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?

1 100% guarantee I could come and sit in that chair and not feel a chill.

So is the house always sold/rented fully furnished then?

I’ve never had any of the previous tenants/owners furniture in any home I’ve lived in.

The bloody chair also periodically rocks itself

That should be very easy to prove under lab conditions.

Fascinating, couple of questions:

1. how do you kill yourself by strangling whilst sitting in a chair?
2. have you thought about setting up a camera in the room to record your cat knocking things onto the floor this paranormal activity, should be easy as it happens to anything you leave on the chair overnight?

Watch BizarreBub on Youtube, they often have video clips from people who have used Ouija boards and what happens to them afterwards.

Do NOT mess with one.
EVER.

Do not & I repeat in big letters for a reason DO NOT MESS WITH A OUIJA BOARD in that castle or anywhere else if you do not have a flipping clue what you are doing!!!
Messing with things you don’t understand let alone believe in is just asking for trouble 🙄😬
Go, enjoy your stay & if nothing happens that is because you’ve been unlucky not because it isn’t real.
Yes they may just be ‘echos in time’ but some do like to hurt people. That contact can come not only in the form of touching, scratching, pinching & pushing but also throwing things, which can hurt you even more!
It can be a funny, weird or scary experience but please don’t be disrespectful or rude during your visit as it is still someone’s workplace.
Go in with an open mind & something just might happen that leaves you really well spooked, but not hurt, for a long, long time 👻👻

I think he has his head screwed on & knows not to mess with what he doesn’t understand 😂
Op is crazy even to consider doing this as it could go very, very wrong!

It’s a board game, how wrong can it go? I know some people get overwrought about monopoly at Christmas after a few sherry’s and their Nan asking them 24 times why they haven’t found a nice young man yet but even that’s not ‘going very very wrong’ surely.

@JustJustWhy I'm sure you could. I would say the split between my friends who aren't woo who have sat in the chair is about 75% don't feel it and 25% do. Weirdly in my friends who are woo 1 of them can't feel it whereas all the others can.

@JudyGemstone Yes the house was a cottage on the Estate back in the 1880s up to the late 1920s I think. The duke who owned the Estate then sold it to another Lord who had it as a cottage for his workers up to the 40/50s. It was then empty for a few years when it was sold to the landlord of the pub on the Estate (who rumour held was his illegitimate son but who knows). As I said I don't know if THE chair is the chair she killed herself in, but when my parents brought the house off him they were told the story and offered the chair. My dad thought it hysterical and opted to keep it. The chair was banished to the attic when my brother was about 5 as it made him hysterical and came back down about 10 years ago when i was cleaning the attic out. Me and the DCs like a good ghost story in a that's nonsense type of way and after telling my DCs about it and we decided to keep it. We've cleaned it up and whacked it in pride of place and then it decided to be a bit odd so as I say not a believer but not not a believer either.

@ReneBumsWombats Entirely possible I guess but I cant really see the world being that bothered about my chair that rocks its self when it feels like it.

@jetadore No bloody clue. Did her ghost lover come back and kill her? Did the tenants kill her? Did she just die in it and all the other is embellishment. I don't know. I've had a camera in there and it has recorded things like scarves and coats sliding off. Could be a draft. Could be Mary. None of the cats go near the thing - we had one memorable cat who hissed at it everytime he went past. He also did that to the mop though so he cant be counted as evidence.

Entirely possible I guess but I cant really see the world being that bothered about my chair that rocks its self when it feels like it.

You don't think scientists would be extremely interested in a chair that can be conclusively proven to rock itself, by itself, with absolutely no force being exerted upon it?

Well, I guess that's one reason to keep it away from them...

@ReneBumsWombats If some scientists would like to come and view the chair they are more than welcome to. They'd have to be willing to laze around for ages and wait for her to do it mind. I'm not massively convinced myself its Marys ghost waiting for her man to come home. But nor am I certain its drafts, uneven flooring or the like. As I say its odd but not horribly so, so we enjoy the oddness and leave it to itself.

Well I expect they'd want to take it to another place where they can guarantee no drafts etc. Shame they're not likely ever to be informed about it so they can try.

I notice in your first post you said: "When you first sit in the chair a chill passes over you." Sounds spooky. But then it turns out that actually, three quarters of people who don't expect to feel this chill don't feel it. A few do but
100% of people who felt it were primed to feel it and almost 100% of them expected to. What do you think the stats would be if you bunged it in, say, the middle of IKEA on a busy Saturday, said nothing about it and just let people go on?

It also turned out that your cat is as scared of your mop as he is of the haunted chair.

I admire your honesty in your follow ups (truly), but it didn't take long for a rather different picture to emerge of this haunted chair.

@ReneBumsWombats But in all fairness this is what people mean about sceptics sceptic-ing. I was clear in my first post that i wasn't citing my chair as the be all and end all of proof or paranormal. In fact I said I still wasn't a believer just not as much of a non believer as before.

I reckoned if I bunged it in IKEA on a Sat based on anecdotal evidence of people sitting in the chair that don't know its haunted it would be slightly more people find it weird than not and differing degrees. Equally my none woo friends - a couple of them could easily be discounted because they are as likely to say nothing happened even if it did because they are so NO WOO as to even indicate that woo might be happening is a insult to them.

All the cats will not use the chair when its been out. That includes all the cats over the almost 50 years as a family we've been in the house. One cat hissed at it (and the mop)

Anecdotal evidence can be argued either way depending how you want to frame the "evidence"

You clearly are a non believer and that's fine. Therefore you can only believe if my chair goes off to a lab passes all the tests and is backed up with peer reviewed info. No problem.

I would point out though if Mary is haunting my house and sitting in the chair whilst waiting as the story alleges .. why would the chair work elsewhere in a lab?

I'm perfectly happy to be a less certain non believer. I know the chair feels odd to me. Does that mean its haunted. No. Do I even believe its haunted. I don't know. If is is I feel a bit sorry for her. Could it be me imagining it, convincing myself. Sure. But equally its possible to convince yourself nothing happened even when it did.

If the chair rocks ‘on its own’ and you feel chilly when you sit in it, then my money is on a draught which causes the chair to rock gently, and reduces the ambient temperature in the general area.

or it could be Beelezebob. Hard to tell really

YEAH.

They are REALLY boring. Play a decent game instead, like Scythe.

Respectfully, @DragonsQuest ,no, your first post was not clear on that at all. In fact, you opened with "Our house is haunted - most specifically an old rocking chair." Pretty unambiguous. You then went on to give all the reasons why it must be the case, quite extensively. Yes, there was a single line at the end of "of course it might not be true" but that looks even more like a quick afterthought disclaimer the more times I reread the post. Without that quick last line, it all reads with one very clear implication.

It was only after you were questioned (because the story was full of holes) that we found out the cat also hates the mop, you don't think scientists would be interested in a physics-defying chair, 75% of people who don't expect to feel this chill don't, etc etc.

And now you're accusing me of "sceptic-ing" by pointing out everything that doesn't tally with the implications of the first post, by your own account, and explaining why Mary can't move the chair under controlled conditions etc etc.

Same old, same old. And no, I don't think a single IKEA shopper with no knowledge of the story of Mary would feel a bloody thing, though they might wonder how to flat pack it.

I think it's a draught, especially since scarves flutter a bit and the cat doesn't like the area. I mean, come on, if the Devil were in that chair, the cat would be all over it.

@ReneBumsWombats Actually I am probably wrong about IKEA. I have no idea if Mary would go with the chair ...

I don't know why people believing in the paranormal is so infuriating to you and why you have to belittle and poke fun at those that might

The reason science anywhere has ever advanced is because people have investigated stuff. Some they prove. Some they can't. Sometimes they think they've proved something and someone comes along and proves them wrong later on.

Although given I don't even know if i believe this whole argument is slightly ridiculous so I will bow out!

@DragonsQuest thank you for explaining, it’s a great story whether true or not!

I don't know what about my posts makes you think I'm "infuriated", especially since you immediately go on to point out that I'm having a laugh. But I've learned not to expect evidence-based assertions.

The reason science anywhere has ever advanced is because people have investigated stuff. Some they prove. Some they can't. Sometimes they think they've proved something and someone comes along and proves them wrong later on.

This is why, as I said earlier to someone else, scientists would LOVE to have you prove your haunted chair. It moves on its own, with no additional force being exerted upon it! You are quite right that science can be advanced by disproving previous theories. Your chair would actually disprove some of the most basic and well-established Newtonian laws. Have you any idea how groundbreaking that is? And yet you don't think anyone would be interested?

Draughts and the power of psychological suggestion would not only easily explain everything you describe here, they're actually extremely likely. Especially in an old house with a spooky story. And they're proven to exist and have these effects.

It doesn't advance knowledge to ignore evidence-based knowledge. Bias and credulity are not open-mindedness.

@DragonsQuest I believe you. In fact I'd never have a rocking chair for this very reason as if it moved by itself I would shit myself. I guess you could call me a bit woo. Your tale of the hissing cat did give me a giggle though. Thanks for sharing 🐱

Friends & I used to play Ouija in a dilapidated church when we were teens - it was great fun. Go for it!

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.

8391 baddies that's a very exact number, they obviously aren't that clever or any good at there demon stuff as noone has heard of them or even cares about them , whispers because they don't exist.

I like the Devil though and he is rich and famous and solves crimes, I've seen his TV show Lucifer.

Next year DH and I are staying in a castle thought to be the most haunted in Britain

I wondered by whom it was thought to be "the most haunted in Britain"... couldn't possibly have been their marketing team, could it? 🤔