“When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you must not learn to imitate the abhorrent practices of those nations. 10 No one shall be found among you who makes a son or daughter pass through fire, or who practices divination, or is a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, 11 or one who casts spells, or who consults ghosts or spirits, or who seeks oracles from the dead. 12 For whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord; it is because of such abhorrent practices that the Lord your God is driving them out before you.” —Deuteronomy 18:9-12
Transcript
“When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you must not learn to imitate the abhorrent practices of those nations. 10No one shall be found among you who makes a son or daughter pass through fire, or who practices divination, or is a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, 11or one who casts spells, or who consults ghosts or spirits, or who seeks oracles from the dead. 12For whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord; it is because of such abhorrent practices that the Lord your God is driving them out before you.”
—Deuteronomy 18:9-12
OutlineOutline
What is the occult?
Some modern examples
The Ouija board
The Bible and the Ouija board
What Is the Occult?What Is the Occult?
Occult is a term for sets of practices related to contacting spirits or alleged deities in an effort to gain special knowledge of power.
Marks of the OccultMarks of the Occult
Attempts to contact or use unseen power or forces not known in the natural world
Secret or hidden knowledge available only to the initiated
Seeing hidden meaning in objects or images
Some Modern Some Modern ExamplesExamples
Wicca
Other types of Magick
Ouija boards
The Ouija BoardThe Ouija Board
The Ouija Board’s The Ouija Board’s HistoryHistory
Parker Brothers did not invent the Ouija board.
It had already been around for awhile when it was bought by Parker Brothers in 1966 and turned into a commercial success as a board game.
Its beginnings lie in the distant past when an earlier version (a tripod device) was used in ancient Babylon and Greece to contact departed spirits.
The Ouija Board’s The Ouija Board’s HistoryHistory
William Fuld, a mild-mannered customs inspector for the Port of Baltimore in the 1880s, has been credited with the board’s invention in 1889.
William and his brother, Isaac, were interested in the supernatural.
They had been tinkering with a “spirit board” since they were boys.
Fuld’s Ouija BoardFuld’s Ouija Board
It is a rectangular board about 18 inches long and 12 inches wide.
The numbers zero through nine, the letters of the alphabet, the words yes and no at opposite upper corners, and the word goodbye at the bottom, are all printed on the board.
Fuld’s Ouija BoardFuld’s Ouija Board
The message indicator is a small, plastic, heart-shaped, three-legged table approximately 6 inches long.
This object glides across the board easily under the light fingertip touch of its operators, spelling out words and sentences.
Fuld Consulted the Fuld Consulted the Ouija BoardOuija Board
Fuld admitted to having consulted the board two or three times.
He claimed that the board named itself on one of those occasions.
““Prepare for Big Prepare for Big Business”Business”
Fuld later informed a reporter that the board instructed him to “prepare for big business” and, acting on that advice, he summoned architects and builders.
He planned to construct a huge factory for manufacturing vast quantities of boards.
He left his customs service job and built a three-story factory.
The Board’s Deadly The Board’s Deadly AdviceAdvice
“On February 24th 1927 while overseeing the replacement of a flagpole, William Fuld was tragically killed by complications falling from the roof of his three story Harford, Lamont, and Federal Street factory.
The iron support he was leaning on gave way, and he tumbled backwards off the roof, grasping and catching one of the factory windows and then falling to the ground.
The Board’s Deadly The Board’s Deadly AdviceAdvice
He suffered a “concussion of the brain, five fractured ribs, a broken arm, a fractured leg, and numerous cuts and bruises.”
An employee who witnessed the fall picked him up and rushed him to the hospital where he later died from one of his broken ribs piercing his heart.
Laying on his deathbed he made his children promise they would never sell the Ouija board.” (WilliamFuld.com)
Unpleasant Experiences Unpleasant Experiences With Ouija Boards in the With Ouija Boards in the
2020thth Century Century “Susy Smith in Confessions of a Psychic
(1971) claims that using a Ouija board caused her to become mentally disturbed.
In Thirty Years Among the Dead (1924), American psychiatrist Dr. Carl Wickland claims that using the Ouija board resulted in such wild insanity that commitment to asylums was necessitated.
Unpleasant Experiences Unpleasant Experiences With Ouija Boards in the With Ouija Boards in the
2020thth Century Century Is this what happens when amateurs try to
dabble in the occult? Maybe, if they are suggestible, not very skeptical, and a bit disturbed to begin with. However, even very intelligent people who have not gone insane are impressed by Ouija board sessions. They find it difficult to explain the ‘communication’ as the ideomotor effect reflecting unconscious thoughts….
Unpleasant Experiences Unpleasant Experiences With Ouija Boards in the With Ouija Boards in the
2020thth Century Century One reason they find such an explanation difficult
to accept is that the ‘communications’ are sometimes very vile and unpleasant.
It is more psychologically pleasing to attribute vile pronouncements to evil spirits than to admit that one among you is harboring vile thoughts. Also, some of the "communications" express fears rather than wishes, such as the fear of death, and such notions can have a very visible and significant effect on some people….
Unpleasant Experiences Unpleasant Experiences With Ouija Boards in the With Ouija Boards in the
2020thth Century Century …Observing powerful messages and the
powerful effect of messages on impressionable people can be impressive. Yet, as experiences with facilitated communication have shown, decent people often harbor indecent thoughts of which they are unaware.
Unpleasant Experiences Unpleasant Experiences With Ouija Boards in the With Ouija Boards in the
2020thth Century Century …The fact that a person takes a
"communication" seriously enough to have it significantly interfere with the enjoyment of life might be a sufficient reason for avoiding the Ouija board, but it is hardly a sufficient reason for concluding that the messages issue from anything but our own minds.”—The Skeptic’s Dictionary
AccountsAccounts “They are not uncommon, unfortunately. The
frightening thing about them is that they can be duplicated by the thousands from the case histories of present-day inmates of mental institutions all over the world.”
“One story from Hugh’s files deals with a young mother who worked the Ouija board originally with her husband.
AccountsAccounts The board told her she was a ‘sensitive’; it
told her where she could find lost objects, warned her of accidents with her children…One morning the woman heard a voice behind her left ear. At first it was a soft voice, telling her helpful things. But in a matter of days the voice turned harsh and ugly….
AccountsAccounts He identified himself as a discarnate spirit in
love with her. He told her he was going to kill her so they could be together on the ‘same plane.’ From that point on she could eat no food without great effort; even when she tried just to drink a little water he would appear to her suddenly and force her to vomit.”—Stoker Hunt, Ouija The Most Dangerous Game (New York: Harper & Row, 1985), 84-85.
The Danger of Spirit The Danger of Spirit PossessionPossession
“Those who wish to use the Ouija board as a parlor game I advise to think twice. There is always the possibility—rare, I admit, but conceivable—that one of those playing the board is a genuine trance medium without realizing it…
The Danger of Spirit The Danger of Spirit PossessionPossession
…In such a case, the board can become an easy entrance for a disincarnate person who might next take over the personality of the medium and manifest under conditions where no controls are possible.”—Hans Holzer, ESP and You, quoted in Edmond C. Gruss and John G. Hotchkiss, The Ouija Board: Doorway to the Occult, 78.
The Bible and the Ouija The Bible and the Ouija BoardBoard
Contacting the dead is called necromancy, and contacting spirits is Spiritism, both of which are strongly condemned by God in the Hebrew Bible (Deut. 18:9-12; Lev. 19:31, 20:6; I Sam 28, II Kings 21:6; Is. 8:19, 19:3-4).
ResourcesResources “The Ouija Board—Just a Game?” is avaiable
online at Christian Answers for the New Age.
Montenegro, Marcia. Spellbound: The Paranormal Seduction of Today’s Kids. Colorado Springs: Life Journey, 2006.
Gruss, Edmond C. and John G. Hotchkiss. The Ouija Board: Doorway to the Occult. Chicago: Moody Press, 1975.
Hunt, Stoker. Ouija The Most Dangerous Game. New York: Harper & Row, 1985.
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