The Ouija Board

Regarding denial (see below), a true story:

Back in college, junior year, shortly after Halloween, the guys I worked with on the night shift in the dining hall came in all jumpy and agitated. Turns out they had been playing around with a Ouija board and had convinced themselves that some malicious spirit was haunting their dorm room.

I tried to convince them that they had nothing to worry about — that Ouija boards are nonsense and it was all just the power of suggestion.

Tommy, the one who seemed most freaked out, always wore a cross around his neck on a thin silver chain. I told him to take it off and to hold one end of the chain, letting the cross dangle.

"Hold your hand perfectly still," I told him. "Don't move your hand at all, OK? Now, without moving your hand, stare at the cross. Don't move your hand, just stare at the cross and think, 'Back and forth. Back and forth.'"

The cross, of course, began to sway slightly from side to side like a pendulum.

"OK, now — don't move your hand, but think, 'Circle. Circle. Circle.'"

The cross began to swing in tiny circles at the end of the chain. Tommy's eyes went wide.

"See?" I said. "It's all in your mind. It's just the power of suggestion." Unfortunately, the only words that seemed to register with Tommy and the rest of the crew were "mind" and "power."

"You're doing that!" Tommy said.

"No," I explained, "You're doing it with tiny movements of your hand. Just like the Ouija board."

"I wasn't moving my hand!" he insisted. "I was keeping my hand perfectly still. You've got some kind of mind power!"

Thing is, though, even as he loudly defended his belief in both Ouija boards and telekinesis, it seemed like he was a little bit embarrassed by the whole thing. Some part of him, I think, knew that it was ridiculous to have gotten so wigged out by a little plastic slider manufactured by Parker Brothers, just as some part of him knew that it was his hand and not my mind that had caused the cross to sway and rotate.

Yet embracing irrationality seemed easier, or perhaps more attractive, than admitting irrationality. Tommy remained convinced, more steadfastly than before, in the reality of Ouija boards and mind power.

I was never able to convince him otherwise. (Although I was able to convince him to swap chores with me so I didn't have to clean out the deep fryer anymore. That was probably wrong of me.)