My one and only experience with a Ouija board took place when I was a teenager, around 15 years old. I was hosting a slumber party so there was myself and my friends Cami, Tiffany, Nikki, and Cat (names have been changed). Nikki was getting ready to move to another city, so this was one last get together with all of us as we were all best friends. We were just hanging out watching scary movies when my friend Cami thought it would be fun to play with a Ouija board. She had one at her house (the kind that are sold as a "game" at the store), and she lived only a few houses down from me, so she and Cat walked over to her house to get the board while my other friends and I were setting up, gathering candles and whatnot.
The next thing I knew Cami and Cat busted through my front door, looking scared as all get out. We asked them what had happened, and they said that when they started walking back some creepy dude walked by them and said "Don't do it", so they ran back to my house as fast as they could. We all ran to the front window to see if we could see the guy, but there was no one in sight.
I started to feel a little nervous about using the board, and tried telling my friends that maybe we shouldn't do it, but they brushed it off saying that the guy probably just saw the box and was trying to scare them. We decided to stay in the living room, and with being the naΓ―ve little teenagers that we were and not knowing what to do, we just lit the candles turned out the lights, and placed our hands on the planchette. Tiffany thought it would be funny to start making ghost noises (you know, the "oooOOOOooo" type thing), we all started giggling, then stopped when we all noticed that the planchette was starting to move. It spelled out the word "Stop". Cami asked "Stop what?", but we didn't get an answer. We kept trying to ask it questions but nothing was happening. We were about ready to give up and put it away, when the front door flew open and a figure was standing in the doorway. It ended up only being my step-dad, he was out and when he came home he saw us through the window and thought it would be funny to scare us... And boy did it work. He scolded us for trying to use a Ouija board, and told us to put it away. So we did, and started to watch more movies.
Around 1am, Nikki and Tiffany went to sleep. Cami and Cat wanted to use the board again, so I decided to use it with them. All three of us put our fingers on the planchette, and Cami said "Why did you want us to stop?" It started to move, and it spelled out the word "her". We then heard a loud slapping sound, and Tiffany woke up screaming. She started crying saying that her back felt like it was burning, so she lifted up her shirt and there was a huge welt in the shape of a large hand.
We decided to put the board up for good. The next day, we didn't really say or talk much about it, other than the welt on Tiffany's back had bruised up pretty good. Nikki moved out of town a few days later, and we all went about our business.
About 2 weeks later, I started getting bothered. I would wake up with random scratches or slap marks, I would feel my hair getting randomly pulled, I had a constant feeling of being watched, and this overwhelming feeling of paranoia that I always had to get out of the house. My friends all experienced the same things. Nikki even called me to tell me that things were happening to her too.
My mom knew that we had used the board because my step-dad told her that night that we were using one. She had a friend that was pretty experienced with the paranormal, and explained to me that since we didn't know what we were doing, and that we didn't open the board or close the board the right way, we had pretty much left the window open to anything that wants to come through. She set up a time and all of us came back to my house (except Nikki) with the board, and I can't remember all that she did, but she said the board was now closed and that all of it should stop. She warned us never to use Ouija boards again, and that we were lucky that things didn't get worse than what they were. Everything stopped after that, no more scratches or slap marks, the strange feelings. It all went away. I consider myself very lucky!
Even though this was a bad experience, it made me really interested in learning about the paranormal, and I have learned a lot from my mom's friend.
I have not since then nor will I ever use a Ouija board again. I always try to advise people to never use them, no matter what. It's not worth what could happen. I really wish that these Ouija boards would stop being marketed as a game. It is in no way, shape, or form a game. These are tools that can unleash some bad things, and they could have dire consequences. I'm just glad I learned my lesson, and hopefully my story will help others realize that it isn't anything to be played with.