Friday, September 30, 2011

Growing Up Haunted--Part One--By Linda Kozar



Let me start with a little proviso to this true story. I am a Born-Again Believer, a Christian and I do not believe in ghosts or that they inhabit homes or people. I do however, believe that demons (fallen angels) exist--also that they inhabit homes and sometimes people. My husband still finds it hard to believe that I grew up in a "haunted" house. Sometimes I still find it hard to believe, but it's true. At the time, my family and I were unaware of the danger. And that's when our troubles began. . .

Growing Up Haunted
(Part 1 of  5)
New Orleans, LA
July, 1965

The fad of the day--Ouija Boards (pronounced wE-ja) seemed to turn up everywhere--on the shelf right next to the Monopoly and Scrabble games. As a child, I can even remember playing the game with friends during school recess in public elementary school.
If you've never heard of them, Ouija Boards, also known as spirit boards or talking boards have been around since 1848, and in other forms long before. The boards became wildly popular--associated with the birth of modern spiritualism. Supposedly, the name Ouija, either means "yes, yes" in two different languages (French oui and German ja), or was given by a "spirit" consulted on the board and is a close approximation to an ancient Egyptian word meaning "Good Luck." Others theorize the name came from the Moroccan city of Oujda (also spelled Oujida and Oudjda).
My family and elementary school friends thought it great fun to ask a question and have the planchette (French for "little plank"), move of its own accord to answer. "Will I be married? What year? To whom? Who will be the next president?" The planchette would move from letter to letter, number to number to answer each question--sometimes at a maddeningly slow pace, other times with rapid precision. How it worked--none of us knew. Maybe our minds moved it with mysterious telekinetic powers? Or maybe we answered our own questions subconsciously. Maybe ghosts moved it?
Nobody ventured much of a plausible guess. And though the main game piece actually moved on its own, nobody stopped playing. Crazy.
An aunt introduced my mother to the game. Of course, the word "game" is key. A game is all the Ouija Board was to my mother, to my aunt, to kids like me, to most people who played. In fact, I viewed the game as another version of the 8-Ball. Remember the black ball you would propose a question to, then turn over to to small window on the underside and the answer would appear from the cloudy murk of fluid inside the ball?
But the Ouija Board was something different. Words, names and entire sentences seemed to form out of thin air, whether bidden or not. Yes, sometimes the planchette would suddenly move whether or not anyone laid a hand on it. How spooky is that? Yet, as I said earlier, none of us really stopped to consider what manner of "toy" we were tampering with. I wish we had.

Next week (Saturday, October 8th), the Ouija Board plays a game of its own. . .

17 comments:

  1. Looking forward to reading the rest Linda.

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  2. Thank you Lynn. It's so amazing to finally be able to share the story. When I read over my old journals to put this together, I realized how terrifying the whole ordeal was.

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  3. Me too, Linda! I'm ready to read more...

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  4. Lynette--It feels so good to tell the story and share how God delivered us!

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  5. People don't realize how dangerous things like Ouija Boards and Tarot Cards are. They are like keys, unlocking and opening doors that would be better left shut.

    Looking forward to reading more.

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  6. I can't believe you're going to make us wait an entire week for another part of this story!

    We had a Ouija board in our home too. It indeed was weird. I blame it for some situations that occurred in my family.

    After I became a believer, my husband and I were staying with my parents for two weeks when we moved back to the area and were waiting for our apartment to be ready. I was doing laundry in the basement one day and saw the Ouija board. I took it and threw it in the garbage. A week later I was in the basement again, and the board was back on the shelf! I threw it out a second time. A few days later I went into the lawn shed, and there it was on a shelf!! At that point I got in the car, drove to a dumpster, and got rid of it for good. Turns out my mother felt compelled to keep bringing it back into the home. Ugh.

    Can't wait to hear more of your story, Linda.

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  7. Donna--Yes, when people think they're playing a "harmless" game, they are opening themselves and their familiies up to untold danger. I wish we'd known then what we know now! But then again, I wouldn't be able to post this warning to others:)

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  8. Dear Megan, Your mother has no idea how grateful she should be to you. If we had known to throw that cursed board away, it would have saved us from the terror we experienced.

    Sorry to make everyone wait but I felt sharing the story in parts would mellow out the fear factor. It gets pretty scary.

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  9. I can't wait, either, Linda. I had one of those but never trusted my friends not to move the planchette. I always figured they were moving it so I never really believed what the thing said. Thankfully, God spared us from any spiritual havoc.

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  10. Mary--I know. It makes sense that a friend would play a joke on you and move the planchette. BUT when you play the game by yourself and it moves without you moving and actually spells out words--that's something you just can't explain away or rationalize easily. I'm glad God spared you from the things that could have happened. Count that as a real blessing:)

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  11. Creep-o-rama! You've got me hooked. I'll be back for more.

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  12. Michelle--I'm just getting started:)

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  13. Good blog, Linda.

    My mom and I played with one before we knew any better. Our church did not mention spiritual warfare. We were very earnest and vowed not to influence it, but really seek to see what it said.

    The planchette soon went to XRI or XPI, the first three letters of Christ in Greek. I threw up my hands and gasped in fear.

    My mother said, "What? What?"

    I told her something was trying to deceive us. I didn't think Jesus would be talking through a Ouija Board. I never touched one again.

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  14. Margo--How the devil loves to deceive people! Praise God you and your mom knew to back away from it! Any tool of divination is dangerous, but most of us don't realize it until it's too late. I stay away from all of it--won't even read horoscopes in the newspaper.

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  15. I agree, Linda, and I also don't immerse myself in popular stories that *promote* something God calls an abomination: sorcery. He says in the OT and the NT, Deuteronomy 18? and Galatians 5, that those who practice it will not enter the Promised Land/Kingdom. I realize reading and watching stories about it is not *practicing* it, but isn't it vicariously enjoying it? And if God hates it, and I love God, should I entertain myself with something He hates? And doesn't that make the enemy feel welcome in my life?

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  16. hi linda,i also grew up in a house where things went bump in the night! my experience started when my mum decided to become a witch,she use to meet other witches in a local pub, i remember one time when she had a falling out with her best friend she decided to get something of her friends and burn it in the sink,while saying an incarnation over it as a curse the next day we heard that her friend had a car accident she didnt die but she was injured.this started all our problems things flew around the room i saw evil faces in our wardrobeon one occassion i opened the bathroom door and sitting on the toilet was what seemed to be my great aunt i feel it was a demon also,i became a christian at 10 years old, my mum also became a christian in 1984,but my sister who played with the ouja board and still is involved in wicca

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  17. Mary--Well, you and I both know what growing up in a house like that is! There were many other incidents I could have talked about as well. Like seeing a deceased relative sitting in a chair, the ghostly man in medical scrubs at the foot of the bed one night. Praise God you and your mother chose the right path in Jesus Christ. Keep praying for your sister. Don't give up.

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