Ouija... Just a Board Game?

Ouija boards… simple board games… or are they a kind of portal/doorway to the other side/realm? Speaking for myself I won’t, and never will, mess with them. I have had friends who have had negative experiences with them. One instance comes to mind when I actually interviewed a friend who has had just that, a negative experience. I shall call her Cheryl. This experience was shared also by another friend, I shall call her Marcy. I knew Cheryl and Marcy quite well. They partook in Ouija board sessions often. They would tell me of all the possible spirits that would come through on their sessions. One of which was a little boy. Years later on my interview with Cheryl, she told me the reason why she stopped using the board, and why she would never touch another Ouija board again. Cheryl told me of what occurred on that one particular summer night. The weather that evening was a stormy one, complete with quite a bit of lightening. Cheryl and Marcy were at a friend’s house. This friend lived with her mother and 2 brothers. The night started out with their ‘normal’ Ouija board sessions, nothing really unusual was happening in between their questions. Then they asked the board “Will someone that lives at this house get seriously hurt, or die soon?” It was told to me that before they could all rest their hands on the slider fully… the slider very quickly slid over to the “Yes” on the board. They all screamed and shot up off their chairs and ran outside. The board was eventually put away that night and Cheryl has not touched the Ouija board since. The next summer there was a horrible accident that involved that friend’s brother who lived at the house. The accident involved him while driving his motorcycle on a highway next to this small town. The highway was under some major new reconstruction. The friend’s brother was driving over a hill and slammed into a construction truck. He was in a coma for number of years... and has never fully recovered. Cheryl to this day wonders often if this accident was a result of the use of the board, or maybe just an incident that was destined to take place and foretold, or possibly... just totally coincidental? I personally know Cheryl. She is of sound mind and quite intelligent. I have no reason to not believe in Cheryl and her experiences with this board. So does this board have any relationship relating to the paranormal? Going by what I have heard with Cheryl’s experiences alone… I am not willing to find out by investigating it by personally partaking in its use of ‘fun’.

Close to Home (names have been changed)

Benson came to a friend of his mom’s in a dream. He stated “I am sorry I left the way I did and left Mom, Dad, and my brothers so very deeply saddened.” Benson stated to her also that he is happy and wanted his family to know that. Benson’s mom’s friend we will refer to as Bethany, Benson’s mom as Julia. The series of events all started with the above dream Bethany had. Benson is a 22 year old young man who died in his sleep and never woke up to the world he lived in. He was a very much loved son, grandson, brother, cousin, nephew, and friend. Benson revealed other circumstances of his death in the dream to Bethany that was not revealed to her, or anyone else. Bethany, shortly after the dream, received 2 phone calls with no destination numbers on her phone’s caller id. Bethany picked up the phone on the first call with no one saying anything on the other end. She hung up the phone, ending the call… shortly after Bethany received another similar call. On a whim or a feeling, she said to the silence on the other end of her phone call, “Benson… I have a feeling this is you and you are trying to get a hold of your mom. You need to do that.” Up to this point Julia knew nothing about Bethany's dream of Benson, or the odd silent phone calls. Bethany went on a trip to Colorado shortly after the sequence of events. While Bethany was in Colorado Julia received a phone call. At the time of this phone call Julia was on her phone so she decided to let voice mail answer it. Julia checked the caller id, at the time the call was in-coming, and noted the phone call was from her friend's phone, Bethany. Julia checked the incoming voice mail call from Bethany's phone. On the voice mail review was a static and muffled sound. It was the clear voice of a young male voice saying "Heeellloooo Juuuulllia." There was also a short period of static/muffled speech, then the phone call ended. The male voice was what appeared to sound like Benson's, exactly like Benson's, but in his quirky sense of humor accent he used quite often when calling his mom, Julia, when she was at work. Julia called back Bethany's phone and did not connect directly with her, but got her voice mail. Julia left a message stating "Hello Bethany." "I received a message from your phone but, oddly enough, it wasn't your voice." "In fact it was a male voice." At this point Julia was still in shock from the message she received. Julia did not reveal anymore about the message than the above. All the way up to this point it was a voice mail back and forth communication. Bethany eventually called Julia back and left a voice mail stating "I don't know what to tell you on that one Julia, but, I didn't call you... weird." Bethany then told Julia where she was at, her location of Colorado. Julia eventually revealed to Bethany that the voice in the message sounded like Benson's. Bethany wasn't going to tell Julia about her dream and the phone calls she received. Bethany, upon notification of the voice sounding exactly like Benson's, decided to reveal her personal events that led up to the message Julia received. The voice though was so identical to Benson's that people that listened to the voice mail, that knew Benson well, were shocked and or baffled by it. The dream, the two phone calls to Bethany with no caller id number (with what appeared to be no one on the other end), and the phone call to Julia. The sequence of events makes one wonder. If it was just one of the above occurrences, one could easily brush it off. The series of events that appear to neatly fit together, for one with an open mind, may be considered something more than just an every day logical experience. The odd thing is Bethany stated, that if this being Benson, he needed to contact his mother. Then, with Bethany's phone, a phone call went out to Julia that was not Bethany. It is a true tale coming close from home that has me thinking over and over again about the events. For me personally, it's hard to brush off as pure coincidental and or logical events. I am a paranormal investigator... but I am skeptical and that keeps me grounded and looking VERY hard for the logical everyday reasons, on EVERY investigation, on the possible evidence we catch. These above events, even though as I say are close to home, I treat the same as any other as far as possible evidence/proof of life after death. In this case, I asked a lot of questions, and with that, noticed the puzzle pieces of the events fitting so nicely together. I am an open minded skeptic, but wonder often about the above experiences.

Familiarity Pertaining to Paranormal Teams and Individuals

Para-unity? I won't jump into that blindly. There is a code of ethics for paranormal investigations teams that all should follow and abide by. We all know there are entirely too many that probably shouldn't be involved in this kind of research, due to the absence of ethics and professionalism. My comment to a para-unity status was the following: "The only para-unity that makes sense to me is the unity I share with teams I actually, personally, know. I can't be "unified" with a person or people I know nothing about as it pertains to what they stand for or are working towards."