The Ouija Board
The Ouija board is piece of investigation equipment I've owned since the October of 2022, and is something I've always wanted to know more about. Before I owned one, it seemed like a taboo item to own which would cause potential mayhem within the home you brought one into. This is, of course, because I've been raised in a world dominated by social media where mishaps regarding these boards are told both as fiction and alleged fact. I remember my first use of a Ouija board was years ago with my sister and her friend, and nothing much happened aside some gentle knocking and a candle flickering oddly when compared to the others we had lit. I remember it felt like the planchette wanted to move, but it didn't, and the session was cut short when my dad returned home earlier than we had expected. It was an odd experience which left me curious on if the board worked, and upon hearing supposedly true stories online about entities such as 'Zozo' appearing on the board for a number of disastrous sessions, I wanted to test it further. After a fair few sessions now of using the board, I've decided it's time to discuss the history of the Ouija board on this blog along with a couple of my own experiences.
The sources I will be using:
2. Nerdist
3. The Guardian
5. BBC
6. Slay Away
8. History Hit
9. Live About
11. Met Museum
History of the Ouija board
The Ouija board itself is actually a surprisingly modern invention given how routed in folklore and modern spirituality it has become. Looking at the history of paranormal communication devices similar to the board, the earliest account of this is during the Song Dynasty in China in roughly 1100 AD. During this time there was a method of automatic writing called 'Fuji' which involved a planchette. The modern day Ouija board, however, didn't surface until 1800's America.
In 1848, spiritualism found its way to America and so you had many instances of people claiming to communicate with the dead. An example of this is the Fox sisters who would communicate with spirits through hearing knocks on the walls. I assume it would be the same kind of method used today where you interpret one knock as 'yes' and two for 'no'. During the time period, the alphabet would also be spoken and if a knock occured on a letter, the that would be interpreted as the right one. It was a tedious method though, and so it was only a matter of time until the Ouija board was invented.
An important thing to note here, is that this type of communication with spirits was incredibly common and accepted for the 1800's. It was considered as both acceptable and wholesome because people had an average lifespan of less than 50. Women would die from childbirth, men died during the American civil war, and children died from a whole host of diseases. It was a time period where death was common, and people wanted the opportunity to say goodbye to their loved ones. In 1862, a seance was even held in the White House after Mary Todd Lincoln's 11 year old son died from a fever.
All of this spiritualism resulted in a report being published in 1886 discussing the emergence of a 'talking board' that spiritualists were using in Ohio camps. This was the 'first' Ouija board as it had roughly the same design as what we associate with the boards today. Charles Kennedy, however, was the first to properly 'create' the Ouija board. He and four other investors, one of which was Elijah Bond, started the Kennard Novelty Company in 1890. These people were not spiritualists, but were strictly businessmen looking to profit from this 'talking board' people had heard about.
The name is commonly believed to come from a hybrid of the French and German words for 'yes': 'Oui' and 'Ja'. This is not the case. The name comes from Elijah Bond's sister-in-law Helen Peters, someone who has been credited as a 'strong medium'. As everyone was stumped for a name, they decided to hold a seance and ask the board what they should call it. The answer they received was 'Ouija', a word they said was ancient Egyptian for 'good luck'. It was later revealed that Helen had was wearing a necklace that said 'Ouija' on it, although it is possible that this was a misreading of 'Ouida', a famous author and woman's rights activist of that name whose photo was in the necklace, and who Helen admired.
When it came to the board being patented, there is an interesting story which, when combined with how the name originated, really feeds into my overall thoughts on the board. The chief patent officer wanted a demonstration of the board and said that if it could accurately spell out his name, then he would allow for the application to proceed; and to his disbelief it did. Now, the patent officer didn't think Kennard or Bond would know his name, but Elijah Bond was a patent attorney so he may very well have known the officers name. Whether the board spelt his name because of spiritual involvement, conscious tampering, or subconscious movement is a mystery. Regardless, on the 10th of February 1891 the patent was granted and the first few newspaper adverts surfaced.
By 1892, one factory in Baltimore had become two in Baltimore, two in New York, two in Chicago, and one in London. By 1893, both Kennard and Bond were out of the company and a man called William Fuld was running the company. In 1898, Fuld licensed exclusive rights to make the board and in 1919 he owned the entire company when Bowie, the majority shareholder, sold the remaining business interest to Fuld for $1. Surprisingly, Helen Peters sold all of her stock in the company after a family dispute over the board. Some family belongings had disappeared and they asked the board who had the belongings, and after the board suggested a member of the family had taken the belongings the family was split in two. One half believed the board and accused the family of stealing, and the other half accused the board of lying. Helen didn't believe the board and publicly said 'don't play the Ouija board because it lies'.
That isn't the only strange story concerning those close to the boards creation and success: Fuld died in 1927 after some strange circumstances. He built a three story factory, saying the board told him to as he should expect big business, and one day he was on the roof and fell. The fall didn't kill him though, he was expected to make a full recovery despite breaking a number of ribs. He died on the way to the hospital after the car went over a bump which sent a piece of rib through his heart.
A number of strange stories seem to surround the board, my favourite is of the 'Ouija board will' where a woman by the name of Helen Dow Peck left $1000 to her two former servants and $152,000 to a spirit she had spoken to on the Ouija board called John Gale Forbes. The court didn't honour the will, but I find the thought of a woman sitting down at a Ouija board only to be scammed by a spirit really funny. It's certainly dark humour, but it is what it is, and so it is my favourite story regarding Ouija boards.
Anyway, after Fuld died, the Parker Brothers bought the game from the Fuld Company in 1966 and in 1967 the Ouija board outsold Monopoly. It was all going very well for the Ouija board and no one was associating it with anything evil or demonic. It has even been used as inspiration for authors. An example of this is in 1916 Pearl Curran began to write stories and novels which were dictated to her via Ouija board. So, why is it that today we associate the boards with the demonic? The answer is the same as to why people believe most things these days: the media.
1973 marked the turning point of how people saw Ouija boards, and it was all thanks to the release of the film 'The Exorcist'. In the film, a girl plays with a Ouija board and is then possessed by a demon she has made contact with. This is the basis of what you tend to hear when anyone warns against using the board these days. From 1973, the boards became known as the tool of the devil and appeared frequently in horror media2. Religious groups denounced the Ouija board and in 2001 it was being burned on bonfires in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Christians are still wary of the board as they claim parts of the bible warn against communicating with spirits through mediums.
In 1991, Hasbro bought Parker Brothers. So now the 'dangerous' and 'demonic' board is manufactured by the same people who manufacture 'Play-Doh', 'Peppa Pig', and 'My Little Pony'. I don't know about you, but that last one certainly belongs on the pile of demonic creations. In all seriousness though, the board seems to walk the odd line between being an entirely fictional gimmic created purely for profit and being something mysterious with a little bit more to it. Even when knowing its creation story, you can't help but still have that little niggling feeling which causes you to still question it further.
The explanations
Now, I've already mentioned the profit side but I've not touched so much on who was buying the board. I mentioned the American Civil War being a factor in the early days of the boards creation, but what about the 1900's and what about now? The answer remains the same. I would put the sales down to fear, but the specific fear has changed. There is a clear trend between war and sales, and through the 1900's you've got WWI, WW2, and Vietnam being the most of note. People were scared of death, and were particularly scared of not hearing from their loved ones again. If anyone were to go missing in action, or die abroad, the Ouija board provided the same comforts to people as it did in the 1800's. This would have taken a serious toll on the psyche. If you tell someone undergoing grief that there was a way of communicating with their loved one, I don't think anyone would turn that down.
This brings me onto the idiomotor effect. I'm going to do a whole post on this at some point, but I need to mention it here to explain the Ouija phenomenon. The effect, in all simplicity, is when muscle movements occur without conscious will. It's kind of like blinking. You don't think to blink, you just do. Give a grieving person a method of communicating with the dead, and the dead will certainly speak to that person one way or another. I feel this is one way of explaining a fair amount of paranormal experiences. If you are grieving a loved one, you will notice things to do with them and you may interpret you seeing these things as them trying to communicate with you. It's the same with the board. Except, the idiomotor effect doesn't just app,y to the grieving which is why it is so convincing. If a group of people sit around the board with hands on the planchette, it only takes the smallest of movements to make a big impact. Everyone will say they haven't moved it, because they all consciously haven't, and then this only convinces the mind more into subconsciously moving the planchette and this is exactly what happens. Before long, everyone is completely convinced and the planchette is seemingly spelling out words and names through this subconscious movement. It's the same way dowsing rods, pendulums, and table tipping work.
My thoughts
As mentioned earlier, I've been using the board for some time now. The board even has rules, these being to always say goodbye, to never play alone, to be polite, to introduce yourself, to state your intention, to not call out to 'any spirits out there', and to not leave the planchette on the board without it being held. I've broken all of these rules I've mentioned with only one to date remaining intact. I always make sure I say goodbye, but as for the rest...I've broken those on a number of occasions. Whenever I use the board, it is alone. Why? It's the only way to be sure only you are moving it if it moves. I mentioned the idiomotor effect, and as I'm well aware of it, I know to not trust any movement with the planchette. If it moves, I try to recreate the movement and I always find I can to perfection, and it is often caused by my arms relaxing without me consciously being aware. If I use the board with others, it increases variables and you don't know if those you are playing it with are telling the truth.
Now, do I think the board is legitimate? Maybe. It's in a wierd middle ground. Before buying one, I mentioned in my journal that if there is anything at all to the board then I should expect a significant increase of activity in a house I have deemed minimally haunted. This is what the warnings would have you believe after all, especially if you go breaking rules. This is kind of what happened, but not enough to have me completely convinced. The first time I used the board a bag, which had been still on a surface for a good amount of time, fell to the ground in the next room about half an hour through the session. This made me jump, and marked the first of a few wierd occurrences to occur while using the board. Now, the bag may have just slipped and fell regardless of the board, but I found the timing really strange and I didnt hear it slip first... it just hit the ground. I've also potentially seen a couple of apparitions while using the board, and gotten a strange string of words on the Spirit Talker app. Keeping all that in mind, I would definitely say that's a significant increase in activity. I also seem to get strange KII readings around the board when I'm using it, but this is likely just down to the nearby WiFi box in my sessions. I'm needing to do more experimentation regarding that, but in my last session I had the KII completely glitch out and go to red which I've never seen before. It could just be low battery though.
Bearing everything I've mentioned in mind, my rational mind is saying that the Ouija board was created by charlatans for money and that the fear created by 'The Exorcist', along with losing loved ones and the idiomotor effect, have all combined together to form what we now know as this supernatural and potentially dangerous method of communing with the dead. However, my investigator mind is saying there is more to it. Odd circumstances around claims of the board lying, Fuld's death, wierd stories that have nothing to do with grief, and just the stories in general out there about mishaps with the board all just seems like too much to just write off. Now, it's possible that a large portion of these stories are just the product of the mind, or come from people looking to go viral, but I do believe there are a few, perhaps only a slim few, that do hold a glimmer of truth. I do believe spirits exist after all, and I do believe they can communicate with us, so why can't they move a piece of plastic to varying letters to spell out what they want to say?
Thank you for reading to the end of this post! I really hope you enjoyed it. If you have any comments whether that be about the blog, experiences of your own, or even places you would like for me to investigate, then you can comment and follow on here, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or Reddit, and you can email thetrueparanormal1@gmail.com for a quick response to any questions.
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