Spiritualists
In the early 1900's a French Spiritualist invented a way in which to communicate with spirits. This is what we know as the spirit board or Ouija board today. The invention originally looked like a small table with 2 small stilts and either a pen or a pencil. A person would sit with their hands lightly resting on the device and thus help the pen to move so that writing would be produced. Spiritualists truly believe that spirits actually guide their hands on the spirit board. In other words, spiritualists believe that their body's are controlled enough to spell out a message. For this reason, spiritualists truly believe that the spirit board is an important tool for people who want to make contact with the spirits of the dead. So don’t call it a Ouija board, it is a talking board-spiritualists use it as a communicating (talking) device.
Of course, critics are skeptical of whether or not this actually works. In fact, magician James Randi has pointed out that whenever the spiritualist is blindfolded they cannot produce intelligible messages on the spirit board. On the other hand, those who support spiritualists claim that the spirit board really does not have any intrinsic power in and of itself. However, they believe that spiritualists simply use it as a tool to help them whenever they are communicating with the spiritual world. Spiritualists say that blindfolding them places a great handicap upon them because the spirits that they contact use their eyes during a spirit board session. The eyes are used to point to the words and letters that are needed in order to form a message.
Spiritualists also use protective rituals before using the spirit board so that they do not become demonically possessed. These rituals include visualization, incense and call out to spirit guides. They also believe that "like attracts like" and so you should never use a spirit board in a negative manner or else they will increase their risk of having a negative experience.
Talking Board (Ouija board)
Learn more about the Talking Board (Ouija board).
