You're hanging out with friends when someone pulls out a Ouija board. You've heard some creepy things about them, but you're intrigued. Before you know it, you're in the middle of a Ouija board session when the planchette begins sliding back and forth from H to A over and over again. As the Ouija board laughs at you, the lights go out! While your Ouija board experience was spooky, some people have had downright terrifying Ouija experiences, while others have had positive ones. When you're playing with spirits, you never know what you're going to get.
The Donovan Poltergeist
One of the best known and most publicized Ouija board stories is the Donovan Poltergeist. It all began when a teenage girl started using a Ouija board by herself in her bedroom. She connected with what she believed was the spirit of a teenage boy. She communicated with this spirit for nearly a year and developed a relationship. She was enamored with this spirit until things began to happen that revealed she'd been deceived by a very malevolent spirit.
A tapping sound started to happen in the house at all hours. The haunting escalated, and by the time the family contacted Ed and Lorraine Warren, the poltergeist activity was out of control. In a video interview, the Warrens recount how containers of ketchup, bleaches, oils, and other liquids floated down the hall and the contents dumped onto the carpet, furniture, and various furnishings. The furniture levitated and moved on its own. Water gushed from the walls, and stones fell from the sky, plummeting the roof of the house. The pounding on the walls, roof, and floors became so violent that cracks formed and ran down the walls.
Ed Warren retells how he was attacked while in the house and his arm slashed in what he calls psychic slashes. These slashes were made in the shape of a cross. The Warrens ended up calling a priest to assist them in an exorcism.
Seth and the Evil Stench
The July 31, 1987, National Examiner featured a story by Robert Stamper. According to Robert, he and his brother were just kids when they decide to play with a Ouija board. Neither of the boys knew anything about using a Ouija board, so when the planchette began to move on its own, the boys were fascinated and terrified. They watched as the planchette spelled out the word Seth. Robert baited the spirit by daring it to prove that it was real. This was the invitation the spirit was waiting for and it took Robert up on his dare.
Moving the planchette, Seth predicted that one of Robert's best friend's grandfather would die in one week. As if to punctuate its prediction, the spirit shook the chandelier, and the rumbling radiated throughout the house, sounding as if metal was clashing against metal.
The temperature in the room dropped, and the boys shivered from the sudden chill. Robert looked at the thermostat and it was set at 70°F. As if the coldness wasn't bad enough, a gagging stench filled the air, making the boys cough and gas for air. Then, just as quickly as it started - it stopped. Silence.
The boys threw the board away, but not before they told their mother about the experience. Their mother didn't offer them the comfort they must have expected or the reassurance that since they'd tossed the board into the trash, everything would return to normal. He states that his mother told them that once a Ouija board is used, the evil it allows to enter this world remains forever. He admits that she was right and that even today, tremors run through the house and that awful smell of death permeates the air. As for Seth's prediction about the death of his friend's grandfather, the reader is left wondering.
It Took Over Mom's Life
Dale Kaczmarek of Ghost Research published a letter from one of their readers, named Pam Frost. Pam discovered that her mother was obsessed with using a Ouija board by herself. In her letter, Pam recounts how she returned home from a trip and, exhausted, retired for the night only to awake in the middle of the night to find her mother in her bedroom staring at her. The two had an odd exchange about Pam being protected by something other than God, which ended up with her mother becoming angry and leaving the room.
Around 1 am, Pam heard quite a commotion coming from downstairs. She could hear the boisterous voices of men and women as though her mother were having a party. She went downstairs and got the biggest shock when she saw that her mother was the only person in the living room. All those voices were somehow coming from her mother as she sat in front of a Ouija board.
Pam writes that she eventually moved out of the house after she burned her mother's Ouija board. While her relationship with her mother improved, her mother bought a new Ouija board and used it until she died.
Get the Boy!
A Reddit user, Regnistel, writes that when he was a teenager, he asked his friend to take out her Ouija board so they could use it. She retrieved the board, but refused to use it with him, so he decided to use the board by himself. The teenager tried to get some kind of response from a spirit, any spirit, but the planchette didn't move and there were no answers to his many questions. After some time of using the board with no results, he grew frustrated.
He decided to antagonize any spirits present and bully them into participating in the game. He boldly proclaimed that any spirit in the room that was refusing to answer him was a coward! With that statement, he boxed up the board, gave it back to his friend, and went home.
One night, a week later, a powerful thunderstorm woke him. The teenager lay in his bed, silently listening to the thunder claps and falling rain as he tried to fall back asleep. Imagine his utter disbelief and shock when he heard a raspy whisper coming from downstairs that said, "Get the boy!" The voice repeated the order, "Get the boy!" The slamming a downstairs door followed the command. The teenager knew that there shouldn't be anyone else in the house, much less downstairs. The incident terrified the teenager and left him with a great appreciation for the power he'd unleashed with the Ouija board.
Saved By the Ouija Board
Another Reddit user, a woman, recounts that when she was a child, her mother gifted her with a Ouija board. She decided to use the Ouija board the night before she and her mom were scheduled to begin a road trip to visit her grandparents. The two of them set up the Ouija board, and the girl asked the questions.
When she asked if she and her mom should leave as planned at 10 am, the planchette moved about the board with a warning not to leave at that time. The planchette spelled out that if the mother and daughter left as planned, they would end up in an accident due to a blown tire. The car they were in would plow into an 18-wheeler.
Frightening, the mother and daughter decided to leave five minutes after 10 am, ensuring they wouldn't collide with a tractor trailer truck. Just as the Ouija board predicted, the front tire on their car blew out, but the mom was able to wrestle the car to the side of the road, grateful they weren't thrown into the path of an oncoming 18-wheel truck.
Max, the Spirit, Saves a Girl
One of the best Ouija board stories with a happy ending also comes from a Reddit user. The story is about a teenage girl and a spirit named Max that came through the Ouija board during a sleepover.
The girl grew tired of the Ouija board and, along with a couple of other girls, retired to another room to conduct tarot readings. Things turned odd when the girls in the other room called out to her, wanting to know who Max was and why he was asking about her. The girl was perplexed, since she'd never known anyone named Max. When Max began revealing intimate details about the girl's life, like the abuse she was suffering, the girl shut it down, asking her friends to stop using the Ouija board. Her friend stopped the session immediately and put the Ouija board away. That was the end of the matter, or so she thought.
A year later, at another sleepover, one of those friends was with her with a different group of girls. While she and that friend were in the kitchen baking a cake, the other girls found the Ouija board in the closet and began playing with it. Just as the previous time, Max came through and the girls called out to her from the other room, wanting to know who Max was. Startled, the girl that Max had been waiting all this time to speak with her again.
Since that last sleepover, she feels Max's presence and that he is always with her. She believes that for whatever reason, Max has appointed himself as her guardian angel. She claims that Max saved her life by calling out her name just as she was about to step into the path of an oncoming car. Instead, she stopped and turned around to see who was calling her, but no one was there. Thanks, Max!
A Visit From Grandpa
Another Reddit user, ShaderKong, tells how his mother, a highly spiritual person, uses a Ouija board, implying that she knows how to use the board as a divination tool. One night she invites the boys to join her for a Ouija board session, but neither boy is interested.
Later that night, he wakes up and instead of the normal feeling of fear, he feels a peace and safe. Suddenly, he sees a brilliant blue light glowing in the hall. Instead of feeling frightened, he feels peaceful as he watches the figure of an elderly man walking with a cane stop in front of the bedroom open doorway. He describes the main's attire.
The boy feels paralyzed and unable to do anything, but looks at the man, yet he's not afraid. The old man looks at the boy and they lock gazes. The boy doesn still feeling threatened by the apparition. The man looks away from the boy and continues down the hall toward his mother's bedroom. The boy doesn't alert anyone in the house, especially his mother, but instead, falls back to sleep.
The next morning as his mother is driving, he and his brother to school, the boy tells her about the blue figure of the old man. His mother begins to sob and has to pull off the road to regain her composure. She tells the boy that the man he described was her grandfather. During her Ouija board session the previous night, she connected with her grandfather. As in this story, when used by an adept, a Ouija board is a divination tool.
Stories of Good and Bad Ouija Board Experiences
Just like anything in life, there are some people who have good Ouija board experiences and some who have bad ones. Keep in mind that the Ouija board isn't a game, but a divination tool best used by someone who knows how to use it safely.
