Ouija Boards

              Almost everyone involved with magick and the occult has played on a ouija board, or at least has seen one.  Most people have an opinion about them, those opinions ranging from fervent belief, adamant denial, or the concession that there is ‘something’ about them. In much of society, at least western cultures, the ouija board carries with it very potent associations with obsession, madness, control, and deception. There is much skepticism and debate, both in the occult underground and society at large, about the nature, purpose, and value of these ‘talking’ boards. Regardless of your personal beliefs, unless those beliefs have you doing everything you can to avoid them, ouija boards can be made into very powerful magical devices. With the right augmentations and associations, an industrious and skilled practitioner could turn a ouija board into the equivalent of an occult laptop, capable as functioning as a portable ritual space, casting tool, astral gateway, and grimoire.
              While the history of ouija boards is dubious at best, and is irrelevant to the creation of this magical device. What is important however, is the socio-cultural empowerment that the boards receive.  Contemporary ouija boards, to the best estimation, began as a parlor game, and were marketed as such by the board game industry. Like tarot cards before them, ouija boards were powerful occult tools that became highly commercialized and sold to non-practitioners in high volumes. Again, like the divinations of tarot cards these boards could occasionally be used successfully by the ignorant, contacting entities of varying natures and opening gateways through which multiple levels of reality could merge. Though for the most part these boards either did not function as advertised, were manipulated by the users either subconsciously, or were the method in which the gullible were duped by a light-fingered charlatan. Despite all of the horror stories that came from misuse, the disappointment from failure to establish communication, and the predations of charlatans the ouija boards are still in production today. Also, because of its colorful and notorious history, the ouija board still commands the attention, opinions, and therefore energies of many people. Like thought-forms, deities, and ideas these boards gain power from their continued production, use, and infamy. With so many people being in contact with these boards, they have the potential to become powerful tools for the practitioner.
              The metaphor of an ‘occult laptop’ is being used as a visualization for the purpose of communicating the idea, though if the individual using the board finds another visualization to be more effective, by all means use that. The primary reasons for the laptop visualization is that the board lends itself to such a metaphor. The board is thin, lightweight, and portable, much like its mundane counterpart. Using the afore mentioned spell protocol and occult machine techniques the board can be made into a multifunctional tool that can be used in much the same way as a laptop. The ouija board can be given an onboard energy processor, be used to store spells or protocols, can be used to ‘connect’ to the subtle realms of reality, and is a tool that one can carry in a backpack or by hand without inconvenience.
              One of the features of the ouija board is that it is a portable ritual space. Because of the occult associations held by consensual reality, the ouija board creates a magical field simply by existing. When a magus pulls out the board and places it herself she has not only created a magical field by using a ouija board, there is the additional empowerment because the intention of the placement of the ouija board was to create a ritual space. So there is not only the power of the intent of the magus, but the power of the board itself as dictated by consensual reality. Another feature of the board is that it can be used as a casting tool. Like a wand, dagger, candle, or any other common casting tool, a ouija board can be used as such. As when it is used as a portable ritual space, the associations held about the power of a ouija board can provide a significant energy source when the board is used to help the caster focus for the casting of a spell. Imagine how disconcerting it might be to an opponent, or significant in the mind of the caster and thus empowering, to lay one hand on the ouija board and point the other at the target.
              The ouija board can also be used for what it was intended, as a gateway to the other levels of reality, a portal into the greater multiverse and the subtle realms. While most people use the board in the popular style, by placing hands onto the planchette and allowing an entity to communicate with them through the board, there are other options available to the sorcerer should he or she choose. Depending upon the skill and ability of the practitioner to take and endure journeys of the consciousness into the subtle realms (astral travel), the board can be used in a much more invasive manner. Depending upon the particular technique the individual practitioners uses to gain access to the subtle realms, by employing the ouija board into that routine the magus will gain the energy infusion from the power that the board carries with it in addition to the resonance the board already possesses as a gateway tool in pop-culture.
              In addition to being a ritual space, casting tool and gateway, the ouija board can also be used as a grimoire. The magus can cast spells into the board, using it as a storage device. First the magus should cast the spell, then at the moment the spell is leaving the caster, target a specific point on the board, pushing your spell into the board itself. By choosing a specific location on the board, be it  one of the letters, numbers, pictures, the yes or no, or the goodbye, the practitioner is able to trap the spell in progress. It should be mentioned at this point that the technique of managing the spell trajectory is very important, in that the spell hitting the board before the target is integral to the success of the spell storage. Once the spell is ‘installed’ onto the board, the practitioner can wait to use the spell at the most opportune moment. For example, an industrious magus may have several curses bound into the A, the 3, and the Goodbye. When the spells are needed, the magus ‘activates’ the spell through some personally relevant method (breathing onto the symbol, touching it with a finger, moving the planchette over it and saying a command word, etc), the spell in progress leaves it’s stasis inside the board and continues on it path towards the target.  In this way a sorcerer could conceivable carry an entire array of spells in progress that only need the touch of a symbol to activate, thus having the potential to cast a multitude of spells in a short amount of time given that the spells have already been cast, and only need to be released.
              Another method of using the board as a grimoire or casting devise is to associate each character or image on the board with a particular spell or magical concept. Much like sigil magick, the sorcerer could then mix and match the characters on the board (most likely touching them or using the planchette to activate them in the desired order) to create and cast whatever spell that is desired. Or the magus could simply empower the board to manifest his or her will according to the letters and numbers highlighted by the planchette, simply spelling out what the magus desires, and empowering the board to focus the will to achieve the desired result. The author and some of his associates choose to do what they call ‘hotwire’ their ouija boards by placing stickers, painting, or drawing various sigils and magical symbols or phrases on the backs of their boards to further empower them on a personal level. This technique can also be used to setup wards to prevent other practitioners or entities from taking over the board and using it to their own ends. The use of ouija boards in magical practice can be both effective and stylish.