In Ceremonial Magick and Sorcery, thirty third degree Freemason, Manly P. Hall, wrote the following as he discusses the “agreement” made by “black magic” practitioners and demons:
“In the case of black magic, it is the magician and not the demon who must sign the pact. When the black magician binds an elemental to his service, a battle of wits ensues, which the demon eventually wins. With his own blood the magician signs the pact between himself and the demon, for in the arcanum of magic it is declared that ‘he controls the soul who controls the blood of another.’ As long as the magician does not fail, the elemental will fulfil to the letter his obligation under the pact, but the demon will try in every possible way to prevent the magician from carrying out his part of the contract.”
The point of the statement is that the magician and demon can haggle over the agreement until they come to a mutually agreeable one. Recall, however, that this is a battle of wits and the demons have been around for millennia longer than even the most erudite merely human magician and have been studying humanity for that long. But what, pray tell, has that to do with a board game? What indeed.
The Ouja board is simply a modern day incarnation of very ancient manners whereby to engage in divination; to ascertain information via contacting, well, whatever happens to be around to make contact. In this case, envisage a flat board wherein are printed letters, numbers, etc. one or more persons place their fingertips upon a scrolling device (planchette) which is supposed to move all by itself in answer to questions.
The modern pop-occulture version of the “OUIJA Game” is sold by Hasbro which has the following on its website for their glow in the dark model:
“Product Description:
Turn out the lights…now the board and message indicator glow in the dark! How it works has been a mystery for over 30 years! 2 Players.”
That’s all folks that is their entire product description (and, by the way, ellipses in original). So, they produce and sell the “game” but cannot tell us how it works—amazing!
A friend related to me a very typical Ouija board experience. The first time that he and his brother use a Ouija board, he was moving the scroller around just to freak his brother out. The next time, he was not moving it and neither was his brother and yet, the scroller was scrolling. Of course, this assumes that both were telling the truth; that neither were, consciously at least, moving it. That was the end of their usage of it.
William Fuld advertised the “Wonderful Talking Board” thusly:
“Ouija knows all the answers. Weird and mysterious. Surpasses, in its unique results, mind reading, clairvoyance and second sight. It furnishes never failing amusement and recreation for the entire family. As unexplainable as Hindu magic—more intense and absorbingly interesting than a mystery story.
Ouija gives you entertainment you have never experienced. It draws the two people using it into close companionship and weaves about them a feeling of mysterious isolation. Unquestionably the most fascinating entertainment for modern people and modern life.”
Between 1890-1950 AD many companies (Kennard, Fuld, Haskelite, Lee, etc.) produced various versions of such boards (see attached slideshow).
So conjuring demons became family friendly fun! Wait! What? Conjuring demons?!?! Some claim that either someone is always moving the scroller purposefully or that their hands are making subconscious movements. That may be, however, when we consider the claims of magickians (not stage illusionists) we may come to other conclusions.
There are very many forms of magick yet, generally, magickal workings include, at least, conjuring and banishing. That is to say that the magickian calls forth, raises, conjures what is variously termed an elemental, a demon, etc. for whatever purposes and then sends them away, banishes them. Here is something that will become key; the magickian does the conjuring with the utility of a magick circle (often adorned with sigils of various kinds). The circle is means to form a wall of protection to the magickian and a wall of incarceration to the demon.
With the concept of conjuring and banishing in mind note that a magickian (whom I will not name as I do not care to give him popularity) made an interesting comment about the Necronomicon. For some, the Necronomicon is just a fictional book invented by the fiction author H. P. Lovecraft. Others claim that Lovecraft himself incorporated the name of the text into a work of fiction wherein it was credited to the “mad Arab Abdul Alhazred.” In more recent times, many books called Necronomicon have been published by various authors. Well, if such tales are to be believed, there are very dangerous versions of the book which have wreaked havoc in the lives of those who engage it.
The magickian mentioned above noted that as he considered the sigils published within a Necronomicon; they did not make sense to him. He stated that there were conjuring aspects to the sigils but no banishing aspects. He contacted the illustrator who told him that he came up with them by simply piecing together ancient Canaanite sigils. In other words, he was just working as an illustrator for a book and was not producing magickal sigils; he was an illustrator and not a magickian.
Well, the magickian mentioned above noted the dangerous nature of this as the uninitiated (and even still largely unexperienced initiate) were conjuring demons and had to way to banish them. Thus, the demons were give legal access to the person.
This is, basically, what they Ouija board is; a way to give free will permission to demons to access you with no way to be rid of them. This is why the Ouija board is so very dangerous and why, by the way, those who preach against their usage the most are, ironically, Christians and magickians (also, psychics such as the late Sylvia Brown, Chip Coffee, etc. who conjure being otherwise—see attached video).
Now, of course, this conjuring and banishing stuff is merely a game played by the demon as the magickian eventually learns that they have no safety, they have no ability to ultimately banish and the demon ultimately does not go away. Many have reported that the demons have, ultimately, stated words to the effect of, “Did you think that you can call upon me and send me away like a common prostitute?” No, indeed.
In his new book, Sleep Paralysis – What it is and how to stop it, Chris White wrote the following (pp. 35-36) (see my review here):
“Take for example the Ouija board. It’s supposed to allow you to communicate with the spirit world right? Well, it does, in a sense.
Here’s the secret about a Ouija board: It’s just cardboard and ink. It has no power of its own. le is simply a vehicle for a human co ask for contact with spirits in their hearts, even if they don’t actually say it with their mouths. When you sit down and play with a Ouija board, gee a tarot card reading, or one of several other activities, what you are saying in your heart is: ‘spirits, I want you to be here. I want to contact you.’
You are giving them the only thing they need – permission. There seems to be a kind of a ‘rule of engagement’ that they need your permission. And things like tarot cards and Ouija are ways to trick you into giving it to them, to trick you into asking for them to be there. In exchange, the demons use the open invitation you have given them to so something supernatural which is intended to validate the experience and make you want to do more.
This of course benefits them in the long run because it means you will be opening the door wider for them.”
Since we began with Manly P. Hall, let us finish with him as well. In the Horizon Magazine for October-December 1944 AD, Hall noted:
“during the last 20-25 years I have had considerable personal experience with persons who have complicated their lives through dabbling with the Ouija board. Out of every hundred such cases, at least 95 are worse off for the experience…I know of broken homes, estranged families, and even suicides that can be traced directly to this source.”
For more info see:
Manly P. Hall on ceremonial magick and sorcery
A collection of articles on Occult, Witchcraft, Magick, satanism, etc.
A collection of articles on Freemasons
For a Christian perspective, there is an audio interview on YouTube with Dr. Edmond C. Gruss who wrote the book The Ouija Board, A Doorway to the Occult