When my friend Z was 13, she asked for a Ouija board for Christmas. An odd request, but her parents didn’t really believe in those sort of things so they got her one. Z had always used the Ouija board as a joke with her friends whenever they had sleepovers. All day they messed around, making up gibberish and pretending a “spirit” was talking to them. The family had a big laugh and when night fell everyone went to sleep.

That is except for Z. When she went to bed that night, she couldn’t fall asleep because when she got into bed there was a huge weight put on her legs, like someone was sitting on them. Once Z realized what was going on, she got out of bed, ran to her parents’ room frightened for her life. Her parents subsequently threw away the Ouija Board and that was the end of that.

Z told me that she stopped using Ouija Boards ever since because of the unforeseen consequences that it had. The Ouija Board was used by the Occult to speak to spirits who had passed on, and Z saw herself as disrespecting that mode of communication. The testy thing about Ouija Boards is that once it is used, any spirit can pass through. It’s like trying to open a door to a closet full of balloons just to grab the purple ones. It’s virtually impossible to do that.

When Z told me her experience with Ouija Boards, I actually believed her and never want to go near a Ouija Board. I’ve known for her for a bit and she’s a pretty rational individual. So if she was terrified by something she thought was a ghost, well then it probably was a ghost.