Growing up, I was always fascinated with the afterlife. I am not sure when the fascination began. My earliest memory of something “spiritual” occurred when I was about 11 years old. My family had purchased a house from newlyweds who were building a new house across the street from their old one.
Their old one, the one we were moving in, was in the husband's family for a couple of generations. I remember one day when the husband was digging up the front yard at their new home. I thought they were digging up their sewer. He had been working very hard on this for a couple days.
Shortly thereafter, I remembering hearing that while digging, the piles of dirt around him had caved in and he was buried alive. Just a couples days after that, I sat in my bedroom. I looked up and a black shadow of a man passed by the entrance of my room. At first I thought it was my step-father, but after looking around and realizing he was asleep on the couch downstairs, I knew it was not him.
My mother had told me about various spooky encounters she had, and encounters my grandfather and grandmother had. I figured that it must have been something in the family. That or we were all crazy.
For some strange reason, I became interested in the Ouija Board when I was about 15 years old. A friend of mine had one, and we would play it on occasion. Then I received one as a gift and was very excited. My friends and I became obsessed with playing it. We would stay up all night playing Ouija. Strange things happened, but I always questioned them. It was primarily me and two of my other friends who played the game consistently and regularly. I remember playing and my friend claiming he was possessed (which I did not believe).
I remember playing, and the way that the indicator would slide around the screen spelling out messages for us. It always liked answering questions about the spirit that was controlling it the most. A few times, we stuck a pen in the indicator and it would write out messages that way.
One of my friend's found a Ouija Board in the woods once and took it in. He then said he also found one on the beach. He felt he had too many, and said he threw one in the garbage. The next day, the Ouija was back in his room. He asked his family if they had taken it out of the garbage, and they said no. As kids, we were likely to believe most things, even though inside we questioned it.
Due to finding a few Ouija's, we needed indicators. So my friend made a heavy one out of wood. I remember a few occasions where the indicator would fly off the board and into the wall, leaving a dent. I also recall times where the indicator would levitate in the air. When I look back, I'm convinced that one of my friends faked it all. I have confronted one of those friends as an adult, and he still sticks to his word that he did not move it. Even writing about this gives me the creeps.
What I do know however is my own experience.
I remember taking my Ouija Board to school one day. We did nothing with it, but I found out that I would be in trouble if any of the teachers found out. While our school was mostly secularized, it still had Catholic undertones. So that day I took my Ouija home.
I put Ouija in my room. I had taken it in a bag to school, and kept the board in this bag on a chair to my brass vanity. For some strange reason that I cannot recall, I took out the indicator and placed it on the vanity itself, where the shelves were made of glass. The indicator that I owned had a felt tip on each of the three legs. These were there so that the indicator would slide over the board more easily. However, one of the legs was missing a felt tip. I went to bed that night, with everything remaining in place, indicator on the glass shelf, board in the bag, on my chair.
Around 2 am I suddenly awoke from my sleep. It was strange. I woke up so naturally. I did not feel sleepy, I did not have to use the bathroom, there was no particular reason why. I did not even recall dreaming. As I awoke, I noticed my leg felt very light. The more I woke up, the heavier my leg felt, as though it were laying back down. Then suddenly, I heard the sound of a bag. I instantly thought of the bag with my board. I looked around. The window was not open and my bedroom door was not open enough for the cats to get in.
