You might be familiar with the “game” called Ouija Board. Trying to communicate with spirits used to be a normal activity in the past. It is claimed that even the Lincoln Whitehouse conducted séances. According to an interesting article in the Smithsonian Magazine, a toy store and novelty shop in Pittsburgh started selling Ouija boards in 1891 and the boards are still a best seller today.
The article also shares that research has found that the boards work through something called the ideometer effect, which is automatic muscular movements that take place without someone’s conscious will. That makes sense to me, but I don’t think that’s the case 100 percent of the time. Some spiritually-minded folks believe that the board can be a communication tool or a portal, and there are plenty of stories of negative paranormal experiences resulting from using the board without care.
My sister and I had a board as kids, and we’d use it with the neighborhood kids when we lived in Anchorage, Alaska for a few years. We didn’t usually get much of an answer to any of our questions, and you could feel movement that seemed to come from the other person. One experience does stand out, though. We had gone for the full séance effect, sitting in our playroom, dimly lit, asking spooky questions. The planchette seemed to be moving effortlessly across the board and it seemed a bit like we were having a conversation with something. All fun and games until we asked for a sign that there was something in the room with us. At once, we heard a noise in the closet, which was partially open. I looked that direction to see that a couple of toys had fallen off a shelf. Maybe the movement was a coincidence, but it really shook me up. After that, we kept the Ouija board in the bottom of a large toy chest, and eventually got rid of it, to my relief.
I haven’t used a Ouija board since then. I really do think that much of the time it probably is the ideometer effect moving the planchette around. But after the falling toy incident, I’m not sure it’s just a harmless board game, and I don’t want to risk accidently inviting something in that may not choose to leave.