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

[FrankWelker]

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?

i wasn't talking about 'ghosts and spirits' was I?
I was talking about the power of auto suggestion and the negative effects it could have.

Chain letters on Facebook.....silly.
Ghost under a shot glass..... Real scary shit not to be messed with. OK.

YANBU - not because of woo but because such things can be very harmful to vulnerable people.

yeh you are not reading my posts before you dismiss them nunks

Sunny, you think that a bunch of mates at a new years party are suddenly going to turn on their host...using auto suggestion and group hysteria to what?? Steal her money? Put her in a trance and assault her!?

Its. A. Game!!!

no. it. is. not.
or if you think so you are sadly deluded.
and no, tell me, where did I say that the mates would turn on the host? That was purely a figment of your own tortured imagination.

What is if not a game then? Only willing participants take part, how are the dangers of auto suggestion being used in such a way that you'd never have one in your home? How am I deluded???

YANBU-your house, your rules.
It was originally marketed as a fun game, until people started experiencing stuff they couldn't handle.
I think they are dangerous and I never, ever would play it in my house.
I wouldn't even say I was especially woo, but no, I wouldn't.

YANBU

yep your right. I had a friend whose mates did the same thing. And guess what their house got poccessed. If it wasnt because of that, I wouldnt have believed it in. If someone came around with that stuff to my house, I will happily say, lets play that at yours.

Wow, Mimi's anecdotal evidence from a friend of a friend is pretty compelling.

nunks. No need for that.

Well, if the house 'got poccessed', that settles it then. Terrifying.

(Honestly, how many of you usually base your ideas about the world on something that happened (a) to some mates of a friend's friend and/or (b) on something you vaguely remember happening to you when you were a drunk, highly-suggestible teenager on a sleepover?)

I think people think they look mysterious when they allude to 'scary shit' and make out like their past is littered with encounters with ghosts but refuse to actually spell out what happened. I call bull on the lot of them.
I'm hearing lots of vague stuff, like emmilines 'stuff' that people couldn't handle but no actual stories with events that can be scrutinised.

Nocebo effect would be more accurately applied to ouija boards.

Just sayin'.

Possessed or repossessed

Either:
They really work, in which case YANBU;
or:
They really don't work because it's a complete load of rubbish and just a game, and if it's just a game, then YANBU, because there are loads of other games available which are far better. I don't see the point of it, if it's just a game, and as I think it's just a game, then I don’t see the point of it. (My logic lecturer would be proud of me...)

The logic I don't follow (but admittedly haven't questioned further to follow up the reasoning, is some people I know are deeply religious. They don't believe in ghosts or magic, but to dabble in such things is playing with the occult and letting Satan in. (They won't read things like Harry Potter or LOTR, either.) Surely that means they do believe in them, else playing with them would just be irrelevant (and thus pointless)?

Of course they don't sodding "work", with regards to talking to the dead.

It's a bit of cardboard, with some letters on it, churned out in a factory. The idea that such a thing is a doorway to some sort of spirit realm is really, really, really stupid.

They work because the people touching the glass are either moving it on purpose to freak other people out or because of the ideomotor response. They were around as simple, harmless toys long before all this woo bollocks got associated with them.

"It was originally marketed as a fun game, until people started experiencing stuff they couldn't handle"

That's not how it was. They were marketed as a game until a spiritualist called Pearl Curran started using one as part of her stage act. She had a spirit guide who wrote particularly rubbish poetry and stuff through her. She started using a ouija board but it was too slow and her audience got restive, so she abandoned it in favour of a pen and plenty of "what's that you said, Sam? " or whatever she was called, I forget.

So people were getting "messages" - wherever they came from, either from people pushing the glass or from somewhere else . I am not bothered about that.Messages are messages. Vulnerable people have been harmed by this.
I have read that the board will not work if the letters are covered up.
The power of suggestion is er..powerful and people seeing a glass whizz round, predicting all kinds of woe will affect some people.
That is why I don't like it.

exactly emmeline, well put

TBH, unless you've got a houseful of fuckwits, having any kind of woo-peddler at a party is a PITA. There are three basic categories of woo-peddler (ie someone who performs as a medium/fortune teller etc and/or takes money for doing so) - crooks, nutjobs and well-meaning idiots. If the party guest is the well-meaning idiot variety then everyone else will have to listen to him/her talking absolute bollocks and refrain, out of good manners, from pointing out what bollocks it is or end up with a big squabble going on and the poor wickle woo-bunny having to be indulged even more; if the person is a con artist then s/he will harass the more rational guests with either Barnumisms or some discreetly acquired prior knowledge, attempting to get a shocked reaction. If you've got one of the raving loony woo-types among your circle of friends you might end up having to burn the furniture or chuck salt all over the carpet or call Ghostbusters...

So emmiline, your using ethics to base your decision on now? You wouldn't let mates play it in your home because people you have never met but have heard of have used it in an immoral way? So, following this logic you also forbid gambling in your home because this ruins more lives than oija boards.

I wouldn't allow one in my house. I had a scary experience with one when I was in college, never again.

Honestly, Emmeline, getting a 'message' from an ouija board is identical to having your friend's friend Gavin, known for his fondness for 'hilarious' drunken pranks, writing you a note on a beer mat saying you are going to be struck by lightning on Tuesday, and pretending it wasn't from him.