A couple of weeks ago, I built a talking board. I have always been a skeptic of all things that profess themselves to be spiritual, but one day I decided to give the spirits the benefit of the doubt. I decided to build the board because I questioned the spiritual value of anything with a Parker Bros. stamp on it. I did some on-line research and got the goods on how to build your own board and went to work. It took me all of a weekend to complete. Last Sunday, I took it over to my singer and guitar player to give it a spin.
We all have very different spiritual standings. I am an ex-Christian (that's where the skepticism of spiritual things comes in) and consider myself a pagan. I believe that things occult lend themselves more to the uncharted reaches of science than to magickal mumbo-jumbo.
Nettie, the guitarist is an Atheist whose spiritual leanings are vehemently agnostic at best. It's all mumbo-jumbo to her. Vitzel, the lead singer allies himself to no real school of belief at all, though he will admit that he has heard and seen things that he cannot explain.
Kuester, the drummer is the type of guy (a typical drummer) who feels free to walk between all camps. He plays for us, which his Christian friends hate. And we, of course, would just as soon put the Christians' heads on a pike, but we get along with Kuester. This is most likely because he readily admits the fallacy in circular Christian thought.
After practice, we broke out the board. I put Vitzel and Nettie on the board, since they are a couple and decided to sit back and take notes. Kuester just sat and guzzled ale.
No-go, the spirits weren't talking. We relocated some candles and changed the mood music from blackmetal to classical. I pulled up a couple of chairs and Kuester's drum throne and we all four touched the planchette. After about 3 minutes, I called the spirits out. The planchette moved, but spelled out mostly gibberish. I dragged the indicator to GOODBYE and we broke it off.
Vitzel thought one of us was f__king around, so i suggested that we each write a question on a piece of paper, kept secret from the others and ask the spirit. We got back on the board and blanked our minds and then I called it out again. I asked its name and it said -EM SZXSZY, he was either Czech or full of it. I empowered it to answer Vitzel's question -YES. (He had asked if he should go to Germany with his friend.) It answered me with -NO (I had asked if it would follow us to concerts).
It answered Kuester with -DIC:), the "smiley" being a grinning skull painted on the board. Kuester had asked where his wife was, she was supposed to be at church, but none of us knew this.
It then said GOODBYE, refusing to answer Nettie.
Then the tour was on.We loaded up our candles, board and ourselves into the van and headed out to Cameron Park in our home-town of Waco. There are always murders and body dumping there and it has a reputation for occult happenings. There is also a mysterious but rarely seen character called 'the goat man'. I settled on a spot where a murder/rape had taken place and we parked.
We gathered, lit the candles and called out the spirits. The mojo was working. It spelled out -696 SMU 8. I asked "SMU the college?" -NO.
Initials? -YES.
"Is 696 a date? as in June 1996?" -YES.
"What happened on 6/96?" -F3.
I immediately knew what it was talking about, so did Kuester. Vitzel and Nettie did not. I asked "Is this the 3 F's that I'm thinking of?" -YES.
"Are you being sarcastic?" -NO.
Vitzel asked me which 3 F's I was talking about. I said "Find'em, F__k'em, and Forget'em." -YES, agreed the board.
The planchette moved repeatedly in a circle. Vitzel asked how we could help and we all agreed. - FIND 1.
"One what? a killer?" -NO.
Vitzel asked, do you want us to find your body? -YES. More circling.
I asked "Is your body near?" -GOODBYE.
We re-grouped and decided to let Kuester stand outside of the van. Nettie, Vitzel and I got back and called 'Spirit 696' out. We told it that we want to help and asked if it was near by. -YES.
We asked if we shouted directions to Kuester if it could be found that way. -NO.
We asked if it was in the brazos river. -NO. Buried on land? -YES.
I asked "Did the killer bury the body?" -GOODBYE.
It was cold and dark and I had just gotten a sixth sense premonition that the cops were about to get nosy, so we decided to bag it and attack the '696' issue when we had some daylight in our favor.
Next stop on the tour was The Texas Ranger museum and adjacent Cemetery. I had been told it was dangerous to use a board in a graveyard and it was time for a test. Plus it was a Christian/Jew cemetery and we give quarter to neither in life. This was going to be fun.
We set up and started to charge the board. Imediately, Kuester's fingers were knocked off the planchette. This happened three or four times. Finally, he got a grip and the planchette slid far to the other side of the board, near Vitzel, causing his fingers to come off again. We re-positioned the board so that that wouldn't happen again and the planchette began to rocket around the board in a figure 8 . I asked the spirit's name, but it was no-go, we just got more figure 8s. I pressed it again and there was no answer so I said "Goodbye" and slid the indicator down. I called 'break' to let everyone else know to let go.
We started again and this time I called out "Are there any good spirits who wish to converse?" Nada. I said again"If there are any good souls who wish to talk, we the members of Finsternis empower you." Nope.
I then called out "Is there a spirit who is holding the others back? Who is interfering?" Figure 8s again. I was a bit annoyed at this time and spoke in a stern voice. "Spirit, if you will not converse in a civilized manner then we ask you to say good-" - the planchette whipped over to GOODBYE and right off the board into my lap.
The members of Finsternis went home with a serious case of the Willies (a distant cousin of the Heebie Jeebies). I still consider myself a skeptic. Was it our sub-conscious? Psychokinetic energy? Talking spirits?
All I know is that the message indicator moved on its own accord and I cannot explain it.