26 replies to this topic

[acdcfreak]

what exactly are seances and how do they differ from ouija

[Ike]

I THINK seancing is different because you summon an entity and it speaks to the medium.
Or something
I don't remember (oh how helpful am i?)

I think they differ because Oujia gets the badder rep and doesn't tend to work.

[CrystalEyz]

acdcfreak, on Jun 5 2009, 11:30 PM, said:

what exactly are seances and how do they differ from ouija

I believe both of them are part of the occult, which means summonsing spirits, which seems like fun till we get something we didnt bargain for. One is a tool, being the board and the other is a collective summonsing, so IF something were to get in, it could affect all of those who participated. JMO..CE

[Vampchick21]

Just remember that 'occult' is not always 'evil'. It always annoys me to no end the automatic connection between the two in the minds of the majority of people.

In essence, a seance is a group of people, oftimes led by someone who is a medium, who sit down in a circle, holding hands, often in the dark or lit only by a few candles. They attempt, via their collective energies and the medium's abilities, to contact a specific spirit. Seances as we now know them grew out of the Spiritualist movement of the mid to late 19th century, and one can see a connection between them and many pre-Spiritualist methods of communication with the Otherworld (shamanistic practices, the Greek Oracle, etc, etc).

The Ouija board or talking board is marketed as a game, but developed out of the mid to late 19th century Spiritualist movement and their non-seance methods of spirit communication. Board founder Jeff Belanger has an book out about Spirit Communication that has an entire, very interesting chapter on talking boards/Ouija boards, and the July issue of Fortean times has a couple of interesting articles on it as well.

Ouija has a bad rep, mainly in my own opinion, due to misconceptions, misunderstandings, hype and, at times, mass hysteria.

[acdcfreak]

thanks

i belive that ouija can be dangourus, but only when you are inexperianced.


again thanks
jonathan

[Vampchick21]

Most things are dangerous when used by someone without experience on their own.

[Redhead]

The seances I have attended were held by ministers of the spiritualist church. The room was only partly lit, but not dark. We were sitting on couches, chairs - they were held in residence - and only sort of in a circle as we were around the room. No one held hands, as it is dangerous to touch a medium if they begin to channel - or to let go of their hand during channeling. There is a table set up with a white cloth. On the table you have a small bowl with water, a bell, a prayer book, bible, or some other sacred text, and sometimes a trumpet. Not a musical trumpet. It looks more like a large funnel and is set on the table for the spirit to move it as a way of showing their presence. I have never seen the trumpet move, but have observed steam/mist form off of the water. A spiritualist seance always begins with a prayer, and ends with one as well as thanking the spirits for coming to us. They are very interesting, informative, and I've had experiences at them that were quite moving.

[Vampchick21]

Redhead, on Jun 8 2009, 12:07 AM, said:

No one held hands, as it is dangerous to touch a medium if they begin to channel - or to let go of their hand during channeling.

I never thought of that! All seances I've seen or read about involved people holding hands. Of course, those would be on tv and in accounts of suspect 19th century mediums, so that might explain a lot.

It does seem to me though, that those who are not members of a Spiritualist Church or group might not even be aware of the potential danger of touching a channeling medium (heck, I wasn't until I read your post!), hence they automatically hold hands in the circle because everything they've seen or read about it says that's what you do.

[Redhead]

When we all arrived at what was my first seance, many years ago, the medium who was going to be conducting the service/seance asked how many newcomers/first timers there were. Then she gave instructions to everyone as well as telling us what we might expect to happen, followed by prayers and a protection ritual. I have also gone to a spiritualist camp located near me - where Spiritualists can gather for readings, healings, education/seminars, etc. When you decide to go to a medium for a reading, the person setting up the appointment usually gives instructions, and when you go to that medium, they will tell you if they channel or if they want to hold your hand at all. I did have one want to hold my hand because he felt that there was a great deal of healing energies within me and wanted to confirm that. Most realiable mediums will tell you what is going to be done and how. But when it happens to be a group of kids goofing around and playing at seance - hey I did it too as a kid - then there is a bit of danger from messing about with things you have no training or experience in.

[PhenomInvestigator]

A seance by definition, is an attempt to communicate with some form of discarnate entity. This is usually the deceased. The seance as we think of it today took form in the Spiritualist period in the late 19th century. While the notion of holding hands and holding positive thoughts predates Spiritualism, we can trace most of the practices as a whole to this period.

Mediums were thought to use the collective energies of the sitters to produce various manifestations, many times these were physical in nature. Such mediums were known as physical mediums, in contrast to modern day mediums who do not produce such events and are therefore termed mental mediums.

Spritualist seances often involved the movements of objects and so-called 'materialization phenomena'. While much of this has been effectively proven in more recent years to have been fraudulent, there are some things not so easily explained. There are some modern physical mediums to this day, including the recently deceased Leslie Price in the U.K and the somewhat controversial David Thompson in Australia.

In the late 1990s a group of scientists in Europe and the U.K. attempted to replicate and study physical mediumship in an extremely interesting series of experiments by the Scole Group. The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) in the U.K. published the results in The Scole Report. Even proficient professional magicians and skeptical parapsychologists had a difficult time explaining some of the recorded phenomena.

Perhaps the most controversial phenomena from the early period was the apparent manifestation of ectoplasm and even an ectoplasmic voice box. For me this is very hard to accept although I have been looking for a proficient physical medium now for over three decades. I have yet to find one.

[Redhead]

I think that the original post did ask what the difference between seances and ouija boards is. Since I've also used ouija boards, I should mention what that was like. The thing to remember is that a ouija/spirit board is simply a tool. There are tons of topics about them and if they should be used or are evil, etc., so I don't want to get into that discussion. I merely view them as a tool to be used to attempt contact with the spirit realm. But, like all tools, you should learn how to use them. They are easy to manipulate - as in moving the planchette subtley so it gives answers that you want. There is also the theory that the planchette is actually psycically moved by someone using it - that the messages are actually from the user's sub-conscious mind. No one knows for certain, just as no one knows for certain that what happens during seances is really spirit contact. We only have our belief systems, based on our experiences.
I still have the ouija board that was given to me over thiry years ago, when I was a kid. I and my sister used to play with it quite often and being the typical kid sister, I found that I could manipulate it and scare the dickens out of her. I didn't do that all the time, but sometimes a little well-timed revenge feels good to a kid. LOL Anyway, I had plenty of friends and cousins who wanted to use it with me. I never manipulated the planchette with them, and we had some interesting results. Over time I realised that using a ouija board was a lot of work, and I would be very tired afterwards. I kept it put away, and when I moved, for some reason took it with me. It's in my basement now, in fact. The last time I used it, it was at the request of a good friend who wanted a reading, but wanted to use the board. I told her I'd look for it and when I found it, she came over on a day when we wouldn't be disturbed by my other half. She received the information she wanted, but it was so much work to concentrate and focus the energies that I was pretty exhausted when we were done. I think that was about ten years ago now, and I haven't used it since. The friend has asked me to use this with her again, but I've always refused. It's just so much easier to not use the board that I just prefer to let my guides give me the information. Funny though, it's less effort to use a pendulum than the board, but then I haven't used it that much to give it a proper comparison.

[kingo'mountain]

so the only difference is the tool used... right?

my thoughts and from what i've heard, there seems to be a difference in results between an ouija session and a seance..

ouija sessions seem to attract "demons" (i'm using that word freely), and bad entities\spirits while seances are more likely to conjour good entities\spirits..

theres also a point that ouija attracts earthbound spirits while seances are more attuned to divine forces and entities

this is my point of view and i haven't based this, so i'm open to new theories

[MoonChild]

kingo'mountain, on Jun 11 2009, 10:12 PM, said:

theres also a point that ouija attracts earthbound spirits while seances are more attuned to divine forces and entities

Depends on the intention, protection and the will of the person using.

[Vampchick21]

kingo'mountain, on Jun 11 2009, 12:42 PM, said:

so the only difference is the tool used... right?

my thoughts and from what i've heard, there seems to be a difference in results between an ouija session and a seance..

ouija sessions seem to attract "demons" (i'm using that word freely), and bad entities\spirits while seances are more likely to conjour good entities\spirits..

theres also a point that ouija attracts earthbound spirits while seances are more attuned to divine forces and entities

this is my point of view and i haven't based this, so i'm open to new theories

No, the difference isn't just the tool used. I mean, I can go and use a Ouija board all by myself but I can't have a seance all by myself. You don't need a medium with a Ouija board, but you need one with a seance.

It's simply two different methods of spirit communication, two among many I might add.

And really, I'm long since bored with the constant drone of "Ouija bring bad". It's time folks just left Hollywood at the door when it comes to spirit communication and the paranormal in general.

[kingo'mountain]

well, its just that i see this common post around here:

"i used an ouija board for the first time, something evil came in and its wrecking havoc, help"

positive ouija experiences just seem to be rare, dont know why... could be me