Spirit World of the Law

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm summertime, fun-time guest bailiff Monty Belmonte from 939 the River WRSI Radio in Northampton, Massachusetts.

This week, Spirit World of the Law, Jason brings the case against his wife, Annie.

Annie's mother introduced their two kids to Annie's old Ouija board.

Annie thinks it's just a silly Parker Brothers board game, but Jason is uncomfortable with his kids playing with forces they know not not of.

Who's right?

Who's wrong?

Who's dead in the room?

Only one man can decide.

Please rise.

As friend of the high priest of the Church of Satan, Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents an obscure, cultural, or as I like to call it, occult

reference.

Monty, you know Kendra over at Skull and Sage?

You mean that dumb New Age shop where Dog Food City used to be?

Whoa, whoa, whoa, don't say New Age around Kendra.

She'll put a hex on your butt.

It's called Magic Now with a K on the end.

Can you believe that?

God or whatever damn PC culture.

Am I right?

Uh, sure.

Anyway, Kendra's got a thingamajig for texting with ghosts and witches and whatnot.

Are you talking about a Ouija board?

Yeah, Ouija board.

That's it.

Monty, swear him in.

Jason and Annie, please rise and place two hands each on the plastic planchette.

I'll light this red candle.

Are there any spirits in the room with us?

The planchette has moved to yes.

Spirit!

Will Annie and Jason swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God, or whatever other spirits are in this room right now?

Jason and Annie, you can actually answer this yourself.

I will.

I also will.

See, I knew it was you that was moving it the whole time.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling despite the fact that until he recently shaved for an audition, he looked, as he puts it, like the part-time bookkeeper for the Church of Satan.

Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

Some times, funds times, Bailiff Monty Belmonte, hello.

It's great to hear your voice again.

And I am here in my summer residency

at WERU

89.9.

Is that right, Joel?

That's it.

You got the whole thing.

With guest producer Joel Mann, the taciturn man

on the Niles and Dobs, the dials and knobs.

The little button things.

That's right, those things.

Brand new board here at WERU.

I've got the Twinkie set before me.

Apparently, someone dropped off a whole box of Twinkies and Peeps here.

Welcome home.

Yeah, Mann is trying to foist them on me.

Monty, how are you doing there in Northampton at WRSI the River?

I'm doing really well.

I'm very excited to be back as your summertime fun-time guest bailiff.

That's great.

And, you know, honestly,

you know, it's been so long since I've seen these gentlemen.

We have a lot to catch up on.

So, Jason and Annie, you can just take a hike.

Find in one of yours favors.

There you go.

Bye.

No, I want to talk to you too.

So, Jason and Annie, first of all, you may be seated.

Second of all, for an immediate summary judgment in one of yours favors, can either of you guess the piece of culture that Monty and I performed as I entered this fake internet courtroom?

Annie, how about you guess first?

I'm going to go with the craft.

The craft

about Witch Teenage.

A movie about witchcraft in high school, right?

Yes.

Was Nev Campbell in that one?

Yes.

I think so.

Good.

Me too.

I also think so.

Let's play the game

where Google doesn't exist and we just have to go on memory.

It's always very challenging.

Let's just say Nev Campbell starred along with Billy Cruddup and Burgess Meredith.

I think that's right.

All true.

All right, Annie's guess is The Craft.

All right, I've put that into the guess book.

Now, Jason, it's your turn.

What is your guess?

I'm going to guess

Dogma.

Wasn't there a Kevin Smith movie called Dogma?

Mm-hmm.

I'm guessing that movie.

There was a Kevin Smith movie called Dogma.

It stars Nev Campbell and Burgess Meredith.

Yeah, I know.

Sorry, Nev Campbell.

Jason Mews.

And, well, actually, that movie had a lot of stars in it because people thought that Kevin Smith was going places.

And he did go to a place.

He went to podcasting.

I don't know why I'm being mean about Kevin Smith.

I loved Alanis Morissette in that movie.

Elanis Morissette was in that movie.

Alan Rickman was in that movie.

Everyone was in it.

Everyone.

Probably Nev Campbell was in there somewhere.

Probably Billy Cruddup wandered through at some point or another.

You know that Kevin Smith made a movie starring my good friend Justin Long, the Mac from the Mac versus PC ads, in which I essayed the role of PC.

And that movie was called Tusk.

And spoiler alert, an evil person turns Justin Long into a walrus.

That was the plot.

I guessed that movie.

You guessed that one, Jason?

Oh, I tipped it.

Yeah, I changed mine to Tusk.

I tipped it.

You win, Jason.

I was quoting Tusk.

I was not quoting Tusk.

All guesses are wrong because because there was no way you could get it right, I'm sorry to say.

That bit of dialogue has not been released into the world yet, as it is featured dialogue, in a

as yet-to-be-announced secret project that I have co-created with our friend David Reese.

late of Get Your War On and How to Sharpen Pencils fame and going deep with David Reese.

And that is a little bit of dialogue that not only have you not heard yet, because this thing has not been released, but I have getting word that it will, that humans will be allowed to see the thing that we made.

But even then, you probably won't hear this dialogue because I think in the final cut, we cut most of the stuff.

And I know that we didn't record the bit about magic because I just realized that that would have been a much better line than the one we had in there.

So, this is a real, real, deep, deep preview for a thing that I'm not supposed to be talking about, but I'm doing it anyway because I love the Judge John Hodgman listeners, and there aren't that many of you, so it doesn't matter.

No, there are a lot of you.

I'm really grateful that there are so many of you.

I'm just being silly.

Just don't tell anyone that I talked about this thing.

Monty was playing the role of my character, and I was playing the role of Taggy, an attorney, who was played by John Glazer.

So that was my imitation of John Glazer, which was very, very poor.

Now, Jason and Annie, you live in this plane of existence in Santa Rosa, California.

And I understand that you have a dispute dispute over a Ouija board, also can be pronounced as a Ouija board.

Yes.

Annie, you are pro the spirit world, and Jason, you are anti-ghosts and haunts, right?

I'm neutral about the spirit world.

I don't really think that's an issue.

Oh, you don't think it exists?

No.

You think that this is our one shot at life, and after this, we are...

We enter the endless void.

And no planchette can reach us there.

Yeah, I can't be positive, but I'm not afraid of the spirit world.

Well, you'll find out eventually.

Meanwhile, Jason, you are scared of the Ouija board.

Tell me a little bit about yourselves.

It says here, Jason, that you are a writer at Peanuts.

Is that correct?

Yes, that's correct.

You write copy for Planter's Peanuts?

I do.

I talk about cashews, cocktail nuts.

Do you write it all with your monocle in?

Yes.

No, I work for Charles Schultz Creative Associates at Santa Rosa.

So I work on

Peanuts, graphic novels, and books along with some other really talented artists.

Oh, that's super cool.

So you are writing and illustrating, or just writing?

I'm just writing.

The smart ones are the ones who can illustrate it.

How many siblings does Linus have these days?

Just Lucy and Rerun, or is there another one now?

Just Lucy and Rerun.

I got to tell you something, Jason.

I never really got into Rerun.

You know, his name in Spanish is Replica, which

is

is that funny

i love it i think it's fair to say monty are you aware of rerun van pelt yes yes i am joel mann are you aware of rerun van pelt never heard of him yeah linus's younger brother why did they name him rerun no one would name their their child rerun i think it was just a commentary on everything old was new again maybe i don't know does rerun have a real first name this is what this podcast is about now rerun is his real first name rerun is his legal first name in that world.

Legal first name.

Yep.

Hmm.

Annie, what do you do in Santa Rosa?

You write for Garfield?

We compete every day.

No, I'm a copywriter for a wedding planning website and book, and I also

am a puppet maker and prop maker for a couple different theater companies here, and I teach kids how to do that.

Oh, that's great.

Fantastic.

Well, you guys are wonderful.

You shouldn't be fighting.

You should be getting along.

But there is this fight about this Ouija board.

And Annie, how does a Ouija board come into your life?

I think it was a birthday present when I was about eight or nine.

I remember having it at slumber parties as an elementary school kid.

Oh, so this is your ancestral Ouija board.

It is.

It is.

Yeah, and it came to Santa Rosa when my mom.

moved up here from Southern California.

Oh, she brought the curse with her.

She brought it.

That's right.

I followed her.

And it lives at your mom's house?

Is that right?

And you have children?

Is that correct?

Yes, we have two boys.

And they're very spiritual, right?

They like to contact the spirit world.

It's definitely intriguing to them.

Then this is where, Jason, you get upset, right?

When your two boys are trying to speak to the devil or whatever.

You're like, I don't like this.

It gets my hackles up a little bit, sure.

Tell me about your discomfort with the Ouija board, because this is a game, Jason.

It's a game.

I know it's a game, but, you know, I grew up in a house where

we went to church occasionally, if not religiously.

We went to church, but not religiously.

That's one of the great sentences.

You know, and you're just kind of taught to be scared of things like that.

And then as I get older, you know, I realize it's mostly just all in your mind and stuff.

But it just, it stuck with me.

It's like you're playing with things you don't quite understand.

Because like, who knows?

You know,

you may be be opening a door or a window.

A portal of some kind.

Exactly.

You may be opening a door to the spirit world or a window or a backyard slider or a skylight or a cat door maybe.

Some kind of opening anyway.

Yes.

A slip and slide to the spirit universe.

Did you ever have a bad experience with a Ouija board specifically?

I personally never did.

I had friends who told some kind of spooky stories, which

probably are just kids telling stories.

What was one of the scary stories your friends told you?

One of them, a friend of mine, had a Ouija board in his house, and he was a pretty staunch Catholic.

And then after he did that,

this is dumb, but after he did that, he woke up the next day and like he had a couple of statues in his house, like saint statues that had turned around the other way and kind of weird stuff like that that just kind of freaked me out when I was little.

Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, minute wait a minute all right so you're where were you growing up I grew up in Oregon it's a town called Newburgh okay so you're there in Newburgh Oregon and and your friend what was his name his name was Anthony what was the name of the girl in uh the exorcist

Reagan we'll call Anthony Reagan no

so Anthony Reagan

sidles up to you the cafeteria at Newberg Middle School or whatever and says guess what happens I was working the Ouija last night.

And then the next morning, he noticed that a bunch of statues of saints had been turned around to face the wall.

Yes, St.

Peter was upset, and he turned around.

And then Jason got scared.

That is a genuinely spooky story.

Yeah.

I have to commend Anthony Reagan's parents for playing with his mind that way.

Hello, I'm your Judge John Hodgman.

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Annie, did you ever have any spooky, sort of unexplainable things happen when you used that Ouija board when you were a young person?

No,

I just remember, you know, with that, with fondness, that the excitement, you know, the tingle of being like a little bit scared, a little bit not scared, and like, did it move?

And you moved it.

And no, I didn't, I swear.

And, you know, and we never really, I don't think I've ever even associated it with contacting spirits.

I remember we were just, we just asked it silly questions about boys.

And like, what kind of question would you ask the Ouija board?

You know, like, does Jason like me?

And

yes.

You know.

All signs point to yes.

You're married.

It works.

So for the few people, and maybe young people who haven't seen a Ouija board,

Joel Mann, have you seen a Ouija board?

I have, but my particular favorite is the Magic 8 Ball.

Yeah,

the Magic 8 Ball is pretty cool, for sure.

That is where all signs point to Yes come from.

But a Ouija board actually predates the Magic 8 Ball.

Magic 8 Ball was a gimmicky toy of the 60s and 70s.

Don't tell me that.

The Ouija board is not.

And it may concern you to know, Joel, that there's not only one Magic 8 ball.

What?

Yeah, there are many, many Magic 8 balls.

It It was a toy that was sold.

And your pet rock was just a rock.

But the Ouija board goes back to the spiritualism movement that swept across the United States and Europe in the late 19th, early 20th century, where people became obsessed with seances and spirit voices and trying to contact the world beyond.

And the Ouija board is one of the most traditional ways of doing it.

It's a big flat board that has the alphabet on it and also the words yes and no.

And then there is a planchette, which is just a little pointer, a triangular pointer that's raised on three legs.

And two people will sit at the Ouija board with the Ouija board on their laps and they touch the planchette and they ask questions, usually in a darkened room.

And the planchette moves from letter to letter to spell out an answer.

And either you believe,

as Jason does,

that the devil or another demon is moving the planchette magically to spell out Jason's doom, or

one or the other person who have their fingers lightly on the planchette are discreetly moving it, either consciously or unconsciously, to create the illusion of mystery.

So that's what a Ouija board is.

And children, that's how we recruit you to the Church of Satan.

That's why we try to get them out there to as many toy stores as possible, and we encourage you to use them all the time because, no, I'm not a representative of the Church of Satan.

I am acquainted with the High Magus of the Church of Satan, but the Church of Satan is an atheist, non-devil-worshiping organization that is just a little bit of a kind of an art project.

How do we get to the Church of Satan there, Joel?

Magic eight ball.

That's right.

So that explains that.

Annie, how did Jason's concerns with this Ouija board come up?

Your mom brought it when she moved to Santa Rosa, and what happened that sparked this conflict?

So occasionally she'll take the boys for overnight slumber parties or, you know, for a few hours for babysitting, and they saw it on the toy shelf and asked what it was, and she took it out and they did a little Ouija Ouija, I don't know, Ouijaing.

She created a little atmosphere and she made a fun little thing out of it.

And then the boys mentioned it when we went to pick them up.

And Jason had a surprising reaction that I

was not suspected of his fingers and was like away

yeah

and then your son's heads turned entirely around on their bodies

exactly that's a spooky story too though you know I gotta say Annie that's a spooky story it's almost as spooky as Anthony Reagan's story

That sounds like a movie, right?

Where the young couple is there living in Santa Rosa, making puppets and writing cartoon characters, and then mother-in-law moves to town and brings with her a Ouija board.

The sons go over to visit their grandma, and she's like, Hey, I've got something for you.

Let's go in the basement and light this candle and use this occult object.

And I'll use your youthful energy to try to finally reach my master Satan.

And after lunch, when we can all murder a baby.

But I mean, that's a spooky setup for a story.

I don't mind saying, Jason, if my mother-in-law had secretly inducted my young children into an occult practice, I would be a little freaked out.

I'll be honest.

Yeah, it was surprising to hear.

I'm not anti-occult.

I just sort of think you need to wait till you're at least a teenager, right?

That's when these things happen.

So it's not that you're against the occult so much.

It's just your kids who are what age?

Six and eight?

Six and eight, yeah.

It's just a little too young to be messing with dark forces.

Is that what you're saying?

Yes.

You think it's like a tool.

What do you mean?

Well, I mean, I just did a little reading on it, and people who believe in the Ouija board would like consider it like a tool to contact other planes of existence and other realms.

And I feel like any tool you should learn how to use.

Like, I wouldn't give one of them a hammer or a chainsaw.

Not that they would chop down a tree with a Ouija board or anything, but I feel like they should be a little older and understand just exactly what they're getting into.

Now, see, from my point of view, let's bear in mind this is a piece of junk toy, right?

That's mass manufactured.

Eventually, Parker Brothers bought the rights to the Ouija board, and that was the height of its success was being published by Parker Brothers in the 60s and 70s, which, and we'll go to the evidence in a moment.

I believe that's the vintage of Ouija board that you have, Annie.

And I'll dare say the one that I had as well.

And not the same one.

I don't believe there's only one.

I'm not Joel Mann over here, but you know what I mean.

There are millions of them.

The planchette is a piece of cheap plastic, and the board is just a piece of cardboard.

And even still, from my point of view, Jason, you would have better luck chopping down a tree with this thing than reaching another plane of existence.

It would function better as a chainsaw than a portal opener, unless you truly believe that A, there are other planes of existence, and B, that it can be reached by a Ouija board, and C, that

all of these millions of Ouija boards that are out there in the world that are in use either are opening millions of portals to other planes of existence, or your wife's 1977 vintage Ouija board is the one that your sons are going to be able to use to open a portal to another dimension.

I guess what I'm asking is, do you believe this junk?

Well, I wouldn't put it past Andy to have the one that would actually work.

But do I believe it?

Now, my question was a little bit leading in that I referred to spiritualism as junk, okay?

And that's not fair.

I mean, let me say this.

We don't choose what we believe all the time.

And you might have an intuition that there is something beyond our sight, beyond our world, and you have a sincere thought or even half a thought that this may be the way through to it.

And I guess what I want to know is, without prejudice, I'm asking you, do you sincerely think that your sons might be breaking through to to some other world or communicating with some kind of spirit?

Or are you just making this up in order to be on a podcast?

Well, I'm not making it up to be on a podcast.

I do think there is some other plane, some sort of

something that connects everybody to a different reality.

I'm not sure what it is.

I don't know if you can get there through a board or not, but I'm also

a little afraid of just the people who do believe.

Like, I'm still on the fence.

I'm uncomfortable with with it, but I'm on the fence.

But people who truly, truly believe in this, it just takes like a weird internet search to see, like, what did the Ouija board make these people do?

And then, like, you can go down a terrible rabbit hole of people that blame things on this.

And I'm not saying my eight and six-year-old are gonna have, that's gonna happen to them.

I just know that people can use something like this as an excuse for terrible things or weird things or strange things.

What did you see on the internet that bothered you so much?

Because you don't need to type in Ouija board on the internet to go down a weird rabbit hole.

You can type in almost anything.

But you obviously typed in Ouija board and you have reached another plane of existence or contacted another world that has clearly troubled you.

And I'd love to hear specifically something that you saw or experienced online that made you upset.

Just hearing like people that would blame terrible crimes on something a Ouija board told them to do.

It's very, very vague.

Listen, specificity is the the soul of necromancy.

What did you see on the internet?

I read something like a 14-year-old kid did bodily injury to another 14-year-old kid in Texas just last year and blamed it on a Ouija board session.

Got it.

I don't want to get too dark, but I mean, just people who are susceptible to things like this, you know, they sometimes can use a Ouija board to just blame that for terrible action that they did.

Well, first of all, you're completely internally inconsistent because you want me to rule that your sons should wait until they're 14 to use the Ouija board and then do crimes and blame the Ouija board.

I want to wait until they can be convicted.

As an adult.

As an adult, yeah.

But I see your point, I think, and Annie, I think you should listen to this.

If I understand correctly, your point is to some degree, you may have your own idea about what does or does not exist beyond the limits of our perception, Annie and Jason, but you don't know what your sons think about it.

And if they construe it as real, it can be fun, but it could also be pretty scary

and maybe confuse them a little bit, Annie.

What do you think about that?

When they came back and they said,

grandma made us wear red robes and do weird chants.

And then we used the Ouija board.

Did they have fun?

What did they say about it?

And what did you tell them about it?

Yeah, they thought it was fun.

My mom was clearly making up messages that they were receiving through the Ouija board.

And I think they really got that it was silly.

But I think that Jason's reaction has made it more intriguing to them.

It's added another layer of interest.

Great.

Now the devil really has got a hold of them.

The devil of resisting parental authority.

Right, exactly.

And so when my mom, you know, saw how Jason responded, she put it away.

And the kids, when when we asked them, when we found out about the podcast and we asked them where it was, they said, oh, it's under Nana's bed.

They knew exactly where it was.

They knew exactly where it was.

Yeah.

Yeah, they've been using it in secret to plot our demise.

Would you say that your sons have Ouija fever, which can also be pronounced as Ouija Feevie?

Weaver.

Speaking of pronunciation, you sent in some evidence, some photographs, and I want to go to them now.

Obviously, these photos will all be available on the showpage at maximumfund.org, the Judge John Hodgman showpage there, and on our Instagram, which is instagram.com/slash judgejohodgman, all one word, all small letters.

And here is a photo of Annie's mom holding Annie's own childhood Ouija board, a box that I remember so distinctly from my own Ouija board.

This is truly beautiful 1970s spooky lighting, hands on a planchette with that.

Those like elegant lady fingers.

Yeah, elegant lady fingers.

It was like, this was one of those ones that was like one of those grown-up games, like Mastermind, that featured a picture of a guy in a tuxedo and a lady sitting in a darkened room getting ready to play a game that takes a moment to learn but a lifetime to master.

Like, this was not Monopoly.

This was Ouija board, scary stuff with that incredible typeface.

And on the back, you can see here it is copyright 1972 Parker Parker Brothers of General Mills Fun Group Incorporated.

Wow, I didn't know.

I didn't know that was part of General Mills Fun Group.

On the back, it says Ouija board, Mystifying Oracle, William Fold talking board set with directions, but also they have a pronunciation guide here pronounced Ouija or Ouija.

And I love any product where it tells you how to pronounce it.

Like, it's always a sign that someone made a bad decision.

And why didn't they just pick one?

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

All right.

So some other photos here.

So I love this thing.

I love this Ouija board, Jason.

I love it.

It's spooky.

It's spooky and it's 70s and it looks good and it speaks to my nostalgia, the most toxic impulse, the devil that I resist every day.

But there's some other photos here that require some explanation.

Who submitted these photos?

One is a photo of a shelf with some, looks like FiestaWare on it.

And the other is a photo of light pouring through the window on a front door or back door.

Who submitted these photos?

Jason took the photo of the Fiestaware.

I like that one because I got to say, holy refraction, Batman.

Explain the photo, though, to someone who is listening in a car and can't look at it right now.

It's light refracting off of a FiestaWare dish on a counter and the reflection on the wall looks kind of like...

like a Virgin Mary outline to me.

Oh, yeah.

Spooky.

Oh, I see that now.

Joel, take a look at this.

Oh, my God.

Or whatever, right?

That's the most emotion I've ever seen Joel express.

Wow.

I'm honored.

That's a pretty amazing image.

Yeah.

And he took a picture of a ghost dog.

That's the next picture.

So a few months before we moved into this house, we were living in another neighborhood, and I was walking home, and I walked past our neighbor's house, and I saw a white dog standing there, and I didn't remember seeing that dog before.

And they had big, mean pit bulls, so I usually walked really quickly past this house.

And

I asked Jason if he had ever seen this dog and he said no and then the next morning in the spot where the dog was standing there was just like a little memorial as if someone had put up like a cross and some flowers clearly to like a family member and then when we moved into the next house I saw the light shining through the window that's the picture you have and I just took a picture of it because I thought it was pretty and then when I looked at it later you could see the outline of a white dog.

And so Jason was convinced that this ghost dog was following us from

place to place, from the old house to the new, that it was like my spirit guide or something.

All right, Joel Mann, I'm going to show you this picture, and I want you to be on mic when you see it.

All right.

Are you on mic now?

I'm on mic.

Tell me what you see in this picture.

Light coming through.

Oh.

Yes, I see a little ghost dog.

See, I'm right.

It's not just me.

There's a ghost dog there.

I was a fundamentalist when I grew up.

Were you?

And we didn't do Ouija boards.

We just passed snakes around.

Are you having a joke on me, Joel Mann?

No, judge, no.

You grew up in the faith?

Methodist.

I didn't want to mention any names.

That's fine.

And did you have a feeling in your house about the Ouija board?

Was it a force of evil?

It was not allowed.

It was not allowed.

It was not allowed.

No.

We couldn't even dance back then.

No.

You're in Maine.

You still can't.

I mean, Joel, let me say, you're a musician.

You play a mean jazz bass

on the porch of the Pentago at Inn.

Every Tuesday next week.

Every Tuesday next week, starting next week in Castine, Maine.

I'll be coming down to check it around.

Make a reservation.

Yeah.

But Maine isn't known as a dancing state.

No.

No.

And your mom and dad presumably said no on the Ouija for what reason?

Evil.

Just evil.

Just evil.

Did you play Dungeons and Dragons?

No.

And Monty, you grew up religious as well, correct?

Yes.

I was Catholic and then...

did a bunch of bad things and then rebelled against my family by becoming a born-again Christian.

And what relationship, if any, did you have with the occult growing up?

A ton in that period, post-like, you know, teenage years, using the Ouija board frequently, freaking ourselves out in my parents' basement.

And, you know, I remember one of my ex-girlfriends when I was in early high school, we used the Ouija board at this party, and then she was claiming that she felt that she was possessed and she was acting all funny.

And yeah.

We love to freak ourselves out with that.

And did you believe in the power of the Ouija board?

Did you disbelieve it or did you live in this ambiguity between belief and disbelief?

I wanted to believe in it.

I think I was appropriately skeptical at certain points, but a lot of the time I let myself dive down that

deep hole into the belief of the occult and that we were really getting contacted.

And we'd do it blindfolded, and it would keep going to the same

position over and over again.

And it was like 666 every time, and we'd freak ourselves out.

You did it blindfolded?

Yeah, we did it blindfolded.

And the planchette kept going to 666.

Yes, but I, there's no way for me to prove that my friend wasn't just trying to scare me and peeking, and then we were scared.

Who is your friend?

Anthony Reagan, Anthony Reagan.

He had the only Ouija board that exists.

That's a scary story.

These are scary stories, Annie.

It was scary.

It's a little scary.

All right.

So, Annie, if I were to find your favor, how would you have me rule?

You can't really order another person to calm down, but I'm just

like,

How about chillax?

Yeah.

No, how about not chillax, Jason?

How about we never say chillax again?

I think I have everything I need to make my decision.

Judge John Hodgen rules in Annie's favor.

You just blew it.

You blew it with chillax.

Yeah, this is a podcast where we can make a joke about murdering babies, but if you say chillaxed,

no.

I was just making a joke.

I'm going to have to explain this in the verdict.

So it's not merely that you want me to order that it's okay for your sons to use the Ouija board, but also Jason has to chillax.

You want me to order him to calm down.

Yeah, just take it easy with the demonic stuff.

And,

you know, he scares himself.

He listens to all these paranormal podcasts and, you know, the ghost hunter shows and, you know, like his rabbit hole of Ouija murders.

And I, I just.

Did this interest in the paranormal predate the Ouija board coming to Santa Rosa?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, okay.

And he scares himself.

He's scared himself, and I think he's going to scare our kids.

I think he's making it into something much bigger than it is.

And I, you know,

if they didn't, I wouldn't be terribly bummed if they were banned from doing the Ouija board, but I would be a little because I have fond memories of that excitement and silliness.

I just heard another one from that new James.

Sorry.

We heard anchors

in the shape of a soul.

So I'm hearing the radio feed again.

again from that on my shows anyway.

I don't think that's us.

Oh, I hear something.

It sounded like

a CB or something.

It sounded like a CB.

Robin Tricks.

This is a community radio station.

It's not even microphones.

It's just Tim Jams.

Sounds clear now.

Anything I need to retake there, Jennifer Marmor?

I can't really hear you because I can only hear the radio feed.

Me too.

This could be a ghost

we're getting ghost transmissions don't stop rolling

spirits

spirits if you can hear me

are you

real

is this real life

joel turn off the lights spirits listen to me if you are

if you are real from her then make this twinkie

immortal beautiful song going back to 1977 it ain't no use did that clear it up jennifer murmur i want to keep all of this in the southborn started that

I think the Twinkie just moved.

You moved it.

I saw you move it.

Can you guys hear me now?

Osborne.

No.

We're going to take a look at the middle of the middle.

The radio feed is still there, but I can kind of hear you, John.

Joel is leaving the room.

I don't know what he's going to do.

I think he might shut down the radio station.

I mean, he should.

It's only right.

We're trying to record a podcast.

Yeah, don't they know that we're the future and they're the past?

Right.

The radio station is the living dead.

Be at rest radio station.

The power of podcast compels you.

6 to 9 p.m.

She seems to have stopped.

Oh, see?

The power of the podcast compels you.

Thank you, Jennifer Marmor.

Yeah.

Welcome.

We need to include some of this in the recording, though.

Some elements of this.

I'll do my best.

Joel Mann just walked back in the room and he explained she hit a button.

See, everything has a rational explanation.

The DJ hit a button that she shouldn't have hit and it bled into our feed, right, Joel?

That's right.

I mean, I don't want to get too technical.

But did something cause her to do that?

Forced her to do that?

Yeah, maybe she had Ouija fever this morning.

That's what I'm thinking.

All right, Jason, here's the thing.

I don't think you were being truthful with me because you didn't even say anything about your paranormal obsession predating the Ouija's arrival in your life.

When I said, do you believe in this stuff?

You're like,

maybe a little tiny bit.

But whether or not you believe, you're really interested in it.

You know what interests me is like the stories that you can't really explain.

I think the majority of people are just, you know, it's all in their mind or they're making stuff up.

But what interests me are the stories I hear from rational thinking people where something happens to them that it's really hard to explain.

Right.

So, I mean, it's not like I

read about it all the time or listen to things about it all the time, but it's, I'm just curious about like

where do these stories come from?

What is happening to these people?

You know?

Yeah.

Quick question.

You know, I'm thinking back now over some of the Peanuts strips that I've read recently.

Did you happen to write the three-week arc where Charlie Brown decides whether or not he should sacrifice a goat to Baphomet?

Well, I ghost wrote that one.

Oh, well done.

Don't encourage Monty Belmonte.

Or I should say, stay out of Monty Belmonte's pun lane.

All right.

Before I make my decision, really quickly, Jason,

how would you have me rule that

Ouija is out and you and your sons never see your mother-in-law again?

No.

I would just like to maybe put the brakes on it to think about it a little bit more.

You know, it just takes one person who's not in on the joke for something to go terrible.

Okay.

That's a very vague request, but I will do my best to solve it.

I am going to go into my inner sanctum, light some incense, and bathe in ritual oils, and I'll be back in a moment, and I'm going to smell fantastic, and I will render my verdict then.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Jason and Annie.

The Ouija board.

Jason,

Are you one of those people that like every time Beyonce performs at an award show, you go and look up how many signs of the Illuminati were in that particular performance?

Are we talking that kind of rabbit hole for you?

No, no, not that kind of rabbit hole.

Okay.

But you would read that article.

I might read that.

If it was a clickbait article.

Yeah.

I would probably read the article too, but I think it's fun and dumb and interesting that so many people go down this rabbit hole.

Annie,

you know that your children shouldn't individually use the Ouija board on their own, right?

Or they will get possessed by a demon.

That's like rule number one of Ouija board use.

I think it says it right on the box.

Jason,

do you believe in the great pumpkin?

Absolutely.

Okay.

So you do have this kind of deep and never a weird interaction in your childhood with a Ouija board yourself, apart from hearing stories from Anthony Reagan.

I was at a party once that wasn't a Ouija board, but it was sort of one of those, you know, you join hands in a, in a circle and turn the lights down and then you repeat something.

I don't know what the phrase was, but the light is a feather snow.

Yeah, something like that.

And then somebody kind of freaked out and punched a wall, but that could have just been he had rage issues.

Yeah, totally.

Well, we'll see what the judge has to say about all this in his verdict.

We'll be back in just a minute on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom and presents his verdict.

So I'm guessing it's around 1980 or 81 when I got Ouija bored, perversely for Christmas.

That's right.

My first demonic Christmas.

And I was in Philadelphia, where my grandparents lived, visiting with my mom and dad.

My mom's five sisters and brother lived there in Philadelphia.

I unwrapped this thing.

My aunt Channa said, here, I'll show you how to use it.

And we went into the kitchen

and she dimmed the lights and we put it on our laps and i do not remember the question that i asked nor do i remember the answer because it took me about 17 seconds to realize my aunt janice was moving this planchette

i figured it out quick you know why

because i'm smart

and i suffered ever since because for me the mystery of the spirit world was erased instantly the minute I realized my beloved aunt was having a joke on me.

And I never again felt

that kind of,

I think you described it, Annie, as a tingle of the knowing, not knowing what's going on, the knowing that it's fake and the not knowing that maybe it's real.

That's a very poorly constructed sentence, but I think you get the idea because we are talking about ambiguity.

And ambiguity is

fun, is charged.

The Ouija board is particularly charged in part because there is an intimacy to using the Ouija board.

I don't know whether it was you, Annie, or you, Jason, who with your evidence sent a link to a Time magazine article about the history of the Ouija board.

And normally that is my least favorite form of evidence because basically you've given me homework.

You've given me an essay to read

and a book report to write.

But I was struck in reading the history of the Ouija board that part of its initial popularity in the early 20th century was the fact that men and women could use the Ouija board together.

And at that time, men and women were not supposed to be in the same room alone.

typically, in certain parts of our society.

And this was an opportunity for men and women to sit close together with their knees practically touching and their hands both on the same planchette.

For a lot of people, this was as close to hugging or kissing they were going to get before marriage.

And it was intense.

And it was intense also in the 60s and 70s, you know, when teenagers were now using the Ouija board, the second great phase of its popularity.

It was a kind of a slumber party staple, a transgression.

And the fact that there were some people, like Joel Mann's parents, who believed that it was evil, made the transgression even more charged and fun.

And

I regret to tell Jason that I've seen no real evidence that these millions of Ouija boards have opened millions of portals to other realms, thus rendering our reality but sort of ectoplasmic Swiss cheese.

That doesn't mean that the Ouija board, however, is

I'm going to say, dangerous.

Okay?

Because, you know, I made references to grandma inviting the kids over to use the Ouija board and afterward, you know, murder some babies, which is a kind of a harsh joke for this podcast, but I'm standing by it.

I hope it didn't hurt anybody's feelings.

It was a reference to a historic period in the 1980s and 90s called the Satanic Panic.

Joel, you remember the Satanic Panic?

No, I don't.

All right.

Well, get get ready for a little history lesson.

Okay.

There cropped up in evangelical Christian circles, and particularly in evangelical Christian media, like radio talk shows and stuff,

an urban legend that there was a secret underground community, widespread throughout the United States, if not the world, of Satan worshipers who were kidnapping and hurting children and worshiping Satan, and they were working through

rock and roll music and backward masked tracks on albums and other secret symbology that they were inserting into media to recruit more and more people to the worship of the devil.

And it was profoundly widespread.

And it also,

I think, was so widespread because

people of a certain flavor of faith, it was exciting and animating to imagine that their struggle with Satan was not merely a matter of personal faith, but a literal war on earth with secret Satan worshipers.

Now, these people didn't exist.

You can read up on it.

It basically fizzled out after a while, and only to be replaced by other conspiracy theories about, you know, the Illuminati and Pizzagate and other kinds of nefarious worldwide conspiracy ideas.

It is exciting to think about these things,

but it is equally possible to get caught up in the belief side that you lose perspective and you lose touch with the disbelief and rational and skeptical side.

And while I think that it is unusual, I do think that Jason has found

evidence online that people who are perhaps not in touch with natural skepticism or are susceptible to manipulation of other kinds might go into a dark place via the Ouija board.

Not many, and I don't think you're sons.

But I think, you know, that charge goes two ways.

That fun teehee charge can go to a place where someone feels legitimately scared.

And even if the worst case scenario is that one of your sons can't sleep like little John Hodgman when he read the back cover of his mom's copy of The Exorcist and learned that the devil could possess you.

And I couldn't sleep for days, if not weeks, because I was convinced that little John Hodgman, only child, good boy, could be taken and turned to evil at any moment by the devil, and my bed would start shaking, and I would become the devil's plaything.

And then my bed would start shaking.

Do you know why?

Because my heart was beating so fast.

That was not fun.

That was not fun.

And so,

while I do not think

that the Ouija board is a genuine conduit of evil.

I think that there is a reason why people have ambivalence about it even until this day.

And one should approach it with a certain amount of thoughtfulness and care.

I don't know how you're, you're, what belief system you are raising your sons in, you know, whether you are raising them with a faith in a God or whatever, or not, or agnostic, or atheist, or whatever it is.

But once you start saying, even as a joke, that a spirit world exists or that demons exist, that's a big statement that you need to reckon into your entire belief system.

And much like I feel that parents should not,

even for fun, tell stories that are not true about certain visitors on certain holidays, I will leave it at that.

So I feel that it's important to have an open conversation with your kids about what you believe in terms of the other world,

if there is one,

so that they can modulate between belief and disbelief in a way that is healthy, that they can explore transgression without worrying that the actual devil is going to come get them.

So, this now brings me to the ruling.

Well, let me say this right now: those boys are going to use that Ouija board, no matter how I rule.

The ghost is out of the bag on that one, they're going to use it.

And I'm going to rule in Jason's favor

that it should be used

with mindfulness

and a certain care, even if it is just a lump of plastic and a piece of cardboard.

The questions that it poses have to be dealt with carefully.

And that is why I ordered Jason

to take on the burden of his son's paranormal education.

He has to share, insofar as the materials are appropriate for children that age, his interest in ghost stories

and talk openly about how they excite him.

And then you have to do the Ouija board with both of them at least once.

Oh no.

Yes.

Yes, Jason.

It's time for you to face your fears.

While I'm finding in your favor, the sentence is:

you have to Ouija with your sons responsibly.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Judge John Hodgman rules, that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Kind of a stunning decision, I think, Jason and Annie.

What are your thoughts about this first Annie?

I think it's fair.

I'm a little concerned about the continuing paranormal education.

Yes, me too.

That means I'm going to...

that we're going to have to have a lot more ghost hunters in the house, which is really a bummer.

But I look forward to hearing about the Ouijaing.

Jason, are you excited to play the Ouija board for the first time?

I'm nervous and excited, and I'm curious who I should try to reach out to beyond the veil.

You could make it more fun for yourself and, you know, instead of thinking of it as this weird spiritual device, like come up with cutesy names for the different parts of it, like Kate Planchette.

You could name the board Lou and then just

call it Lou.

How dare Louisiana?

Joel, shut him down.

Shut down Montu.

I needed to get some puns in there

somewhere.

I know who you should reach out to, Jason.

Charles Schultz.

Yes.

Sparky Schultz.

Yeah, he would be like, quit your day job.

That's probably what he would say.

He'd be like, I can't believe this thing is still going.

Well, Jason and Annie, thank you so much for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Another case sent to the spirit realm.

Before we dispense some swift justice, we want to thank Brent Harrison, Claudine Guild, Alex Buccilli, Sean Busler, Matt Dent for naming this week's episode Spirit World of the Law.

If you'd like to name a future episode, like Judge John Hodgman on Facebook, we regularly put out a call for submissions.

You can follow us on Twitter.

I'm at Monty Belmonte.

Hodgman is at Hodgman.

Hashtag your Judge John Hodgman tweets, hashtag JJ Ho.

And check out the maximum fun subreddit to discuss this episode.

We're on Instagram at JudgeJohnHodgman.

Make sure to follow us there for evidence and other fun stuff.

This week's episode was recorded by Aaron Tadina at Laughing Tiger Studios in San Rafael, California, and by the inimitable Joel Mann at WERU in Orland, Maine.

Our producer is the wonderful Jennifer Marmer.

Now, are you ready for the swift justice, Judge John Hodgman?

Yeah, but I can imitate Joel.

He's not inimitable.

Just like this.

Try it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Which one?

Can you tell the difference?

That was actually really good to the point where I thought maybe you had Joel Mann do it.

Yeah.

So, yeah, okay.

He's not inimitable.

I take that back.

It's withdrawn from the record.

Yeah.

All right.

Let's go to Swift Justice.

And Joel, you listen in on this because I don't feel like doing it.

You have to rule on this one.

I don't even know what it is.

Lindsay says, I keep my dog's cremains on on the mantle.

After 20 years, I'm up to four little boxes.

When does it get weird for guests?

I have a basement full of

people, too.

Okay, all people.

They have dogs and cats.

This means sincere.

Really?

Do you have human cremains?

For

those who are not aware, gather around, children.

When a person or an animal passes away, they sometimes are interred in the ground, that is buried in the ground in a coffin, or

they are

burned until they are ashes.

And those ashes are called cremains, and they're stored in a box or an urn, which is sometimes displayed, or sometimes itself interred in a vault or something like that.

And

that's one of the facts of life.

And there is no spiritual

cranberry remains.

I'm glad you talked over me on that one because I was getting pretty dark.

Yeah, cranberry remains.

Yeah, exactly.

So, all right.

Two cats, a dog, and a person.

Are in your basement?

Yeah.

Okay.

They're not on display on your mantelpiece.

No, after a while, we got tired of telling people what they were.

Right.

Yeah.

I would say my feeling is four

is a lot of cremains.

I would say it starts getting weird around three.

I think you're already beyond weird.

Two, you could kind of put one on either end of the mantle.

And there's balance there.

But even though Judge John Hodgman has long ago ruled that the difference between a hoard and a collection is proper display, a collection of boxes of cremains, it's very hard to get away from it being creepy on its face.

Put them in the basement.

Yeah, I would say find a place where you can commune with them privately.

Maybe a little shrine in a closet or in your bedroom, but in a public space.

If you're worried about it being weird, it probably already is weird.

That's it for this week's episode.

Submit your cases at maximumfun.org slash jjho or email hodgman at maximumfun.org.

No case is too small.

We'll see you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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