- February 19, 2016
In Episode 22, Shannon LeGro, Mister-Sam Shearon and Ryan Sprague first digress for some intro segment fun. We talk movies that will never happen, haunted theaters, messages you can send to space and even Ryan’s own experience with the Ouija board.
Jimmy then joins Shannon to tell a frightening encounter he had with his friends in high school, while using a Ouija Board. The encounter that day wasn’t the end of the scary experiences for them.
Have you had an experience with a Ouija board? Good or bad…contact us HERE
Via SmithsonianMag.com:
The real history of the Ouija board is just about as mysterious as how the “game” works. Ouija historian Robert Murch has been researching the story of the board since 1992; when he started his research, he says, no one really knew anything about its origins, which struck him as odd: “For such an iconic thing that strikes both fear and wonder in American culture, how can no one know where it came from?”
The Ouija board, in fact, came straight out of the American 19th century obsession with spiritualism, the belief that the dead are able to communicate with the living. Spiritualism, which had been around for years in Europe, hit America hard in 1848 with the sudden prominence of the Fox sisters of upstate New York; the Foxes claimed to receive messages from spirits who rapped on the walls in answer to questions, recreating this feat of channeling in parlors across the state. Aided by the stories about the celebrity sisters and other spiritualists in the new national press, spiritualism reached millions of adherents at its peak in the second half of the 19th century. Spiritualism worked for Americans: it was compatible with Christian dogma, meaning one could hold a séance on Saturday night and have no qualms about going to church the next day. It was an acceptable, even wholesome activity to contact spirits at séances, through automatic writing, or table turning parties, in which participants would place their hands on a small table and watch it begin shake and rattle, while they all declared that they weren’t moving it. The movement also offered solace in an era when the average lifespan was less than 50: Women died in childbirth; children died of disease; and men died in war. Even Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of the venerable president, conducted séances in the White House after their 11-year-old son died of a fever in 1862; during the Civil War, spiritualism gained adherents in droves, people desperate to connect with loved ones who’d gone away to war and never come home. The board is tied to both negative experiences as well as positive ones.
If you’d be interested in trying your hand at a Ouija…they can be purchased HERE
The packaging states: “NEVER use the Ouija board if you think it’s just a game.” What do you think?
Find my co-hosts on their pages: Mister-Sam Shearon and Ryan Sprague
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now that you, shannon, sound great with your new microphone, you may want to get your
audio partners and guests to sound as good. currently, you sound clear, your guest, jimmy, and partner, sam,
sound like they’re in a deep, muffled barrel.
art bell solved the problem by requiring guests and requesting callers use (free) skype, which sounds excellent.
fun show, btw…
Absolutely need to get Sam up to par, yes. Requiring guests to get Skype…we shall see about that down the road. 🙂
Shannon…..Do you think its the board, that is cause of the activity following and or during a Ouija session?….. I’m leaning towards the people involved…. I hear or read a lot of stories like this, where family members or friends have these experiences……. Those are the strongest bonds.. family & friends.. I think collectively they have the resource,, collective consciousness… The bond is already there with these groups of people. I mean look what happens when a ‘group'(or more than one) of women live together.. Their bodies sync up… not only that, they sync up with the cycle of the moon, if you believe in that… but think about that, it takes a ‘group’ of synced women to mimic the cycle of a celestial body, not one person… You can understand why and how like minded societies in the past accomplished incredible feats…, Keep up your good work Shannon…. Ciao
Thanks Don for listening in…yeah I’m not really sure. I do think in some cases our minds can be a powerful tool and help guide responses and/or become a conduit for certain things. It may have nothing to do with the board at all, like you said.
Who would play the ITF hosts in a movie?
Shannon LeGro – Minnie Driver (UK actress)
Ryan Sprague – Meg Ryan (in the early years)
Sam Shearon – Dave Hill (out of the UK band Slade)
I’ve done some funny Photoshop images If I can upload them somewhere?
You can email them to me! shannon@intothefrayradio.com
LOL…but Meg Ryan? 🙂
Hi Shannon!
As soon as I seen your post about the show I had to listen to it immediately. I had a Ouija board when I was in 5th grade I got it for Christmas. I was to scared to use it because of the stories I had heard. I had a very strange experience with it when I was about 22. I ended up trying it with a couple of guys. One guy I did not know and the other did not know enough about me to understand the questions I would ask. I focused on my father who died when I was 3. The answers I received to my questions were correct even when I asked his what his initials were. I played it with my eyes closed. I was barely touching the planchette. I did not want to influence it. It scared me but I was so intrigued. I like to believe it was my father guiding the planchette to answer my questions. I even asked questions I did not know the answers. My experience was freaky but I look at it as a positive one. I was to young to remember my father but I have always felt his presence. I have always believed he is my guardian angel and he was able to communicate with me through the Ouija board. I had not thought of this for many years. When I seen your post about the show, it came back to me instantly. Thanks for another great show!!
Bruce
I have a Ouija board experience: yesterday, I stopped by my favorite local brewpub to quench a Friday afternoon thirst, ordered a flight for myself and a root beer for my daughter, and we took the pub’s Ouija board to an outside table. We followed the directions, called out to the local spirits, and just then heard an ominous rumbling.
However, it turned out to be a nearby semi-truck hitting his jake brakes. We were not able to get a the pointer to move a nanometer in any direction.
After taking the board back inside and confessing our lack of luck, the assistant bartender admitted she had ordered the board only a few months ago from Amazon. That, and the “Hasbro [TM]” logo on the front of the box probably caused any nearby spirits to avoid us like we had Egon Spengler standing behind us, aiming his proton pack in their direction.