By Elizabeth Lowe
Staff writer
Groveland Twp. – Arlene Dufresne may never know if a Ouija board invoked a ghostly presence in her Thayer Road home five years ago.
Dufresne’s mother-in-law was watching the children in her new home, when a niece brought out a Ouija board for the kids to play with.
Two days later, her son was upstairs installing shelves in the bathroom’s medicine cabinet. Shutting the door, he looked into the mirror to see a woman standing in the bathtub. Wearing a full-length red dress with short sleeves, the woman had long brown hair.
“He came running down the stairs, white as a ghost, yelling for me,” said Dufresne, who said he “described her clear as a bell.”
After the sighting, the teens confessed to playing with the Ouija board.
“I was mad that they brought it,” she said. “I didn’t want it there.”
Dufresne’s niece brought the board back, asking the woman to leave, she said.
Was the dark-haired woman real?
“My personal belief is the Bible does talk about angels and demons,” said the Rev. Jeff Stonerock of Victory World Outreach Center in Goodrich. “If somebody can see an angel, somebody can certainly see a spirit.”
Stonerock, who has been approached by parishioners who believed their houses were haunted, cautions that God is the only supernatural force that should be sought.
“When you go seeking for the supernatural I believe you can find it, whether it’s things of God that lead you toward Jesus Christ, or things of the devil. One of the 10 commandments says ‘Seek the Lord thy God with all thy heart.”
Stonerock sees Ouija boards, psychics, and horoscopes as being in the same class as sorcerers and the occult.
“The Bible talked about sorcerers way back when. Christ did away with all those things-they were just imitations of the real thing.”
The Ouija board, which requires players to mutually place hands on a central game piece for answering questions, has been sold by Parker Brothers since 1967, said Hasbro Games Public Relations Director Mark Morris of Massachusetts.
Although Morris has received feedback from customers about the board conjuring up spirits, the company’s “main position is ‘it’s only for fun,’ he said.
Reading from the Ouija box in his office, Morris injects a note of mystery into his voice. “It’s only a game—isn’t it?” he says.
“The point is, it’s just a game, it’s always been just a game. Intriguing, perhaps, but it’s always been done in the spirit of fun.”
What about the ghost stories he’s heard?
“Who knows?” said Morris. “Personally I think it’s the power of suggestion. I’m no philosopher, I’m no psychologist, but the power of suggestion is very strong.”
The board game has become a popular classic. “If it didn’t sell well it wouldn’t have lasted this long,” said Morris, who declined to reveal how many Ouija boards have been sold by Parker Brothers.
While the Rev. Stonerock stresses the dangers of seeking out unholy supernatural forces, he says he is always willing to pray with those who have such concerns.
“You have to weigh everything in your mind—if it’s producing Godly results,” said Stonerock. “If it’s causing fear, you know it’s not of God. The Bible says God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a sound mind, so if it causes your mind to be at disrest and hinders love, it’s not of God.”