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Team Ouija
Team Ouija is a group of ghost enthusiasts, sensitives, believers and skeptics whose core members approach the ouija board as a tool for testing assumptions, glimpsing hidden histories and accessing the unseen.
+ Team Ouija at the Hammer Museum: Report | pics
a report documenting Team Ouija's expedition in Gallery 6 and the Courtyard of the Hammer Museum on 9.25.09, plus preliminary photos taken while researching the premises
+ Team Ouija at the Hammer Musueum: Transcript
transcripts of four conversations between Team Ouija (Cindy Chao, Anthony Deptula, Tina Kapousis, and Michele Yu) and Fay, Emily and other spirits at the Hammer
+ Discussion
do you recognize any names, codes or other information from the report? help us decipher these conversations by posting a comment...
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Team Ouija at the Hammer Museum: Gallery 6 and Courtyard [Report]
9.25.09
download as pdf
Concept
On the Hammer's website, there's a section describing the history of the museum. Within that text is this statement:
"Dr. Hammer died in December 1990, three weeks after the opening of the Museum. Upon his death, all construction was halted and the building was never completed, leaving many spaces unfinished — most importantly, the 300-seat theater on the courtyard level."
Unfinished business; the perfect setup for a haunting, if there was one to find at the Hammer.This became the basis for our approach to Ouijaing at the museum – these temporarily unfinished spaces, what they were, if they're finished now and how they were completed, and whether their completed states are different from what was being planned while Armand Hammer was still alive.
Our plan was to begin in and around the Billy Wilder Theater, the location noted on the website as having been in construction limbo for years, and only finished in 2006 after receiving additional funding from Billy Wilder's widow. On a scout with Ali Subotnick from the Hammer, she pointed out that in the theater is a single brown seat, which Audrey Wilder has symbolically reserved in perpetuity for her late husband.
We'd start with a general session, opening up the board to any spirits who might be willing to communicate with us, and work up to locating Hammer – a tactic that previously worked for us at the Roosevelt Hotel, when we successfully got in touch with Marilyn Monroe after inquiring about her over several sessions. Coincidentally, both Marilyn and Armand share a final resting place across the street from the museum – maybe she'd put in a good word for us?
Scouting and Research
Preliminary daytime scouting of the museum and nearby cemetery was done by Michele Yu, with a second nighttime scouting session completed by Michele Yu and Tina Kapousis, to confirm potential session locations. Photographs taken during the scouting period are included with this report.
Some online research into the life of Armand Hammer was begun. An attempt at acquiring anecdotal information from staff about the other unfinished spaces at the Hammer did not yield very many leads.
Expectations
The Hammer Museum has no history of spirit activity, as far as we could discover through online research. We hoped having a cemetery nearby might positively impact our odds of contacting a communicative spirit. However, we suspected that multiple sessions might be required to get any substantial results, and also knew that we had time constraints that would probably preclude multiple visits. The main obstacle was that many of our team members were going outof town for prolonged periods of time throughout September.
Ouija sessions additionally require a level of concentrated intent that's easier to achieve at night, with minimal to no distractions, so the operating hours of the Hammer also became an obstacle – the museum is only open at night on Thursdays, and most of these nights our main target, the Billy Wilder Theater, would be occupied by a UCLA screening or other event. With scheduling difficulties preventing us from having easy access to the museum under our desired conditions, we came to expect that any session we'd be able to have in September would likely be preliminary or inconclusive. We remained hopeful though that we'd make at least some notable contact.
Findings
We were ultimately able to set our first group meeting date and time on the artSpa report deadline of September 25, 2009. A group of four Ouija team members – Cindy Chao, Anthony Deptula, Tina Kapousis, and Michele Yu – entered the Hammer Museum just before 6:00 pm and stayed until about 8:00 pm.
We experienced four separate conversations via the Ouija board in two locations, Gallery 6 and the courtyard outside the Billy Wilder Theater. The first two conversations were unclear and unfocused, with minimal coherent answers; this is often the case when attempting initial contact in a new location. The third conversation took more definite form, with an entity identified as "Emily", either 86 years old, or who had died in 1986. After this conversation we had to move outside to the courtyard so that Gallery 6 could be locked up. In the courtyard we were able to make contact with one additional entity, self-identified as a female child, "Fay".
During the course of the session, there were a few moments when the propulsion of the planchette was strong, but most of the time it was difficult to tell by feel whether we were moving the planchette, or it was moving us. The few times it did feel distinctly self-propelled, though, the movement was so forceful as to leave some of our members' fingers in the air behind it. The planchette also tended towards patterns, swinging nonsensically between letters on opposite ends of the board in a way we commonly interpret as a confused motion or stalling tactic, though these interpretations are subjective and assumptive.
A common thread emerged throughout all four conversations. To each entity we posed the question "Why are you here"; each one responded, with varying degrees of forcefulness, "KEEPLC". Through reiterative questioning, and a fair amount of assumption and interpretation, the idea emerged that Keeping LC is an activity that these spirits are engaged in that has some redemptive quality, preventing them from descending to Hell, or some similarly defined undesirable state in the afterlife.
The full transcript of the session is included as an attachment. Video footage of almost the entire session is also available, though it still needs to be digitized and uploaded.
Conclusion
We experienced stronger activity from the Ouija board when we moved to the outside courtyard; this could be interpreted in at least two ways. Either the courtyard is a more active site for spirit activity (for reasons currently unknown), or this could be evidence of our own unconscious influence on the way the board yields results. As with any Ouija session, it's necessary to admit that it may be no coincidence that the board becomes more active more easily once its users relax into trusting that it will move, and expecting to see results – the skeptical point of view being that you will get whatever you expect to get. Upon re-reading the transcript, it's easy to point out various points in it where leading questions are posed, and vague answers are interpreted in a way that shoehorns them nicely into the narrative we were piecing together as a group. Even coming in with few preconceptions about what results we might get, expectations developed during the course of a session that colored how we proceeded. The genuinely surprisingly revelation of the common thread, "KEEPLC", could just be our minds willfully connecting unrelated dots and directing our fingers and the planchette towards a pattern we wanted to see. That said, it's always a different experience analyzing the results than experiencing the session; the latter is much more viscerally convincing.
Unfortunately, we have no conclusive findings for the staff of the Hammer Museum at this time, only leads for future sessions. If given the opportunity to return, we would attempt to use the board in alternate locations, including the interior of the Billy Wilder Theater. Additional research would also need to be done into the history not just of the museum, but of the site the museum was built on, to better contextualize answers. A more focused set of questions might be useful – this is something we've talked about trying to employ, but haven't yet, as most conversations have seemed to necessarily be pretty fluid. It would be interesting to use the findings of other artSpa participants as a guide to find potentially powerful or active sites within the museum, or take a survey of Hammer staff to cull additional questions for the spirits or identify additional areas to investigate.
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Photos taken during a preliminary daytime scouting mission of the Hammer Museum and nearby cemetery, in order to confirm potential session locations.
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Team Ouija at the Hammer Museum: Gallery 6 and Courtyard [Transcript]
9.25.09
download as pdf
Members In Attendance:
Cindy Chao
Anthony Deptula
Tina Kapousis
Michele Yu
Please note, all questions posed by team members during the session have been simplified as much as possible into a single voice for this transcript. Individual questions are not, in general, credited to specific members, for the purpose of readability.
Transcription format is as follows:
(Description of scene and notes in italics.)
Our question
O U I J A A N S W E R - in bold, caps, when spelling individual letters
or
ouija answer - in bold, lower case, when the planchette moves to one of the
pre-written words on the board: yes, no, or goodbye
Our question
O U I J A A N S W E R
Our question
(etc.)
T R A N S C R I P T
(We enter Gallery 6, set up our camera and tripod, and station ourselves on the floor near the stage in a pool of light. A lighting technician comes out right when we're about to start and asks if we're the Ouijaers, and whether we want "better lighting". We say yes and he dims the rest of the room's light, leaving the spotlight on us.)
(We first do a prayer of protection.)
CHAT ONE
Is there anybody here who'd like to speak with us today?
What's your name?
(lots of banging and movement from the lighting technician working in the back room – he leaves a few minutes in)
K M T
Are those initials?
no
Are KMT your initials?
no
What does K stand for?
K I M B E
KIMBE. Is that Kimberly?
no
What does M stand for?
M E M P X
Can you start over - what does M stand for?
M J X
Why are you here with us tonight?
(long pause, no movement)
Are you still there?
What should we call you?
L U K
LUK. We should call you "Luck?" Is that your name?
no
Is your name "Luke"?
L
What's your name?
L K
Are those your initials? LK?
Is it ok to call you LK?
How old are you? What year were you born?
(very long pause)
What year were you born?
Do you know where you are?
I M J M K L K
Do you know where you are?
Do you want us to keep talking to you?
no
OK, goodbye!
goodbye
CHAT TWO
Is there anybody here who'd like to speak with us tonight?
We only have a little bit of time tonight.
(We go over the story of the Hammer Museum & how it wasn't completed by the time Hammer died, and how we'd like to talk to him tonight to find out what he thinks of how the museum's been completed. We add that that's our ultimate goal, but we'd be happy to talk to anyone else who's here too.)
(planchette starts moving randomly)
What's your name?
M
Could you spell your first name? Let us know what you want us to call you.
L M E L E L I
LELI? Something close to that? Is that right?
no
Do you live here?
yes
How long have you been here - how many years?
8 5
85 years?
8 6
Were you here before the museum?
no
How many years have you been here again?
8 6
Since 1986?
yes
Is 1986 the year that you died?
yes
And how old were you when you died?
5 7
57 years old?
yes
Do you like it here?
I K E E P L C L C L C L
What does LC mean?
L H M H L H
Can you tell us what LH means?
J
So you were 57 years old when you died in 1986. Are you male or female?
H E
Will you tell us your name?
L F L F
Are those your initials?
yes
What's your first name?
L I G K T
L-I-G-H-T is light. Could you spell that one more time? What's your name? What does L stand for?
L I L K
Is there anything you'd like to tell us tonight?
K E E P L C
That's what he's here for, to keep LC.. we don't know what LC is though, do you want to tell us?
no
Is there anything else you want to tell us about? That we can help you with?
yes
What is it? What can we help you with?
I D L/M I D M Y U L L C L C L C L C ...
Is it something that you need to do?
no
Is LC why you're here still?
yes
Is LC related to this place, the museum?
no
Is it related to somebody who works here?
no
Is it related to this spot, before the museum was here?
no
Is LC a person?
no
Is LC a place?
no
Is LC light?
no
Is LC something we can help you with?
no
Do you want us to keep asking you about LC?
no
Is there anything else we can help you with?
no
Who's your favorite employee here? Do you have one?
no
Is there someone you don't like? Just curious.
no
Is there art you like here?
no
Is there a reason why you are here?
L C L C L C
Are there other spirits here with you?
no
You don't see any?
no
Are you buried in the cemetery next to the museum?
no
Where are you from? California?
no
Did you ever encounter Hammer himself?
yes
Where did you meet him?
M E M E M E
Are you Hammer?
no
Is Hammer here?
no
Is Marilyn here? Just wondering.
no
Is there anything else you want to tell us?
no
Should we say goodbye?
U K A A W A V D
Can we say goodbye?
no
Okay, can you tell us something about Hammer?
N I A Y
Can you tell us one more time?
N I A L
Nail?
O M P L P K H
Is there anything .. was Hammer nice to you?
no
Did you work in the office building next door?
yes
How long did you work there for, how many years?
5
What was your title?
I M A L B L C L C L C ...
Are you still working right now at the office? Do you still work there?
yes
Do you work at night?
no L C L C L C U V
What do you do in the office?
N L A L
Have you spoken with anybody like this before?
yes
When was that?
8 6
Who did you speak to? Do you remember?
K E E Q K E E P L D LJ
Okay, we got the message, Keep LC, but if you don't let us know what that is we can't help you.
Do you want to say goodbye?
goodbye
CHAT THREE
We'd like to talk to Marilyn Monroe. We know that the cemetery where she's buried is right next to the museum and we've had luck before talking to her at the Roosevelt Hotel. Last time she liked talking to Tina because of her blonde hair.
(Tina talks to Marilyn)
Are you here?
(nothing)
Norma Jean, are you here?
(nothing)
Marilyn, Norma Jean?
Is there anybody else here who'd want to talk?
yes
Are you Norma Jean, otherwise known as Marilyn Monroe?
no
Can you tell us what your name is?
E M I L Y
Hi Emily. Emily what year were you born?
1 9 4 0
1940?
1 9 4 0
1940. Emily how old are you now?
4 9
So you died in 1989?
yes L E Y C L E M L
We're not sure what you're trying to spell out right now Emily. Is it your last name?
no
Can you tell us what your last name is?
J J U I A L
Could have been an H? JUAIL? Can you spell it again Emiliy?
J U H A I L
Is your name Emily Juhail?
yes
Is that Indian? Where were you born?
I N D I A
It could be Indiana. Were you born in India?
yes
Why are you here at the Hammer?
K E L B K E L K
Did you work here?
yes
That's impossible. Did you work here before it was the Hammer Museum?
yes
What was it before it was the Hammer?
M B M E M E
What was your job?
K yes
Emily, is there something that you want to tell us?
yes
What do you want to tell us?
K E E P L C L C
Can you tell us what LC means? What's L mean?
L I C K A M A J B K
What's the last part?
M A M B L
What's the C part stand for?
C L A M
Clam?
B K
Clambake. Something about a clambake?
no
Is it something that we can't understand?
yes
Because we're alive, is that why?
yes
Is that a song that you're singing?
no
Is LC a person?
no
Is LC a state of mind?
no
Is LC a physical thing, like an object?
no
Is it code for something in your world?
no
Is it something spiritual?
no
Do you like it here?
no
Why do you stay here?
B E C A U S E K E E P L C
Because Keep LC. Do you have to do it? Do you have to keep LC? Why?
K E E P L C
What happens if you do not keep LC?
H E J
HE?
H E L L
If you don't keep LC you go to hell?
yes
And is that true of the last person we were talking to too? They also said keep LC.
yes
Is LC purgatory?
no
Is it something you're doing in order to avoid hell?
yes
Is it penance?
yes
Is it something you do for us, the living?
yes
Are you an angel?
no
Were you once a living person?
yes
Do you still have relatives?
yes
In California?
yes
Where?
G A R D E N A
Gardena?
yes
That's not so far, let's look in a phone book. Do you ever go visit them?
yes
Do they know when you visit them?
no
Do you miss them?
yes
Do you have children?
yes
Are they who's living in Gardena?
yes
What are their names? One of their names?
K A M S(?) K
Begins with a K?
yes
Can you spell it again?
So if there's a hell, is there a heaven?
yes
When do you get to go to heaven?
K E L C
Does LC have anything to do with Jesus?
no
Does it have anything to do with God?
no
With religion?
no
With Buddhism?
no
That's a religion, ok. Is it something you do every day?
yes
How do you do it?
H H L A L B L A L A
Is it like singing?
L A L
How do you keep LC, Emily?
L A L A
Does LALA stand for something?
no
Is LC something you can tell us about?
no
In human years how long do you have to keep LC before.. How long do you have to keep LC before you're safe?
0
Zero?
0
Can we help you?
F A K E M N J A
Fake what?
M A K A
MAK?
M A K E L I K E
Fake Make Like?
Are you trying to tell us about Mike? Sorry.
Did you like Gardena when you lived there?
yes
Are you singing? Have you been singing to us?
no
So you also lived in Gardena.
yes
Do you like to sing?
no
Did you have a pet in Gardena?
yes
What kind of pet?
D O G
Good. What kind of dog?
L A L A B
Did you have a lab?
yes
What was the lab dog's name?
L A B
Lab, okay. Is there anything else .. Maybe we should just say goodbye? Do you see the people ..
(guard comes in to say he's gonna have to lock up the room now)
L E L E(?)
Sorry Emily we have to go. Goodbye!
goodbye
CHAT FOUR
(We've moved to the outside of the theater, in the courtyard.)
(We do the prayer of protection.)
(The planchette moves and we argue over whether we're pushing the planchette or it's moving on its own – turns out Cindy's pushing it to get it going.)
Is there anyone here?
Will you spell your name?
H I H I H I H I ..
Hi. Are you saying hello? Hi. Is this Stephen? (we laugh at an inside joke)
Hi. How old are you?
5
5? Are you 5 years old?
(Muffled question)
yes
(Muffled questions – the planchette lands on the letter U, which we take to mean it's asking us what our ages are. We ask if it wants to know how old we are.)
(planchette moves erratically in response)
Whose age do you want to know?
T I N A
(Tina answers) I'm 31.
(Planchette goes on to spell ANTHONY's name; Anthony answers 29.)
(Anthony asks) How old do you think I look?
4
How old does Tina look?
5
How old does Michele look?
1
What's the other girl's name?
C I N D Y
What's Tina's middle name?
(no response from board – we all know Tina has no middle name)
What's Anthony's?
L A W ..
It's getting it right. Lawrence.
What's Cindy's?
X
Yes you know why.
Did you know Cindy doesn't like to say her middle name?
yes
You're really good at names. Can you tell us the name of my first dog?
L K M A M
Can you spell Cindy's last name?
C H A O
How do you know our names?
Are you a girl or a boy?
G I R L
What's your name?
F A Y
Is Fay your name?
yes
Fay, what year were you born?
no
Okay. How old are you?
5
(Michele asks) How old am I?
1
You're only 5 - did you learn how to spell in school?
no
What's that guy's problem? (re: obnoxious guy talking on cellphone in courtyard)
P A G E Z
(We listen and the guy says "double-sided" and "paper". Anthony freaks out)
What's that guy's name?
B A R R Y
(Anthony leaves the table to go ask the guy, still on his phone, whether he's named Barry)
He's not. (Guy brushed Anthony off)
Fay are you still here?
yes
Is his name really Barry?
yes
Alright .. What am I gonna eat after this?
P O T A ..
Potatoes you're right.
Can you see into the future?
yes
Are you telling the truth?
yes
Fay why are you here in the courtyard?
(answer partly blocked by shoulder – answer involves KEEP LC again)
(muffled question – we ask about Keep LC and what it stands for. The board is saying it will tell us what it means)
What does the L stand for?
(answer partially blocked from view on footage) L E G E N D
Legend?
What's the C stand for?
(lost footage, noticed we ran out of tape and had to pause to switch it out)
Fay are you still here?
yes
(muffled question)
(didn't catch answer)
(muffled question)
yes
Is (someone) a person?''
yes
(muffled discussion, muffled question)
yes
(muffled question)
M A M
(We continue to ask test questions, like what's playing in the theater tonight, but get garbled answers, some involving "BARRY")
Is there anything else you want to tell us?
(can't catch answer from footage)
(muffled question)
M A M A M O M O M A (planchette moving fast now)
Are you spelling mom?
no
(muffled question)
yes M B M E M E
What's ME mean?
M A M E M E
Do you see Hammer here?
no
Do you like him?
yes M A R
(muffled question)
yes
(muffled question)
K A M A M A
We're about to leave and go eat so let's say goodbye.
Is there anything else you want to tell us?
no
Goodbye.
goodbye
(END)
. . .
Discussion
What's "KEEPLC" mean? Any idea who Fay or Emily may be? Help us track down the cryptic messages received at the Hammer by commenting below...
