Who, in the age of the internet, online gaming, Facebook and 3D televisions would want to move a pointer around on a board in the hope of getting a message from the spirit world?
The astonishing answer is, quite a lot of people! The story turns out to be true. Promoted by an apparently dreadful film (sponsored by Hasbro, the toy firm that holds the rights to Ouija boards), sales of the £20+ boards have gone through the roof. And it’s not just me who is mystified. As Simon Osborne wrote in The Independent: ‘What better time to talk to dead people for fun than the festival to celebrate the birth of Jesus?’
Hunger for the supernatural
This is yet another phenomenon reminding us that, for all the bold claims of new atheism that the world is moving into an age of rational thought in which every form of the supernatural is rejected, the ‘on the ground’ reality is very different. The hunger for the supernatural, the paranormal and the mystical remains intense and almost universal. Indeed, it seems that the more a ‘universe without God’ is talked up, the more people flock to the supernatural. If atheism is true, it’s very odd that no one seems to be following it.
A Ouija board is not, in any way, a game….
“I we can produce our perfect work – the Materialist Man, the man , not using, but veritably worshipping, what he vaguely calls “Forces” while denying the existence of ‘spirits” – then the end of our war will be in sight.” Screwtape Letter VII
If we can
Many years ago one of my sisters, as a teenager, took to using a Quija board for a time, with disturbing results. After some sessions using it with another sister, she sat with only her hands on the planchette. It moved with only her hands on it and spelled out that the spirit had been her husband in a previous life many years ago. It then started to express desire for her, spelling out obscenities. Our mother said she would get rid of it by burning it. On the only other time she used it after that, she asked it if it would move for our mother. It moved to “No” and when asked why, it spelled out “burn me”. We then discarded it in the normal trash and none of us ever used one again.
I do not believe in reincarnation, nor do I believe my sister was communicating with a departed human spirit, but likely with a demon. Demonic spirits do exist, there are doors to that world that can (and should never) be opened, and demonic spirits are only too pleased to influence us or even control us if we give them opportunity. Not for nothing does Scripture forbid necromancy.
When my daughter wanted to play with a ouija board at a friend’s house, I pointed out to her that she can reach God in prayer directly at any time. With whom, then, I asked her, might she communicate via the ouija board? The girls gave it up.
Materialist magician. Plenty of materialist men in Lewis’s time as well!
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
All very good points.
Just to confirm, this J. John is not Canon Jeffrey John who has been the flagbearer for open acceptance of homosexual relationships in the clergy of the CofE.
Rather, this J. John is a prolific evangelist who has worked very hard and very successfully over decades to bring the gospel to the un-churched, particularly across cultural boundaries that some evangelists find difficult to cross. It seems he has picked up Anglican holy orders at some point, but he was known years ago as an evangelist.