On 17 January 1964, I returned from a trip overseas and found a message
waiting for me: "Call Mac immediately." I didn't know Mac very
well and wondered what he wanted, but I gave him a call. He rather urgently
asked me to come to his house as soon as possible, preferably that same
night, but would not tell me why. Curious, and thinking he was probably
in some kind of trouble, I went.
Mac and two other guys were there. On the coffee table was a Ouija board
that somebody had given Mac for Christmas. He told me they had been playing
with it and getting what seemed to be clear-text messages from several different
people.
I said, "So...?"
"I want you to help us evaluate whatever it is that's going on here."
"Why me?"
"Because you're the craziest guy I know!"
I laughed: "Okay, fair enough. What have you got so far? Did you write
it down?"
"Yeah, some of it." He picked up a few sheets of paper and handed
them to me.
The first part was just a batch of letters and numbers with what might have
been a word here and there. Then, halfway down the page, all that changed.
Although a Ouija board has no lower-case letters, no punctuation, and no
spaces between words, this part was obviously a series of sentences from
someone who said his name was Joe Ryder. I asked if anyone in the room knew
anyone by that name.
They all said they didn't, and never had, so far as they could recall.
After that was some more unintelligible noise, then another series of sentences,
but they sounded different and no name was given. Likewise on the next few
sheets of paper. Finally there was some more text by Joe Ryder. None of
the thoughts were very interesting--just the kind of stuff someone might
say if he were working a ham radio: "Hi! How are you doing? My name
is Joe." From the abrupt changes in style and modes of expression,
it looked as though it came from four different people. I told Mac and the
others what I thought.
"Where do you think it's coming from? Do you think we're crazy?"
"No. A shrink might say it's coming out of your subconscious minds,
and a lot of people might say you've gone bananas, but I think it's coming
from ghosts."
"Yeah, that's what we thought. Do you think it's dangerous?"
"It may be ... I don't know ... I've heard it is ... but from what
I've seen so far, it doesn't look that way. The one who calls himself Joe
Ryder seems fairly straight, and none of the others have said anything out
of line. They were just gabbing."
"Do you think we should go on with this?"
"Beats me. Even if it is real--and it may not be--from what I've seen,
it doesn't seem to be worth much. All it suggests is that there are such
things as ghosts, which has been mentioned all over the world since the
dawn of history, and it doesn't even prove that. So, all I can say is, if
you want to go on with it, I would treat the whole thing like a ham radio--don't
take it too seriously, and decide what kind of folks you're talking to by
what they say and how they say it."
"Good idea. Thanks."
So I finished my coffee and went home thinking that was the end of that.
Wrong.
A month later, I went to the alert barracks for a week on duty, and there
was Mac. I was surprised to see him. We had not been on alert at the same
time for years, because his crew and mine were on opposite sides of the
scheduling cycle. But there he was, glad to see me--and he had brought his
Ouija board.
After supper that night, he invited me to his room. When I got there, he
had the board set up and ready to go. He said he wanted to run some tests,
to see if this was real. I thought, "Yeah, well ... I gave him some
advice, so I guess I should follow it myself."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Some people have found the report of this experience offensive because it
includes the verbatim transcript from a week of messing around with a Ouija
board. Some parts are confusing and some are not pleasant, but that's the
way it happened.
Because this was an excursion into something hidden and forbidden (occult),
and thus might lead someone astray, I kept these records buried in my files
for almost thirty years. Now I feel that I should make available what I
learned, and how I learned it, because it is a disservice to encourage people
to listen to God without explaining what else they may encounter; because
many do not believe spirits are real; and because so many are either in
or about to enter the same type of situation that I and several others meandered
into in 1964.
After I began circulating this transcript in 1993, I received some feedback.
Several people said they were turned off and stopped reading halfway through
it:
"I can't read this. It gives me goose-bumps and cold chills."
"I don't believe in ghosts."
"Have you sought competent psychiatric help?"
A few were fascinated and said they were going to get a Ouija board and
check it out for themselves. I was afraid of that and tried to warn them
against it.
On the other hand, one man said, "After I read your paper, I dug our
old Ouija board out of the closet and threw it in the trash. It is not a
game, and I don't want my kids playing with it."
A few were horrified: "This is not Christian! It isn't even religious.
It's some sort of spiritism."--and that is true, but the development
of religion did not start with Christianity, or even monotheism: it began
in spiritism, all over the world.
One was angry: "What is your purpose? Why did you release this document?
Don't you know it will lead many people astray? Or don't you care? Or is
that what you intend? I counsel you to give up all forms of spiritism and
confine your efforts to the study of God's Holy Word."--but I have
heard that door slam shut before.
Other reactions were more positive:
"This is the first place I ever saw an explanation of what happened
to me."
"I am intrigued by the way you chose one spirit and rejected another.
It seems to me, discernment is the key to this whole business, but I'm not
sure I would have been as quick about it as you were. Thanks for pointing
it out."
"Thank you. This is valuable. I guess all the religions except maybe
Buddhism probably started here, didn't they? Somebody heard a spirit talking
to him."
"It reminded me that Jesus was tempted by the Devil."
Most of the people who received this transcript did not reply at all. However,
most of those who did reply said something like: "Thanks. I always
wondered if there was anything to all this stuff about good and evil spirits."
The most useful comments came from my closest friends: "Go through
it and add more notes and explanations from your present perspective. Make
this a teaching document. You can't expect everyone to draw the same conclusions
from this experience you did. Let what you learned be very clear, and don't
worry about how many pages it takes. You have a tendency to write too tersely,
so the reader may not be able to pick up the full implications of what you
are saying. Add some more background about yourself, so people will know
where you are coming from."
I tried to incorporate those suggestions, but even so, the transcript may
be difficult to read. Therefore, I decided to extract the first and last
sections here, and place the entire report in an appendix. That way, you
can read it or not, as you please.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After a week of using a Ouija board from two to ten hours per day with observation
or participation by six other Air Force officers, my assessment was and
still is:
Yes, there are disembodied spirits. They come in many varieties. Some are
good; some are better. Some are bad; some are worse. Some are decent; some
are lost. Some have lived in a human body, and some have not. Some guide
people toward God and Jesus; some help themselves to what they want; some
help the Devil. At this point, we had conversed with at least one entity
in each of those categories.
I believe what we encountered is a sample of the basic reality behind all
religions, spiritualism, witchcraft, and many other phenomena such as haunted
houses and demonic possession. All these are various aspects of the same
reality.
The difference between prayer, mediumship, and sorcery depends on the type
of spirits involved, and that depends on what one wants as well as
on who one calls.
Using a Ouija board is dangerous because it invites any spirit that happens
to be hanging around to come and take partial possession of your subconscious
mind. Passiveness, eagerness to receive, and indiscriminate acceptance are
especially dangerous, because they are an open invitation to every spirit
that has an agenda.
Life after death is a fact, but that is not necessarily good news. Some
ex-human beings are not enjoying it much. I would not like to be the one
named Maxine who was still grieving over a house that washed away in 1550.
And I certainly don't want to be surrounded by evil spirits. I didn't like
that--a lot.
Now I can believe Jesus was tempted by the Devil. I also believe that anyone
who chooses to follow in his footsteps should be prepared to encounter,
recognize, and reject disembodied tempters, as he did (Matthew 4:1-11, Mark
1:12, Luke 4:1-13).
In retrospect, we were fortunate. Every one of us had some personal background
and parental training in the difference between right and wrong, good and
evil. Although we were naive, we recognized good and evil, and chose the
good. That is what kept us from being led farther and farther astray; otherwise
we might have been trapped. But we did not escape the traps set for us entirely
by our own efforts. We had the unstinting assistance of a gentleman named
Liri--on whom be peace.
This was not the end of our difficulties. We still encountered evil spirits,
but we became much quicker at identifying them and much less likely to listen
to them.
And more important, we had learned what attracts them. In our case, it was
our desire to get psychic powers, miracles, predictions, knowledge,
and guidance. As Liri said, "Get, get, get ... get devil. Get devil,
him get. Devil fill Id. I hate get, get." Thirty years later, I cannot
state that spiritual truth any more neatly than he did.
Conversely, the desire to give--to serve rather than be served--turns our
spiritual direction upward, and the results follow automatically. Liri said,
"Give, give, give ... give God" and "Help God. Give greatly."
I am very glad I learned that lesson, even though I did learn it the hard
way.
The general principle is this: what you want determines the type
of spirits you attract. Thus, whether good spirits or evil spirits come
to you is within your control, whether you know it or not. If you change
your own desires--what you actually want, your real purpose--you thereby
select the type of spirits that come to you. This was the most useful lesson
I learned from this experience.
By actually wanting to give and not get, to help and not hurt, to
serve rather than be served--in a specific situation at a particular moment--I
tune myself so as to attract good spirits and not evil ones. This is a key
for avoiding serious trouble. Over the past thirty years, I have proved
this principle in myself again and again, and so have several others to
whom I explained it. But it doesn't work if I merely think about
what I want and don't want. It only works if I actually control my desires.
That is not easy to do, but it can be done.