From H.E.L.L.: Three Girls Play with the Board

I’ve documented the experiences that my cousins and I had during that fateful summer with the Ouija board in a few posts beginning with Say "No" to Ouija, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Epilogue.

In this episode from SyFy’s series “Paranormal Witness” three young girls convince their parents to buy them a new game, an Ouija board.

Paranormal Witness, Season 5, Episode 3: From H.E.L.L.

One of the girls is bullied at school and turns to the board to cope. When she uses it alone, the planchette moves on its own. She asks for help when dealing with a bully to find out the next day that the other girl can no longer attend her school. Delighted, she uses the board alone again. The planchette (the heart-shaped pointer) moves on its own and lets her know that she has a friend. Talking to the board after school becomes routine. Soon odd goings-on begin to happen… One sister felt someone grabbing her; one sister hears indistinct chanting; and her father starts to change. Her family falls apart. When her parents throw the board away, she makes her own.

Looking back, my cousins and I stopped in the nick of time. We got spooked straight and were warned by family and strangers. To this day, I will not use it casually if at all. If you decide to give it a try, know that it is not a toy. It’s a powerful tool that can bring serious consequences in careless hands.

Just Say “No!” to Ouija - Part 4

[The following story is a first-hand, cautionary account about the Ouija board and does not promote it’s casual use. It is NOT a game. It is NOT a toy. If you decide to use the board, please take spiritual precautions such as saying a prayer before use. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! All names are fictitious to protect the identities of those mentioned in the story.]

Within a few weeks of using the board, we had already noticed odd goings-around. We had contacted several spirits, but the one we happened to encounter the most was a Filipino nanny of sorts who we called “Ya-Ya”. We knew that just invoking her name brought us some sort of “bad luck”. My cousin who didn’t actively participate in our sessions came down with a case of sudden fatigue believed to have been brought on after seeing a shadow person. But, we weren’t expecting what was yet to come.

My Aunts Have an Accident

While we spent the after resting from berry picking, my aunt Pat and my aunt Lena went to downtown Port Orchard to do some window shopping at the local antique stores. They were gone longer than what was expected. Normally, they would run some errands, buy groceries and visit some of the antique shops in town, but it was unlike them to be gone until the evening.

We were surprised when my uncle received a call and ready to answer the flood of questions coming their way: Are you OK? What happened? Who did you hit? Where did it happen, etc.

Downtown Port Orchard is hilly. It was build on a slope that goes into the Sinclair Inlet, a branch of the Puget Sound. The buildings on the uphill side of Bay street were cut into the side of the slope, so many of the windows to the businesses appear to be lower than street level.

 

My aunt Pat parallel-parked her El Camino downhill on one of the side streets next to the antique shop she and my aunt Lena were planning on visiting. When they were ready to leave, Aunt Pat started the car and shifted the car in gear, but instead of backing uphill, the car lunged forward, jumped the curb and crashed through the store window below! It took several hours to remove the car and there was thousands of dollars of damage to the store.

 

My Aunt Lena never learned to drive and after this incident she refused to. She was skittish to even ride in a car for a few months afterward. To this day, Aunt Lena has never driven a car.

Aunt Lena Saw Something Strange

Aunt Pat assured us that it was not driver error. Aunt Lena, on other hand had an explanation: a shadow figure. Right before the car leapt over the curb she saw a shadowy, wispy figure appear and dash across the front of the car.

Aunt Lena was known to be very sensitive to the paranormal. After Thanksgiving dinner one year, she saw the full body apparition of my Aunt Pat’s late husband in a hallway mirror when no one did. Off and on she would tell us about seeing his apparition in the house. She saw the same older, bald man often although she had never met him in person. She only knew about him via pictures and descriptions from other family members. She saw him so solidly once that she mistook the apparition as a customer who wanted to buy a flat of raspberries. She also felt other spirits on my Aunt Pat’s property, but reported seeing my late uncle the most.

When we played with the board, we didn’t let Aunt Pat or Aunt Lena know what we were doing. Maybe they saw us use the board once or twice, but they never commented on it. It’s most likely that they had never heard of the thing and assumed we were playing a simple board game.

The Board Goes Back

Sobbing, my Aunt Lena’s eldest daughter, “Ate Beth”, yelled as us. She was scared and felt uneasy about the board or about what it could bring ever since we told her about what happened the first night we used it. All the while, she would hound us whenever we brought it out, but this time she was furious.

“Look at what you guys brought in! My mom and Tita Pat had an accident and mom thinks that the dark shadow she saw helped cause it! You guys better return that damned thing!!!”

I looked to the receipt for the board and on our next trip to the mall, we returned it to the store we bought it from.

Just Say “No!” to Ouija - Part 3

[The following story is a first-hand, cautionary account about the Ouija board and does not promote it’s casual use. It is NOT a game. It is NOT a toy. If you decide to use the board, please take spiritual precautions such as saying a prayer before use. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! All names are fictitious to protect the identities of those mentioned in the story.]

After contacting Ya-Ya we used the board less and less often. What we thought was fun and a curiosity at first start started to become serious. Yet, because of that same curiosity, we would ask Ya-Ya questions if something were to happen that we could not explain. One such reason was when one of the other cousins, who was not participating, came down with “something”.

Background

Although the Philippines is for the most part Christian and predominantly Catholic, each region’s animistic and shamanistic folk beliefs still continue until the present day. Aside from being religious, Filipinos tend to be very superstitious as well. Many beliefs are shared among the various regions; each region has its own variations or concepts that do not exist in others.

My mother, my father and his sisters, which included my Auntie Pat and Wilma’s mother, grew up Ilocano. The Ilocano are a people and region located on the northern coastal plains on the Island of Luzon. Many of the folk beliefs that I’ve come to know are from that region. I’ve heard stories that they used to tell about the “kapre”, a tree-dwelling spirit that smoked tobacco and would get you lost in the forest, or the “aswang”, a vampire whose torso would separate from the lower body and had a taste for unborn children. The one belief relevant to my experience that summer with the Ouija is the “amling”.

The Unexpected, Inexplicable and Sudden Illness

I’ve only heard of this phenomenon in Ilocano culture. I’m sure that similar phenomenon exist in other Filipino languages and cultures under different names. When I researched “amling” , I found in Carl Rubino’s Ilocano Dictionary and Grammar the following definition: “Supernatural visit”. To become sick because of a “supernatural visit” is to be “maamlingan”. As for me, the short definition falls short of my own experience.

When I was in kindergarten and I lived with my Auntie Pat, I remember waking up from a nap and suddenly feeling ill for no apparent reason. I felt extremely weak and drained of all energy. I was clammy and nauseated. I’m sure that there must have more to it, but my Auntie Pat knew instantly what it was. I had been visited. She went into her closet and found an old flannel that my late uncle wore and placed it over me. I sat on a chair on the patio off of her kitchen as she chanted and asked for my late uncle to “cure” me of my affliction. After several minutes, I began to feel better.

Aside from my own experience with the “amling”, I have only seen it happen one other time.

Another “Visitation”

Although I never understood how or why I was visited, what happened to my cousin, Ike, that summer that Wilma visited and we used the Ouija board was like another piece of the puzzle falling into place.

Similar to when I was a five-year-old, Ike woke up from a nap and felt exactly the same way that I did, weak, cold, nauseated and devoid of energy. Looking back the only difference was that he was afflicted at an older age (he was in his teens; I was only five or six). Everything was the same, the place, the symptoms, even the remedy that my aunt used. Once again, she went into her closet and brought out the same flannel and proceeded to cover Ike. She chanted over him out on the patio and asked my late uncle to “cure” him.

Once Ike started to feel better, we had asked him if he had experienced anything odd before the episode. After some thought, he gave us a clue. Sometime before he took his nap, he was out on the patio outside the kitchen where my aunt cut his hair. As he was looking out into the five-acre lot, he saw a dark figure dart from behind the shed where they kept a small motor home. He didn’t mention it to anything thinking that it was the tree or the bushes casting a dancing shadow on the building. But, he remembered it odd because it had the form of a person.

After he was feeling better, our curiosity urged us to consult Ya-Ya. We went inside Wilma’s room and asked if the figure somehow had caused Ike’s sudden illness. The response we got was “yes”.

Later that week, he wasn’t the last one to see a shadow figure dart by before something unfortunate happened.

 

[Continued]

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Do you want to know if you’ll get some tonight? Or, maybe just a peck on the cheek? Or, a hug? Is there any potential with that guy or girl that you had a date with?

How will that job interview go? Will you get the job? Do you want the job? Should you keep looking?

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Get The YiJing Oracle to gain insight from the ancient Chinese Book of Changes, the Yi Jing (I Ching) all on your Android phone or device.

Just Say “No!” to Ouija - Part 2

[The following story is a first-hand, cautionary account about the Ouija board and does not promote it’s casual use. It is NOT a game. It is NOT a toy. If you decide to use the board, please take spiritual precautions such as saying a prayer before use. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! All names are fictitious to protect the identities of those mentioned in the story.]

English Spirit Board

In a previous post (Part 1) I mention how my cousin Wilma and I began using the Ouija board one summer. This is a continuation of those events.

We make contact…

We came in contact with several “spirits”, but none as memorable as what we found out was a female spirit named “Ya-Ya ___”. I’ve left out her name because after that summer, we agreed to never mention her complete name. Even as I write I’m a bit anxious.

One night back at Auntie Pat’s, we were in the room Wilma shared with a couple of other female cousins of ours. We asked a few questions, again, they were typical of teen-agers. We never really asked who we were talking to before. But, this time we asked. The planchette swung from the lower row of letters to the upper row: “Y”, “A”, “Y”, “A” - “Ya-Ya”. And, then it spelled the “her” name. Whomever we made contact with looks like they know something about Filipino culture to call herself “Ya-Ya”.

In Anglo-American culture, one addresses their superiors in the military with their titles such as “Major”, “General”, “Captain”, etc. And, at times with their last, or family, names: “Yes, Major Nelson!” But, it is more prolific in Filipino culture. In Tagalog, younger siblings and cousins address older sisters or cousins as “Ate” and older brothers and cousins as “Kuya”. You address your teacher, not just as “Mr. Smith”, but as “Maestro” or “Titser/Teacher” alone. And, children under the case of a nanny, address her as “Ya-Ya”.

We weren’t sure who or what exactly we we conversing with. Looking back the entity didn’t “feel” human. During one session with Ya-Ya, the planchette moved to “G” and “6” a few times. “G” is the sixth letter of the English alphabet, so it was a bit disturbing. It is quite possible that it could have been a demon or some other disembodied spirit playing around with us.

We talked with the our other cousins about the questions we asked and the answers that we received from the “other side”. We even convinced a few of them to participate. After a session or two they either satisfied their curiosity or became so scared that they refused to try again. Only a few would continue with us. The older ones warned Wilma and I that we were playing with fire, but we ignored them because nothing bad came of our sessions at the time. And, we were having fun. Our opinions changed later on, however.

 

As we talked more and more about our interactions with Ya-Ya with the other cousins or with friends, a pattern started to develop. One of us would mention her complete name and then something odd or inexplicable would happen shortly after. I had a biking accident while I rode my bike with the neighbor kids while I was telling them about what we experienced. Since then, we all agree never to mention her full name again. During a family get-together a few years back, one of my other cousins began to reminisce about that summer. He had forgotten the name (fortunately), but asked nevertheless. He must have forgotten why we stop at Ya-Ya. I answered knowing that something might happen. Nothing resulted. I don’t know how Wilma nor my other cousins feel, but I write this post with great trepidation. I even felt a bit strange finishing this portion.

I’m glad that nothing more sinister happened. I do wonder if we didn’t “catch” ourselves what else could have happened.

Contacting Ya-Ya was just the beginning. There were more strange things that happened such as shadow people sightings and unexpected illness. The Ouija board must have opened a portal that we were warned about…

As an aside, any requests for the name of the spirit or entity will be turned down. I plan on keeping the name secret until the day I die.

 

[Continued]

---

Do you want to know if you’ll get some tonight? Or, maybe just a peck on the cheek? Or, a hug? Is there any potential with that guy or girl that you had a date with?

How will that job interview go? Will you get the job? Do you want the job? Should you keep looking?

Scroll down to find out how to get the answers you need…

Get insight into these and more questions now!

Get The YiJing Oracle to gain insight from the ancient Chinese Book of Changes, the Yi Jing (I Ching) all on your Android phone or device.

Just Say "No!" to Ouija - Part 1

[The following story is a first-hand, cautionary account about the Ouija board and does not promote it’s casual use. It is NOT a game. It is NOT a toy. If you decide to use the board, please take spiritual precautions such as saying a prayer before use. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! All names are fictitious to protect the identities of those mentioned.]

During one summer when I was in middle school, my cousin from New York, Wilma, came to visit with her mom. They were staying at another aunt’s house in Port Orchard, Washington, where our Auntie Pat ran a berry farm. The early  part of the season was raspberry season, so my cousins and I would stay at Auntie Pat’s to pick berries. Considering that I have over twenty cousins around my age, this was free labor for my Aunt Pat. And, it was a good time to bond with the lost of them. In addition, it was a good time to get to know Wilma.

Previously, I had met Wilma briefly when they first immigrated to the US in the late 1980’s before they proceeded to New York City where they were living. When she came for a visit that summer a few years after, we found that we had a lot in common. Aside from liking the band, Depeche Mode, one of them was a curiosity for the paranormal. In one of our talks, the subject of the Ouija board came up.

We had only heard of some stories. But, they weren’t scary enough to dissuade us from buying one. We were pre-teens and thought that those stories were told by “scaredy cats”. If anything, the stories only added to our curiosity. We wanted to get one as soon as possible.

We buy the board

When we had a break from picking berries, Wilma, a few other cousins, my sister and I went to the local mall. One of things on our list was the Ouija board. We were so excited that when we reached my house, we immediately opened the box and began using it in my bedroom.

 

The directions were simple, touch the “planchette”, the heart shaped pointer, with the tips of the fingers and “follow” it. It was recommended that a boy and girl touched the planchette, so Wilma and I were the first ones. We were excited and apprehensive, but we managed to muster enough courage and took a deep breath. After talking about it for so long, our fear gave way to curiosity. It seemed that the other person was moving the planchette and we accused each other laughing all the while.

We asked many questions. It wasn’t the questions nor their responses that come mind, but the odd event that happened while we were in my room. A box that rested on a shelf and had not be touched in years inexplicably fell down while we were receiving an answer. We were so startled that no one slept in my room that night. We all camped out in the living room. But even after that scare, we continued taking turns asking questions until we went to bed late into the night.

We share the board with the other cousins

We returned to my Auntie Pat’s house bringing the board. We introduced it to the other cousins. A few of them, the younger ones, were scared and didn’t even want to touch the board. A few, others around our age, just didn’t believe in it. Wilma and I, however, were enthralled. Ever spare moment we had, we would ask the board something, "Are there spirits here?”, “Will Wilma find a boyfriend?”, etc. When we were done for the day, we’d use the board. Sometimes we were scolded because we were scaring the younger kids. We were so riveted by what the board revealed. We were in awe that we had the power to know things nobody else could know. It got to the point that we even brought the board to a local park where we were having a family picnic!

Wilma and I stole away from the rest of the family and found a bench where we could place the board. A stranger walked by and noticed what we were doing. He talked to us about the dangers of the board. He mentioned that it could open a door and that we would not have any control over what came through. Another thing he mentioned is how some people had become obsessed and relied on the board for answers so much so that they became “addicted” to it and couldn’t make any decisions without asking it first. We felt embarrassed, put the board away, and returned to join the rest of the family. But even his talk did not stop us from consulting the board once in a while after that. In fact, we used it more and more.

We were kids and “hard-headed” as my mom would say. We just didn’t know what was in store for us…

[Continued]

 

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