For wanting to do a Ouija board for a laugh?

[EbbyEbs]

Next year DH and I are staying in a castle thought to be the most haunted in Britain. DH says he doesn’t believe in stuff like that, I’m on the fence really but more towards not believing. I think the most likely scenario if ghosts ARE real is that they’re historical residue and not intelligent entities. But even that is a stretch.

So, I’d like to do a ouija board when we’re there for a laugh. The castle is in the middle of nowhere so there isn’t much else to do on an evening other than drink (which I don’t do) and watch Netflix!

DH is point blank refusing saying he isn’t messing about with stuff like that. But he’s a non believer??! So what’s the harm?

If he doesn’t believe in it, am I being unreasonable to ask him to do it?

I wouldn't mess with it either.

"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist"

Well the fact that so many people have clearly heard of the Devil should tell you that - assuming you place any value in that quote - you should perhaps be more worried about the 8,391 baddies you have never heard of. They're far cleverer and more effective than the Devil who has been seen through by so many normal folk on this thread.

The greatest trick the papists ever pulled was convincing the world they could save it from evil.

Seriously, just look at what those fuckers have done on the spine of that. Look at all of it. Don't need no demons for horror.

It was quite the thing back in the 1970s. Even "The Waltons" had one!

The Waltons had a ouija board! I’m properly shocked 😱

That's a quote from Nietzsche, surely?

He loved a bit of woo.

Haha. I'm guessing you're Irish by the name. I'm with you on all of those. Maybe it's the Catholic upbringing?

I go paranormal investigating and the ouja board is my favourite.But I would not persuade any one to use it if they didn't want to and you have to know what you are doing to open and close it properly .I believe in spirits. I also accept others don't and I respect that . I have things happen which cannot be explained away .

@Blueraccoon I don't actually remember watching this episode but I do remember seeing the Ouija board on the shelf in their sitting room on the opening credits of every episode.

“The Ghost Story: Episode aired Feb 14, 1974

“The children of the Walton family are excited about the possibility of speaking with spirits when they get a Ouija board, given to them by Ike. Neither Grandma nor Olivia are pleased at this prospect, as it goes against their religious beliefs. Things get a bit spooky though, when the Ouija board spells out the name of Luke, a visitor at the Walton home, then suggests that he should not board a specific train. Circumstances cause Luke to miss that train and they later discover that it was involved in a crash.

“NOTE: It seems that this episode did not often appear on the Family network in the USA, and after much discussion, the Waltons Mailing List members decided that perhaps it conflicted with their religious beliefs too. TNN, however, has been screening it, to the delight of Waltons fans, many of whom haven't seen the episode for many years.”

There's an episode of Friends where Phoebe and Monica have a Ouija board out - it's just not referred to.

@IncompleteSenten , what about dogs?

There had been no messing with ouija boards, but relatives who moved into a large, old house, found that their dog resolutely refused to set a paw over the threshold in a certain part of the house.

None of the family had seen or sensed anything. But they mentioned it locally, and a local woman who was said to have ‘the gift’ offered to investigate.,
NB, she did not charge!

She told them who was still there, and why - asked him to leave, and evidently he did, because afterwards, the dog had absolutely no problem going into that part of the house.
I dare say some people will tell me the dog had imagined it….

Let's pretend this isn't a completely unsubstantiated hearsay story by an anonymous person on the Internet and totally demonstrably happened.

Dog smelled something unfamiliar in the new house from previous owners or was just a bit unsure in a new house. My cat needed a little while to get used to the house when we moved. They see the dog getting a bit antsy, they get nervous, dog picks up their feelings as as pack animal and gets nervous, local woo woman tells them she's made it better, they feel better, dog feels better.

I know, I know. Impossible to demonstrate under controlled conditions. You'd think someone somewhere would have managed it by now though.

You are being extremely unreasonable to push him into doing it after knowing how he feels.

You’re being extremely unreasonable not to read at least the OPs posts.

If your animal seems unable to settle in a new home, why would you speak to a woo lady before you spoke to a vet?

I know several people who had similar problems with their cats and sorted it with Feliway.

Ridiculous. How is Feliway going to expunge a demon, or a headless horseman, for example?

I've just checked the bottle and it says absolutely nothing about this.

How is Feliway going to expunge a demon, or a headless horseman, for example?

You have to throw it really hard.

🤣 the dog.
Pmsl

First of all we are assuming the story itself is not a pile of wank. There's no evidence. Occam's razor - people make shit up.

So let's pretend the story itself is true. The dog was observed at all times was it? Under 24/7 surveillance to be able to say with certainty that it never ever put a paw into a part of the property?

Let's pretend that is also true.

So we first have to believe the person telling the story is not lying. We then have to believe the dog was under constant supervision. We do know one truth though. Dogs have an amazing sense of smell.

A dog in a new environment learns about that environment a lot by smell.

New smells take time to get used to.

The people, assuming the story is true, noticed the dog's behaviour and thought oooh spooky. Dog in new house is jumpy. Must be ghosts.

Dogs are super sensitive to people. If you're scared, nervous, upset, agitated ... Dog's going to sense something's up.

So the people reinforced to the dog that there was something dangerous in that part of this unfamiliar environment

Owners call in Ghostbusters.

Owners feel like they've been helped. They relax.

Dog sees owners less tense. Dog is also more familiar with house. Smells are not new now. Dog relaxed. People see dog relaxed, they relax
Dog sees people more relaxed, relaxes more. Everyone now in happy puddles of relaxation. All is well. Mystic Meg The Miraculous saved the day.

Or, Option B - secret portal to hell in the corner of the room. Satan stops by on Sundays .🤷

"A wise man," David Hume pointed out, ".... proportions his belief to the evidence." (A wise person, we should read.)

And so, he went on offer, as "... a general maxim worthy of our attention ", that "...no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish."

Why so? Well, ''a miracle," as Hume says, "... is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined."

[Argument from experience, generally the gold standard in such cases?]

The dog's refusal to enter the room? What credence should we give to different explanations of this reported fact?

• Perhaps there is a ghostly presence? This would be a miracle, according to the above; science (laws of nature, in other words) tells us there are no ghosts.
• Or perhaps there is a more mundane, possibly unknown, explanation; a bad smell, the body-language of the dog's owner, whatever ...

Which should we believe? Well, perhaps we might apply Hume's "general maxim", ... [completion of response left as an exercise].

[See Hume "Of Miracles" (David Hume, AN INQUIRY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING, X.]

I was brought up Catholic and that aided the scepticism as I was raised to believe that ONLY Catholic sanctioned supernatural events were really and all others were not just bollocks but blasphemous.

Obviously my scepticism is all encompassing now but I feel, ironically my religious upbringing gave me a headstart.

They’re a kind of meditation tool aren’t they? A bit like Tarot.

I love the aesthetic of them, they look cool af. Don’t think I’d have them in the house, but because anything would ‘happen’ exactly, but because it would make me feel uneasy. Which is a good enough reason.

as a side point, I was friends with a former Catholic priest. He told me he’d performed a few exorcisms, that people found them comforting/reassuring. But I’m not sure he actually believed he was casting out demons.

NOT because anything would happen that should say!

Our house is haunted - most specifically an old rocking chair. The story goes that the ghost killed herself in the chair. Her fiancée went missing in WW1 - no body was every found and she went a bit crazy after that. Apparently she was regularly visited by him in her dreams and he told her to wait for him at the cottage to return. Unfortunately some new tenants were living in the cottage and one morning they found her dead (strangled) in the chair. All doors / windows locked from inside.

When you first sit in the chair a chill passes over you. This happens wherever we site the chair and also from chair upwards so if you sit down properly the chill goes back to front, if you kneel in chair it goes front to back. The bloody chair also periodically rocks itself and no cat will sit in it ever.

Occasionally floorboards creak even though no-one is walking on them, things move in the corner of your eye and anything left on the chair is on the floor in the morning, but its not a particularly unpleasant haunting. We leave the chair to her and she leaves us alone.

I don't know why the chair would still be here after all that - although there is photographic evidence of the chair in the house from the 50s onwards but whether it is the same chair who knows. So on one hand I'm all eyebrows raised but on the other I can categorically say the chair is weird.

I can't say its made me a believer but i'm also less sceptical than I used to be if that makes sense?

I did loads of ouija boards as a child and did one a few years ago as a joke.

Can confirm they are just a bit of wood.

I don't think you know enough about Ouija boards if you think you can do it 'for a laugh' so I wouldn't if I were you..

As I said have done it dozen of times for a laugh. Most when I was a child, once as an adult.

Nowt happened.

It's a bit of wood.