I don't believe in ghosts, paranormal activities, life after death, poltergeists, etc. But I did have one weird experience that I can't really explain.
It involved a Ouija board, an old one, made in 1967 or so. Right about the time that Parker Bros. took them over. It was the old style, where the board was
made of wood and the planchette was made of Bakelite or some sort of older plastic. My grandmother was TERRIFIED of them, and would not allow one in her
house, or even near her. She said they were the work of the devil.
She actually (almost) convinced me at the time that the Parker Bros. toy company was evil incarnate. I was an impressionable youth.
Fast forward to 1977 or so. I, and a good friend of mine from school were playing with the board. We did the usual things, tried to use it as a "medium" to talk to
dead relatives, etc. But I had an odd idea. I said "hey, what if we tape an ink pen to this thing, and see if it can work a maze!" I didn't actually have a maze for
it to solve, so I created one. (I used to make them all the time, in school.) So we did.
We taped the pen to the planchette, taped the maze to the board, set the pen to the start of the maze, put our hands on the planchette and closed our eyes.
The damned thing started moving! It moved up, left, down, up, left, right, down, left, up down. We felt all of this without seeing. It finally stopped. When it stopped,
it had actually WORKED THE MAZE! Now, it was not perfect, it passed through some lines a bit, but it was mostly accurate. This experience still kind of freaks me out.
I guess it is the
Ideomotor phenomenon. But I still can't really explain it. Yes, this actually happened. We both had our eyes closed. I don't believe in the paranormal.
But I don't quite know how to explain this one.
-glurk