Spirit Communication and Possession – Part 2

By: Dave Hunt; ©2001

Dave Hunt explains how the Ouija board—which overtook Monopoly to become America’s most popular parlor game in 1967—has become an instrument to lead many unsuspecting people into spirit contact and worse.

Spirit Communication and Possession — Part Two

Enter the Ouija Board

A Ouija board demonstrates the ease with which anyone can be caught up in the world of the occult. Scientific tests with a Ouija board have proved beyond dispute that an intelli­gence independent of the persons using the board is guiding the planchette. Sir William Barrett conducted experiments in which the operators were blindfolded and the alphabet around the board was scrambled without their knowledge. In addition, an opaque screen was held between the sitters and the Ouija to make doubly sure that those using the board could not see the letters. Under these rigorously controlled conditions the planchette moved faster than ever. In his report to the American Society for Psychical Research, Barrett said:

For we have here, in addition to the blindfolding of the sitters, the amazing swiftness, precision and accuracy of the movements of the indicator spelling out long and intelligent messages… without halting or error… messages often contrary to and beyond the knowledge of the sitters….

Reviewing the results as a whole, I am convinced of their supernormal character, and that we have here an exhibition of some intelligent discarnate agency… guiding [the sitters’] muscular movements.^[1]

It was through a Ouija board that Carl Rogers (at the time a complete skeptic) became convinced he had contacted the spirit of his dead wife, Helen, and received a consoling message from her. ^[2] Many channelers first made contact with their spirit guides through a Ouija board. The Ouija has been implicated by investigators in numerous cases of appar­ent demon possession. Nevertheless, it overtook Monopoly in 1967 to become America’s most popular parlor game.

The Ouija board first put Pearl Curran, a St. Louis housewife, in contact with a spirit entity which called itself Patience Worth. Patience claimed to have lived in Dorsetshire, England, in the seventeenth century. During a 20-year period Patience dictated through eighth-grade-educated Pearl Curran “more than one-and-a-half million words in poems and historical novels.” One literary piece of 70,000 words was analyzed by Professor C.H.S. Schiller of London University, who found it to contain “not a single word [which] originated after 1600.” He stated:

When we consider that the authorized version of the Bible has only 70% Anglo Saxon, and it is necessary to go back to Lyomen in 1205 to equal Patience’s percentage… we realize we are facing a philological miracle. ^[3]

Miracle? That hardly sounds scientific. How much more rational to admit that Curran was indeed possessed by a spirit that had perfect knowledge of pre-1600 English and of events in early England. We are faced with a phenomenon which cannot be explained away and demonstrates the reality of occultism.

According to Dr. Raymond Moody, who has spent many years investigating alleged encounters of the living with the presumed spirits of deceased loved ones, “Science can’t distinguish…[whether] this is purely a phenomenon of consciousness or some entity be­yond one’s consciousness.” ^[4] It is beyond the capacity of science to deal with spirits. Nor do we need any help from science to face the evidence. New York City clinician Armand

DiMele, though skeptical of most channelers, acknowledges that in some cases accurate information has come through a medium that could not be known by any normal means:

I have spoken to “spirit voices” who have… told me things about my childhood. Specifics, like things that hung in the house [that he hadn’t thought of for years so the medium wasn’t “reading his mind”]. There’s some undeniable evidence that something happens, something we don’t understand and can’t measure. ^[5]

They Are “Teaching Us Something”

One of the most powerful evidences we have of the reality of these spirit entities and of their continued contact with mankind is found in the consistency of the messages which they provide through those who claim to be in touch with them. The same message comes independently through persons widely scattered around the world and who have never been in contact with one another. That fact has been noted by all of the investigators.

Parapsychologist D. Scott Rogo defines channeling as “bringing through some sort of intelligence, the nature undefined, whose purpose is to promote spiritual teachings and philosophical discussion.” ^[6] Terence McKenna, who has replaced Timothy Leary as America’s drug guru, notes that one of the experiences common to psychedelic trips is contact with spirit beings who have a message: “Unless I’m completely crazy, they’re trying to teach us something.” Their message is amazingly consistent and, as Rogo says, in­volves spiritual teachings.

Australia’s New Age News notes the “remarkable agreement, even unanimity, among the various channeled entities.” That fact is emphasized repeatedly by Jon Klimo in his definitive book on this subject. The major theme, as Klimo points out, is our alleged one­ness with God, our ignorance of this oneness, the necessity to realize this oneness through “enlightenment,” and our return to earth through reincarnation many times in this long evolutionary process of attaining our true or higher self. ^[7] It is the religious philosophy with which the serpent “enlightened” Eve. ^[8]

It was shattering for atheist Helen Shucman when she began hearing a voice saying, “This is a course in miracles; take it down!” As well as teaching medical psychology at Columbia University, Shucman was Assistant Head of the Psychology Department at Presbyterian Hospital in New York. Far from diagnosing her as suffering from delusion, her equally atheistic colleagues told her to follow the instructions. When the dictation finally ended, the “Course” ran to an astonishing 1100 pages and has been acclaimed for its brilliant insights by psychologists and theologians alike.

The voice dictating A Course in Miracles claimed to be Jesus Christ Himself, intent upon correcting errors in the Bible that have offended unbelievers because of their “narrow-mindedness.” The Course explains that “forgiveness” is simply recognizing that sin does not exist and therefore there is nothing to forgive. The Course is popular with those who want to call themselves Christians while rejecting sound biblical doctrine. It has been taught at Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral.

The dictating “Jesus” contradicted nearly everything the Bible says about Him. That fact is admitted by Kenneth Wapnick, head of the foundation that publishes the Course. ^[9] Not surprisingly, what this “Jesus” said was in perfect agreement with the messages being communicated by a wide variety of entities through thousands of “channels” around the world. Yet Shucman was ignorant of the phenomenon of “channeling” until it suddenly happened to her.

When insurance supervisor Jach Pursel tried Eastern meditation at the prompting of his wife, he thought he kept falling asleep. She found herself, however, talking with the strangely accented “Lazaris” when Jach was in this state. “Lazaris’s” themes echo A Course in Miracles, “Seth” (recorded in numerous books over a 24-year period through Jane Roberts), “Ramtha,” and many other channeled entities: All is One and we are rein­carnating, evolving, spiritual, immortal beings, all part of God but unaware of that great fact and on a journey of enlightenment to realize who we really are. ^[10]

The “higher Self” of Meredith Lady Young, a New Hampshire publisher, channeled through her Agartha: A Journey to the Stars. Once again the message was positive think­ing, evolutionary advancement to perfection, the oneness of all, that “God” is an energy, and that man is God: “We [channeling spirits] are multidimensional beings from another more spiritually evolved plane. Our aim is one of positive reinforcement to further man’s development…. The human race must recognize its deeply buried bond with Universal Energy or no significant spiritual growth is possible.” ^[11]

Notes

1. ↑ William F. Barrett, “On Some Experiments with the Ouija Board and Blindfolded Sit­ters,” in Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research, September 1914, pp. 381-94, cited in Edmund C. Gruss, with John G. Hutchins, The Ouija Board: Doorway to the Occult (Moody Press, 1979), pp. 53-57.
2. ↑ William Kirk Kilpatrick, The Emperor’s New Clothes (Crossway Books, 1985), pp. 176-77.
3. ↑ Irving Litvag, Singer in the Shadows (Popular Library, 1972), cited in Gnosis magazine, no. 5, Fall 1987, p.11.
4. ↑ Loraine O’Connell, “Seeing dead via mirror-gazing the latest trend in grief therapy,” in Daily News (Los Angeles), December 27, 1993, p. L.A. LIFE-19.
5. ↑ Jon Klimo, Channeling: Investigations on Receiving Information from Paranormal Sources (Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc., 1987), from the author’s interview with DiMele, p. 238.
6. ↑ Klimo, Channeling, pp. 5-6.
7. ↑ Ibid., pp. 150-51.
8. ↑ Ibid., p. 43.
9. ↑ “A Matter of Course: Conversation with Kenneth Wapnick,” in SCP Journal, vol. 7, no. 1, 1987, pp. 9-17.
10. ↑ Klimo, Channeling, p. 48.
11. ↑ Meredith Lady Young, Agartha: A Journey to the Stars (Stillpoint Publishing, 1984), p. 31.

Read Part 3