<P> Since early in the Ouija board's history, it has been criticized by several Christian denominations . For example, Catholic Answers, a Roman Catholic Christian apologetics organization, states that "The Ouija board is far from harmless, as it is a form of divination (seeking information from supernatural sources)." Moreover, Catholic Christian bishops in Micronesia called for the boards to be banned and warned congregations that they were talking to demons when using Ouija boards . In a pastoral letter, The Dutch Reformed Churches encouraged its communicants to avoid Ouija boards, as it is a practice "related to the occult". The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod also forbids its faithful from using Ouija boards as it teaches that such would be a violation of the Ten Commandments . </P> <P> In 2001, Ouija boards were burned in Alamogordo, New Mexico, by fundamentalist groups alongside Harry Potter books as "symbols of witchcraft ." Religious criticism has also expressed beliefs that the Ouija board reveals information which should only be in God's hands, and thus it is a tool of Satan . A spokesperson for Human Life International described the boards as a portal to talk to spirits and called for Hasbro to be prohibited from marketing them . </P> <Ul> <Li> Roland Doe used a Ouija board, which the Catholic Church stated led to his possession by a demon . </Li> <Li> Dick Brooks, of the Houdini Museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania, uses a Ouija board as part of a paranormal and seance presentation . </Li> <Li> Jane Roberts initially contacted Seth through the Ouija board, calling him an' energy personality essence no longer focused in the physical world' . The book Seth Speaks was an explanation of reality by Seth . </Li> <Li> G.K. Chesterton used a Ouija board in his teenage years . Around 1893, he had gone through a crisis of scepticism and depression, and during this period Chesterton experimented with the Ouija board and grew fascinated with the occult . </Li> <Li> Early press releases stated that Vincent Furnier's stage and band name "Alice Cooper" was agreed upon after a session with a Ouija board, during which it was revealed that Furnier was the reincarnation of a 17th - century witch with that name . Alice Cooper later revealed that he just thought of the first name that came to his head while discussing a new band name with his band . </Li> <Li> Poet James Merrill used a Ouija board for years and even encouraged entrance of spirits into his body . </Li> <Li> Former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi claimed under oath that, in a séance held in 1978 with other professors at the University of Bologna, the "ghost" of Giorgio La Pira used a Ouija to spell the name of the street where Aldo Moro was being held by the Red Brigades . According to Peter Popham of The Independent: "Everybody here has long believed that Prodi's Ouija board tale was no more than an ill - advised and bizarre way to conceal the identity of his true source, probably a person from Bologna's seething far - left underground whom he was pledged to protect ." </Li> <Li> The Mars Volta wrote their album Bedlam in Goliath (2008) based on their alleged experiences with a Ouija board . According to their story (written for them by a fiction author, Jeremy Robert Johnson), Omar Rodriguez Lopez purchased one while traveling in Jerusalem . At first the board provided a story which became the theme for the album . Strange events allegedly related to this activity occurred during the recording of the album: the studio flooded, one of the album's main engineers had a nervous breakdown, equipment began to malfunction, and Cedric Bixler - Zavala's foot was injured . Following these bad experiences the band buried the Ouija board . </Li> <Li> In the murder trial of Joshua Tucker, his mother insisted that he had carried out the murders while possessed by the Devil, who found him when he was using a Ouija board . </Li> <Li> Bill Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, used a Ouija board and conducted seances in attempts to contact the dead . </Li> <Li> Much of William Butler Yeats's later poetry was inspired, among other facets of occultism, by the Ouija board . Yeats himself did not use it, but his wife did . </Li> <Li> In London in 1994, convicted murderer Stephen Young was granted a retrial after it was learned that four of the jurors had conducted a Ouija board séance and had "contacted" the murdered man, who had named Young as his killer . Young was convicted for a second time at his retrial and jailed for life . </Li> <Li> Aleister Crowley had great admiration for the use of the ouija board and it played a passing role in his magical workings . Jane Wolfe, who lived with Crowley at Abbey of Thelema, also used the Ouija board . She credits some of her greatest spiritual communications to use of this implement . Crowley also discussed the Ouija board with another of his students, and the most ardent of them, Frater Achad (Charles Stansfeld Jones): it is frequently mentioned in their unpublished letters . In 1917 Achad experimented with the board as a means of summoning Angels, as opposed to Elementals . In one letter Crowley told Jones: "Your Ouija board experiment is rather fun . You see how very satisfactory it is, but I believe things improve greatly with practice . I think you should keep to one angel, and make the magical preparations more elaborate ." Over the years, both became so fascinated by the board that they discussed marketing their own design . Their discourse culminated in a letter, dated February 21, 1919, in which Crowley tells Jones, "Re: Ouija Board . I offer you the basis of ten percent of my net profit . You are, if you accept this, responsible for the legal protection of the ideas, and the marketing of the copyright designs . I trust that this may be satisfactory to you . I hope to let you have the material in the course of a week ." In March, Crowley wrote to Achad to inform him, "I'll think up another name for Ouija ." But their business venture never came to fruition and Crowley's new design, along with his name for the board, has not survived . Crowley has stated, of the Ouija Board that, <P> There is, however, a good way of using this instrument to get what you want, and that is to perform the whole operation in a consecrated circle, so that undesirable aliens cannot interfere with it . You should then employ the proper magical invocation in order to get into your circle just the one spirit you want . It is comparatively easy to do this . A few simple instructions are all that is necessary, and I shall be pleased to give these, free of charge, to any one who cares to apply . </P> </Li> <Li> E.H. Jones and C.W. Hill, whilst prisoners of the Turks during the First World War, used a Ouija board to convince their captors that they were mediums as part of an escape plan . </Li> </Ul> <Li> Roland Doe used a Ouija board, which the Catholic Church stated led to his possession by a demon . </Li>

What do the symbols on the ouija board mean