Dear Auntie Gef: To Ouija or Not to Ouija?

Dear Auntie Gef, my friends want me to do a Ouija board with them in a graveyard on Hop-tu-Naa weekend. I really don’t know if I want to. What should I do? 

Dear Anon,

The horrors of peer pressure can be just as frightening as a Ouija board and the repercussions just as haunting. I’m still trying to live down the time my friends got me to shit in a sink for April Fools.

You can avoid this though. Saying no to your friends can be difficult at all ages in life, especially in younger years, but you shouldn’t do anything you’re not comfortable with. And, if your friends are worth their salt, they won’t make you feel bad about that.

However, I will say that if you’re wanting to dabble in something reckless in your youth then, statistically, you’re better off going for a Ouija board than Class A drugs. Cheaper.

When it comes to ‘speaking to the dead’ and Ouija boards, I think you get from it what you’re looking for. We’re programmed to search for meaning and recognisable patterns as a way of making sense of things, which helps us feel safe. So, if you go into doing a Ouija board looking for patterns and meaning, then even nothing can become something. Something paranormal. Like when you’re at someone’s grave and you smell smoke and go ‘aw Denise used to love the smell of smoke. That must be her telling us she’s still with us.’ Overlooking the fact that local pyromaniac Greg has just set fire to the church again.

If you’re still undecided, let’s resort to a good old-fashioned pros and cons list.

Pros

• You’re spending quality time with your mates.
• It’ll make for a good story to tell at parties.
• You could interact with a ghost then sell your story to Hollywood and be catapulted into a life of fame and fortune and Nicolas Cage.
• You could get possessed by a demon that speaks with a really low voice, so people think you’ve hit puberty early. (This is assuming you’re in your teens and not a middle-aged man messaging in asking about whether or not to do a Ouija board with his friends on Saturday night)

Cons

• The weather could be bad and you might forget a coat.
• You might knock your knee on a gravestone. Which would be quite sore.
• You could open a portal to Hell and destroy all of humankind and the globe.

Lots of films featuring people doing Ouija boards don’t usually have happy endings. Which has most likely led, in part, to our apprehension towards them. Most of the characters that use them usually end up possessed by an evil spirit who then goes on a killing spree of all their equally foolish friends. But when me and my cousin did one last night, nothing happened to us. Yes, Gerald levitated and spontaneously combusted, but he’s one of those people who always has to yawn loudly to let people know he’s had a poor night’s sleep. Attention seeker. So, it was probably just that.

Whatever you choose to do, make sure the choice is for yourself and not because you feel pressured. And know that if you do decide to go ahead with it, you can also choose how much spooky meaning to put into it. Just don’t shit in a sink. It’ll haunt you for longer than a ghost.

Happy Hop-tu-Naa.

Auntie Gef

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