October is the month we get cultural permission to treat ghosts, hauntings, curses and spells as entertainment, and I'm all for people having fun with it, especially kids. But some of what gets treated as a prop this time of year can carry something real. Antiques, jewelry, secondhand clothing and things passed down to you can carry imprints from previous owners or from what happened around them, and dolls can carry more than that, including earthbound spirits, spells and hexes, and in some cases possession. Washing or saging an object won't clear any of it. My work deals with these things literally, which is why there are some things I don't play with.
A Ouija board is probably the clearest example, although I didn't always know that.
When I was a teenager, I found one in an abandoned cottage and, because apparently finding a Ouija board in an abandoned cottage wasn't enough of a plotline from a horror movie, I brought it home.
My mom was as excited as I was, and we eagerly sat down with the board and planchette, ready to ask questions to the great beyond. Did we stop and clarify which beyond we were reaching out to? No. Did we realize that we should have? Also no. At one point, we asked whether anyone was haunting the abandoned house in the farmer's field across from our home. The board said yes. When we asked who, the planchette spelled out something that looked like Z-Mists.
Neither of us knew what that meant, but it gave us the major heebs. Not long afterward, we learned enough about Ouija boards to understand that playing with one wasn't something we wanted to continue doing, and that was the end of it; the board got placed in a cupboard, and I haven’t seen it since (which starts me wondering about a whole other layer, but that is not a rabbit hole I’m going down!).
Years later, through my training and the work I do now, I came to understand Ouija boards very differently. In my professional understanding, they're tools that can open communication with something you may not understand or know how to deal with, and I believe demonic activity can come through that kind of opening. By then, I had no question about whether I'd ever use one again.
What I hadn't thought much about was that board I'd brought home as a teenager, or the strange name it had given us.
Then last year, I listened to a series of Otherworld episodes about Ouija boards and heard accounts involving the names Zozo and Zaza. That Z immediately brought me back to Z-Mists and something I'd experienced decades before I had any professional context for understanding it.
I can't tell you that what came through our board was connected to Zozo, Zaza or anything those people experienced. I have no way of verifying that, and a similarity isn't enough for me to turn it into a conclusion.
But hearing those stories through the lens of what I now know professionally made that teenage experience land very differently. It connected something I'd learned through my work with something I'd experienced long before I had the knowledge to make sense of it.
I understand why people treat Ouija boards casually because I did too. They're sold as games and embedded in popular culture as spooky entertainment, so using one doesn't necessarily feel like a consequential decision. My own experience is part of why I don't assume someone using one is being reckless, but thinking you're only playing doesn't change what the board can open, and that's the part I didn't know when I carried the found one home.
I know now, which is why my advice is not to use one. Ever.
I approach spell work with similar caution, although for a different reason. With spell work, most people are deliberately trying to create an outcome, and knowing the steps of a spell isn't necessarily the same as understanding everything you're working with or setting in motion. In my experience and training, deeper magic has safety protocols that aren't widely taught, and without that knowledge, there can be consequences you didn't intend.
For me, the issue isn't that these things are spooky. It's that curiosity isn't the same thing as understanding what you're working with.
If something you've brought into your home has never sat right with you, a Professional Master Clearing™ that includes your home clears the objects in it too. The one exception is an object with demonic possession, which I can't clear. If I find one, I'll let you know.
