ouija board

now how can we take a board game seriously when it is manufactured and mass marketed by a toy company? some people swear that they can talk to the dead with them. while the more rational kind tell us that it is ourselves, our subconscious, that moves the planchette across the board as it spells out whatever it is that you might want to hear.

whatever the explanations of the ouija board's mysteries it is a lot of fun to get some friends, catch a buzz, and fuck around with one on a night when the moon is full and little goblins are going door to door yelling trick or treat!

i must confess that i've not used one of these boards in years. not because of some bad experiences but maybe perhaps i've grown up and out of it. i've become too realistic and have soured in my own abilities to scare myself.

but perhaps my need for magic, even if that magic is faked by my own wish fulfillment, needs to be stoked every now and again. halloween is a grand time to scare oneself. and even if i needed to convince myself to use a ouija board even if it is a piece of fakery i am reminded that poets and artists of all types have used like-minded devices in their creations. the poet james merrill wrote his long poem the changing light at sandover using such a board. it is said that yeats believed wholly in automatic writing.

like the cowardly lion in the woods who kept the mantra, i do believe in spooks, i do believe in spooks or like scully in the tv show the x-files who wants to believe sometimes i just gotta let the curtain of disbelief rise.

good shit anyway. i recall one time when me and an old girlfriend would play with a ouija board all the time. i tell you it's freaky to feel that planchette move beneath your fingers for it feels like it is moving on its own accord. at the end of a session you must conclude by saying your farewells to the spirit you were talking to otherwise that spirit could linger in this world for maybe like forever. well, one thing led to another and we set aside the board without saying goodbye. i think we were drinking tequila, my girlfriend and i, when suddenly i said oh shit, we didn't say goodbye. i leaned over to the nightstand where we had placed the ouija board and placed my hand on the planchette. it moved suddenly straight to the word goodbye then stopped. scared the shit outta me. really.

boo