There was a recent post in one of the many Pagan communities that I’m in that was ‘giving advice’ on why not to use the ouija board. It listed several reasons why and how they were dangerous.
Needless to say, it caused a bit of a shit storm. I dislike the fact of people telling others what not to do. The whole point of the Craft is to learn and educate yourself, to grow and to find out what works and what doesn’t work for you. Don’t let others tell you or advice you on how you should do things. A lot of them use fear to get their point across, which I disagree with.
Saying that using an ouija board can open a portal to hell, I find that a bit of an exaggeration. I view the ouija as a tool, just the same as using a tarot card, pendulum, oracle cards, runes, scrying, ball gazing, and any other divination you can think of. It’s the intent that matters.
If you go into it thinking ‘I’m going to raise the dead’, then of course you’re going to get bad vibes and bad spirits around you. However, if you go into it with the intent on getting help, and you surround yourself with positive energy, do a circle for protection, and other things to help protect you, for the most part, if you’re doing it correctly, you should have a bad experience.
On the other hand, I DO understand that spirits do come uninvited. Some of them are happy-go-lucky, some of them do have ill-intent. Just surround yourself with people who know what they’re doing, who are confident in themselves that they WILL make things go their way. If you have an unwanted spirit, don’t get mad, don’t get scared, just continue to firmly tell them to please go.
I will admit that I was in the ‘omgod, ouija’s bad! don’t mess with it’ camp. When I had my lesson with the ouija, I was with my mentor and two other classmates, whom I trust implicitly. I was a bit nervous going in, but I knew they wouldn’t let anything bad happen.
Halfway through, I realized I was no longer having anxiety issues, and I was enjoying the experience. There was a few moments where my mentor had to use her assertiveness towards unwanted spirits, but it wasn’t the terrifying experience that people tend to make it out to be.
I have a really hard time believing the pointer shooting across the room just as someone walks in. I think a lot of them are making it up, or over-exaggerating what actually happens.
The entire point of this post is: don’t let others tell you what to do because of fear. Just because person A has a bad experience doesn’t exactly mean others will. Stop enforcing your beliefs on others.
