Spirit of the glass

It was my senior year in high school. It was definitely the happiest time I ever had in high school. Which got me thinking, how come when things are turning out just great, it's nearly your time to go? My last year in college was also the most memorable.

Anyways, I was a member of the Liturgy Club. It's the organization that assists during the early morning masses in the chapel at 7:00AM as sacristans, readers, and commentators. This is also the group that helps out in the Nativity play at Christmas. Isn't it ironic that we would experiment in the occult? But we did, out of curiosity.

Our leader in the club lives quite near the school, and so when he invited us one time to visit their place, we found it so spacious and with lots of bedspace to spare (he lived alone) that we took it upon ourselves to make the place look more lived in. We went there quite frequently, to the point that we have even started cooking our meals there on weekends. We also slept over frequently. It was a grand time.

One weekend, I'm not sure how it happened but we suddenly planned for a session with a ghost using Spirit of the glass. It looks like Ouija, but instead of the wooden thing sliding over the board to point to letters and numbers, we have a regular drinking glass that we pray on, then we put face down on cartolina with letters and numbers at the written near the edges, a circle in the middle as the resting place of the glass, with a "yes" and a "no" on both sides.

When we arrived at Ador's place that night (there were four of us), I was assigned to make the cartolina over which our ghost will travel to talk to us. So I drew the numbers and letters while they prepared dinner. It was nearly midnight when we crowded around the space in-between two beds and spread the cartolina before us. With the glass in upright position, four of us prayed over the glass (Hail Marys, Our Fathers, and Glory be) then turned it upside down. It didn't move.

We were wondering what we did wrong (but then again, invoking the spirits didn't have an instruction manual either). Then one of us suggested we do the prayers again, but this time without saying "Amen". So we did just that. And then we turned the glass over into its home base at the center. All four of us touched the edge of the glass with a forefinger and middle finger just at the edge of the glass.

"Spirit of the glass, are you in?"

Nothing.

"Spirit of the glass, are you in?"

The drinking glass jerked slightly. We held our breaths and looked at each other accusingly. Somebody must have moved the glass.

"Spirit of the glass, are you in?"

The glass suddenly moved! We nearly jumped out of our skin but we vowed earlier never to let go because if we did and the glass would topple, it was said that the ghost will escape and possess one of us. It slowly moved to "Yes", then crawled back to its home base. We were throwing each other furtive looks, each one denying they were moving it. And quite rightly so, for our fingers were nearly at the edge of the glass top and no one could possibly make the glass move about. I likewise felt something else was indeed making the glass move.

We asked the glass a series of questions, and we learned his name was Milepliul, and he came from Mongolia, and he loved playing poker. Those are the details I can remember. For the poker part, the glass went to a series of numbers and one of our companions exclaimed he knew those numbers to mean poker. After some time the glass faltered and when asked if he was tired, he said "yes". And so we told him to go in peace, and leave us in peace as well. It was some time before we finally let go of the glass and turned it upright.

We talked at some length about the experience. It was both scary and exciting. But we got more scared than excited I guess, and we decided never to do it again.


Photo borrowed from Museum of Talking Boards. I am not in any way endorsing this activity; just want to share a not-your-everyday experience.