I think they make great gimmicks and plot points in horror movies (including The Exorcist, of course).

LOL Just give it a try and see. In the movies it always leads to something. But you have to remember, it is humans controlling the board. Half the time you dont get any results.

I'm a scientist and I think of myself as very logical and serious. I don't believe in the paranormal.

That said, as a child I have had paranormal experiences, and I try to avoid visiting 'haunted' locations. I would not allow a Ouija board in my home, and would certainly not allow one to be used there.

It's a known cognitive dissonance that I have and for the time being I am absolutely fine with that.

When you use such devices, even the phonier ones, you are opening yourself to interact with and be subject to demonic forces. Stay away.

I was conversing with someone who does tarot cards, and I essentially asked "why should I buy any of this". Their response was interesting - their theory was that our subconscious is a lot more impactful than we realize, and that, for a tarot card reader, their subconscious aware of the cards, the meanings, and where cards are when we shuffle them, so a reading is more about tapping into the subconscious than it is anything supernatural, mixed in with a hint of being subconsciously "in-tune" with the universe.

I still don't fully buy it, but I thought that was an interesting theory, and I think there's some truth to it. My personal theory with that stuff is, sometimes all you need is a metaphorical landscape to find meaning that you're looking for. So, as much as I think astrology is complete BS, I think it could actually be helpful for some people.

I could imagine something similar happens with Ouija boards. There's probably some level of subconscious coming into play, some level of "searching"/being open to meaning, and (usually) a lot of fear mixed in.

And as far as bad things happening post-reading, I feel like it's similar to buying a car and suddenly seeing a ton of that car around town.

Just my two cents.

I go back and forth over what I think of the whole thing. Personally, though I just do not see a reason to mess with one because I am not exactly sure what good would come out of it. I had an ex though who messed with one and while its been years since I heard the story it went something like this.

She and her best friend messed with it in the basement and nothing happened and so they went to bed then your typical odd stuff started happening. Where the story gets weird though is her mom then goes on to tell me that she (the mom) and my ex then used it together and I want to say something like the word fire was spelled.

That freaked out the mom who then put it in their detached garage which then caught fire and burned down in the middle of the night less than a week later. The fire department said it was due to an electrical issue but the mom swears that the thing was either warning her about a the fire or that the thing itself caught fire and caused the whole thing. That was enough for me to just be like uhhh nope I don't need to mess with that stuff lol.

I've never played the Ouija board, nor do I plan to, I've heard so many strange stories from people I know who played the Ouija board that I have no desire to try my luck.