OUIJA BOARDS -- STAY AWAY!

I  first  bumped  into  a  Ouija  Board  when  I  was  a  4  year  old  kid.  Back  then,  in  the  late  1950s,   Ouija  Boards  were  regarded  as  a  harmless  toy,  safe  for  kids  and  adults.  One  of  my  older  siblings  received  a  Ouija  Board  as  a  gift,  and  retreated  to  the  basement  of  our  home  with  another  older  sibling  to  experiment  with  it.   I  followed  them  down  into  the  basement  and  watched  their  Ouija  Board  ritual  with  the  keen,  pure  interest  of  an  innocent  4  year  old.  All  were  greatly  disappointed  when  nothing  seemed  to  happen,  and  they  quit  their  game.

Nothing  seemed  to  happen,  that  is,  until  late  that  night ...

That  night,  I  had  the  first  "ghostly"  experience  of  my  life.  I  awakened  in  my  bed  in  the  darkened  house,  and  listened  and  heard  my  brothers sleeping  soundly  in  their  beds  behind  mine  in  the  boy's  room,  and  my  parents  snoring  peacefully  in  their  bed  through  the  doorway  to  their  room  next  to  my  bed.  I  pulled  my  blankets  up  to  my  chin  and  waited  for  sleep  to  come.  Suddenly,  I  felt  a  strong,  distinct  compulsion ...

"Peter,  look  into  your  parents'  bedroom.  Something  is  about  to  happen."

I  looked,  and  saw  a  classic  ghostly  figure  come  floating  into  my  parents'  bedroom  from  the  direction  of  the  other  door  to  their  room.  She  floated  around  the  end  of  their  bed,  enabling  me  to  see  that  she  was  dressed  in  a  flowing  translucent  gown,  about  an  inch  above  the  floor  --  toward  me  in  my  bed!

Frightened,  I  pulled  my  blankets  over  my  head,  hoping  "the  ghost  lady"  --  I  had  a  strong  feeling  that  "it"  was  a "she" --  would  just  go  away.

After  a  few  minutes,  I  peeked  out  from  beneath  my  blankets  and  into  my  parents'  bedroom,  and  saw  that  the  thing  was  gone.  Greatly  relieved,  I  turned  over  to  my  other  side  under  the  blankets  --  and  froze.

There  the  thing  was,  between  my  bed  and  my  older  brother's  bed,  bent  over  my  older  brother's  sleeping  figure,  staring  intently  at  him.

After  a  few  moments,  the  thing  turned  her  head  around,  and  stared  at  me,  as  I  continued  laying  there,  frozen  in  astonishment.  Then  it  straightened  up,  and  floated  out  the  other  door  to  our  bedroom  into  the  hall.

It  dawned  on  me,  years  later,  that  when  the  thing  first  floated  into  our  parents'  bedroom,   it  was  coming  from  the  direction  of  the  bedroom  of  the  other  sibling  who  participated  in  the  Ouija  Board  "seance"  that  day,  and  then  came  and  stared  at  the  brother  who  had  been  participant  #2,  while  I  was  alerted  to  watch  --  what  I  had  done  in  the  basement  during  my  siblings'  "ritual."

I.e.,  the  Ouija  Board  worked.

The  house  remained  haunted  for  years  after  that.  The  thing  followed  a  pattern.   (1)  It  came  in  the  dark  or  subdued  light;  (2)  when  the  experiencer  was  asleep,  going  to  sleep  or  waking  up;  (3)  and  "put  on  a  show"  for  the  experiencer;  (4)  frequently  evidencing  a  "female"  presence.

The  "show"  was  comprised  of  knocking  on  the  walls,  or  a  physical  grabbing  of  the  body,  or  a  sudden  raising  of  the  shades  in  the  room  --  anything  to  get  our  attention.

Once,  when  I  confided  that  "ghostly"  experience,  and  others,  to  Phyllis,  one  of  the  ladies  who  lived  next  door,  she  suggested  that  I  try  to  contact  the  thing  back.  Astonished  and  fearful,  I  immediately  said,  "NO  WAY!"  

But,  "fools  rush ..."

On  an  evening  not  long  after  my  conversation  with  Phyllis,  everybody  in  our  family  had  a  place  to  go  after  dinner  but  me.  It  occurred  to  me  that,  isolated,  I  could  attempt  to  contact  the  ghost,  as  Phyllis  had  suggested,  with  no  one  else  in  the  family  to  distract  or  shame  me.

When  all  had  left  and  I  was  alone,  I  placed  a  paper  and  a  crayon  on  the  coffee  table  in  the  living  room, turned  on  some  soft  music  to  help  lull  myself  into  a  sleepy  state,  doused  all  of  the  lights  in  the  house,  sat  on  the  living  room  sofa,  and  announced,  "Okay,  whoever  you  are,  I  would  appreciate  it  if  you  tried  to  contact  me."

Nothing  happened  except  suddenly  the  radio  broadcast  some  raucous  rock  music  in  place  of  the  soft  music.

I  jumped  up  and  changed  stations,  tuning  the  radio  to  MAGIC,  WMGK  FM  103,  where  I  found  some  quiet  soft  shoe  music.  I  returned  to  the  sofa  and  repeated  my  request,  "Okay,  whoever  you  are,  I  would  appreciate  it  if  you  tried  to  contact  me."  But  I  added,  "If  you  do,  I  promise  I  won't  tell  anyone."

All  of  a  sudden,  an  invisible  cloud  of  cold  materialized  at  my  face,  characterized  by  a  sensation  of  wild  touching,  touching,  touching.  Then  the  touching  sensation  launched  itself  into  my  nose  and  mouth,  and  to  my  astonishment  rushed  down  my  lungs  till,  at  heart  level,  it  began  to  make  my  heart  beat  very  violently.

"IT'S  A  DEMON  TRYING  TO  POSSESS  ME!"  I  thought  to  myself  in  a  panic  as  I  jumped  up  and  kind  of  prayerfully  "no'd"  it  out  of  me.

Poof.  The  sensation  vanished  and  my  heart  went  back  to  normal.

I  never  tried  to  contact  the  thing  again.  And  I  kept  my  promise  to  not  tell  anyone  --  for  a  year  or  so.

But  then,  one  night,  when  I  walked  into  the  house,  I  found  my  father  telling  the  gathered  family  about  his  ghostly  experiences  when  he  was  young.  I  thought  to  myself,  "If  he  can  do  it  without  shame,  I  can  do  it,"  and  I  ran  through  the  list  of  ghostly  experiences  beginning  with  the  visitation  which  followed  the  use  of  the  Ouija  Board  and  ending  with  my  "communication  experiment"  that  had  such  a  bad  ending.  As  I  told  them  about  the  communication  experiment,  I  was  conscious  of  the  fact  that  I  was  breaking  my  promise  to  the  thing.  The  members  of  the  family  who  were  present  that  night  stared  open-mouthed  as  I  told  them  the  story.

That  night, or  maybe  one  or  two  nights  later,  I  had  the  worst  "ghostly"  experience  of  my  life  in  the  form  of  a  wild,  frightening  nightmare.  A  group  of  4  or  5  black-eyed  "muchkins"  in  deep  blue  gas-station-style   jumpsuits  walked  towards  me,  out  of  the  screen  of  my  dream,  angrily  sneering,  "YOU  SON-OF-A-B - - - H,  YOU  BROKE  YOUR  PROMISE  TO  US  TO  NOT  TELL  ANYONE.  WE'RE  GOING  TO  GET  YOU  FOR  DOING  THAT!!!"  At  that  point  I  noticed  that  they  were  carrying  a  thick  hose  between  them,  like  firemen  holding  a  fire  hose,  and  they  suddenly  rushed  at  me  and  rammed  me  in  the  belly  with  it.  In  the  dream  I  went  "oooooooooooooooofff"  in  response.

But  then  I  awakened  slowly  in  my  bed.  As  I  came  to,  I  realized  that  I  was  screaming,  screaming,  screaming  in  my  bedroom  bunk.  As  I  stopped  screaming,  I  realized  that  not  only  was  I covered  head-to-foot  with  sweat,  but  I  was  lying  in  pools of  sweat  on  the  sheets.  I  also  had  a  distinct  sensation  that  I  had  been  anally  raped  by  the  hose,  not  punched  in  the  stomach  by  it.  As  I  apprehended  this,  I  saw  a  vision  of  the  "muchkins"  in  the  periphery  of  my  vision  laughing  at  me.

And  then  I  realized  that  it  was 10:00  a.m.  on  a  sunny  weekend  morning,  and  that  the  rest  of  the  house  was  quiet.  I  got  down  off  my  bunk,  got  a  towel  and  dried  off  the  sweat,  and  I  dressed  and  went  downstairs.  There  members  of  the  family  were  gathered  in  the  living  room,  staring  at  me  angrily.  One  explained,  "Around  midnight  you  began  yelling  and  screaming  in  your  sleep.  We  tried  to  wake  you,  but  couldn't.  We've  been  down  here  for  hours  while  you  screamed  in  your  sleep,  talking  about  what  to  do  with  you."

"Sorry  about  that,"  I  stammered  without  further  explanation,  hoping  that  they'd  just  drop  the  whole  thing.  I  found  it  impossible,  then,  to  tell  them  about  the  rape  dream.

Years  later,  after  I  became  a  New  Jersey  trial  lawyer  and  married  and  moved  to  New  Jersey,  I  stopped  at  Blockbuster  Video  and  rented  the  Whitley  Streiber  film  Communion  for  entertainment  one  Friday  night  after  court  while  I  and  my  wife  chomped  on  pizza.  I  had  heard  of  Communion  and  of  the  Abduction  Phenomenon,  but  that  was  it.

As  we  sat  watching  the  film  and  eating  pizza,  the  movie  advanced  to  the  point  where  the  movie  portrayed  Streiber  experiencing  the  blue-suited  "munchins"  assisting  the  almond-eyed  abductors  in  the  Abduction  Phenomenon.

I  had  already  told  my  wife  about  my  rape  dream  years  before.  So,  I  blurted  out,  "THAT'S  THEM!  THOSE  ARE  THE  BLUE-SUITED  B - - - - - DS  WHO  ANALLY  RAPED  ME  IN  THAT  RAPE  DREAM  YEARS  AGO  TO  PUNISH  ME  FOR  BREAKING  MY  PROMISE!"

And  since  that  time,  I  have  been  firmly  committed  to  the  notion  that  the  beings  in  the  Abduction  Phenomenon  are  demonic,  and  that  the  "ghosts"  engendered  by  Ouija  Boards  are  the  same.

Take  it  from  me  --  Ouija  Boards  are  thoroughly  dangerous.  Keep  the  kids  away  from  them.