I was sort of joking about this when I said it was the 'next post' a few days ago, but what the heck. :)
We all know what a Ouija board is, right? Aside from the general prohibition laid down on Christians to not have dealings with dead spirits, I know from experience that ouija boards are dangerous. You hear all sorts of stories of people who play with them and then they have 'something' in their house. People who get possessed, etc. And I tend to believe them.
Even when I was pagan I wouldn't touch the things. The basic problem is this: there is no way to control who comes through. Mediums and people who have that talent/training can seek a specific spirit. It's still a really bad idea but there's control involved. Ouija boards are giant open channels where any wandering spirit can come up and claim to be anyone it wants. In spite of my admittedly unorthodox opinions on the origin and purpose of the devil I have no doubts about the existence of demons and other evil spirits (whatever their origins) who go about masquerading as human ghosts and then wreaking havoc.
Anyway. I did, once, use a ouija board. And it scared the living crap out of me to the point where it was never a possibility for me to touch one again. I'm uncomfortable being in a house where I know one is. So here's my brief story:
I was probably around 9 or 10 years old. My best friend at the time lived near the harbor and when I stayed over at her house on weekends we could do pretty much whatever we wanted. One of the things we did was run around on the beach. Houses that are near the harbor are nice and expensive. Many of them have huge walls, etc. to keep people out. They're all up on stilts because of floods.
Well, there was this one house that was along those lines. Right on the harbor and very much abandoned. People in this area don't just *abandon* houses. They may be snow birds and not there for half the year, but this was just 'get up and leave everything behind' abandoned. Weird. The story amongst us kids was that there'd been a murder there. I don't know whether or not that was true but that was what we all believed. So of course one weekend a group of us decided that we needed to get into the house.
We did, and we explored. It was a normal enough looking house, but creepy because of what we thought had happened there and, like I said, it looked like the people had just gotten up and left and not even bothered to lock the doors. After a while someone thought that we should try and talk to the ghosts that we assumed were there. So we ran back to my friends house and borrowed her older sister's ouija board.
It was still the middle of the day but we sat down on the floor in the living room area and tried to contact the spirits. For a while nothing happened and then someone started answering our questions. He claimed to have been a trader from back in the colonial times. I mean, we were kids so we didn't really care about 'back in the day'. but it was neat that we had a ghost talking to us! So we kept asking him questions. Eventually one of the boys with us got bored and told the spirit that he was stupid and to go away. The rest of us were sort of horrified, I mean, how often do you get a ghost to talk to you? We demanded that the boy apologize. Out ghost wouldn't respond any more no matter what we asked so we assumed that he had been upset by the insult.
The boy eventually did apologize in that half-hearted, 'I don't really mean it' way that kids have. And then we tried another question. And the planchet started scooting around the board so fast that we almost couldn't keep hold of it and it, I swear to God, spelled out 'I hate you' and then the boy who had been rude got knocked ass over teakettle! One second we were all sitting there and the next he went skidding back on the floor, almost all the way to the wall! And we were all sitting crosslegged, and we could all see everything because like I said we were on the floor and he didn't push himself or anything. He just went *wham*, back, like he'd been shoved. Which is about the time that we all decided this wasn't fun anymore and ran for the freaking hills.
Of course my friends sister was pissed when she found out we'd borrowed her ouija board and made us go back for it. But we were in and out *real fast* and never touched the damn thing again.
Showing posts with label metaphysical stuff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label metaphysical stuff. Show all posts
Friday, January 7, 2011
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Genus Loci
The genus loci (or genius loci) of a place is the feel, the essence, really the personality of a place. It used to, properly, refer to the actual guardian spirit of a place but that usage isn't as common anymore. Whether or not the guardian spirits like this change in usage is a matter for someone else. :)
Every place has a certain feel to it. I'm not sure if everyone notices it or not, but I've found it to be true. You can walk into a place and get an immediate impression of what goes on there and what has gone on there in the past. I'm not just talking about the external things - the lights, the signs, the decor (though all of that does give it's own impression too) - but something must deeper and more basic than that. It's a *feeling*. You can walk into a place and feel welcome despite it being an empty shell of a room. Or you can walk into a room that looks like it should feel welcoming and feel uncomfortable.
For example: I have never felt uncomfortable in our current house. Even when we just moved in and all the noises, etc. were new and there should have been moments of unfamiliarity, there were none. I'm so aware of my rooms (to a lesser extent the rest of the house) and the feeling there that I know without question when someone has been in them, let alone touched something or added or moved. It's actually become a game in my family. My parents or sister will bring something into the house, or go into my room and move an item just *slightly* and wait to see if I know. We've lived here for five years and they've yet to get anything by me. I just *know*, because I know what the place should feel like and movement disrupts the feeling. *shrug*
However, in our last house there was always the feeling of someone moving around in the house, even when no one was there. It was unsettled. Not unpleasant or unwelcoming, but restless. And to a further extreme, there was one church that I went to quite often the year we lived in Wisconsin. I'm not sure *why* - I think maybe it was an after school program or something, but I don't remember exactly. I do remember that it was a cute old church - very pleasant looking. And I was *never* comfortable there. I spent the entire time I was there, every time, with my back to a wall because there was a distinct feeling of 'go away, you're not welcome'. I never discussed it with the other kids but I assume that they all felt the same since we all hi-tailed it out of there as soon as we could every time (we'd even rather go play in the graveyard adjacent than hang out in the brightly lit rec rooms with their cushy couches, tvs, and games). So, see? The look of the place didn't match the feel.
Place can be...I guess the word I want is infected by the things that happen there. There's a reason that houses where murders or suicides have taken place feel different than those where none has. And I know, I know, some people think 'well, it's only because you *know* about it.' And I'm sure that some of the time that does have an effect. But not always. People have long reported walking into a place and feeling the wrongness of it only to find out later about the bloody death that occurred.
I sometimes wonder if it's the genus loci of the place that causes the bloodshed in some cases. For instance I read recently of a place where three murders took place. Each about 20 years apart. Not only in the same building (which had different functions in each instance) but in the same corner of the same room. Is there something there that causes people to be more prone to certain kinds of violence? All three of the murders were done with sharp objects. The first was a knife and the other two were both broken bottles. Or was the land okay until the first murder and then that stain was so profound that it twisted the genus loci and subtly encouraged the other later attacks?
Every place has a certain feel to it. I'm not sure if everyone notices it or not, but I've found it to be true. You can walk into a place and get an immediate impression of what goes on there and what has gone on there in the past. I'm not just talking about the external things - the lights, the signs, the decor (though all of that does give it's own impression too) - but something must deeper and more basic than that. It's a *feeling*. You can walk into a place and feel welcome despite it being an empty shell of a room. Or you can walk into a room that looks like it should feel welcoming and feel uncomfortable.
For example: I have never felt uncomfortable in our current house. Even when we just moved in and all the noises, etc. were new and there should have been moments of unfamiliarity, there were none. I'm so aware of my rooms (to a lesser extent the rest of the house) and the feeling there that I know without question when someone has been in them, let alone touched something or added or moved. It's actually become a game in my family. My parents or sister will bring something into the house, or go into my room and move an item just *slightly* and wait to see if I know. We've lived here for five years and they've yet to get anything by me. I just *know*, because I know what the place should feel like and movement disrupts the feeling. *shrug*
However, in our last house there was always the feeling of someone moving around in the house, even when no one was there. It was unsettled. Not unpleasant or unwelcoming, but restless. And to a further extreme, there was one church that I went to quite often the year we lived in Wisconsin. I'm not sure *why* - I think maybe it was an after school program or something, but I don't remember exactly. I do remember that it was a cute old church - very pleasant looking. And I was *never* comfortable there. I spent the entire time I was there, every time, with my back to a wall because there was a distinct feeling of 'go away, you're not welcome'. I never discussed it with the other kids but I assume that they all felt the same since we all hi-tailed it out of there as soon as we could every time (we'd even rather go play in the graveyard adjacent than hang out in the brightly lit rec rooms with their cushy couches, tvs, and games). So, see? The look of the place didn't match the feel.
Place can be...I guess the word I want is infected by the things that happen there. There's a reason that houses where murders or suicides have taken place feel different than those where none has. And I know, I know, some people think 'well, it's only because you *know* about it.' And I'm sure that some of the time that does have an effect. But not always. People have long reported walking into a place and feeling the wrongness of it only to find out later about the bloody death that occurred.
I sometimes wonder if it's the genus loci of the place that causes the bloodshed in some cases. For instance I read recently of a place where three murders took place. Each about 20 years apart. Not only in the same building (which had different functions in each instance) but in the same corner of the same room. Is there something there that causes people to be more prone to certain kinds of violence? All three of the murders were done with sharp objects. The first was a knife and the other two were both broken bottles. Or was the land okay until the first murder and then that stain was so profound that it twisted the genus loci and subtly encouraged the other later attacks?
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