Ouija Boards
The history of the Ouija Board is a long and complicated one as I discovered while researching this article. As interesting as it is, I’ve boiled the history down to a more concise version. Further information can be found via the links in the Further Reading section below.
So when did it all start?
Communication
with the dead has been around in some form or other for thousands of years.
Around the mid-1800’s the Fox sisters claimed to be able to contact
spirits at will and found fame as news of their ability swept across America
and Europe.
Around the same time a device was invented called a Planchette (French for little plank), which is a small wooden, heart shaped, three legged table often with a pencil attached to the pointed end which formed the third leg. People involved in the séance would place their fingers lightly on the Planchette, and as it moved in answer to the questions people asked, the message would be written down and interpreted by mediums.
This was one of many means for talking to spirits. Other forms of communication with the dead, and what were termed parlour games was table tipping, automatic writing and knocks on the floor to spell out words. These forms of communication could become boring to participants or appear fake to the sceptics (as indeed a majority of them were). Something more interesting and visual needed to be found.
On February 10th 1891, Elijah Bond was given the patent for the Ouija Board, along with Charles W Kennard and William Maupin as assignees. Though Bond and Kennard are said to be the inventors, it was Kennard, while using the board that came up with the name, ‘Ouija’, which the board claimed meant ‘Good Luck’ in Egyptian. In reality this is not actually an Egyptian word but the name stuck nonetheless. A theory also exists that the name could be inspired by the Moroccan city of Oujda, but is this just a case of assumption? We’ll never know!
The
Ouija board and planchette were placed together to form the board game we know
today. The alphabeticised board with numbers and the words yes, no and goodbye
were sold commercially with limited success by the then called Kennard Novelty
Company. Due to poor management, Kennard was ousted from the company and William
Fuld took over in 1892. He renamed it the Ouija Novelty Company and in a twist
of fate Fuld would become synonymous with the boards invention. He reinvented
the history of the Ouija board and claimed the origin of the Ouija board’s
name is French ‘Oui’ meaning ‘yes’ and German, ‘Ja’ meaning ‘yes’.
Many thousands of boards were sold during the First World War, as people desperately wanted to find ways of contacting lost loved ones. Manufacturers tried to cash in on this by creating similar devices, including Kennard who remained in the toy and game industry. For twenty-five years William Fuld ran the company until he fell backwards off the roof of his factory to his death in 1927. Following his death, William's children took over and ran the company right up until 1966 when Parker Brothers acquired the company and all of its assets.
You can still buy the Ouija Board today as a glow-in-the-dark children's toy.
So what’s all the fuss about?
Basically religion.
There
are two sides to every argument, sometimes more. In the case of the Ouija Board,
some people claim it is a sin against God to contact the dead. The same people
also claim that you are only contacting evil spirits and demons that use the
Ouija Board to prime innocent users ready for possession or corruption.
Then there is the lighter side of the argument. The sceptics and the ‘non-but-want-to-be-believers’. They tend to see the board as a harmless game. Considering it’s been packaged and sold as a game for it’s entire history, the argument is very one-sided in my opinion. But its history is not an entirely happy one.
What essentially started off with the name ‘good luck board’ has managed to create quite a sinister and dark path of destruction as well as divide public and professional opinion. Numerous stories of bad luck, negative predictions and even death surround the mysterious board. In fact some believe the power of the board is extremely dangerous if not used correctly.
J
B Rhine, an American researcher in the 1930's managed to establish the existence
of psychic ability. As science and spiritualism never really got on, this only
served to widen the split. As a lot unusual phenomena could now be explained
through science, the mystery of spirits and demons was no longer the threat
it originally was. Science now took the mystery of the Ouija Board away from
those who embraced science, though believers of the board still feared it.
William Carpenter in 1852 invented the term Ideomotor Effect that he concluded was, ‘involuntary or unconscious motor behaviour’. Other terms like autosuggestion, automatism and telepathy compounded the scientific evidence of the Ouija being just a harmless game – the messages of which were created by the users who unconsciously moved the planchette without realising it and not spirits.
Of course the various camps are still as wide apart as ever on this. Believers, sceptics or the undecided all have their opinions. After I read through the articles on the Internet, there were some passionate arguments against the Ouija Board – it seems science cannot be trusted, or indeed proved outright for a lot of people.
The
Ouija Board continues on in folklore as ‘demonic’ as films and
books portray it this way. Stories in newspapers proclaim teenagers went on
the rampage with a shotgun or killed themselves because the board instructed
them to do so. I wonder if Bond and Kennedy would have gone ahead with this
board game if they’d had a glimpse of the impact it would have on society?
No doubt someone else would have invented it – it just may have had a
different name!
And Finally
There are loads of books and instruction guides dedicated to the Ouija Board. There are hundreds of Ouija Board designs and a wide variety of names such as, Talking Board, Mystifying Oracle, Mystic Board and Wireless Messenger to name a few. It doesn’t look like it’s going to go away any time soon. As paranormal TV shows increase in popularity and introduces it to new, inquisitive minds it goes without saying that the Ouija Board has a rosy future - but for whom?
Here are some popular myths and superstitions,
- Never play the Ouija Board on your own.
- Open and close the board correctly otherwise the spirit will have the equivalent of an open door into our world.
- If you use a glass as a planchette, you must smash it after the séance is finished to prevent the spirit coming back.
- A Ouija Board will scream if you burn it. The listener will have a mere thirty-six hours to live if they hear it.
- Never ask about death dates, God or treasure.
- All spirits are evil if they speak to you via the Ouija. They will fool you into thinking they’re known to you or are friendly. Really, they want to cause mischief and grief.
And so here I draw the article to a close. I’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions in the Forum. Have you had a good or bad experience? Do you believe in the science or paranormal argument?
Would you like your own Ouija Board like the modern eye design above? Click HERE for a printable Ouija Board - 1.2mb. Download the accompanying planchette HERE - 270kb. The images will open in a new window. Save it to disk and open the image an appropriate application to print it, eg, Word, Photoshop or even your browser. Hauntedland cannot be held responsible for 'anything at all' if you use the Ouija Board.
Further Reading
Web
Paranormal Magazine – Issue 2, December 2005
The Skeptic’s Dictionary – Robert Todd Carroll, Wiley 2003