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Thoughts on Religion

Posted by on June 10, 2009 Leave a Comment

I have been, and still am, studying many religions and I came to the conclusion a long time ago that there is some truth in all religions. There have been, and still are, many people on this planet who have found the right path – for them, at least. There are many paths to the Divine, mine is but one. Picture, if you will, a huge field. At the center is the biggest tree you can imagine. There are perhaps a million or more ways to get to that tree. It all depends on where you are currently standing. There is no single correct way to get to the center. Will not any path to the center of the field get you to the tree? No matter what side of the field you are on, your path is to the center. The tree is the . It is the source of all knowledge.

I feel that all religions stem from the same source. Just what the source is, I am not sure. Call it whatever you wish. We are all also a part of that source. We are one. One human family, one world, one . As the says it:

“All human beings come from a mother’s womb. We are all the same part of one human family. We should have a clear realization of the oneness of all humanity.”

and

“All religions are essentially the same in their goal of developing a good human heart so that we may become better human beings.”

I have a deep respect for the Dalai Lama. He has his path to the Divine and also has a respect for all religions. If only we as the human family could also find that respect for each other. In finding that, we would also find a great respect for ourselves.

Why do we seem to like to define ourselves with labels? Labels are mere words. If we want others to know what we are, why not show them? Show them through action. Actions still speak louder than words. I do not care if you are a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Christian, a Hindu, a Jew, a follower of the many ; or any of the countless other faiths, traditions, paths, or religions that are spread throughout this World. We are all one.

This is exemplified by the beliefs so many hold about Jesus. During the years of the historical Jesus’ life, there are eight or nine years that his whereabouts are not accounted for. These are referred to as the ‘lost’ years. It was after returning that he truly began to teach his wisdom. Many scholars believe he was in India studying Buddhism during these ‘lost’ years. Who was Jesus? The Indians say He was a great yogi, the occultists and Theosophists say He was a great initiate of the arcane science, while Spiritualists regard Him as a great medium or a very high guide. I know who many say he was. Why can they not all be right?

I do feel that if he was a real person, Jesus was a great man. His teachings are full of truth. It is some of the people that think they are following his teachings, that I sometimes have problems with. These people are not truly representative of the entire Christian path though. Just as there is good in everyone, there is also a tendency to – well, not so good. Jesus taught love, not hatred. Jesus taught tolerance, he treated all as equals.

What I do with people is show them what I am. Let them see for themselves. Try to get them to learn for themselves. Let them know what I really am and what I really do. Show them that I am not what they have been told. Show them first hand. Let them see and learn instead of stating that which they have been told. With most of them, I have read The Bible more than they have. I also tell them to go read the rest of the Bible. Read it as a book. You can not take random quotes from a book and put them together and still have the same meaning that was originally intended. Some people tend to quote you this verse and that verse. They often do not know what the rest of the passage is about even. Read it as a whole as it was intended.

As for The Bible, it is a good book. It was written by man, though, not God/dess. Many portions of it were written centuries after Jesus moved on. The Old Testament is not the only ‘old’ Christian book. How about The Dead Sea Scrolls? Have you read The Apocrypha? Maybe I should ask this first, have you ever heard of The Apocrypha? The Apocrypha where included in the Bible for some time, they were even a part of the original King James Version. How about the texts of the Nag Hammadi Library, have you ever seen them? They make for some interesting reading. The Gnostic Society Library shows these texts in a historical light. I recommend you read through them, if you want to see some writings from the early Christians.

I feel Jesus was the son of God/dess, just as we all are the sons and daughters of God/dess. You ever notice how little Jesus actually talked about sin? He did say a lot about love. He lived his life as an example of what others could be and to show he was like us. I want to show you something I have come across myself while studying. This was put together to show the similarities of the many religions of the world. You might take a special notice as to where the wording of ‘The Golden Rule’ actually comes from. All religions have such ‘rules’. The religions are in Bold print, followed by the quote and then the source text.

Baha’i
‘Blessed is he who preferreth his brother before himself.’
BAHA’ULLAH, Tablets of Baha’ullah, 71

Buddism
‘Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.’
UDANA-VARGA, 5:18

Christianity
‘All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.’
JESUS, Matthew 7:12

Confucianism
‘Do unto other what you would have them do unto you.’
Analects 15:23

Hinduism
‘This is the sum of duty: do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you.’
Mahabharata 5:1517

Islam
‘No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.’
SUNNAH

Jainism
‘In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, we should regard all creatures as we regard our own self.’
LORD MAHAVIRA, 24th Tirthankara

Judaism
‘What is hateful to you, do not to your fellowman. That is the law: all the rest is commentary.’
Talmud, Shabbat 31a

Native American
‘Respect for all life is the foundation.’
The Great Law of Peace

Sikhism
‘Don’t create enmity with anyone as God is within everyone.’
Guru Arjan Devji 259, Guru Granth Sahib

Zoroastrianism
‘That nature only is good when it shall not do unto another whatever is not good for its own self.’
Dadistan-i-Dinik, 94:5

And of course my favorite:
‘An it harm none do what ye will.’

I feel there are truths in all religions. I feel that all comes from the same source. Call that source what ever you wish. There are many paths to the Divine, mine is but one. I want to give you a few more quotes here from different paths.

“Do not say, ‘I follow the one true path of the Spirit,’ but rather, ‘I have found the Spirit walking on my path.’ For the Spirit walks on all paths.”
- Khalil Gibran

“At the top of the mountain you find it very cool. There will be none of the dissimilarity that you can see at the bottom of the path. The fundamental principles of all religions are one.”
Words of Yogiswami

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe simply because it has been handed down for many generations. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of Teachers, elders or wise men. Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all. Then accept it and live up to it.”
The Buddha on Belief – from the Kalama Sutta

I do feel that a Christ type figure was a great spiritual teacher. So was Buddha, So was Krishna, So was Mohammed. So was the great Egyptian sage, Hermes Trismegistus. As was Plato, Socrates, Pythagorus and many others before them. The story of a God born into the flesh was told many times in many parts of the world long before Christ was supposed to have existed. Many of the initiates in the various Pagan Mysteries were wandering teachers and healers. They all performed the various miracles later also attributed to Christ.

Life cannot be explained with a single formula. If it could be, we have no free will. If we have no free will, why are we even here trying to learn? No free will would mean life is predestined. Now I can imagine many, many formulas reacting to each other in a random fashion. Sure, things are influenced to some degree by what is around them. There is an order to the universe. The universe is constantly changing though. The formulas have to keep changing with it or be left behind. It is nice to see some ‘maps’, if you will, have been left behind. Where are we going that we need a map? I can only speak for myself, but I am on a journey. A journey of the spirit/soul/divine – call it what you will. If the map is internal, or of your spirit, it could come in handy.

The beauty of freedom is that we are all entitled to our opinions as much everybody else. That is what all beliefs are though, opinions. We have no clue what the truth is. Beliefs are things we humans create to help us make sense of the things we do not understand. There is a difference between beliefs and facts. If something is a fact, it cannot be a belief. If it has been proven to be a fact it can no longer be a supposition or theory or belief.

I do not know if what I feel is fact or belief. I know that I feel it and it feels great to me. I feel lots of things. My ‘church’ is the world. The best chapel I can imagine is forest clearing or a mountaintop, with nature all around. How does everyone feel? Do we all feel? Do some just go off what they have been told and have yet to explore for themselves?

There are those who think they are outside of the universal laws. What I say about them, is Karma will catch up with them. It will catch them in this life or the ones that follow. They must learn or it will cause them harm. They will likely not only harm themselves, they may indirectly cause a ripple effect on those around them.

All things begin with thought. Thoughts can manifest themselves into reality. That applies to both positive and negative thoughts. With that in mind, be careful what you spend your time thinking about. When you think about something you are devoting energy to it. To perhaps oversimplify things: If you want to help, think positive thoughts. If you spend time and energy worrying about what might happen, you are only helping it to become closer to reality. We may not be able to control much in the world, but we can control our thoughts. Control your thoughts and control yourself.

Why do we humans think we know anything, much less religion? We live on a speck of dust in the middle of nowhere in this universe. We practically border on insignificance on a universal scale. How dare we think we know what God/dess thinks or even what God/dess is, for that matter? We are specks of dust, living on a speck of dust, in this awesome Creation and we THINK we know God/dess. We have no clue what the truth is, we never have and so we begin to form beliefs. There is a difference between a belief and a fact. If something is a fact, it is not a belief. Beliefs are things we as humans create to make sense of the things we do not understand. We fear what we do not understand.

In the days of early humans, fear served a primary purpose. Fear kept us alive. Fear to not play with the tigers. Fear not to take food from a lion’s mouth. That type of fear kept people from dying. Perhaps, we should not say fear but rather having a healthy respect for those things kept people from dying. At that time the ‘rule’ was pretty simple, If you do not know it, fear it. We learned to fear what we do not know from an early point in human history. We have since outdone that though even. We learned to fear that which we not understand. In some cases we went one step further, we learned to fear anything that is not familiar. There are some cases where fear can still be helpful, but in most cases, fear is our own worst enemy. Fear keeps us locked away in our own little box.

This fear we have of everything must be overcome for our spiritual growth. This fear keeps us locked away from our own true nature. Many people have a fear of death. Why is that? Death is not the end. Death is another part of the cycle of life. Death is a release from this physical body. It is a release that allows the spirit to be free of the physical world. Just because many people fear death, does not make it natural. We must respect and honor our emotions and feelings of loss, but there must be a limit.

How do we overcome these fears of the unknown? Learn to understand them. Face your fears, overcome them. Learn about the things you fear. Once things are more familiar to us, it is easier to overcome any fears we have associated with them.

If anything I have said rings true in your heart, then take it and make it your own. Make it a part of your thoughts. If nothing I said rings true to your heart, then disregard it. The things I have said are neither positive nor negative they are neutral. It is our own interpretation that assigns the positive or negative to thoughts and actions.

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe simply because it has been handed down for many generations. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of Teachers, elders or wise men. Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all. Then accept it and live up to it.”
The Buddha on Belief – from the Kalama Sutta

Many of us are from families where we were taught one of the more prominent western religions. Unfortunately, the driving force that guides us is often extinguished by organized religion. That force is to ask questions and to THINK for ourselves. We are taught This is the way, do not question it, just believe. Where is the Wisdom in that? We must THINK for ourselves.

There is no new knowledge. The things we may learn a hundred years from now are not truly new. They may be new to us, but the knowledge was always there. All the knowledge we have gained is but the diluted Knowledge of the God/dess.

I thank you for letting me share my views. Sharing is how we learn from others. Through sharing comes understanding. From understanding comes trust. From trust comes friendship. From friendship comes hope and admiration. From all of these great things there comes peace.

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Summer Solstice (June 21st)

Posted by on June 9, 2009 Leave a Comment

Since it’s almost the Summer Solstice, I thought I’d share some information and  a few things that you can do to celebrate the (Midsummer) of the year.

Summer Solstice or Litha is celebrated on or around June 21, is when the hours of daylight are longest. The Sun is at the highest before beginning to slide into darkness. Traditionally, herbs gathered on this day are said to be extremely powerful. On this night elves and fairies abound in great numbers.

Also known as: Alban Heruin (Druid), Alban Hefin (Caledonii), Summer Solstice, Midsummer, , ’s Eve, Gathering Day, and Feil-Sheathain (Pecti-Wita – July 5).

Symbols: , Mistletoe, Feathers, Blades.

Colours: Green, Gold, Yellow.

Herbs: Chamomile, Cinquefoil, Elder Flower, Fennel, Lavender, Mugwort, Thyme, and Vervain may be burned; Hemp, Larkspur, Pine, Rose, St John’s Wort, and Wisteria may be decorations.

Midsummer is the time when the sun reaches the peak of its power, the earth is green and holds the promise of a bountiful harvest. The Mother Goddess is viewed as heavily pregnant, and the God is at the apex of his manhood and is honoured in his guise as the supreme sun.

But don’t overlook the Celtic in a celebration. The Celts are one of several cultures known to also have female deities to represent the power of the sun. The are some of the very few in which the names for the “sun” are feminine nouns, which attests to the one-time prominence of these Goddesses. A number of the myths surrounding these ladies of light have been preserved. Among the most well-known are Sul (Anglo-Celtic), Dia Griene (Scottish), the princess of the Sun (Breton), and Grian and Brid (Irish).

Just as the Holly and Oak Kings battles for supremacy at Yule, this ever-repeating fight is re-enacted at Midsummer, this time with the Holly King , as king of the waning year, victorious.

The following are some suggestions for Litha activities, some of which you may want to incorporate into the Sabbat, while others would be more suitable during the day.

*        Tie a sprig of Rowan, a sprig of Rue, and three flowers of St John’s Wort with red thread and hang over the door.
*        Make amulets (simple charms) of protection out of herbs such as Rue and Rowan. If you make new amulets each year, you can dispose of the old in the midsummer fire.
*        Create a pouch for psychic dreams (Mugwort and Bay Leaves in a cloth of Lavender, blue or yellow and sewn with red thread) and place under your pillow.
*        Make a Solar Wheel as a terrific family project – everyone can make one for their bedroom. Wind Palm or Grape Vine into a circle, twisting as you go. Cut two short lengths of stem to be just a bit larger than the diameter of the circle and place one across the back horizontally and the other vertically crossing in back on the horizontal one and coming forward to the front of the circle to secure both, then adorn with symbols of the elementals (stone, feathers, ashes in a pouch, or a small candle, and a shell) and festoon with green and yellow ribbons. Hang in a tree outside or indoors as a reminder of the God’s protection.
*        Make a Witches Ladder (another fun family project) using three coloured yarns (red, black and white for the Triple Goddess) braided together to be three feet long. Add nine feathers all the same colour for a specific charm (such as green for money) or various colours for a more diverse charm, tie ends and hang up. Colours are red for vitality, blue for peace and protection, yellow for alertness and cheer, green for prosperity, brown for stability, black for wisdom, black and white for balance, patterned for clairvoyance, and iridescent for inight.
*        You can burn the old Yule wreath in the Litha fire.
*        Make a rue protection pouch out of white cotton. Add two or three sprigs of rue, bits of whole grain wheat bread, a pinch of salt, and two star anise seeds and hang indoors (can do one for each bedroom).
*        Tie vervain, rosemary, and hyssop with white thread and dip the tips into a bowl of spring water (you can buy bottled spring water in grocery stores) and sprinkle the water about the house to chase out negativity, or sprinkle your tools to cleanse and purify.
*        Gather herbs, like St John’s Wort, Vervain, and Yarrow.
*        Soak thyme in olive oil, then lightly anoint your eyelids to see faery folk at night.
*        Tie a bunch of fennel with red ribbons and hang over the door for long life and protection of the home.
*        Look for the faery folk under an elder tree, but don’t eat their food or you’ll have to remain with them for seven years! (Which could be a lot of fun, but will seriously wreck any plans made!)

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A Basic explanation of Karma

Posted by on June 9, 2009 Leave a Comment

There’s an image I use regularly as an on sites which states “Proud to be Karma’s !” and, of late, I’ve been receiving the same question from peope who see it.  ”What is Karma?”  For me, I find this question unusual as karma is such an integral part of life that I thought everyone knew what it was.  Apparently not.  So I thought I’d spend a little time today talking about what karma is, how it works and the principles behind it.

To begin with, let’s look at the word itself.  Karma means “action” in and is commonly thought to be a punishment for past bad actions, but this is a misunderstanding of the term.  Karma is neither judge nor jury, it is the universal law of which states that every thought, word and action carries energy out  into the and affects our own reality.

To make Karma easy to understand, for those who’ve never come across the word before, I thought I’d put the basics into two lists.  First, the laws of karma.

The Laws of Karma

  1. You are responsible for your actions.
  2. Whatever you send out, comes back threefold (three times as strong).
  3. Karma is not always carried out in the same lifetime.
  4. Karma is accumulative in nature, you must strive to create positive Karma and remove negative Karma.
  5. Karma is not fate or destiny but a blueprint on the direction your life is going to take.  Like any blueprint, it can be edited or changed.

Understand that while Karma is guided by its own laws (as listed) we each have our own responsibilities on how we should deal with it.

Responsibilities

  1. Someone can come into your life, but if they wish to leave you have to let them go.
  2. We can offer advice to another person, but we cannot force them to follow it against their will.
  3. Do not wish harm on another as it will come back to you three times as hard.
  4. If you are aware of a past life debt, try to work it out in your current lifetime (if the other person involved and your current partner/people involved in your life are willing).  If not, you will have to wait until later in this lifetime or another.  No one can be held another hostage because of a karmic debt.  If a person crosses your path and you have joint karma, it will become apparent.  If your attempts at resolution are rejected, then the karmic bond is over and you are free.  The other person must now resolve their karma alone.
  5. If there is someone present in this lifetime who caused you harm in another, forgive them and move on so the cycle does not repeat and continue.
  6. Each of us chooses what life we will lead and when we will die (although consciously we are not aware of it).

The ultimate goal is to have complete balance where both negative and positive karma are in alignment so that we can start afresh in the next lifetime.

I hope this gives some clarification to those who have shown an interest.  If you want to know more, let me know and I’ll return to this topic.

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Potential Descendants of Gollum

Posted by on June 8, 2009 Leave a Comment

Once upon a time there was a family who (I’m pretty confident) were  the of Gollum from . Seriously, I’m not joking. They were  insane, obsessed, definitely delusional and may (or may not) have be possessed by some kind of . This family regularly used the ouija board (of which I’ve already posted) and by regularly I mean more than once a day and believed every word that comes from it. Incidently, if they weren’t  possessed, then they were insane and needed to be locked away.

Their (usually a person and who I’m going to nickname “my precioussss” in deference to Gollum regardless of whether it is one person or many) was  regularly checked on via the board, where they would  ask what “my preciousss” was doing, where “my preciousss” was  and even who “my preciousss” was with. Once armed with this information, they would  contact “my preciousss” to get confirmation – obviously when they didn’t  receive confirmation of their facts they would  accuse “my preciousss” of lying. If  ”my preciousss” dared to talk to anyone other than those they deemed okay, head gollum (or gollumess, in this instance) would go into a frenzy of anger, screeching like a harpy and throwing all manner of hissy fits. Gollumess Jnrs (yes, disturbingly there was more than one – how scary is the fact that someone actually wanted to mate with a gollum?) would follow suit. Hours later, they would then act like their screechfest didn’t happen and that  all was well with the world and everyone in it.

They caused people to fall out with friends they’d known for years and, if their chosen target attempted to reopen contact with the ones they’d fallen out with, they would come up with a multitude of reasons why that contact shouldn’t happen and, most times, it appeared they succeeded. Well, there came a time when, in this,  they failed. They chose the wrong people to play their games with and it backfired miserably on them. At first it must have appeared to them that all was going well, they’d caused a few more people to fall out, had the blame all neatly placed at “my preciousss’” door in an attempt to keep “my preciousss” to themselves but they failed to take into account an outside entity who couldn’t help but meddle in these kind of situations and was extremely good at sniffing out bullshit.

With the bullshit detector working at maximum, numerous stories were dissected and compared with the same situational story from the “other side of the fence” and a middle ground was settled on. Once this third situational story was discovered, the parties who had fallen out compared notes and realised that something was wrong with the stories they’d been spun by the Descendants of Gollum and after much discussion, it was decided that they were ridiculously insane, dangerously stupid and from hereon in should be completely ignored.

In true Hollywood fashion, this is based on a true story.  Judge for yourself how exaggerated it is!

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Possession and Intrusion by Spirits

Posted by on June 7, 2009 Leave a Comment

Following from my post on the Ouija, I’d like to continue the theme and talk, today,about Spiritual possession.  To begin, you need to understand what the term means.

Possession means another consciousness cohabits your own space.  Sometimes this is done purposely by a , or a spiritualist. but when possession is typically spoken about it refers to those times when a parasitic entity latches on and feeds from a person’s energies.  This can happen in a variety of ways, one being use of the without taking proper precautions.  Another type of possession can be caused from an unhealthy thought habit, which causes  thought forms which evolve with a voracious appetite to feed on the around them.

Possession usually occurs when a person is unbalanced or hasn’t properly prepared for using spiritual devices – like the ouija, tarot, etc.  By properly prepared, I refer to grounding yourself, your energies, ensuring that you have proper protection in place and that you are in a calm mental state.  It is important to understand that being in this state of mind goes a long way to avoiding possession in the first place.

Below I have compiled a list of symptoms that may suggest possession by an entity – of any type I have described.  Please understand that this list is not solely restricted to possession but can also be indicitave of serious mental conditions or extreme character flaws.  Do not assume that because someone has a and not a mental condition simply because they relate to the list.  Examine ALL possibilities with an open mind and always seek out if you are suffering from any of these symptoms to see if the condition is alleviated before looking for other methods of help.

  • Feeling “beside yourself” or “above yourself”.
  • Feeling chronically ungrounded.
  • Out of character selfishness, hatefulness, greed, jealousy.
  • Feeling carried away by something avaricious during trace or dreaming.
  • Experiencing the feeling that something is just beside or behind you, followed by a stabbing sensation or pressure.
  • Experiencing chronic distraction whenever you try to get centred or do something good for yourself.  Also experiencing unusually and remarkable hurdles to this.
  • Compulsive behaviour that is out character.
  • Loss of good judgement.
  • Restlessness, forgetfulness, general lack of mental focus, chronic boredom, and depression.
  • Suicidal thoughts and behaviour.
  • Obsessive thinking and behavior.
  • Self abusive behavior and/or body neglect.
  • Feeling lost or betrayed for no specific reason.
  • Feeling “driven” or “captive” emotionally or mentally by a cycle of anger, fear, resentment, or sadness. This also applies when it pertains to feeling held hostage by a person or idea.
  • Nightmares which recur; especially those which consume or color your thoughtsmost or all of the day following the dreaming.
  • Waking feeling suffocated or feeling that the darkness is smothering or very scary.
  • Unreasoned fear.
  • Pain, pressure, paralysis or muscle spasms which have no medical explanation.
  • Cycles of events which amount to ongoing crisis, tragedy or stress.
  • Sleeping plenty, but awaking completely drained.
  • Saying, thinking or doing things which are usually associated with another person you live with or associate with the environment you are currently in.
  • Cycles of interactions with others which recur and cause pain, i.e.; repeatedly choosing lovers who are abusive or abandoning. This can be more subtle too, such as choosing friends who refuse, avoid or are unable to resolve conflicts and which always or nearly always result in eventual loss of or disconnection with the each friend made.
  • Illness or recurrent and chronic illness.
  • Impending sense of doom.
  • All or several signs combined which cycle over and over despite best efforts to resolve in usually effective ways. Each cycle ends in feeling drained and “mortally tired”, even feeling abused.

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Personality Disorder Test

Posted by on June 6, 2009 Leave a Comment

I did this for no other reason than sheer boredom….. I’ll leave it up to you lot to decide how accurate it is for me :p

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Personality Disorder Test Results

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Paranoid |||||||||||| 42%
Schizoid |||||||||||||||||||| 86%
Schizotypal |||||||||||||| 58%
Antisocial |||||||||||| 46%
Borderline |||||| 22%
Histrionic |||| 18%
Narcissistic |||||||||||| 46%
Avoidant |||||||||| 34%
Dependent |||| 14%
Obsessive-Compulsive |||||| 22%

Take Free Personality Disorder Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

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Oh Ouija, can I . . . .

Posted by on June 3, 2009 Leave a Comment

 
There was, believe it or not, the advertisement that ran in 1968 for the Board, sold by Parker Games.  The blurb for it read as follows:-

Funny how a boy seems to make the best partner!

Especially if he’s open-minded and willing to give the OUIJA Talking Board a fair try.  You can ask it absolutely anything. . .questions about love, school, money, travel, work, other people or the future.  Makes a great Christmas present for anyone who likes the fascinating experience of exploring the unknown.

Now, given that the Ouija seems to generate fear, speculation and criticism, one has to wonder why Parker Games were selling this as a toy.    There are many claims – not only by Christians, but by other – that by using the Ouija you’re giving out an open invitation for , but you’ll also get the other side of the fence which claims that this is all twaddle and it’s just a game and nothing harmful can come of it.

One such example of the second stance is the ever “vocal” Skeptic’s Dictionary, which states very clearly:-

Some users believe that paranormal or are at work in spelling out answers. Skeptics believe that those using the board either consciously or unconsciously move the pointer to what is selected. To prove this, simply try it blindfolded some time Have an unbiased bystander take notes on what words or letters are selected. Usually, the results will be unintelligible.

Hmmmm. . . .usually, the results will be unintelligable?  So, does that mean that occasionally the results do make sense?  Well, which is it… ? 

Straight Dope give a more interesting explanation of how they think the Ouija works.

What makes the pointer move? An effect similar to that which occurs in dowsing, known as the ideomotor effect. This is a fancy name for involuntary/unconscious movement, such as a dowser’s hand flicking enough to move his stick when he passes over an area he knows has water. (In fact, Cecil has discussed this very subject.) The basic point is that your muscles can move without your consciously thinking, “move to the word YES.” As the Skeptic”s Dictionary says, “suggestions can be made to the mind by others or by observations. Those suggestions can influence the mind and affect motor behavior. What is purely physiological, however, appears to some to be paranormal.” In other words, if you believe this stuff and are trying to get the spirits to answer questions proving that they are all-knowing, and you ask a question that you already know the answer to (for example, “What’s my father’s name?”), odds are that your own hands will do the rest by spelling out your answer. That’s where trying it blindfolded comes in (provided you haven’t memorized the board, obviously). If it’s spirits, they should be able to guide your hands no matter whether you can see or not. But if it’s you doing it unconsciously, the blindfold will screw things up.

Then there’s The Museum of the Talking Board, who believes the board is bringing messages from your subconscious.

 

On the other side of the fence, Dale Kaczmarek, President of the Ghost Research Society, wrote a regularly repeated article called Ouija: Not a Game, where he says:-

Most often the spirits whom are contacted through the Ouija are those whom reside on “the lower astral plane”. These spirits are often very confused and may have died a violent or sudden death; murder, suicide, etc. Therefore, many violent, negative and potentially dangerous conditions are present to those using the board. Often times several spirits will attempt to come through at the same time but the real danger lies when you ask for physical proof of their existence! You might say, “Well, if you’re really a spirit, then put out this light or move that object!” What you have just done is simple, you have “opened a doorway” and allowed them to enter into the physical world and future problems can and often do arise.

Brad Steiger, a prolific author of supernatural subjects, stated his opposition to the use of or the ownership of a Ouija in his article Mothers, Don’t let your children grow up to play with the Ouija Board, where he recounts his investigation of a 17 year old girl who experimented with the ouija – with dire consequences:-

She thought she had the knowledge to contact spirits through the board but unfortunately she had neglected to assume a prayerful attitude to guard against malignant influences.

Hans Holzer, one of the most respected paranormal investigators of the last 50 years or so, also warns against the Ouija.   Edmund C Gruss quotes Holzer in his book The Ouija Board: A Doorway to the Occult:-

Those who wish to use the Ouija board as a parlor game I advise to think twice. There is always the possibility – rare, I admit, but conceivable – that one of those playing the board is a genuine trance medium without realizing it. In such a case, the board can become an easy entrance for a disincarnate person… who might next take over the personality of the medium and manifest under conditions where no controls are possible.

Yet, even those who believe the Ouija can be used without causing any harm still recommend a cleansing is performed before an experimentation.  Some people will say a prayer over the board, others will perform a circle ritual where you visualise a circle of protective white energy surrounding yourself, the board, the people with you and even the room.

 

My own personal feellings on the Ouija is that it can be a very dangerous thing to play around with and, if you must use it, you should treat it with the utmost respect, while not taking what it may tell you in a literal sense as the words that come through generally are not 100% specific.  I have used the Ouija in my dark and distant past and it is not something I am likely to do again in a hurry.  I am of the firm belief that dysfunctional people will attract dysfunctional entities and should never use a Ouija board or channel in any way!

I’d be interested in hearing about anyone’s experiences with the Ouija, if you’ve had them.

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