Thriller Thursday4

This week's thrilling episode is gonna be kinda weak. Sorry. I usually think ahead, but I forgot to this time around so all I have to offer you is a rather strange high school experience.

I had a friend in high school who was very interested in the "supernatural and occult". Her family frowned on this as she came from a Middle Eastern background so she was alternately an extreme skeptic or a gullible believer.

She'd been hearing about Oujia boards from some of her other American friends and mentioned the subject to me one day. I told her all about me and my brother trying a Oujia board out when we found one in my grandparents attic when we were younger. She asked if we'd gotten it to "work". I told her despite accusing each other of pushing the planchette and emphatic denials from both of us, it appeared to. (Unless you've actually used a Oujia board, I really can't explain the sensation of touching something so lightly that you KNOW you couldn't be moving it but it does. And when you use it alone, that sensation is twofold.) She asked me if I had the board. I said no.

Well, from that day on she pestered me constantly, peppering me with questions, and trying to figure out where to get ahold of a board. I didn't have much to tell her other than the little urban legend/rumor mill gossip that junior high students used to scare each other at sleep overs before I moved to where I met her in high school. I tried to side track her with "Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board" but she wouldn't give up (which by the way, my jr high friends were able to lift me about a foot off the floor before my mom came to check on us!).

I finally asked her what she wanted me to do. She said "Could we make one?" After thinking about it, I figured why not? It's just a board with the alphabet, numbers, yes/no/maybe, hello/goodbye, and a sun and moon. So we made one and used a smooth lid for the planchette.

She asked me and my brother to show her how to use it. Of course it worked great with us. Of course we got mostly nonsense. Of course she was very impressed.

Then she tried with one of us and it wouldn't move. She tried with the other, it still wouldn't move. Then she got frustrated and irritated and had me and bro try it again and it worked great. After several days, it finally worked with her on it. Always nonsense.

I was getting bored with just getting nonsense when we used it together, so I wondered what would happen if I tried it by myself. It worked beautifully with no more nonsense or gibberish, actual conversations. I thought I was either talking with my subconscious or with some earthbound spirit. Knowing what I know now, my money's on a low level spirit with not so good intentions.

The climax came when I brought the jerry-rigged board to one of my babysitting jobs to pass the time til the parents came home. Living where we did, we only had access to one TV channel and there was not much to watch and you can only read so much before you get sleepy. So after the kiddo had been fed, bathed, put to bed, and asleep, I got the board out and started "talking".

After awhile, the planchette gave up talking and started making fast figure 8's, repeatedly. I asked what was going on. It paused the figure 8ing and said "gathering energy", back to the 8's. I asked energy for what and noticed my hand was getting VERY warm. "Energy to appear" was the answer and back to the 8's.

Well, I sat there stunned for a moment watching my hand making these figure 8's.

Finally I "woke up", said our "goodbye" directive (to end the sessions and not have repercussions). It wouldn't say goodbye. I tried again. Still no goodbye.

I tried about 6 times, getting more and more panicky as the figure 8's continued even faster and remembering some dimly remembered rumor that you HAD to get the board to say goodbye or something terrible would happen to you if you just stopped.

The seventh time I said the "goodbye" directive, the planchette got really close to the goodbye on the board and I helped it along and called it quits.

Needless to say, no sleepy time for the rest of that babysitting job and the rest of the night at home. At school the next day, the friend wanted to Oujia at school. I told her what happened and that I was done. She was very disappointed but I was not going to continue after that figure 8 thing.

I know, you're all thinking, "didn't you ever see Witchboard?". No, not until I got to college. And when I told my friend J about this, she told me I was very lucky and shared a Oujia board experience of her own.

She was at a bonfire with a bunch of her high school friends. Someone had brought a board and they were all taking turns messing around on it. When they tried to get her to go on it, she refused and the board spelled out some scary shit. J got upset and someone threw the board into the bonfire. J said that board shot straight up into the air as high as a 2-story house and came down without a single singe mark on it.

I don't mess with Oujia boards.