Coming out can be a scary experience, but how about doing it amongst candles and ghosts during a séance?
A séance is a process of contacting spirits and a ouija board is the board of letters and numbers in which to do it. The idea is the spirit acts through a moveable pointer to guide it along the ouija board and spell out answers to questions.
So my friends and I decided to make our own board one night and give it a go.
It was during a sleepover and there may or may not have been wine involved.
Séance: Trailer for Ouija Movie. | Photo: BagoGames / Flickr
We cut out the letters of the alphabet, along with the words ‘yes’ and ‘no’.
And then we sat in a circle, each placing a finger on top of a cup in the middle.
‘Who are we speaking to?’
As we started chanting to bring out any spirits in the room, the cup started moving.
I was freaked out… and we all promised we weren’t pushing it.
So we asked: ‘Who are we speaking to?’
It started moving towards the letter K, then E, then N. Ken.
Séance. Photo: Fabrice Florin / Flickr
We asked if he was related to anyone sitting in the room and it slowly spelt out my friend Leanne’s name.
Then we asked the spirit a series of questions about our lives. We even asked it personal things that only ourselves individually would know and Ken got them right.
Ken ended up telling us little pieces of information for our futures like who would get married first, who would earn the most money and how many kids we’d each have.
‘Is someone here hiding a secret?’
But then Leanne asked: ‘Is someone here hiding a secret?’
I had previously come out to Leanne a few weeks before and it wasn’t a secret to Amelia either. But for the last friend sitting around the ouija board, Marcella, she had no idea I was gay.
The cup moved slowly towards ‘Yes.’
Then she asked: ‘What is the secret?’
It moved again, but this time to the letters G, A, Y.
This spirit essentially outed me, so I took the bull by the horns and owned it. ‘It’s true, Marcella,’ I said. ‘I’m gay.’
She was confused at first but gave me the biggest hug afterwards and told me she loved me.
After that, we packed up the board and said a short prayer… apparently you have to do this so the spirit doesn’t hang around.
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James Besanvalle is the family editor of Gay Star News. You can follow him on Twitter or Instagram. All names in this article were changed to protect the identities of the people involved.
