The Ouija board peril
10/30/2024
As I mentioned in my previous post, 'tis the season for warning kids not to play with Quija boards. This naturally raises the question of what they actually are - portals to another world or a cheap parlor game?
Before we answer, we need to consider the state of American theology. For most of American history, it was predominantly Protestant, and largely Puritan. The Puritans were something of a paradox: radical monotheists with no use for saints or intercessors, but people acutely terrified of the devil and witchcraft. Protestants seem to have been particularly preoccupied with witches, no doubt a subset of their belief that the Catholic Church was the Anti-Christ. The same animating spirit that wanted Jesuits killed on sight was convinced that sharp-tongued housewives could bring crop failures or droughts.
The Salem Witch Trials have since come to mean different things to different people. Are they the result of superstition gone mad? A stinging indictment of Christianity? A classic case of crowd psychology? The epitome of the Patriarchy victimizing women?
Like the vast majority of Americans, for much of my young life I embraced a combination of the above, and subconsciously followed the cultural Protestant notion that while God did exist, He did so at a distance. Miracles were rare and because there was only one God, everything else was hallucination or manipulation. The Jews had a line to God, but every other pagan society was just randomly thrashing about, cutting open animals and looking at their entrails in fever desperation and stupidly following their instructions out of ignorance.
I've since come to learn that I was the ignorant one, and that a close, orthodox reading of the Bible indicates that the pagan gods are in fact renegade angels. The pagan gods are real.
What this means is that my old take on Ouija boards (which I never used) was radically wrong. Back then I thought there were no spirits other than God, so playing with one was like a fixed game of three-card monte. The same was true with Tarot decks - they were the tools of card sharks and their marks, entirely secular in form and function.
I now know otherwise. American society was subverted by wicked people who used secular materialism as a way to drive people away from God. "Let your kids play with Quija boards, and if there are subsequent behavioral issues, medication will solve the problem. Under no circumstances should you look for a spiritual solution to the problem."
That was their mantra, and it was very effective. However, at this late date, the truth of the spirit world is undeniable. When governments ban silent prayer, you know something is up.
That being said, I'm not sure what I believe regarding moral panics. There is an uncanny anticipation here, eerie parallels between the demonic daycare scares of the 1980s and the claimed association of D&D with devil worship. Both were thoroughly debunked, but in a way that made actual scandals easier to deny. Was it an accident that the daycare devil worship was used to paper over priestly abuse of minors? That the overblown panic over D&D so precisely anticipated actual demonic practices in Hollywood and Washington?
Unlike a nerd-driven role-playing game, today we have people openly bragging about their pagan politics. Perhaps the future will provide additional clarity.
In the meantime, stay away from those Ouija boards!
Naomi Wolf had a link to a book about paganism called The Return of the Gods that discusses this and the weird preoccupation with a return to paganism.
If you have a chance. Explain that weird Luce doll to me. Why would they need a mascot?
I recall ouidja boards as a kid. It seemed like seances and other MGM crap. My friends and I tried it once and realized that unless we moved it it would sit there. Someone pretended it was the ghost of Marilyn Monroe, but she got it wrong and said that she drowned in Lake Champlain when DiMaggio tossed her in. The mom started laughing at us. And that was it.
I myself am more concerned about crazy women my age cutting antlers off dead deer for spells. These people have chucked all religion and are doing the " goddess circle" crap.
Posted by: CN | 11/01/2024 at 08:34 PM
I've seen no evidence, BTW, that Jews have a line to God. The only time I ever heard anything like that was an attempt to keep the Mormon missionaries at bay. And it was: we have a separate Covenant".
Posted by: CN | 11/01/2024 at 08:49 PM
The promotional doll is part of liberal Catholicism's endless need to be current and hip. There's a joke going around Catholic circles that as soon as one is used in a Traditional Latin Mass they will be banned.
The reference to Jews having a line to God was in the past tense - the "had" one in antiquity, as opposed to the pagans, who I assumed were just prancing around and killing animals for no reason. The line of argument is no longer tenable because the proliferation of religious practices and the fact that people back then were no more stupid than we are. In fact, they had a much stronger sense of action vs reaction, cause and effect. We're going to shut down the global economy because flawed computer models tell us to. I'd rather listen to the stoned chick in the cave, because at least she has a track record of being right.
I do not know if they still have a line to God. I assume everyone does, but most choose to ignore it and other turn to demons because they make them feel better.
I think the reason you got no response with the board had to do with your sensitivity to the spirit world. In my youth, mine was close to zero as well, and my conversion to Catholicism was arguably more philosophical than spiritual. I needed to believe in something, and the Church seemed the one most grounded in reason.
Since then, I've become much more spiritually attuned and am much more aware of how God is in fact very close to us. I also think the spirit world is much more active today, a result of the Enemy making a full-court press. Look at how many Christian (and Jewish) communities have turned to worshipping sin. I suspect if you handled a board today, you might get a different experience.
Posted by: A.H. Lloyd | 11/02/2024 at 08:38 AM
I thought the reason it failed was because it was nonsense and until someone got a wiseass idea to "contact" Marilyn Monroe nothing at all happened. Whether a person turns to "goddess circles", like Jennifer Aniston, lunatic spells, or Ouija boards seems connected to a great sense of powerlessness, loneliness or a desire for recognition that cannot be otherwise had. The people seeking love spells recognize that barring spiritual intervention, they will not get the person they desire. The antler cutters from my former synagogue may have been seeking revenge on their exes, a lottery win, or a cure for some dreadful disease medicine could not touch and God declined to stop. Groups of unhappy people are probably easily led away from what they see as a supernatural wrong and seek out alternatives. I see this in my "commie" neighbors who see economic success as a form of cruelty and seek to "fundamentally transform society", but of course not part with a dime. Antlers will do nothing and communism will destroy more than they imagine.
Yes, I am more focused on a spiritual world, and I attribute this to Lewis and Screwtape, and I think of Lewis as a saintly protestant, with "ulsterior" motives.
Posted by: CN | 11/02/2024 at 02:23 PM
I used to think as you do - it's just nonsense and people are wasting their time vainly seeking an alternative to the reality of the True Faith.
However, I think they are getting a result - not the one the expect, but it's not just chanting into an echoless void. They are getting a validation of a sort, and that's the dangerous part. Even if you assume it's purely psychological because of their transgression, there's an emotional satisfaction that comes from their acts. Again, there's no objective (I won't say scientific) way to know the source of that emotion, but it's undeniably there. The spells don't have to work in order to work, because the spirits behind them are the ones calling the shots. The goal is pull people away from God, and it's working splendidly.
The problem is that our society has adopted a view of logic and reason that very unscientifically rules out certain explanations. There are mountains of records of miracles, both fair and foul, of apparitions, events and so on that openly defies science. Fatima, for example. And our leaders of though, reason, logic and "science" just say "Nah, didn't happen."
You and I can chuckle about love potions and how the witches of Reddit are angry that Trump is somehow proof of their curses (well, a Capuchin priest did give him a Brown Scapular and a lot of people are praying for him, but I digress), but there is something to be gained from their practices or they wouldn't keep doing them. We are seeing some prominent occult figures suddenly renounce their practices and embrace Christ, which is a splendid thing.
As for your commie neighbors, envy is a powerful temptation, and a lot of spirits exploit that.
Posted by: A.H. Lloyd | 11/03/2024 at 08:12 AM