Clip the tone arm in the rest position (use some strong twine), fill up your bathtub completely, and toss the turntable in. If it floats then it is definitely possessed and you you will need to burn it on a stake on your backyard BBQ. If it sinks then it may have only been a problem with the starting winding or its starting capacitor (Try to dry it out although this may have wrecked your turntable. On the plus side at least you can sleep calmly at night and you won't have to clean all your album collection with holy water).
More seriously, just spin the table a little in the right direction before you switch it on...