Pink Ouija Board Targeting Young Girls Riles Critics

[MacCruiskeen]

The only time I encountered a ouija board in my childhood was when I was about nine or ten. I was walking past a graveyard early one morning with my pals and we saw a beat-up rained-on ouija board lying there on the grass. It was a pretty creepy sight. The only way we could explain why it had been abandoned there was that the owners must have run off in a fright. (Now it strikes me that maybe they were just drunk.)

- By the way, what do you call that "game" where two people, even children, can lift a grown adult just by using the tips of their fingers? (I know Americans have a name for it, but I always forget it.) We did it as kids with several people, including my dad, whom we lifted from a sitting position right up to arm's length. He was suddenly weightless. It was very weird.

[thurnundtaxis]

Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board

From Wikipedia:

One participant lies flat on the floor, and then the others space themselves around him or her, each placing their fingers underneath his or her body. The person closest to the head commonly begins by saying "Once the roads were icy and cold", which the others repeat; then "A woman lost control of her steering wheel" is spoken and repeated back. Finally the last sentence "When they found her she was light as a feather, stiff as a board" is said and the phrase is chanted by the others repeat. Some people report[1] that the apparent weight of the person lifted seems lower than expected or that the person becomes completely weightless.
One of the best rational explanations for such reports is that the participants are tricking their minds, by way of the chanting, into believing that the person being lifted is "light as a feather". The body still reacts to the command from the brain, but the mind perceives it differently. Simply put, five (example) people can easily lift one person, especially when those five people are tricking their minds into thinking that the person is light-weight.[dubious – discuss]
In one variation the person being lifted is told a story about their death and asked to imagine it happening to him or her. It serves the dual purpose of "freaking out" the participants and convinces the participants that it will be easier to lift this person.
In many versions, each of the (in the example) five people lifting the other person uses only one or two of his or her fingers on each hand to do the lifting. It is particularly easy to lift a heavy weight when it is evenly distributed amongst a group of four people. The phenomena of the weight seeming less on the second try around or after some sort of ritual is due to increased focus and the "lifters" being more in sync with one another.[2]
Another reason for the apparent success of the levitation is the "self fulfilling prophecy" concept. The lifters know it's supposed to be heavy and not work the first time so subconsciously they don't put in the effort required to do the lift the first time around. The second time around they are focused and putting in the effort in order to prove to others (and even moreso themselves) that it actually works.

Tried this as a kid with no real results, as far as I can recall. Some success later as an adult, I believe, but my memory is rather fuzzy about that era...

[MacCruiskeen]

Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board

Thanks, t&t! That's it.

But we always did it with the subject sitting on a kitchen chair and only two lifters, one on either side. Can't remember using any words, and we certainly didn't use the words quoted in the Wiki article. But we did also start off with a kind of ritual: shutting our eyes, concentrating, placing the palms of our hands on the subject's head and then pressing down for a minute or so. When the minute was up, we'd open our eyes (while not thinking), and quickly insert our index fingers under the subject's knees and armpits - and hey presto. It really worked, and more than once too. That time with my father, my brother and I asked him if he had felt lighter while it was happening. He said no, he just felt flabbergasted that the "trick" was actually working.

Tried this as a kid with no real results, as far as I can recall. Some success later as an adult, I believe, but my memory is rather fuzzy about that era...

The last time I tried it was at a party about five years ago. It worked at least once really well, the other times not so well.

PS It's fascinating that Pepys records it being done in 17thC London.

[yathrib]

But, I must admit that when its colored pink it looks more heart-like.

Yes.... "Heartlike..."

[slomo]

That's the entire thing. Its just a tool. They're all just tools: ouija, tarot, crystals, etc. etc. etc. - just tools. By themselves they are nothing. In most hands they are nothing. In some hands they are abused to gain profit through fakery, but in other hands they can be dangerous. Like guns, its all in the matter of how you use it - and also like guns, you can have a pistol in the house and it might be loaded, then the wrong person can gets ahold of it and boom! Its just far, far too simple to say, "No, this is all fake," as well as, "No, this is all real," when the answer lies somewhere in between.

You know, it occurs to me just now that I may be unduly prejudiced, and that the Ouija board may be less of a problem than I reflexively assume. (My sisters had a bad experience with one when we were growing up.) The tarot, which was my first introduction to the world-beyond-the-veil, has as many perils. (I recall once being at a cafe and seeing a gentleman who had some obvious psychological problems repeatedly dealing out a tarot deck on his table, as if seeking reassurance that was repeatedly denied.)

It also occurs to me, after flipping through my boyfriend's latest issue of Men's Health, that Americans are woefully undefended against any and all psychic intrusions. Letting a high-grade corporate egregore loose from one of those magazines into your mind is as dangerous, if not more so, than grappling with some low-order demon that happens to see your Ouija lampost lit.

[operator kos]

[Sounder]

slomo wrote...

It also occurs to me, after flipping through my boyfriend's latest issue of Men's Health, that Americans are woefully undefended against any and all psychic intrusions. Letting a high-grade corporate egregore loose from one of those magazines into your mind is as dangerous, if not more so, than grappling with some low-order demon that happens to see your Ouija lampost lit.

This seems like the crux of the biscuit. We seem to have no clue that we continually and even always have relationship to implicate or pre-manifest aspects of reality. By resonance, focus and beliefs we connect to various ‘demons’. If we were aware of this, fewer people would choose to resonate these Bernasian egregores of ‘fixed’ beliefs and materialism.

Our trouble is that the relevance of the National inSecurity State depends on its ability to maintain markets for ‘transitional’ objects. Even though each of us, ipso facto, already has a ‘real’ life, we are encouraged to dream about it being more real with a new car, academic standing or some righteous political (or spiritual) stance.

Our ‘cure’ is the disease.

[NaturalMystik]

It scares me a little that ouija boards are now being marketed and branded for kids. I had an absolutely crazy experience with the ouija board when I was a young teen, and haven't touched one since. They are dangerous and shouldn't be used without proper protections as has been suggested by others...

What's next, hello kitty ceremonial daggers?

[Wombaticus Rex]

Look, there's been a lot of slander and negative energy being aimed at the humble Ouija board and I do feel obligated, as a Quaker, to speak up. After all, it's thanks to an Ouija board named Soothsayer who came from Jerusalem (stick with me, this is all actually true) that The Mars Volta wrote and recorded their absolute heaviest and weirdest album, The Bedlam in Goliath. Their first engineer lost his shit and destroyed the album.

In the interest of defending the many contributions Ouija boards have made to the heavy metal arts, I would like to quote the statement that engineer left behind -- an assessment of the album I more or less wholly agree with:

"I'm not going to help you make this record. You're trying to do something very bad with this record, you're trying to make me crazy and you're trying to make people crazy."

In closing, where did Trent Reznor record his best-selling album The Downward Spiral?

[Maddy]

In closing, where did Trent Reznor record his best-selling album The Downward Spiral?

[Joe Hillshoist]

In closing, where did Trent Reznor record his best-selling album The Downward Spiral?

Ha thats right. (My wife is a bit of a TR nut.)

He built a studio in one of the Manson Family murder houses didn't he?

Just checked, the place where Sharon Tate was killed.

[Joe Hillshoist]

Is that it Maddy?

[Maddy]

Yup, that's the infamous Tate house, 10066 Cielo Dr, Beverly Hills, CA. He rented out the entire house, did an interview there, that's how I know. I'm a Trent Reznor groupie. He had no idea it was the Tate house, when he rented it, according to him, however!

Edit: Typo!

[Cordelia]

Was this house torn down and another built? It's as I remember photos of the house looked, but a later photo (I'm not sure, but maybe on David McGowan's expose on Laurel Canyon) looked nothing like this.

[crikkett]

But hey, you want to wear an astral "kick me" sign, go ahead.