouija board ... on the basis that she should know it can't work so it is useless. Damned if you don't and damned if you do.

jazzsyncopation · 08/01/2015 01:06

YANBU

aermingers · 08/01/2015 01:07

No you were right. I did one once and it spelt out that a girl doing it with me was going to die in a car crash when she was 19. Someone may well have been pushing it deliberately or subconsciously. But the fact is it really upset and frightened her and no good can come from that kind of thing.

Theboodythatrocked · 08/01/2015 01:18

solid now that sounds like a great party! Grin

Some of our best have included the ouija board and wine.

Beware taking utter bollicks too seriously.

It leads to religion.

QueenTilly · 08/01/2015 01:26

Canyouforgiveher I'm less amused, and more cross at the sneerers. [grumpy] I'm minded to feel that over-simplifications like theirs are why ouija boards do so much harm. If people go into these games assuming "it can't work" and something does happen, they are set up to conclude that the supernatural exists and that it was a supernatural event.

JohnQuig · 08/01/2015 01:30

YABU

It's a game.

You know that Monopoly isn't a reflection of the actual housing market, and playing Operation doesn't make you a surgeon, right?

Solidur · 08/01/2015 01:39

Can't sleep, but I just wanted to say YANBU.

I am totally non-woo but a very dear friend who is very woo, and who has been right about many things she "sees" says no fucking way. It isn't a toy. I may not believe, but I trust her - trying desperately to rationalise sensibly - gut feeling.

Fontella · 08/01/2015 01:45

If a dead person/spirit can 'move' a glass around a board, then why does it need a load of fingers placed on it?

To push the fucker that's why.

If the glass is moving it's getting pushed by the owner of one or more of the fingers.

And people get taken in by this shite.

QueenTilly · 08/01/2015 01:47

JohnQuig

Funny you should bring up Monopoly... Have you honestly no idea how many families ban Monopoly on account as a direct consequence of the discord and unpleasantness after Monopoly matches on previous occasions? It's practically a cultural trope. You couldn't have thought up a better example to say that the OP is NBU! Grin

On that subject, I miss Monopoly. Sad No-one will play with me. I just don't understand why...

QueenTilly · 08/01/2015 01:48
Wink
Darkandstormynight · 08/01/2015 02:00

YANBU!

Ericaequites · 08/01/2015 02:06

The Occult is not appropriate, although I am a hopeful agnostic. It's best not to meddle with things one doesn't understand.

JohnQuig · 08/01/2015 12:34

QueenTilly

Oh, I know the arguments it causes... I was just saying the game doesn't reflect real life! And playing with a Ouija board won't bring 'spirits' into your house (maybe Vodka?)

SunnyBaudelaire · 08/01/2015 12:35

YANBU not at all.

nunkspugget · 08/01/2015 12:56

So, I take it harry potter is banned from all the woo believers homes too then? That's occult, best not 'mess' with it, or 'open any doors' by watching it.
Do the woo types also foreward all those chain Facebook things, because if you don't then within 2 days a friend will die type bullshit??

SunnyBaudelaire · 08/01/2015 12:59

do not be so dismissive of those with whom you disagree nunks, it is incredibly arrogant.
Right I would not have anyone messing with a ouija board in my house, and that is down to my own life experiences and my own choice. It doesnt make me stupid and 'woo'.
FWIW I find HP unreadable dross anyway.
and no I do not do facebook chains, do not be so silly.

Hakluyt · 08/01/2015 13:05

I'm not dismissive of people who disagree with me- I am dismissive of bollocks like ouija boards. Which were originally marketed as a game and on,y acquired their "psychic" reputation in, I think, the 1920s.

SunnyBaudelaire · 08/01/2015 13:06

I beleive you Hakluyt but I think you underestimate the power of the mind

JohnQuig · 08/01/2015 13:09

We should be dismissive of woo woo stuff, because it's absolute shite. I don't care what "experiences" have been had, because it's all a placebo effect - you get whatever you want to experience out of it.

Ghosts do not exist.
Spirits do not exist.
You can't talk to the dead and if you could we would've found a better way than MOVING A GLASS AROUND A TABLE.

Honestly, we SHOULD be dismissive. We can't let this kind of thinking get ahold of people and it'll end up getting taken seriously.

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