The voice of an angel

New from the "It's Not A Sin When We Do It" department, we have: Christian Charismatics using a spin-off of the Ouija board to contact angels.

I was sent this story by a friend and long-time loyal reader of Skeptophilia, and my first thought was, "This can't be true."  Sadly, it is.  The same people who go on and on about how evil Ouija boards are and how you're risking your eternal soul even being in the same room with one are now saying that their Ouija boards are just fine and dandy.

The "Angel Board" is available from Amazon at the low-low-low price of $28 (plus shipping and handling).  In the product description, we're told that we can "ask any question we want, and the Angel Board will answer."  If you don't like that particular one, it turns out there are dozens of different makes and models, some costing hundreds of dollars.  Because we can't just have one company capitalizing on people's gullibility.

Interestingly, if not surprisingly, the reviews have been uniformly good.  One five-star review says:

I have been on a path of spiritual enlightenment for 1 year now.  I have two other friends who have shared this path with me. We share books, experiences, thoughts and feelings, but when one of us (not me) bought this book and “game” board to communicate with our higher-level guides or “guardian angels,” it became a turning point in my journey.  I didn’t think I was “advanced enough” or “spiritual enough” to make this thing work.  I learned, in about 2 minutes, that doubting myself was doubting God and his angels! In one evening, I met my higher guide, felt unconditional love, and knew I wasn’t alone and never had been. I was convinced, beyond all reason, of the presence of my angel.  To this date, I call him “J” as we haven’t yet tuned our energies to really work out the spelling of the name…  I asked him if “J” would be okay, and he said, “yes.”  He has answered to “J” ever since!  One evening, before I was able to acquire an “angel board” of my own,  I tried an Ouija Board.  It took several attempts before J was able to answer me, but when he did, I asked if he preferred the angel board and he responded “yes.”  We had a very difficult, short conversation that night.  The angel board is a MUST for all those who seek a closer relationship with their guardian angel, and who have not had much practice in meditation and raising their energies to a compatible level with the light bodies waiting to guide us!

It's to be hoped that when they "tune their energies" and she finds out "J's" actual name, it's not a rude shock.  It'd kind of suck if she thought she was talking to the Archangel Jophiel and it turned out she was having a conversation with, say, Jar-Jar Binks.

It bears mention, however, that not everyone is so sanguine about the Angel Board.  At the site Women of Grace, we're given the following warning:

Angel boards are just as dangerous as Ouija boards, perhaps more so because they haves [sic] the same purpose as a Ouija board – contacting “spirits” – only they pretend to be summoning guardian angels to make it seem less dangerous...  This is so dangerous on so many levels.  When a person evokes spirits of the dead, he or she is never in control because they are dealing with preternatural forces.  These are powerful beings who are possessed of super-human intelligence, strength and cunning.  Only the most naïve would think that they can control summoned spirits merely by “politely” asking them to come or go...  Needless to say, angel boards should be strictly avoided.

Over at Our Spiritual Quest, "ex medium and professional astrologer" Marcia Montenegro agrees:

Any attempt to contact or summon an angel will result in contact only with a fallen angel.  Spiritism is strongly forbidden and denounced by God and angels are spirit creatures. 

There is no example anywhere in the Bible of anyone contacting an angel.  The angels who brought messages or did other things for people in the Bible were sent at God’s command.  They were never summoned by man. 

Asking questions using this Board is the same as using a Ouija Board.  In both cases, only fallen angels, disguised as good angels, as guardian angels, or as the dead, will respond.

I never realized that borrowing from the spiritualists was such a big thing among the hyper-religious, but apparently it is.   There's even a "Christian Tarot deck," available at (surprise!) Amazon, which says that the practice if done right is "biblically consonant."  As you might imagine, this got quite a reaction, both from the people who think Tarot cards are the instrument of the devil and those who think divination is a divine gift.

Weirder still, sometimes those are the same people.  Kris Vallotton, pastor of the Bethel Church and self-styled "spiritual leader," heard people said that he and his church members were using Christian Tarot cards developed by a group called "Christalignment," and responded in no uncertain terms:

This is insane... whoever is doing this needs to repent and repent the craziness in the name of "reaching people for Christ..."  There are people who listen to our teaching and create strange and/or anti-biblical applications in our name...  [W]e need wisdom as we move into the cesspool we call the world.  Stop the craziness!

Shortly afterwards, Vallotton responded to his response in no uncertain terms:

There has been some recent concern about the ministry of Christalignment and their supposed use of “Christian tarot cards” in ministering to people at New Age festivals.  While the leaders of this ministry (Ken and Jenny Hodge) are connected with several members of our community (including being the parents to our much-loved brother, evangelist Ben Fitzgerald), Christalignment is not formally affiliated with Bethel.  We do, however, have a value for what they are seeking to accomplish.

When his followers raised hell about his apparent chumminess with occultists, Vallotton responded to the response to his response in no uncertain terms:

Let’s be clear: I was speaking against Tarot cards and their use, which I am still against.  I was addressing people who were accusing Bethel taking part in this practice.  We don’t and never have been been apart [sic] of this.  So that’s still true!  The people who were named in the article, were never named in the people’s accusations of us (that I knew of at the time) nor did I name anyone in my posts.  The article turned out to be fake news against great people who love God, don’t use Tarot cards and lead 1000s of people who do, to Christ.

So there you have it.  He's unequivocally for it except in the sense that he's unequivocally against it.

But he did get some support from one of his followers who said she thought there was nothing wrong even if these were Tarot cards, because, after all, "'Tarot' is "Torah' spelled backwards."

Predictably, I read all this with an expression like this:

My general impression is that the whole lot of it -- Tarot cards, Ouija boards, angelology, and the entire Charismatic movement -- is a lot of nonsense.  So arguing about whether a silly board game or some funny pictures printed on cheap card stock are going to put you in touch with an angel or with the Prince of Darkness is a little like arguing over whether "C-A-T" spells "dog" or "horse."

Anyhow, thanks to the loyal reader who sent me the link.  I suppose it's a good thing that this is what the hyper-Christians are currently spending their time discussing.  It's less time they'll have to spend trying to shoehorn young-Earth creationism into public school science curricula.  If that's my other option, I'll take sacred Ouija boards any day.

***************************

You can't get on social media without running into those "What Star Trek character are you?" and "Click on the color you like best and find out about your personality!" tests, which purport to give you insight into yourself and your unconscious or subconscious traits.  While few of us look at these as any more than the games they are, there's one personality test -- the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which boils you down to where you fall on four scales -- extrovert/introvert, sensing/intuition, thinking/feeling, and judging/perceiving -- that a great many people, including a lot of counselors and psychologists, take seriously.

In The Personality Brokers, author Merve Emre looks not only at the test but how it originated.  It's a fascinating and twisty story of marketing, competing interests, praise, and scathing criticism that led to the mother/daughter team of Katharine Briggs and Isabel Myers developing what is now the most familiar personality inventory in the world.

Emre doesn't shy away from the criticisms, but she is fair and even-handed in her approach.  The Personality Brokers is a fantastic read, especially for anyone interested in psychology, the brain, and the complexity of the human personality.

The creation of Zozo

We like to think of urban legends as a modern phenomenon.  As author Jan Harold Brunvand discusses in his wonderful book The Choking Doberman, word-of-mouth transmission of stories heard "from a friend of a friend" is a powerful way to spread memes; and of course, the internet has made it even easier.  Some of these stories are of modern provenance, given their mention of cars and other contemporary props.  But only for a few -- "Slender Man" being an example -- do we know exactly when and where the story started.

I ran into an urban legend of sorts that I'd never heard of just yesterday, and this is apparently one of those rare ones for which the origin is actually known.  The story is about the evil demon named...

... "Zozo."

Notwithstanding that "Zozo" sounds like something a rich old lady would name her toy poodle, Zozo is apparently a demon of incredible evil, according to the story on the subject over at Stranger Dimensions.  Apparently the first mention of the evil Zozo was in Jacques Collin de Plancy's Dictionnaire Infernal, wherein we find that an unnamed girl from Picardy, France was possessed by Zozo back in 1816.

Inferno by Gustave Doré (1863) [image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

But it wasn't until the invention of the Ouija board that stories of Zozo really took off.  Yes, I know it was invented by some entrepreneurial game-designers in 1890, and any positive results -- if you can call them that -- almost certainly arise from the ideomotor effect.  This hasn't stopped the Ouija board from becoming one of the most feared occult devices (hated especially by devout Christians).  Hollywood, never shy of capitalizing on hype, even has a movie called Ouija due out this Halloween, about some teenagers "awakening evil forces" using an "ancient spirit board."

But back to Zozo.  Once this method of "communicating with spirits" was invented, it wasn't long before the Zozo phenomenon really took off.  He (or it) was an evil spirit, claims said, that was always hanging around looking for a means of ingress.  The Ouija board acted to allow access, and once that avenue was open, Zozo wouldn't let go, but would torment the individual forever.

The whole thing has gained so much traction that there's a paranormal researcher, Darren Evans, who has a blog called The Zozo Phenomenon in which he documents hundreds of encounters with the evil spirit.  He calls himself a "Zozologist."  Here's one example of a story from his site:

Hello, I purchased a ouija board at a garage sale from an elderly couple.  I have always had an interested in the spirit world and had a great interest in trying to make contact.  I did not dare to play the ouija by myself so I just left it packed away until I had a friend convinced me to use it last night.  For an hour we spoke to this woman spirit and as we went on with the session the word "zozo" kept being spelled out.  As a newbie at this I had no clue what it meant until I looked it up and found it on your website.  The energy on the oracle was wild and i am certain if we had removed our hands it would have flew off the board. several times it tried to spell out the alphabet.  It was scary as heck and was terrified to see that it was evil… do I still need to cleanse the house even if we went to “goodbye”?  I have children and am scared for them.

Predictably, I still think the whole thing is nothing more than superstition and the aforementioned ideomotor effect, but of course, once this sort of thing catches on, it snowballs, just as Slender Man and Spring-Heeled Jack and El Chupacabra have.  Even Rob Schwartz, in the article at Stranger Dimensions I linked earlier, said:

But what is Zozo, and why has it terrorized thousands of people around the world? This, I’m afraid, is not an easy question to answer.  It’s difficult to tell which stories about Zozo are authentic and which are nothing more than urban legends.  Some tell of murders and suicides, while others involve possession, physical ailments, abuse, curses, and other phenomena commonly associated with demonic forces...  Could Zozo be a tulpa, a shared experience?  Like the Philip Experiment on a much grander scale, or the countless stories (and real life delusions) shared about the Slender Man, Zozo could be our own creation.

Well, yeah, I think that last bit is probably true, but not in the sense that he means.  A "tulpa" is a created experience come to life -- i.e. real -- and I doubt seriously whether that is possible.  As far as the "Philip experiment," I dealt with that in a post earlier this year, and I was (and am) of the opinion that even the people who participated knew it was a bunch of nonsense right from the beginning.

As far as Zozo, it seems to one of a growing number of paranormal phenomena that aren't misinterpreted natural phenomena, nor deliberate hoaxes, but purely human inventions that rely on credulity and a blurred understanding of the line between fact and fiction.  But it does make me want to go out and get a Ouija board and try to summon him up.  If Zozo is that easy to get a rise out of, it should be easy to settle the question of the existence of the paranormal once and for all, not to mention putting me in contention for winning the James Randi Million Dollar Challenge.

Ouija wackiness south of the border

Ouija boards have been around for a long time -- since 1890, in fact -- but they've only really hit an upswing in popularity (and a commensurate downward spiral amongst the highly religious) in the last couple of decades.  In fact, I've dealt with them before, and wouldn't be back on this topic again if it weren't for our dear friends at The Daily Fail.

Mail.  The Daily Mail, is of course what I meant.  They've once again reinforced their reputation for high-quality, groundbreaking journalism with their story entitled, "Three Americans Hospitalized After Becoming 'Possessed' Following Ouija Board Game in Mexican Village."

In this story, we hear about twenty-something siblings Alexandra and Sergio Huerta, and their cousin Fernando Cuevas, who were visiting relatives in the village of San Juan Tlacotenco, Mexico, when they decided to whip out the ol' Ouija board and see what the spirits had to say.  And of course, as with most cases of the ideomotor effect, the spirits very likely didn't have much of interest to say other than what the participants already knew -- until Alexandra Huerta went into a "trance-like state" and started growling.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Then the two boys began to "show signs of possession, including feelings of blindness, deafness, and hallucinations."  So all three were taken to a nearby hospital, where all three were given "painkillers, anti-stress medications, and eye drops."

Because you know how susceptible demons are to eye drops.  Whip out the Visine, and Satan is screwed.

Interestingly, Alexandra's parents called a local Catholic priest for an exorcism, who refused because the three were "not regular churchgoers."  I guess as a priest, your job fighting the Evil One is contingent on the possessed individual belonging to the church Social Committee, or something.

But so far, all we have is the usual ridiculous fare that The Daily Mail has become notorious for -- a non-story about three young adults who either were faking the whole thing for attention or else had suffered panic attacks and some sort of contagious hysteria.  Worthy of little attention and even less serious consideration, right?

Wrong.  You should read the comments, although you may need some fortification before doing so, because I thought that the comments on CNN Online and the Yahoo! News were bad until I started reading this bunch.  These people bring superstitious credulity to new levels.  Here's a sampling, representing the number I was able to read until my pre-frontal cortex was begging for mercy:

I've had plenty of experience.  Like us, there is both positive and negative charges amongst, let's call it, the spiritual realm.  The most common cause of error is to act like it is an actual game with no consequences.  I assure you they are quite real.  I assure you that regardless of positive or negative matter (let's call "spirits" ), they can do some mind boggling things i.e. dimming candles, creating areas or pools of water in places that couldn't possibly form etc.  AND yes, if you blatantly agree to invite them in with you it could potentially shock you into a "possessed" state.  LIKELY, it was the shock of being witness to paranormal activity as nothing can really prepare you for it.  Rule #1: Be of the most steadfast, clear and pure mind and you will have an opportunity to experience something you would never be able to otherwise.  Rule #2 ALWAYS be respectful (which also may explain this possession scenario) to them!  Most are quite nice and knowledgeable! 

Only a true exorcist Catholist [sic] priest can really rid someone of a possession.  Not all Catholic priests have this special "training" if that is even the right word to use (probably not).  It's serious stuff and the Catholic Church takes it seriously.  Perhaps we're not getting the full story on that priest's decision.  If the 3 young people were indeed "possessed," they likely still are...as sedatives won't fix that.  They need to try the C.C. again.  There is a procedure to be followed. 

We just bought a house and there was a board in the closet.  I threw it out instantly and prayed for the Lord to protect the house, I asked Jesus to bless all who enter.  My mother played with one as a teen and it answered many questions correctly, she and her friend asking the other one's question to prevent guiding of the piece.  My God-fearing farm-raised Epispocal [sic] grandma walked by and the piece stopped abruptly-all I need to know. 

Oh, so NOW you WANT a priest.  This is so sad you blame a priest, for not responding to what could be a physically (or life-) threatening situation, at night, brought on by the free will of consenting adults.  Out of many possible suggestions for this sad state of affairs, as a remedy, I can suggest daily praying the Rosary of our Blessed Mother.  Because, "when you fill your mind with Holy thoughts, the demons will flee upon approaching you as they see that you are not fertile ground for them." 

This is NOT fake!  I know this for a fact.  After dealing w/ one, there were spirits and slamming doors in my house.

Good grief, people, will you just calm down?

It's a toy.  The thing was invented back in the 19th century as a kids' game.  There are no demons to call up, and even if there were, I doubt that a little piece of plywood with some poorly-stenciled letters would be sufficient to get them to pay a visit.  There have been tests run on people trying to mess with a Ouija board while blindfolded -- you'd think that demons wouldn't care, right? -- and it turns out that the only satanic messages these subjects spell out are things like, "kdolwicmsalpomng," which may mean something in the Language of Hell, but doesn't really mean much to the rest of us.

So the whole thing is kind of idiotic, which is what the original click-bait story on The Daily Mail intended.  They don't really care if what they say is well-written, or informative, or even true, as long as people give them hits.  (And for those of you who would like to read the original without contributing to TDM's share on search engines, the link I provided goes through the wonderful service DoNotLink.com, which allows you to see content without adding to their hit profile.)

Anyhow, that's our dip in the deep end for today.  My advice: don't go out of your way to throw out your Ouija board if you have one, but also don't expect it to tell you anything but random nonsense.  In that way, it's a little like The Daily Mail itself, isn't it?  Mildly entertaining, but mostly garbage, and gets boring pretty quickly.

The woo-woos go high tech

I suppose it was only a matter of time.  The woo-woos have gotten hold of high tech.

I find this a kind of curious idea, given how they harp so continuously on how their beliefs are Ancient Magick Passed Down From The Elders -- it never occurred to me that they would jump on the "app" bandwagon.  But given the utility, ease of use, and low cost of your typical iPhone or iPad app, it was bound to happen.

So, put away your crystals and dowsing rods and sacred knives, and get out your electronic device of choice.  Here's a few of the hundreds of apps I found. 

Rune Magic ($2.99) - "Rune Magic is a state of the art application for rune divination and studying. Ask runes about your destiny, fortune, love, health and business.  The application provides four types of runic divination with the detailed descriptions of rune meanings.  The runes will tell you about the past, the present and the future, and also will give an advice about your problems.  The application is also perfect for studying runes.  A strict compliance with all magical rules makes application predictions highly accurate. Try it, you would be impressed! The application is on sale, it is the best time to buy it."

Ouija Board version 6.2 ($1.99) - "A talking board, generically referred as "Ouija Board" and also known as spirit board, witch board, oracle board, mystic board or channeling board, is any flat board printed with letters, numbers, and other symbols, to which a planchette or movable indicator points, answering questions from people at a séance. The fingers of the participants are placed on the planchette that is moved by the spirits about the board to spell out messages. These boards are considered to be a spiritual gateway used to contact the dead or to receive information from beyond."

New Age Stone and Crystal Guide ($3.99) - "New Age Stones and Crystals Guide provides metaphysical property information for hundreds of stones and crystals. Search through indexes of stone names or property types to find the exact stone needed for your self development. The most extensive virtual stone and crystal guide available, this application identifies stones helpful for improvement of spiritual, mental and psychological aspects."

Erzulie's Voodoo ($3.99) - "Learn all about the secrets of Voodoo & Vodou with the world’s FIRST authentic Voodoo app, from Erzulie’s Authentic Voodoo in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Erzulie’s Voodoo “Advanced” app delves into the roots, detailed history, advanced spiritual concepts, Vodou rituals and magic of this vast and mysterious tradition, written by highly experienced, initiated, Vodou priests and priestesses.  Erzulie’s Voodoo Advanced App offers comprehensive information on Voodoo beliefs, performing your own authentic Voodoo spells, extensive sections on the Divine Voodoo Spirits (Lwa), how they are served in Vodou, and their Catholic Counterparts plus Magical Veve’s (sacred symbols of the Spirits), Spiritual Possession, New Orleans Voodoo, Palo Mayombe, Voodoo dolls, fetishes, Voodoo magic and much more... Perform your very own powerful Voodoo Love Spells, Wealth Spells and Banishing Spells with our extensive collection of authentic Voodoo rituals found only in the Erzulie’s Voodoo Advanced App, complete with their very own detailed instructions and resources."

Goddess Inspiration Oracle (free) - "Get inspired! The Goddess Inspiration Oracle offers a free one card oracle reading to grant you guidance for your day. It features eighty goddesses from around the world, all whom offer inspiration and guidance. These powerful feminine role models range from Abeona, goddess of gateways, to the Zorya, each of whom are represented in this app with gorgeous art and inspiring, well-researched text... Since time immemorial, humans have invoked the wisdom of goddesses by using oracles. Oracles provide an experience of synchronicity, a term created by Jung to describe a series of random events that connect within us to gain a deeper meaning. By doing so, the oracle helps us release information we already possess, thus allowing inspiration to strike when we most need it."

iTarot Classic (free) - "iTarot Classic provides straightforward two-card readings --"Daily Tarot" and "Love Tarot"-- with a streamlined design that makes consulting the Tarot effortless.
Features:
• Draw new cards with a simple shake
• Display only a one-card reading, if desired
• Use only the Major (or only the Minor) Arcana
• Allow or prohibit reversed cards
• Draw "Daily" and "Love" cards independently, from separate decks"


And those are just six out of hundreds.  I'm kind of overwhelmed, and not just because I'm a Luddite.  I just never would have thought that the whole electronic media thing would have caught on with these folks.  My question is: do they really think it's the same thing?  I mean, isn't the basis of these beliefs that when you handle the crystals, Tarot cards, rune stones, or whatever, the act of touching the objects is what is creating some kind of mystical interconnectedness of being?  Can putting your fingers on a touch screen made in China really accomplish the same thing?

Maybe we should try a different app to see if we can get an answer to this question.  How about:

Magic 8 Ball ($0.99) - "Magic 8 Ball™ has all the answers!  And now it’s available for your iOS device!   Ask it any yes or no question, shake your device (or tap the screen) and, “without a doubt,” it will give you an answer to life’s most complicated questions.  Inquire about romance, friendship, school, work…whatever! "


Let's see...  "Reply hazy, try again."


I shoulda known.

Ouija wisdom

It's interesting how woo-woo trends come and go.  Conspiracy theories are currently all the rage, especially amongst people who think our government is way more evil, and also way more intelligent, than it actually is.  On the other hand, interest  in Bigfoot and other cryptids seems to be on the wane, with the current spate of television shows about monster hunters ("squatchers") now played more for laughs than anything else.

Of course, interest can rekindle, and that seems to be the case with the Ouija board.  I remember these things from when I was a kid -- a flat board, with letters and numbers and a few words ("yes," "no," and sometimes "goodbye"), and a little piece of lightweight wood resting on three legs called a "planchette" that had a pointer.  The players lightly rest their fingers on the planchette, and "invite the spirit world to communicate with them," and if the spirits are in an obliging mood they shove the planchette around to spell out messages.

Ouija boards kind of went out of fashion for a while, but they're coming back... in fact, Universal Studios has a movie (creatively called Ouija) in production, and if it's halfway successful, you can expect a sudden upsurge in interest in the divination tool.  Not to mention a sudden upsurge in religious folks telling you how dangerous it is, how it is the handiwork of the devil and not to be taken lightly.

All of this is pretty funny, because the Ouija board is a fairly recent invention, and not by Aleister Crowley or anyone of that ilk -- it was invented in 1890 by a trio of parlor game designers, E. C. Reiche, Elijah Bond, and Charles Kennard.  Of course, they wanted it to appear mystical; they said, for example, that the word "Ouija" is the Egyptian word for "good luck," which is patently false.  When Kennard lost control of the company to his foreman, William Fuld, Fuld was interviewed and admitted that the whole mystique around the board was his own creation-- there was nothing occult about it, and in fact the name "Ouija" was coined simply by splicing together the French and German words for "yes."  And the ability of the board to spell out messages is adequately explained by the ideomotor effect, the ability of the mind to subconsciously guide actions such as small motions of the fingers.  Controlled studies of Ouija boards using blindfolded people resulted in the production of gibberish -- given that it wasn't the spirits wearing the blindfolds, you'd think it wouldn't matter.  (Actually, if there really were spirits making people's hands move, you have to wonder why the spirits can't just make the planchette itself move, and eliminate the middle man.)

Of course, a rational explanation doesn't discourage most woo-woos, and there are lots of alleged psychics who still love the Ouija board, and lots of conservative Christians who still think it's a tool of Satan.  Hasbro, who has the marketing rights for the game, is the recipient of frequent requests from church leaders to discontinue sales of Ouija boards, because they're "encouraging children to call up demons."  In 2001, a bunch of religious folks got together in Alamogordo, New Mexico and burned a pile of Ouija boards -- but they also added a bunch of Harry Potter books to the bonfire, so I'm not sure their ability to discriminate fact from fiction was all that sharp to begin with.

I remember messing with a Ouija board once when I was a kid -- a neighbor of mine had one.  We sat there, lights turned down, fingertips on the board, trying to get into a mystical frame of mind... and then... suddenly... nothing happened.  We waited for a while, but evidently most of the more helpful spirits were vacationing in Maui that day, because neither of us felt any ice-cold fingers pushing our hands around.  Eventually the planchette did move a little (I still suspect the neighbor kid may have had something to do with it.)  But after spelling out some highly important messages from the Other Side, such as "You smell bad," the spirits became balky and refused to cooperate, and we got bored and went outside to play.  And the latter, frankly, is what both the psychics and the Christians should do.

Myself, I think as divination tools go, we should go back to the tried-and-true Magic Eight Ball.  It's simple, direct, and gives you answers to any question you might have.  But of course, you have to ask yourself, is it accurate?  Is it actually accessing hidden knowledge to give you wisdom, or is it just random?  Let's see what it has to say about that.

*shakes up Magic Eight Ball*

Um... "Reply hazy, try again later."  Okay, I'll have to get back to you on that one.