Beautiful Halloween Fantasy

This post is part of a series of tongue-in-cheek streams of consciousness inspired by the holidays.

The featured image for this post is me in my favorite Halloween costume, after I had come out of the closet and before I was able to grow out my own hair–hence the wig.

I have a weird relationship with Halloween: almost every year since I was 21, it’s like I internally skip over the expected “spooky” mood and go right to Christmas cheer. I don’t know why, but Halloween Day 2013 I got this powerful craving to watch It’s a Wonderful Life and since then, I always revisit that film on this time of year. I guess the suicidal ideations, exceptionally cruel antagonist and supernatural climax tie into the spirit of Halloween at least somewhat, so it’s not a total stretch. Or maybe I’m just trying to find optimism and joy in a time of fear and darkness. Who knows?

I want to focus on that concept of paradoxical cheer in a traditionally scary subject for the rest of this blog entry.

There’s this amazing Ouija board story I want to share, which managed to be uplifting despite Ouija’s reputation. I originally found this memoir years ago on a now long-gone website where users could submit their own experiences with the board. Some of the stories were standard fare (though well-told nonetheless,) such as board users reconnecting with dead relatives. In one instance, the soul of a user’s brother helped ward off malevolent spirits who were trying to do her harm. Others conveyed the horror of being haunted by entities unleashed from their session, who tormented users well after they stopped consulting the Ouija. Tantalizingly, one submission was meta in the sense that the storyteller claimed they had asked the Ouija spirits to verify if the site was accurate. They answered that one of the stories submitted was a lie–without specifying which. Tragically, the site went down before I could read them all, I forgot the name of it, and as a result I haven’t managed to find anything even on the Internet archive. A part of me is still bummed by that–no other online aggregate of Ouija stories I’ve seen has the same level of narrative quality.

Fortunately one account, my favorite of the original collection in fact, was copied to other places on the web. So, I was able to save the text for myself a few years ago as a result. I would have loved to post a link to the tale on its own so that the host site gets the comments and page views. Unfortunately, even this backup location seems to have gone down since I accessed it, because I can’t find this particular story again anywhere. So, instead, I’d like to post the text myself for posterity reasons. Of course, I did NOT write this story, I did NOT experience this Ouija session firsthand, and I am NOT affiliated with the original content creator. His name is Ken Korczak but from what I can tell he also sometimes uses the handle “Dr. 58.” Besides Twitter, you can find his own blog on Ouija sessions, an earlier blogspot site where he shared additional stories, yet another site devoted to his unique experiences, and if all that wasn’t enough, some published books available on Amazon. I would highly recommend checking out his work, he’s a fantastic storyteller who has a fascinating alternate take on the nature of the Ouija board. Please go and see the rest of his writing on his own websites, give him your views and comments, and spread the word.

This story I’m about to share, and the author’s other writing, has made me question whether or not the board itself is really this dangerous, demonic entity it’s been built up to be. I now consider the possibility that Ouija may actually be a pathway to communicating with the denizens of alternate dimensions, some nefarious, yes, but others who are far more enlightened than us. I wonder if perhaps the only reason so many people have scary, negative experiences with the Ouija board nowadays is because the discourse and media surrounding it always portray the activity as such. So users psych themselves into that fearful mindset and get what they expected because that’s what their subconscious “wanted.” Originally, the Ouija had no such satanic connections and perhaps there’s no reason they should now. Even if the scientific explanation for why talking boards work is correct, it could still represent a way to channel important subconscious thoughts and get a better insight into oneself. (Similar to keeping a dream journal, in fact.)

Whether it be parallel universe, spirits or a window to the mind, that’s the kind of thing which an alternate religion could be based on, at least according to Mr. Korczak himself. (Me, I will continue to practice Aquarian Pantheism, as detailed elsewhere on the blog–but there’s nothing in this “Ouija religion” that’s incompatible with that!)

The Love Beings by Ken Korczak

Okay, here is another preview of my soon to come book, Secrets of the Lost Ouija Board Files. This was a very long session with the Ouija Board that I will call “unusual” and I’m sure you will agree.

The session was conducted with my relative Stephan, who is a citizen of Poland, and who was visiting me here in America at the time.

Also, and I’m not sure if this is significant, Stephan is now a professional Zen Monk, but before that, he earned his Ph.D, is physics, and was an expert on the process of melting plastics.

At this session, about 8 or 9 people were present, and our good friend Darcy agreed to sit by with notebook and act as recorder.

Also for your convenience, all answers from the Ouija Board entities will be in ALL-CAPS!

Session Opening: Greetings! We are extremely curious beings who live in physical existence on a planet we call Earth! We seek a conversation with friendly, highly intelligent and advance beings.

OPENING ANSWER: LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! WE ARE OVERJOYED TO MEET OUR FELLOW MANIFESTATIONS IN LOVE!

Question: Thank you, and greetings! Who are you?

ANSWER: WE ARE LOVE!

Question: Do you have a name, and why do you say “we”?

ANSWER: WE ARE LOVE!

Question: Love? Is that your name?

ANSWER: LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! WE ARE LOVE!

Question: Do we speak with multiple beings, or just one being?

ANSWER: THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS LOVE!

Question: Okay. We get the impression that you are not an individual, but a kind of group mind centered around the concept of love? Is that correct?

ANSWER: WE ARE LOVE!

Question: How many are you?

ANSWER: MANY, MANY. WE ARE LOVE!

Question: So your existence is all about love? Do you do anything else?

ANSWER: WE MANIFEST LOVE! LOVE IS THE ALL!

Question: How would you define love?

ANSWER: LOVE IS THE ALL! WE ARE EAGER TO LEARN ABOUT YOUR LOVE! TELL US ABOUT LOVE IN YOUR WORLD! WILL YOU SHARE YOUR LOVING EXISTENCE?

Question: Certainly. We also highly regard love here on Earth. What specifically do you want to know?

ANSWER: HOW DO YOU LOVE?

Question: A profound question! It is also a difficult question. We love in many different ways. For example, in our physical existence, we make distinctions between ourselves based on something called sex. Our species is basically divided into two different sexes, which are discrete categories based on biology, although both categories are fully human beings. Human beings is what we call ourselves. Anyway, the different sexes are primarily bound to each other by love. Love causes us to cling to one another, and thereby, continue our species, among other things. This is just one example of love in our world.

ANSWER: WE ARE SHIMMERING, WE ARE SHIMMERING, WE ARE SHIMMERING, WE ARE SHIMMERING, WE ARE SHIMMERING ….

(Note: At this point, the love beings started saying “We are shimmering” over and over again, and we had no idea as to what this meant. We didn’t want to sit there all night watching the oracle spell out “We are shimmering” so we tried to break in by asking more questions, but it took several tries before we finally broke the shimmering spell.)

Question: What do you mean when you say that you are shimmering?

ANSWER: TO LEARN NEW THINGS ABOUT LOVE DRIVES US TO ECSTASY! TO SHIMMER IS TO EXPRESS OUR OVERWHELMING JOY AT THE AMAZING WONDER OF LOVE! TELL US MORE ABOUT HOW LOVE MANIFESTS IN YOUR UNIVERSE!

Question: Will this cause you to start shimmering again?

ANSWER: WE SHIMMER THE JOY OF LOVE!

Question: We don’t blame you. Well, we also identify different kinds of love, which are not based on sexual identity, but rather on our love for many things, such as all human beings, other species of beings which we call animals, and we even love other things, like our beautiful planet, and much more. Some separate love into two broad categories, which we call Eros and Agape. Eros is a love that involves the physical process of reproduction, while Agape is a more general, and some say, higher kind of love, such as a love for all humanity, but not involving sex.

ANSWER: WE ARE SHIMMERING, WE ARE SHIMMERING, WE ARE SHIMMERING …

(Note: As I suspected, the further information I provided about love caused the Love Beings to go off on a nonstop “shimmering” jag, which we could not break — we didn’t know what to do, but then, suddenly, the session took a strange new twist.

What happened was this: Darcy, our Ouija stenographer, became suddenly overwhelmed with emotion — surprising us all. She burst into tears and ran into another room and closed the door. I could hear her sobbing heavily on the other side of the door. I finally convinced her to let me in to find out what was wrong.

To make a very long story short, here was the problem: The thing about Darcy is that she is fantastically beautiful woman, with Hollywood good looks, luxurious raven-black hair that tumbles to her shoulders, and stunning green eyes — but, who, nevertheless, was extremely unlucky in her love life. At the time of this session, she was 36 years old and unmarried. The pattern of her love life was one she describes as “serial monogamy.” In other words, Darcy had no shortage of boyfriends and relationships, but none of them ever lasted, and her heart had been bitterly broken many times. She had even been engaged two or three times, but never made it to the altar.

The pattern was always the same: Darcy would meet a man and fall madly in love. She and her new love interest would experience the intense euphoria of a new love relationship, and she would completely lose herself in it. But then the relationship would always cool off, and end is a bitter break-up. In short, Darcy had been searching for her “soul mate” all her life, only to experience a long and agonizing string of painful disappointments, each time resulting in intense emotional pain, loneliness and feelings of worthlessness.

Finding that “perfect love” was Darcy’s life-long obsession, yet, it seems it was the one thing she could not have.

I suspected the way this Ouija session was playing out was no accident. I theorized that even though Darcy herself was not at the Ouija Board with Stephan and I, her consciousness was deeply influencing the session as or recorder, and may have been instrumental in contacting the Love Beings, since her obsession was love.

A plan immediately presented itself: Because we had apparently made contact with what are possibly the ultimate experts on the subject of love — wouldn’t it be great if the Love Beings could once and for all solve Darcy’s problem and offer her a solution to her life-long quest for lasting love?

I suggested to Darcy that we ask the Love Beings to help her with her problem and she agreed very eagerly — however, she did not want all the other people that were observing our session to listen in — which is totally understandable.

Again, to make a long story short, I requested that all others leave because we had decided that we were going to move the session into some very sensitive territory. Of course, this was like cat nip to everyone, and they protested vociferously. They wanted to stay. they knew we were onto to something big — but I managed to get everyone kicked out so we could let the Love Beings counsel Darcy on her love life.

When we finally returned to the Ouija Board — which was about an hour later — the love beings were still shimmering, but we finally managed to get them to stop and talk to us by tempting with the news that we had fantastic new revelations to reveal about love. I knew this would be like catnip to them! And so the session continues:)

Question: Love Beings, with us here is a dear friend who has problems with the force of love, and she seeks your aid. Our friend, Darcy, seems to be suffering from a kind of dysfunction in her ability to love. Can you offer her help?

ANSWER: WE ENTHUSIASTICALLY AGREE TO GIVE DARCY ALL OUR LOVE AND HELP!

Question: Wonderful!

(Note: We then described Darcy’s situation in some detail, and asked for a solution to Darcy’s serial monogamy.)

ANSWER: PLEASE TELL US, DARCY, HOW MANY LOVE CONSTRUCTS HAVE YOU CREATED?

(Note: By this we assumed that the Love Beings wanted to know how many broken relationships Darcy had suffered. Darcy answered without a hesitation. She said that she had suffered 14 broken relationships in her lifetime. So we told the Love Beings that Darcy had 14 “love constructs”).

ANSWER: WHY IS THIS A PROBLEM? THIS IS SO MUCH WONDERFUL LOVE. YOU ARE A LOVING BEING, DARCY! WE LOVE YOU!

(Note: Darcy began to weep softly at this, but very much wanted to continue.)

Question: Well, it’s a problem because each of these 14 love constructs have dissolved, leaving no love behind, but only a lack of love.

ANSWER: THIS IS NOT SO! DARCY IS A BEING OF GREAT LOVE, A GREAT ARTIST OF LOVE! SHE HAS CREATED 14 LOVE CONSTRUCTS, EACH OF WHICH REMAINS TO THIS DAY AND ARE A SHIMMERING TESTAMENT TO HER GREAT CAPACITY TO CREATE LOVE!

Question: Could you explain what you mean by this?

ANSWER: LOVE CAN NEVER BE DISSOLVED ONCE CREATED. LOVE IS UNBREAKABLE ENERGY! EACH OF DARCY’S LOVE CONSTRUCTS EXIST IN FORM, AND REMAIN IN THE UNIVERSE, ATTACHED TO HER, AND ARE A SHINING TRIBUTE TO HER ABILITY TO PRODUCE LOVE! DARCY IS A VERY GREAT BEING!

Question: Yes, but Darcy has no love in her life now. She lives alone and without love.

ANSWER: IMPOSSIBLE! DARCY IS BUILDING A MULTIFACETED CONSTRUCT OF LOVE! IT IS A DAZZLING TRIBUTE TO LOVE, AND WE ARE GRATEFUL, WE ARE SHIMMERING, WE ARE SHIMMERING, WE ARE SHIMMERING …

Question: Please forego your shimmering and you will be rewarded with more information about love!

ANSWER: PLEASE CONTINUE!

Question: Let us try to explain more completely. On our planet, we place particular value on a certain kind of love. The kind of love we are talking about involves two human beings who form a love construct between them, and then maintain that singular love construct for the duration of their existence, exclusive of other physical beings — for that particular kind of love. They may yet have love for others, such as their children, which are subsets of the primary love construct consisting of two individuals who share love. However, the singularity love construct created by two human beings who love each other exclusively for the duration of their physical existence is of premium value in our existence. It is this singularity love construct that Darcy seeks, and now wishes to add it to her 14-part love construct as a crowing achievement. Can you suggest a solution?

ANSWER: WE ARE SHIMMERING, WE ARE SHIMMERING, WE ARE SHIMMERING ….

(As I suspected, our description of a lasting love between just two people drove the Love Beings into intense paroxysms of shimmering, which took a very long time for Stephan and I to break, and we were starting to get exhausted from this already long session. Yet, Darcy was now extremely thirsty for advice from the Love Beings, and I think if we would have tried to quit at this point, she would have stabbed us both to death with a kitchen knife.)

Question: Love Beings, please tell help our friend Darcy. Can she form a singular, lasting love construct?

ANSWER: DARCY HAS ALREADY COMPLETED MOST OF NECESSARY WORK. IF SHE WISHES A LOVE SINGULARITY CONSTRUCT, SHE HAS ONLY TO PUT HER POLYHEDRON OF LOVE TO WORK FOR HERSELF.

Question: How can this be accomplished?

ANSWER: WE INSTRUCT DARCY TO GATHER HER 14 LOVE CONSTRUCT PARTNERS AND POSITION THEM TOGETHER. SHE WILL ALSO NEED THE ASSISTANCE OF AN EXISTING SINGULARITY LOVE CONSTRUCT — IN YOUR CASE, THIS IS APPARENTLY TWO BEINGS OF YOUR SEXES WHO HAVE MAINTAINED A LOVE SINGULARITY CONSTRUCT FOR THE DURATION OF THEIR LOVING ACTIVITY. INSTRUCT DARCY TO PLACE THE SINGULARITY LOVE CONSTRUCT IN A SPECIFIC LOCATION, AND POSITION HER 14 LOVE CONSTRUCT PARTNERS AROUND THEM. DARCY SHOULD THEN PLACE HERSELF IN THE CENTER WITH THE TWO BEINGS OF THE SINGULARITY LOVE CONSTRUCT. SHE SHOULD THEN INSTRUCT HER 14 LOVE CONSTRUCT PARTNERS TO SHIFT THEIR POSITIONS UNTIL SHE FEELS THE POLYHEDRON OF LOVE COME INTO SYNCHRONIZATION.

WITH YOU WE SENSE A BEING OF EXTRAORDINARY CONSCIOUSNESS. DARCY SHOULD MATCH THE FORM OF CONSCIOUSNESS USED BY THIS BEING AS SHE TUNES AND MANIPULATES HER LOVE POLYHEDRON CONSTRUCT. SHE WILL SOON COME INTO ALIGNMENT WITH THE LATTICES OF HER LOVE CONSTRUCT, AND BECOME PERFECTLY CENTERED IN LOVE. ONCE ACCOMPLISHED, DARCY WILL REALIZE THE LOVE SINGULARITY SHE DESIRES!

Question: This being of “extraordinary consciousness.” Who is this?

ANSWER: IT IS THE BEING WHOM WITH YOU COOPERATE IN COMMUNICATION WITH US.

(Note: So the beings seemed to be say that my cousin, Stephan, who as a Zen monk, should teach Darcy how to condition her mind with Zen meditation. Stephan speculated that the mode of consciousness the Love Beings were referring to was the alpha state of brain function– experienced meditators who have been studied in a laboratory setting have been shown to emit alpha wave patterns in their brains.)

Question: So what you seem to be saying, Love Beings, is that Darcy should find a couple who have maintained an exclusive loving relationship for many years, sit with them, and then have her 14 previous lovers surround them, and then attempt to fine tune a kind of psychic love polyhedron as she puts herself into a meditative state?

ANSWER: IT WOULD BE A LOVE CONSTRUCT OF GREAT WONDER AND DARCY WOULD KNOW GREAT LOVE!

(Note: At this point Darcy, Stephan and I paused and contemplated the remarkable information we had just received in silence. I could sense, however, that Darcy was smoldering inside, and seemed tall but ready to implode. I imagine she was thinking about the crazy idea of calling up the 14 men who had been her lovers over that last 15 or 20 years, and thinking about what it would be like to have them all in one room.

Suddenly, Darcy jumped up from her chair, stepped toward me and Stephan and then violently tipped over the small table that sat between us with the Ouija Board on top of it. The board and the oracle went flying. Darcy threw her pencil and notepad against the wall and stormed out of the house, weeping.

Stephan maintained his wonderful Zen calm, quietly picked up the table and Ouija Board and set them back in place. Despite the disastrous result of the evening, Stephan felt we should thank the Love Beings for doing their best, and in good faith, he believed.

So we put our fingers back on the oracle.)

Question: Thank you, Love Beings! We think it is wonderful that there are Being who are dedicated to love! Farewell!

ANSWER: WE ARE SHIMMERING, WE ARE SHIMMERING, SHIMMERING, WE ARE SHIMMERING ….