Stay Away from Ouija Boards!

The story of my first haunting

“On Halloween, everything ghost”… that’s the motto for many Americans who love celebrating the spooky night. And what better form of entertainment than to break out that Ouija board you bought at Walmart and see what the spirits can tell you about your future.

Only that this is not a child’s play but a game of Russian Roulette. And the stakes are your body, mind, and soul.

As a cautionary tale, here’s the 100% true story of my first haunting, which took place in circa 1986. (Sorry for the colorful language… this was written a while ago.) God bless, keep, and protect you on this darkest night of the year.

Monster Above My Bed

W…E…I…D…E.

I briefly look away from the pendulum, just long enough to scribble down the word. The pendulum is suspended above my make-shift Ouija board, a piece of paper torn out of a notebook with the letters of the alphabet, “yes” and “no” written on it.

I’ve done it. I’ve made contact with the spirit of a dead person.

Earlier this evening, I listened to a radio talk show featuring Professor Hans Bender, a renowned German parapsychologist. He talked about EVP, electronic voice phenomena, and that practically anyone can communicate with the dead, by doing what I have just done.

“Who or what is Weide?” I ask, holding the pendulum as still as I can.

S…T…A…R.

“What about the star?”

F…A…L…L…I…N…G.

“Falling? You mean it’s a star that’s going to fall? Where?”

E…A…R…T…H.

Wow! It does sound rather scary, but my excitement exceeds my growing uneasiness. By far. This is a message that may have national, no, global significance—and I’m the one who received it!

How long have I envied the channelers, those vessels for advanced non-incarnate entities dispersing spiritual insights and profound predictions. Jane Roberts, J.Z. Knight, Barbara Marciniak. I want to be one of those modern-day prophets.

At age twenty-one, now that time might have come for me. It looks like I’ve just received a morsel of prophecy, a glimpse of the future that might turn out to be of great importance to mankind. My fifteen minutes of fame are close, I can feel it.

It will be a much-needed boost for my self-esteem. It’s hard to distinguish yourself when you’ve grown up in a family that has turned being invisible into an art form. Don’t make waves, don’t stand out, don’t talk about family matters outside the family, don’t talk about taboo topics at all, period.

It feels good to finally have escaped the prison of my family, our nosy neighborhood, and the boondocks called Sauerland where I was born and raised. “Sour land,” indeed. What a fitting name for a region that has nothing going for it except a dying mining industry and whose only claim to fame is that once upon a time, three vital medieval trade roads ran through it.

I’m a big-city girl now, living in the heart of Düsseldorf, the German fashion center. I have a super-cool job, wear super-cool clothes, and hang out with super-cool people at super-cool bars. What a blast I had at my first high school reunion when I finally got a chance to stick it to my cruel clique of friends. They’ve all stayed in our bumf***-nowhere hometown, working soul-crushing, dead-end peasant jobs, while I have ascended to the glamour world of advertising. How does the saying go: “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”

And now I’ll show them all. I’ll be a famous channeler, a best-selling author, a paragon of the worldwide New Age community. Eff you, bitches. And eff you, Mama, who called being a copywriter a “gypsy job” and lamented why I couldn’t be a medical assistant like my half-sister.

WEIDE.

A star falling onto Earth. That’s a start. It has taken me a while to get there. For the first half hour of my attempted spirit contact, all I’ve gotten from my DIY Ouija board is gibberish, a random string of letters. But then the letters began to form words, little grains of wisdom that I greedily gobbled up like a bulimic chicken. The spirit hasn’t properly introduced himself, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is the message.

“What else can you tell me?” I continue my spirit conversation.

H…O…R…S…T.

A chill runs down my spine. Horst is the name of my ex-boyfriend. We were together for four and a half years but drifted apart after I moved to Düsseldorf and started my job as a copywriting trainee. We tried to keep the relationship alive for over a year, but in the end, we agreed to call it quits. I haven’t heard from him for months.

“What about Horst?”

C…A…R.

“What does that mean?”

A…C…C…I…D…E…N…T.

“He will get into a car accident?” I ask. My excitement has given way to a feeling of dread. This is getting creepy.

“What’s going to happen to him?”

D…I…E…D…I…E…D…I…E.

I gasp and drop the pendulum. Gloomy predictions about stars crashing onto Planet Earth? No big deal. But this is getting a bit too up close and personal, and I’m afraid of what else the spirit may tell me. Enough dead-people chats for today.

Still, I have to tell someone about the prophecy I received, about the star called Weide. This could be significant, after all. And who better to talk to than the radio show guest, the good professor himself, who happens to live right here in Düsseldorf.

It’s 11:30 p.m., but who’s counting if the fate of the planet is at stake? Bender’s number is in the phonebook. I dial it with trembling fingers.

“Hello?” The sleepy voice is that of a woman, presumably the professor’s wife.

“Hi,” I say, my voice strained, “is the professor at home?”

“He’s not here right now,” she says apprehensively. “Can I help you?”

I just can’t hold back any longer. “I’m sorry to call so late, but I was listening to him on the radio, about contacting the dead, and I did, and I got this message—“

She doesn’t let me finish. “Are you insane?” she snaps. “This is dangerous stuff! You should never, ever try anything like that if you’re not trained. People have gone to the madhouse over things like that!”

That is not the reaction I expected. I’m desperately trying to make her understand the gravity of what has happened here.

“But I got this message that a star named Weide will fall on the Earth—”

“It doesn’t matter, and I don’t want to hear it,” she interrupts. “The only thing I can tell you is, keep your hands off these things! They’re very, very dangerous. Good night.”

She hangs up on me.

I’m sitting there in stunned silence, the phone still in my hand. What the heck…?!

I collect my racing thoughts and decide that either she’s mad because I woke her up or she doesn’t like female strangers calling her husband in the middle of the night. Even though her words scare me a little, I’m not going to let her intimidate me by taking her ramblings to heart.

Still, better to be on the safe side, so I crumple the Ouija paper into a ball and toss it into the kitchen garbage can. I can always make another one.

***

The next morning, everything is back to normal. It’s a quiet day at work; my boss is out for a meeting with clients and there’s little to do, so I entertain myself by cruising the hallways of the agency, chatting with coworkers, and reading magazines.

Finally, I can’t contain myself any longer. I poke my head into my next-door colleague Ariane’s little office. I don’t know her very well, but she’s funny and friendly and, most importantly, has two functioning ears. Right now, that’s all I need.

“Got a minute?” I say.

“Sure. What’s up?”

I inhale deeply. “Last night, I listened to a radio show about contacting the dead… and I did.”

“You what?”

“I made some sort of contact, and I got a message.” I tell her about the star that will fall on Earth and the creepy message about Horst.

She smirks. “Hon, that’s just your subconscious talking. Maybe you’re still mad at your boyfriend. Anyway, I don’t really believe any of this supernatural stuff. So don’t sweat it, okay?”

She goes back to hitting the keys of her old Brother Electric, clickety-clack, clickety-clack, indicating that our conversation is over.

I hang my head. Maybe she’s right, maybe it was my subconscious playing tricks on me. In broad daylight, my experience from last night seems kind of surreal, so I shrug it off. Best to forget about it. At 4:30 p.m., I call it a day and drive home to my tiny studio apartment.

Four hours later, I’m sitting at my IKEA desk watching TV when I get a strange sensation. The hairs in the back of my neck tingle, the way you feel in a movie theater when someone stares at you from behind. I turn around, but no one is there. I curse myself for being so childish.

“Of course no one’s there. You live alone, silly,” I say sternly.

It feels good to hear my own voice. The sensation persists, though, and I’m growing more and more uneasy. I start to hum, like I did as a small child when my mother sent me into the basement to get some potatoes for dinner.

I chuckle at myself. Humming and talking out loud, such basic creature comforts. I briefly wonder about Stone Age men; did they do the same as they sat in their dark caves at night listening to the heightened sounds of nature and watching out for nocturnal predators?

Maybe it worked for Stone Age men, but it sure doesn’t work for me. The tingly vibe doesn’t go away. I don’t know what causes it, but it’s pretty unsettling. Finally I decide to go out for dinner and a drink, just to be among people.

I come home late, with a pleasant buzz from the three Merlots I’ve sipped at the Glory, a fashionable bar in Oberkassel, one of Düsseldorf’s jet-set suburbs. I open the door to my apartment and stop in the hallway to feel out the atmosphere.

Nothing.

Everything feels normal.

With a sigh of relief, I take off my clothes and drop them on the floor—one of the benefits of living alone—to get ready for bed.

Three hours later, I wake up with a start. The LED display on my alarm clock shows 2:00 a.m. Looking down on my loose-fitting purple night shirt, I realize that I’m drenched in sweat. I don’t remember any nightmares, but a lingering feeling of dread tells me I must have had one. Even the streetlights outside my window don’t give me the comfort they usually do.

The dampness of my night shirt is making me shiver. I switch on the light next to the bed, get up and change, but I can’t shake off the trepidation. Going back to sleep seems impossible, so I grab a book and prepare for a long, restless night. Around 4:30 a.m., I can no longer keep my eyes open and fall asleep, with no further disturbances.

***

The next night is worse.

All evening, I’ve had the now familiar sensation that someone is watching me from behind. It’s truly nerve racking. It feels like something is here with me, in the room, and the fact that I can’t see it only increases my helplessness.

I’ve been delaying bedtime, but around 1:00 a.m. I get so tired that I can’t stay awake any longer. I pull the covers over my head and start praying.

“Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name…”

Even in my anxious state of mind, I notice the irony. Here I am, a woman who turned her back on Christianity at age fifteen, cowering in fetal position under the sheets, clamping my hands together so hard that my knuckles turn white, reciting the Lord’s Prayer over and over.

What a joke.

My early childhood wasn’t exactly burdened by religion. My parents were “CEO” Protestants (Christmas & Easter Only). Like most Germans, I was born into my religion, but it didn’t mean anything to me. That changed one summer, though, when a tent mission opened its flaps in the field across the street. The inside of the tent smelled like sunshine and warm hay, and for years I imagined that Heaven would smell just like that. I loved the kind tent missionaries who told Bible stories and ran sing-alongs. God knew I could use some kindness, with the daily dose of humiliation I received from my friends.

I spent every day at the mission until, at the end of the summer, they packed up their tent and left, the only reminder of their presence a large circle of flattened, yellow grass. I was inconsolable when they left—and completely hooked on religion.

Sometime after Omi died, I joined the local YMCA. I found a sense of community and belonging there that I’d been missing, and it was nice to finally feel accepted and appreciated. Some of the girls from the cruel clique also became members, but they were forced to behave themselves in this group, so it was okay.

After a few years of soaking up Lutheran doctrine, however, the inconsistencies in the Bible started making me dizzy. How could Jens, our YMCA leader, say that God was just and loving when the Old Testament said He ordered the mass slaughter of men, women, and children? Many of the OT stories read like scenes from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, for Pete’s sake.

I tried to discuss my doubts with Jens, but I never got a satisfying answer.

“It’s a matter of faith,” he said.

But how could I have faith in a God who hated people just because they didn’t worship him?

Our congregation itself wasn’t exactly faith-inspiring either. I noticed that those people who were the most self-righteous seemed to have the worst character. Even our pastor himself was not a nice person. I heard that he had cheated an older couple into selling him their house on the cheap. Allegedly, he’d hired a sleazy home inspector who owed him a favor and who found so many things wrong with the house that the couple was ultimately grateful they had found a buyer at all.

Disillusioned, at fifteen I just called it quits.

Yet here I am, reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Oh well. Desperate situations require desperate measures. And it’s not like I really stopped believing in God, or Jesus, who always felt like a big brother to me. I just stopped believing in the Bible, that nasty book of horrors. At least the Old Testament, I guess.

At some point, religion was replaced by my fascination with the paranormal. Horst introduced me to extrasensory phenomena (ESP) and Erich von Däniken’s ancient-alien books. Sometimes, we’d do psychic quizzes and exercises at his apartment, and I was amazingly good at guessing what picture was in that sealed envelope.

My interest in the paranormal has survived our relationship. Today, I read everything I can get my hands on, TimeLife books mostly. Doesn’t matter what it’s about: ghosts, poltergeists, séances, magick, satanic rituals, out-of-body experiences, I devour it all.

Those things don’t really frighten me. It’s more like the pleasant chill you get from watching horror movies. Sure, it’s scary, but you kinda know it’s just actors and makeup and special effects, and you’re sitting on your couch with a bag of potato chips and a Coke. Bring on the zombies, baby.

But now I’m having a first-hand experience, and it’s nothing like watching a horror movie. It’s like living one. I have no idea what’s going on, but it sure as heck isn’t fun.

I keep praying until I finally fall asleep, exhausted—

—and have the most horrible nightmare.

I am roused by a strange noise. When I open my eyes, I see Satan himself standing at the foot of my bed. He looks like the stereotypical devil: a man with a goat’s head and red-blackish skin. He’s enveloped by a fiery aura that gives off searing heat and a stink of sulfur. His face distorts into a cruel sneer and he bends forward, reaching for me with clawed hands.

I scream in terror. “Nooooo!”

My screaming wakes me up, this time for real. What an awful dream! Falling back asleep is not going to happen; I’m too afraid the nightmare will continue where it has left off. So I switch on all the lights and console myself with a book until the rise of dawn. Surely everything will be better tomorrow.

It isn’t.

The sensation of being watched from behind only intensifies over the next few weeks. More and more often, I feel a dark presence in the room with me, and I stay up later and later to avoid the monsters haunting my dreams.

On the weekend, I sleep all day and stay up reading at night. I am mentally and emotionally exhausted and severely sleep deprived, and it becomes harder and harder to concentrate at work.

Is this a true-life haunting, or am I just losing my mind?

I’ve heard somewhere that crazy people rarely question their sanity, so that I’m questioning mine may be a good thing. I desperately want help, but I know that seeing a mainstream counselor is not a good idea. Clinical psychology doesn’t leave much room for the supernatural; they’ll probably put me in a straitjacket and lock me up for good.

There seems to be no solution to my dilemma, and I’m becoming more worn-down by the day. My defenses are crumbling, and I’m deadly afraid of what may happen to me when they break down.

***

I’m three weeks into this nightmare, and no end in sight.

It’s another night, 10:00 p.m. I’m sitting at my desk and feel the unseen presence behind me.

“Here we go again,” I say out loud. I swivel around in my office chair—

—and gasp in horror.

Below the ceiling above my bed hovers a dark-gray fog. It looks like a billowing rain cloud just before a thunderstorm hits.

Only that it’s inside my apartment, and it appears to be sentient.

I am frozen in shock. If I weren’t sitting in a chair, my knees would buckle.

My mouth goes dry. I’m unable to move. Unable to do anything but stare at the shapeless monstrosity that floats above my head.

It’s undulating slightly and I can sense a malevolent intelligence. It reminds me of a coiled snake ready to strike.

And then it does.

There’s a tremendous blow to my solar plexus, like someone has punched me in the stomach.

I double up in my chair, clutching my stomach.

The pain is excruciating.

And then I feel something being sucked out of me.

It’s a literal sensation of sucking, a smoky vampire drinking my life energy.

I feel myself grow weaker by the second.

My thoughts are racing. What am I going to do? I need help!

I try to focus my thoughts on God and Jesus. I call on the Archangel Michael to come and defend me with his golden sword.

The gray cloud seems to recoil, so there’s hope.

Clutching my stomach, I stagger to the window and open it.

“Get out of here!” I yell. “In the name of Jesus Christ, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, LEAVE!”

With a faint whoosh, the gray cloud vanishes. It looks like it’s being sucked into the ceiling.

The energy in the apartment brightens instantly, and now the room is just a room.

Free at last.

Still holding my stomach, I stumble to my bed and, fully clothed, fall into a deep, dreamless sleep. When I wake up, I throw every last one of my TimeLife books in the trash. No more paranormal horror for me, thank you very much.