Season of Shadows Blog

The infamous Ouija board has been chastised and touted during its 117 year+ history. The actual age of the board may vary depending on different sources, but it’s widely accepted that the original patent took effect in 1891. While some of its specific history is a bit murky, it’s no secret that the board has been, and continues to be an item with great buy appeal. Despite all of the millions of boards sold and in circulation, there is still a demand for this fascinating product. For those of you not familiar with these boards: they consist of a triangular shaped device, called a planchette, that users gently place their fingertips on. This planchette is said to move freely about the board when a spirit or ghost is making its presence aware. The planchette glides over letters and numbers to spell out information and messages to be passed on to the living.

Much of the interest in all things Ouija comes from kids’ desires to test the boundaries of their parents’ stern warnings against the board. This “you better not use it, or else you could become possessed” mentality is a built-in marketing tool for the board’s manufacturer (intentionally or not). When a parent offers a warning like that to a child, nine times out of ten, they have just guaranteed that their son or daughter is going to try it out. Kids have an innate desire for curiosity and obtaining self discovered knowledge, whereas many adults just accept a lot of rhetoric, that’s been passed down from one generation to the next, without investigating for themselves.

I’m not saying that the board should not be treated with respect. It most definitely should, but you have to keep in mind that an Ouija board is only a tool that hones your focus and attention. Do children not hone and focus their attention on violent movies, video games and television shows every day? It’s a double standard that the Ouija board is considered a tool of the “devil” by many, yet these same people may feel it’s totally acceptable for kids to focus their attention on other forms of harsh and sometimes cruel “entertainment.”

Since my first post I have stated that I want to be honest with you. Well, I’m going to be really blunt right now- I don’t believe in possession. Your fill in the blank (soul, energy essence, prana, spirit, etc.) has far too much invested in this experience that we call life, to allow another form of energy to become entangled, or overtake its vehicle for expressing conscious awareness. I feel that the majority of possession cases (Ouija boards involved or not) have been over exaggerated, misunderstood, or just plain faked. This does not mean I don’t believe the board works, nor does it mean I don’t believe that certain energy can become “interested” in the human participants of the board. Again, the board is a tool that allows a person or people to release their attention from their environment and become so heavily focused within, that they are allowing energy to flow in an easier manner. It’s not the board itself that has some amazing magical power- it’s the focus and honing of awareness, by the participant(s), that allows the board to work. A person could accomplish the same feat using any household item that could glide across some letters on a piece of paper. Of course the human participant’s intentions are paramount in these circumstances. I would never advise someone to use an Ouija board if they are proceeding from a place of fear. With fear being the predominant feeling within them, they will typically draw a more fearful experience to themselves (even if they are the only one responsible for the experience).

Now whether or not the energy, that is assisting in moving the planchette, has passed on and is intelligent and self aware or not is a whole other story. It’s quite possible that the messages that come through the board are being culled out by the human participants and not by ethereal beings at all. I do feel that the planchette seems to have a mind of its own as the participants become more focused on the “séance” though. While many people fool around and force the reader to race across the board, there are plenty of experiences where it’s quite obvious something else seems to be activating the piece. There have also been many cases where individuals that were involved in a session have gone on to check the information provided through the planchette. Many times, from a historical standpoint, the information gained does check out on a fact finding mission i.e. names, birth and death dates, occupations etc.

It is possible that when using the board, the human participants are in such a state of allowing that they are simply tapping into a Universal storehouse of information. As their energy flows more freely they become aware, on a deeper level, of information that is collected in some invisible database- stored and waiting to be accessed. The humans are the ones who may be moving the planchette, but without any intention to do so. It simply occurs due to their freeness of accepting the experience. In this state of freeness they have access to information that they are normally not privy too. The information that they receive could be location specific, based upon the environment they are in. Quite possibly another individual who lived in the home or in a nearby location has their entire life history available to be pulled out of the ether- it simply takes someone who believes and is extremely good at allowing energy to flow.

While I don’t believe that using an Ouija board is necessarily dangerous or ill advised. I do believe that one should be aware of their intentions as they set out to try using such a device. I would never advise anyone against trying something new, especially something that has the potential to provide new awareness and to teach others (through the experience), that there is nothing demonic or fearful about the process, except for the fear each person creates for themselves.

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The almost eight hundred year old German village was covered in snow as our ’84 Fiat pulled up to a massive four story house. I had been in the country for about three hours as the waves of culture shock began to pour over me. At this point, the United States might as well have been on another planet, as far as my ten year old mind was concerned. Staring out the car window, transfixed on what I thought would be my home for the next few years- I couldn’t help but wonder what we had just gotten ourselves into.

My dad had been assigned to Ramstein, Air Force Base where he, my mom, and I would be living on the German economy. Upon our arrival, inside the house, I began to take immediate notice of a feeling that rapidly took my mind off of being so far away from home. The four story dwelling (including basement and full access attic) was decked out in marble staircases with wrought iron railings spanning each floor. My immediate emotional impression was one of being watched by someone or something within the house.

My first night in my new surroundings didn’t bring much relief from my initial impressions. I got out of bed around 11 pm (sleep walking) and began climbing the third story staircase. I found my way into the fourth story attic and apparently wandered around in the dark until reaching a boundary, in the form of a wall. I awoke to the sounds of my own fingernails digging and scratching into the wood. Disoriented and yelling out into the blackness, my parents found me and brought me back to bed. I can still recall that intense feeling of being watched as I woke up, completely unsettled and trying to claw my way out. Talk about intense!

After a few weeks, life in our new home became fairly familiar and habitual for my family and me, or so I thought. Aside from the constant feeling of something staring a hole through me, things seemed somewhat normal. I had no idea what my parents, and more specifically my mom, had been experiencing, however. They had decided to conceal what had been occurring to prevent scaring me further, after I revealed I was being watched from within parts of the house. It wasn’t until we had moved out of the home that they divulged all of their experiences.

One of my mom’s first encounters occurred in the second story living room. It contained three separate neon lights that were side by side by side and controlled by three separate switches. My mom had been reading one evening after my dad and I had gone up to bed. She followed up shortly and turned out the middle light she had been using. As she took the first few steps up the staircase, she saw the two outer neon lights flicker back to life. She returned to the living room, noticing that the switches had actually been flipped to the on position, and once again she turned them off. As she began to climb the staircase for the second time, the middle light came back on. That was enough for her …up the stairs she went. Lights in the home were constantly being turned back on after one of us had made it a point to shut them off. In fact, it was a big deal because initially my dad thought it was either my mom or me leaving them on (unintentionally) and wasting electricity. Needless to say, after knowing we weren’t responsible, we became even more adamant about making certain all lights were off after leaving a room- just to prove a point to my dad. Yet, the phenomenon continued to occur. The majority of the time you could come back to a room ten minutes later (especially in the basement) and find that the light had been turned back on.

The next major event to take place, and to this day I still do not understand its significance, dealt with straight pins (the kind you find in the sleeves and collars of brand new dress shirts) and the kitchen sink. Three mornings in a row, my mom awoke and went to the kitchen to make breakfast. Upon getting to the sink, she found two straight pins lying in the bottom. She threw them in the trash that first morning, only to find both of them, back in the sink again on the second and third mornings. My dad swore he wasn’t responsible and I was still in the dark at this point, other than my feelings and perceptions, and I know I wasn’t doing it. An interesting side note: this wasn’t the last time straight pins would make an appearance like this around my family. I came across hundreds of them, myself, years later in an odd location- more on this in a future post.

The event that really took the cake and pretty much ended our stay off base, in Ramstein Village, happened after my dad and I had both left for work and school. It was very early in the morning and my mom had gone back to bed. She had only been there for a couple of minutes when she began to feel, what she described as a disembodied hand running over her leg. She knew she wasn’t dreaming or imagining it because she had just laid down a few moments before it began. After that took place, she wasn’t exactly thrilled about being in the home any longer.

Outside of these main occurrences, there were also strange and unusual noises at times in the house and one sighting to speak of. My dad, who actually had moved into the place and got everything settled, prior to my mom and I flying in from the states, recalls an experience from his early nights alone in the home. After falling asleep in the master bedroom, he awoke to a similar feeling (that I described) of something watching him. When he rolled over he noticed a shadow passing right next to the bed.

While we never had any type of investigation done on the house, and we moved out after living there for between six months and a year- I feel that there were more than enough personal experiences to conclude that something paranormal was happening in the place. My parents encountered the majority of interactions, but the sheer fact that they never said a word about it, while we lived there, is what I find so interesting. It’s interesting because I still picked up on the energy, despite their silence.

Ramstein Village has an amazing history that dates back to almost four times the age of the United States. Depending on what ghosts truly are, whether they are intelligence based energy, imprints or a combination of these things and much more, as I discussed in Specters, Spirits & Time, it’s safe to say that a country like Germany has enough history to allow for a multitude of these types of encounters.

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Related Posts

Specters, Spirits & Time
Calling Cards From Beyond the Grave
Family Spirits
Q & A: Seeing Body Doubles in a Haunted Location
Through the Eyes of a Ghost