ON THE JULY 25, 2007 broadcast of Coast-to-Coast AM with George Noory, he was scheduled to conduct an on-air Ouija board experiment. The show had been hyped for many weeks, and in the space of those previous weeks he had been encouraged by a few to go ahead with the experiment and warned by many more to forego it.
When it came down to the night of the experiment, George backed out. The experiment was all set to go. Rosemary Ellen Guiley brought a vintage Ouija board, seeing the event as an opportunity to “advance people’s thinking about spirit communication.” Bruce Goldberg was also in favor of trying the experiment and even invoked “white light protection” to shield the experimenters from any harm from lower astral entities. He, too, thought it would be educational for listeners as an example of psychic empowerment.
The dissenting voice came from Jordan Maxwell, and it was a strong one. He told George in no uncertain terms that such an experiment would be a mistake and that it was very dangerous and “extremely foolhardy”, warning there was a possibility of opening a portal that would allow dark entities to come through.
So there were two people approaching the night with a very positive attitude, and one with a very negative point of view.
Unfortunately, from my own point of view, George allowed the negative attitude to prevail. And his reasons for stopping the experiment seem ludicrous here in the 21st Century.
MISPLACED REASONING
We don’t even know for sure what the experiment was going to be or how it was to be conducted. We don’t know who was going to touch their fingers to the planchette or who was going to ask the questions. We don’t know what the questions might have been. The only clues we have are in George’s revelation that he had had a near-death experience that left him obsessed with the afterlife. His intention with the experiment was to see if he could contact spirits, specifically that of his dead aunt, who could tell him the afterlife is real.
So why did George back out? Because, he told his audience, of strange things that have happened in the previous weeks:
- People getting into car crashes
- People getting trapped in the St. Louis Arch (where he lives)
- His daughter is pregnant and she miscarried during a previous pregnancy
- An earthquake in Indonesia
- A previous guest’s mother had died
I cannot emphasize how crazy these reasons sound to me as someone who takes paranormal phenomena seriously. For one thing, these kinds of things happen every day. How is a radio Ouija experiment possibly responsible? Second, four of the five events took place before the experiment – not during or after.
What are the implications of these reasons? Because George Noory was going to conduct a Ouija board experiment on the air, did evil spirits cause car crashes and jam an elevator in the St. Louis Arch? Is he saying that the Devil reached out and killed that previous guest’s mother? Did legions of demons clawing out of the depths of Hell on their way to the Coast-to-Coast studios cause the earthquake? Was there a real fear that lower astral entities coming out of the Ouija board would affect his daughter’s pregnancy?
Wow. This is cynicism, negativity, superstition and fear of an appalling nature. George also quoted an e-mail from a listener who implored him to stop the experiment for the sake of mankind! Are you kidding? With this kind of overblown, narcissistic – I dare say silly – negativity floating around on Coast-to-Coast that night, maybe it’s a good thing he didn’t go ahead with the experiment.
WHO TO BLAME
Perhaps it’s worth disclosing here that I do not believe in the Devil, demons or even lower astral entities. These are names and personifications of the negativity and darkness that can arise out of our own human nature. Neither do I believe in the inherent evil of the Ouija board. The Ouija board, like anything else at which we direct our intention, yields what we put into it. If it’s used with a sense of good-natured experimentation and fun, that’s what you’ll get. If you approach it with fear and cynicism, that’s what will come out in return. This is true of any of life’s activities, from driving your car to raising your family.
In one respect, perhaps George made the right decision. He said he didn’t want to be responsible for anything bad happening. Indeed, had he gone ahead with the experiment, you can be certain that he would have been inundated with calls from many of his listeners blaming the experiment for all kinds of things. People would have been complaining for days about car troubles, deaths, lost keys, business woes and who knows what else. Stuff that happens all the time. There certainly would have been no acknowledgement of all the wonderful births, successful business deals, joyful family picnics or lottery wins that took place on that day and those following.
The Ouija board, demons and evil entities don’t cause our troubles. We do. With our intention, we direct the course of our lives, for good or ill.
BACKWARD THINKING
The Ouija experiment could have been an interesting, fun night of radio entertainment. That it was stopped was disappointing.
Here's the most disappointing thing about it: it's precisely this kind of superstitious nonsense that impedes serious paranormal research. I’m not sure how serious a paranormal experiment it could have been (probably not much, given the circumstances), but what happened is an example of how we can allow medieval superstition to block us from attempting to find out what’s really behind various forms of psychic phenomena. This backward thinking cannot possibly advance explorations into these mysteries, and it gives skeptics plenty of ammunition with which to make paranormal research look ridiculous.
Good didn’t win out over evil that night on Coast-to-Coast. Neither did the Devil and his minions win. What won out, unfortunately, was irrational fear. President Roosevelt's famous words apply well here: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
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