The Life of the Ouija Board

Spiritualism in America became prominent in the aftermath of the Civil War that ended in 1865. With so many young lives lost, many families were left in despair from not knowing what happened to their loved ones in their last moments or where their final resting place was. Seeing this mass of grief as an opportunity to sustain a steady income, mediums across the country promoted their work, setting up séance for people desperate to communicate and in need of closure.

It wasn’t long before businessman and attorney, Elijah Bond, began to see spiritualism as a financial investment too; eventually finding his niche in reinventing the talking board and naming it Ouija.

The first advertisements that began marketing Ouija started appearing in American papers in 1891. Appealing to all social classes, the magical device was described as having the ability to answer questions ‘about the past, present, and future with marvellous accuracy.’

Word broke out that Bond had to prove his board worked before being granted a patent for the name Ouija. The mysterious board successfully passed the test at the patent office, winning over the sceptics after it accurately spelt the forename of the chief patent officer, which was apparently unknown to Bond at the time.

For $1.49, the talking board became an overnight phenomenon. People could now connect with their loved ones daily from the comfort of their homes and it was much cheaper than summoning a medium. As it put many fortune tellers and mediums out of business, professional spiritualists were opposed to their clients using the board, associating it with Satan.

Nevertheless, sales soared in Pittsburgh and across all toy and novelty shops in America. It exceeded expectations as believers and sceptics alike were curious to find out whether the flat wooden board with letters of the alphabet curved above a row of numbers 0 through 9 would work for them, having worked for Bond himself. In fact, it’s how the board’s name was derived.

Using the board alongside Bond was Helen Peters, a well-known medium and his sister-in-law. She asked the talking board what it should be called to which the teardrop pointer spelt out Ouija, meaning good luck in ancient Egyptian.

Since then, it has been heavily reported that Peters was wearing a locket with a photo of a woman inside with the name Ouida above her head. It is believed the board’s spelling was simply a misreading of that name.

Though psychologists believe the Ouija board offers people a link between the known and unknown, many scientists prefer to think people already had the answer deep within their subconsciousness, indicating that the pointer is an ideomotor response to their illusion.

Robert Murch, a historian and expert on talking boards is ‘obsessed with unravelling the mystery of its origins.’ Ouija offers a fun way for people to not only believe in something but give them the confidence to act upon their beliefs. As no one could pre-determine whether the mysterious board connected with the dead or not the board was used for personal gain and inspired all kinds of things.

The New York Times wrote a column in 1913 about two women from St Louis that were frequently visited by a spirit called Patience Worth who stated through the board that ‘many moons ago I lived. Again, I come.’

Mrs Curran, whose hand was on the planchette wasn’t interested in spiritualism until her father passed away. It was only then that she warmed to the idea of owning an Ouija board to connect with him. Instead, she allegedly received a high volume of poems in form of iambic pentameter, dramas, and dramatic tales from a female spirit that had moved to America in the 1600s. Between 1913 and 1937, Mrs Curran documented every word the board spelt out, attracting the attention of Casper Yost, a deeply religious man and editor of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat who truly thought the phantom, Patient Worth, was real, and firmly believed the spirits rural dialect was from medieval England.

As connecting with the dead was a common practice, not one of Mrs Curran’s contemporaries questioned her sanity. Interestingly, an investigation proved that it was more difficult to believe that the uncanny poems were coming from an ordinary homemaker than from a supernatural force. So much so, that they convinced themselves that the fascinating pieces of literature could only have come from the spiritually unknown.

Perhaps, Mrs Curran used the Ouija board to be officially heard in a patriarchal society; closing the gap between gender ideologies by using the persona of a female ghost to discuss subject matters that respectable women of her time weren’t allowed to say. Whether or not the spirit was real, the extraordinary collection of poems and stories was awarded more credibility than Mrs Curran would have ever received if she consciously published them herself.

By the mid-twentieth century, the Ouija board had been taken over by William Fuld, an American Entrepreneur, and sales were at an all-time high due to the loss of life during The Great War 1914-1918 and Influenza. And though the board offered solace to a new generation that lost loved ones as well as their fortune in the Great Depression, it had also gained a bad reputation during this time, especially after William Fuld’s death.

Fuld died in 1927 after falling off the rooftop of the very same factory that Ouija convinced him to build. It was then that other stories started to emerge casting shadows on the board. It was even stated by Helen Peters herself that Ouija caused a rift in her family when a Civil War family heirloom went missing and the board accused her cousin of stealing it.

Almost overnight, the fun and mysterious talking board that was marvellously accurate had been classed as a liar by Peters and has been associated with terrible homicides.

Then in the late seventies, thanks to moviemakers, people became afraid of the board and the unknown; terrified they would become possessed like the young girl in The Exorcist if they asked it any questions.

As a result of all the horror films portraying the Ouija board as an evil tool, religious groups began linking it to Satan. The self-righteous stressed that Satan used the board to communicate with the living to manipulate them into doing his sinful bidding.

Whether you believe that the talking board can link you with the unknown or that it’s your subconscious talking, it’s perhaps wise not to use it unless you have the nerve to live with a demonic: just in case there is a spirit on the other side awaiting your questions.