The Ouija Board, What is the Draw?

Atheism has been on the rise for at least the two most recent generations. Church attendance is radically declining—52% of self-identified Christians do not attend a brink-and-mortar church—so churches are closing, but pop spiritualism focused on the self, called “self-care” or the “wellness movement,” is on the rise.

Yes, it is the great “awokening,” but rather empty as movements go. So, what’s the draw? Shunning the old-time religions is part of the fun, especially that Christian one. Getting hold of ethereal energies is another, but again, only if it has nothing to do with any “organized” religion. Out with you!

Trouble is there is something innately spiritual about us, some kind of knowledge of and longing for something more. We refuse to go to a church to find it, and our device screens take us only so far. So, where is it happening?

The move back to the occult, what Tara Isabella Burton calls Contemporary Occultism, could very possibly be it. (I suggest getting her book, Strange Rites.)

I live in Marin County, California. It is said to be the least Christian county in America. I have been the pastor of Miller Avenue Baptist Church of Mill Valley, now in my 37th year. There are multitudes more atheists, Wiccans, Buddhists, and shamans than Christians here. After all, Mill Valley is said to be at a major vortex of spirit power—Mt. Tamalpais. Tomorrow I begin a television program series where the area’s chief spokesperson for shamanism and I discuss and spar. After that will be a Buddhist, then I am hoping to find a Wiccan witch who is up for the challenge.

Frankly, the most interesting of the above groups is the Wiccan witches. They are knowingly in touch with the supernatural, and they love it. You can bet, they will acknowledge being in cahoots with the devil, probably renamed as some lord or master in nature.

These groups usually have rituals and items identified as “sacred” or “divine” elements to help with focusing the mind and the attention on the ceremony. It may be candles, burning sage, drumming, ingesting some psychotropic substance, chanting, meditating, or dancing in swirling rotation for long periods.

For the uninitiated who are just looking for an interesting pastime (at first) to play at with friends, there is the Ouija board. It has a peculiar allure, and it is quite strong. Picture this: guys and gals, a hookah with good stuff in it, some pills with mind expanding capacity, and up all night. All good? Sounds innocent! Someone brings out the board, and all gather about for a fun game. What could go wrong?

The pros insist it is nothing more than a mind game, called “the ideomotor effect, where your brain may unconsciously create images and memories when you ask the board questions. Your body responds to your brain without you consciously ‘telling’ it to do so, causing the muscles in your hands and arms to move the pointer to the answers that you — again, unconsciously — may want to receive.” (from the Vox article)

The scientific researchers are sure that the idea of anything supernatural or spiritual is a folk tale or worse, a hoax perpetrated on the young and naïve. That’s what they say.

But what is happening here? A man from the group gathered the other night around a Ouija Board says that two demons introduced themselves via the board: one was identified as a good demon, but another was a bad demon. They all decided to listen to the good demon but ignore the bad one. They don’t know that demons love to lie to humans. Oh, and forget the ideomotor effect, because the planchette continued to move and spell out words when all the participants had removed their hands!

No matter, who cares. There is no God. Let the Bible thumpers jump up and down. This is for real.

The Ouija Board, the preface

There were fifteen twenty-ish year olds crowded into a small room, and one of them brought a Ouija board along for fun. He said they could find out all about their future by playing it.

One of those present said, “Yeah, that is how the girl in the movie The Exorcist got messed up with Satan.” No one cared.

What fun! After a few minutes of fumbling around, the planchette was moving around the board answering questions. Mesmerized would be not adequate to describe the impact on the young people. As time went on it was revealed to the crowd that they had two demons in the room with them. One identified as a good demon, the other as a bad demon. All this came via the planchette, as it moved from letter-to-letter spelling things out.

At one point the planchette whizzed around when no one was touching it.

The bad demon? Okay, that one leave alone. But the good demon? This one we can trust, was the message.

The way I heard about it the very next day, and it went something like this: “Wow! We are in touch with the supernatural!”

A Startling Event

A STARTLING EVENT––JULY 11, 2024

Katie and I returned home from filming two programs of “The Bible Study” at Marin TV in San Rafael around 4:10pm, Thursday. Part of the first program was the story of Jesus casting a demon out of a young boy, which is in Mark 9:14–29. As I approached the ending of this episode, I talked about the deliverance ministry I had engaged in, going back to 1969. Then, though I hadn’t previously planned to, I talked about how our culture had so embraced the occult/psychic practices like astrology, crystal healing, tarot, channeling and so on, that there is now a great need for a renewed emphasis on Christians doing deliverance ministry, meaning casting out demons. Yes, involvement with these now popularly condoned practices will attract demonic spirits.

Back home then from filming, Katie got busy on the computer in her office, and I decided to see if there were any radishes I could harvest in one of my planter boxes in the back yard. (Nothing like a radish freshly plucked up.) I opened the sliding glass door in the dining room, first unlocking the door and taking up the wooden pole along the lower track, which is my usual way out to the backyard. I found a nice radish and headed back to the house to wash it off. When I got to the sliding glass window, I tried to pull it open, but it would not budge. I looked in and saw the wooden pole was back lying in its track. But I knew I had moved it just prior to my exit into the back yard. Not only that, but the latch that locked the slider was now pushed down into the locked position. Hmmm.

Okay, I thought, maybe I forgot that I came out the door from the garage, so I headed back to it but found that door locked also. That makes it very clear, I did not come outdoors that way.

Now I was confused. I checked the side gates on both sides of the house and found them secure, with the locking devices in place. Going back to the sliding door I tried again, and again I saw the wooden pole in place and the lock on the door pressed down.

Now I rapped on the window hoping to have Katie come and open the slider. It took a couple of sharp series of bangs, but she arrived and opened the heavy glass door. There I stood, dumbfounded, and I told her what had occurred, and we both tried to look at the events and hopefully figure out what had happened.

Exhausting all possibilities, we had to arrive at a conclusion that I am not unfamiliar with. Had this been a demonic event? The story is too long and involved, but I had experienced a weird event the evening prior to the first time I was involved in the casting out of demons. Was what happened with the slider something similar, and perhaps was it linked to what I said about the need for deliverance ministry earlier that afternoon at Marin TV?

When I woke up this morning, I began to think about what had happened the previous afternoon. Could the slider deal have been of a demonic origin? Later on, now just 30 minutes or so ago, Katie and I took another look at it, considered possibilities, but the reality struck home again, the slider door had been locked and its pole in place, and neither of us did it. Was this was an attempt by the forces of evil to dissuade, scare, and maybe prevent us from encouraging, engaging in, and supporting the very biblical ministry of casting out of demons.

To close this short essay, I want to set out the third verse from Martin Luther’s great hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is our God.”

And though this world with devils filled, Should threaten to undo us,

We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us.

The prince of darkness grim, We tremble not for him,

His rage we can endure, For lo, his doom is sure:

One little word shall fell him.

“We will not fear” I love these words. Indeed, we go forward with a most important aspect of Christian ministry—casting demons out of those who come to us seeking this mighty work.

A Startling Event

JULY 11, 2024

Katie and I returned home from filming two programs of “The Bible Study” at Marin TV in San Rafael around 4:10pm, Thursday. Part of the first program was the story of Jesus casting a demon out of a young boy, which is in Mark 9:14–29. As I approached the ending of this episode, I talked about the deliverance ministry I had engaged in, going back to 1969. Then, though I hadn’t previously planned to, I talked about how our culture had so embraced the occult/psychic practices like astrology, crystal healing, tarot, channeling and so on, that there is now a great need for a renewed emphasis on Christians doing deliverance ministry, meaning casting out demons. Yes, involvement with these now popularly condoned practices will attract demonic spirits.

Back home then from filming, Katie got busy on the computer in her office, and I decided to see if there were any radishes I could harvest in one of my planter boxes in the back yard. (Nothing like a radish freshly plucked up.) I opened the sliding glass door in the dining room, unlocking the door and taking up the wooden pole along the lower track, which is my usual way out to the backyard. I found a nice radish and headed back to the house to wash it off. When I got to the sliding glass window, I tried to pull it open, but it would not budge. I looked in and saw the wooden pole was back lying in its track. But I know I had moved it just prior to my exit into the back yard. Not only that, but the latch that locked the slider was now pushed down into the locked position. Hmmm.

Okay, I thought, maybe I forgot that I came out the door from the garage, so I headed back to it but found that door locked also. That makes it very clear, I did not come outdoors that way.

Now I was confused. I checked the side gates on both sides of the house and found them secure, with the locking devices in place. Going back to the sliding door I tried again, and I again saw the wooden pole in place and the lock on the door pressed down.

Now I rapped on the window hoping to have Katie come and open the slider. It took a couple of sharp series of bangs, but she arrived and opened the heavy glass door. There I stood, dumbfounded, and I told her what had occurred, and we both tried to look at the events and hopefully figure out what happened.

Exhausting all possibilities, we had to arrive at a conclusion that I am not unfamiliar with. Had this been a demonic event? The story is too long and involved, but I had experienced a weird event the evening prior to the first time I was involved in the casting out of demons. Was what happened with the slider something similar, and perhaps was it linked to what I said about the need for deliverance ministry earlier that afternoon at Marin TV?

When I woke up this morning, I began to think about what had happened the previous afternoon. Could the slider deal have been of a demonic origin? Later on, now just 30 minutes or so ago, Katie and I took another look at it, considering possibilities, but the reality struck home again, that the slider door had been locked and its pole in place, and neither of us did it. This was an attempt by the forces of evil to dissuade, scare, and maybe prevent us from encouraging, engaging in, and supporting the very biblical ministry of casting out of demons.

To close this short essay, I want to set out the third verse from Martin Luther’s great hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is our God.”

And though this world with devils filled, Should threaten to undo us,

We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us.

The prince of darkness grim, We tremble not for him,

His rage we can endure, For lo, his doom is sure:

One little word shall fell him.

“We will not fear” I love these words. Indeed, we go forward with a most important aspect of Christian ministry—casting demons out of those who come to us seeking this mighty work.

One Last Word

For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” Matthew 16:26a (The Greek word psychen is translated “soul” here, and the word means life, human life.) 

Those engaged in direct satanic groups like Wicca, Santería, and many other occult-oriented practices often engage in them because of the promise of obtaining power and knowledge. Much of this has to do with sex, sex, and more sex, and great amounts of money, and positions of power. And for a while, the devil delivers what it promised, but the whole of it will turn wormy and horrid down the line. 

Worse than that, however, is the fact that this person will spend an eternity in hell, that place to where Satan and his followers are sentenced and will be placed at the very moment Jesus Christ ushers in the Day of Judgment. 

So then, for a short period a person has his or her heart’s desire but then absolute hell for all eternity. 

How do we know this? One reason is that during the process of doing the ministry of deliverance, that is casting out demons, the demons will often beg and plead not to be sent into hell. 

Here is an account in the Bible that speaks to this. It is Luke 8:26–33: 

Jesus Heals a Man with a Demon 

[26] Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. [27] When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs. [28] When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.” [29] For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many a time it had seized him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.) [30] Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion,” for many demons had entered him. [31] And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. [32] Now a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. [33] Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned. (ESV) 

The last word in verse 31 is abyss, and it is a synonym for hell. 

We are pleading with those who are caught up in demonic practices to withdraw and seek God for forgiveness. 

And for those of you who know you have various spirits living in you, they can be cast out. 

If you would like to contact us about this, do so by using this internet address: 

earthenvesselmedia.com/contact 

Please be patient, but in time we will do this ministry over the internet, and we counsel that you go to wherever you purchase books and find the three we have published on this subject: 

A Manual of Demonology and the Occult 

Deliver Us From Evil: How Jesus Casts Out Demons Today 

Deliverance Handbook: A Guide to Casting Out Demons for Today’s Christian. 

The most important of these is the last one, Deliverance Handbook. We will use this book in the process of the deliverance work, which usually takes at least three Zoom meetings. The first one is for preparation, then the actual work, and the last is what we call “after care.”

Those Precious Days,

 Chapter 50

Sometimes looking back on those precious times brings tears to my eyes. Now is one of those moments.

It did not occur to me how wonderful those days were. I was just too young and stupid. “Stupid” may be the wrong choice of words, but right now it seems to fit. “Short-sighted” certainly describes the mindset. Yes, I wrote in my journal but not nearly enough. Photos were taken, but few and far between. Over time I lost track of many of my companions and friends from that era; I did not understand that those days would never come again. I didn’t have the long view.

It didn’t all go unrecorded, however. At least I had the sense to collect and save what materials I could, but it was not until Larry Eskridge was engaged in preparing God’s Forever Family and asked me to let him borrow them for a time that it dawned on me how significant those documents were.

One document, the manuscript for the Two Brothers in Haight, was nowhere to be found. It was my first book, a collaboration between David Hoyt and myself covering the early years, 1967 to 1969, and was based largely on my hand-written journal. When Brian Ivie, my now dear friend who wanted to capture the Jesus People Movement on film, pressed me, I finally made a complete search of my materials and found it. What I found was in fact the first original typed copy of those early days, and you guessed it, tears filled my eyes.

Now at age seventy-four the images are fuzzy. This memoirs book forces me to recall people, places, and event details, and when that thought process fails me I am forced to seek other means to find out what really happened during that period. Many of the folks from whom I sought help are gone, some have disappeared, and some do not want to talk to me at all. Yet there are many who graciously came alongside and helped put this little book together. Frankly, I was shocked at the enthusiasm generated by so many at the effort, and it turned out to be great fun to look back and relive those precious days. 

As I prepared this chapter, one verse kept coming to mind, Philippians 1:6, and it seems like a proper ending for this memoir: “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” 

How to Recognize that You Have a Demon

 Chapter 30 of Pathways to Darkness

This chapter is based upon our experience of casting demons out of those who came to us for help. Over 99% of these were Christians, persons previously engaging in dangerous spiritual practices, but having come to Jesus as Lord and Savior, who recognized their need and looked for help. 

There were a few instances when non-Christians came for deliverance after they had been tormented by evil spirits living in them or around them. None of them, however, went through with it, because the indwelling demons warned them that the goodies they were providing would disappear. Following is one example. 

Some years back, maybe fifteen years ago, Kent received a phone call from a young man, about thirty years of age, who lived on Bridgeway Avenue in an apartment complex in Sausalito, right across the street from Mollie Stones, a large grocery store. He would be told, not out loud, but in his head somehow, that he was to cross the street, enter the store, go to a particular aisle where a woman could be found, and who would then come with him and spend the night with him. Sex, of course, was the main attraction. 

As usual, Kent began to command any demonic spirit(s) in the man to come out. He sat there quietly for ten or more minutes, when all of a sudden he opened his eyes and said, “I am told that if the spirit comes out there will be no more women.” With that he stood up, walked out of the office, down the aisle of the church building, and out the front door. Kent never heard from him again. 

This fellow knew he had an evil spirit in him, because in addition to finding sex for him, the demon bothered him to a serious degree, both emotionally and mentally. Based on many years of doing this work, we present some of the ways an indwelling demon will interact with someone they possess. 

An evil spirit will actually speak to a person they indwell, not that anyone nearby could hear, it will be inside the head. 

A cloud might appear, or even a ball of fire—appear then disappear. 

Things in one’s house may be moved around. Back in the 1970’s, Kent worked with the exorcist of the San Francisco Archdiocese, an elderly priest who had read Kent’s book, A Manual of Demonology and the Occult. During this work he saw some incredible things. At one home of a couple who were seeking help, shoes would come flying out of closed closets, knives flew out of drawers in the kitchen and stick into a wall—and this dozens of times. He recalls running his hand over the dozens upon dozens of places where knives had been stuck. 

One woman Kent ministered to almost forty years ago would wake up to find a spirit having sex with her, actually penetrating her, and her husband would be right next to her, frozen with fear. The spirit looked like a lizard and would slither away and evaporate into the darkness. 

Some demonized people would physically attack, with an intent to injure or even kill someone they knew or a stranger. 

Most often, however, the evil spirits engaged in talking, shouting, and/ or whispering to the person demonized, to the point of driving that person crazy, to the point they would do anything, take anything, drink anything to make the voices go away. There were incidents when a psychologist would be consulted and medicines prescribed, but the voices remained. Very sad indeed. And we are not saying that mental illness is demonic in origin, but the symptoms of demonization can look like some forms of mental illness. 

Sometimes evil spirits will present as an animal spirit, a guide spirit, a dead ancestor, an angel, a deity, a channelor, a medium, and much more, and there will be communication. At first it will seem fairly benign, even helpful, even exciting, but this changes over time and whatever the entity and experience is, it becomes tormenting. 

We wish all this were not so, but we must be aware of how the demonic kingdom reigns over its subjects.