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Friends,
Myths, Magic, Mayhem, and more…
I will be your host for the evening, and tonight, we will dive deep into the mystery of Ouija Boards. Now I know there are far left and right feelings about summoning the dead to ask questions or say your final goodbyes. It’s a hot topic between the religious and the spiritualists.
But does anyone know how Ouija boards even became a thing? The history might surprise you.
Back Story
April 9th, 1865- the Civil War has ended. The bloody war that saw father against son, mother against daughter, and families torn apart by invisible borders and competing morals has ravaged the U.S. By 1891, the pieces were still lying scattered across the bloody battlegrounds.
26 years is a short time for most people, but memories last far longer than that. Most families hadn’t recovered financially, physically, or mentally. The economy was still in ruins, and the government still hadn’t figured out our new normal.
What the country needed was a distraction from life, something to give them hope for a better future. And what better way than to ask the dead? They know everything.
Right?
And Spiritualism was born. In the last post, we discussed the history of the Spiritualism movement and its role in the U.S. and abroad. But now we will see how that one tiny moment in history had a far broader impact than you first imagined.
It Started Out As A Board Game.
Yes. A board game. Not just any board game. A board game that has easily surpassed Monopoly as an best seller for years.
It all started with a Spiritualism camp in Ohio. In 1886, the Associated Press reported on a ‘talking board’ used to communicate with spirits. The board had letters, numbers, and a device that could channel spirits from the afterlife.
Sound familiar?
Yup, to me, too. The original Ouija board before it became a ‘thing.’
And that’s where the American spirit of profiteering from people’s pain and suffering comes into play.
Mr. Charles Kennard of Baltimore read about the ‘talking board’ and had a hunch that if he could mass-produce a similar product, it would be an instant money maker.
There was one small problem.
He didn’t have a ‘talking board.’
But where there is a will, there is a way. Kennard partnered with E.C. Reich, a local furniture maker-turned-undertaker, to create one. However, as most people know, creating something doesn’t guarantee it will become a bestseller. Kennard and Reich needed help. They needed money, a brand, and a way to mass-produce their new product.
So, in 1890, Kennard enlisted the help of Elijah Bond and Col. Washington Bowie and started the Kennard Novelty Company.
A Name That Would Sell.
As you can guess, ‘Talking Board’ doesn’t inspire the imagination or lead to sales. The group needed to come up with a name that would lure the unsuspecting population in. Something that would draw the eye and instill confidence in the game.
That honor is given to Elijah Bons’s sister, Helen Peters. But of course, there are two sides to the story.
Helen claimed to be a ‘strong medium’ and had been invited to a meeting where board members used the newly created board to decide on its name. According to the members, the spirits replied- O U I J A. No one had seen or heard that word before, and when they asked for its meaning, the spirits replied, ‘Good Luck.’
The other story is that Helen wore a locket to a meeting of women’s rights activist and author Ouida. According to documents, the name “Ouija” was simply a misspelling of her actual name.
However, the idea of spirits having a hand in it sounds more appealing, so that is what was presented to the public.
Game For The Spirits
For anything to be viable in this world, it has to have a patent.
But how to get one for a game that can talk to the spirits? It’s not like they can sign off on it.
Again, Helen comes to the rescue. On February 10, 1891, she accompanied her brother to the Washington Patent Office when he filled out the application. The chief patent officer is skeptical and will sign off on the approval only after he sees a demonstration.
The question he wanted the spirits to answer?
His name.
If the board could accurately spell his name, which Bond and his sister didn’t know, he would allow the patent application to proceed. I’m sure Helen was nervous, but they all sat around a table and reached out to the spirits.
A little bit later, a visibly shaken patent officer signed off on the new ‘toy or game.’
Advertising
Ironically, the game didn’t initially evoke the devil or evil spirits. It was advertised as a fun way to ‘liven’ up a party (no pun intended). Families would spend a Saturday evening gathered around the table, having a good time and asking the spirits for guidance.
I’m sure quite a few women used it to find the names of their future husbands.
Or men who used it to decide whether to pursue one field of study over another.
A few authors even used it to write their books.
The original A.I.
So, when and why did it become so feared?
That would be thanks to Hollywood—or, more notably, the movie The Exorcist. Since then, the Ouija board has been the focal point of numerous films, Netflix specials, and books, to the point that religious communities have petitioned for its removal.
But Does It Work?
Now, that is the real question. As with most faith-based religions, believing in the unseen brings comfort, solace, and closure to many people facing troubling times.
Can we honestly say that belief in the Ouija board is misguided?
Well, a study from the University of British Columbia says it may not be. This was a long study with many moving parts, so I will simplify it as best I understand.
Sidney Fels, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University, brought an Ouija board to a Halloween party. Many of the guests (graduate students) were foreigners and had never heard of it before. Fels gave a generalized explanation, and they all tried it together.
To everyone’s surprise, the students believed that the planchette moved on its own.
Now, scientifically, there is an explanation called the ‘ideomotor effect,’ first introduced in 1852 by Dr. William Benjamin Carpenter, long before Sigmund Freud’s theory of the unconscious mind. Carpenter believed that the unconscious mind directly correlates to motor activity.
Fels shared the experience with a colleague, Ron Rensink, a professor of psychology and computer science. Rensink developed an experiment to expand on the theory.
Group A: Participants were asked to answer complex questions using the Ouija board. They were right 50 percent of the time.
Group B: Participants used the board with a robot Ouija partner via teleconference. 65 percent of the time, they were right. The difference? The computer program used the participant’s tiny, unconscious movements to move the planchette.
Outcome? The unconscious mind is smarter than you know. When not competing with another person, participants could remember bits of stored information that are not accessible to the conscious mind.
Side note: A follow-up study replicated the findings reported in the academic journal Consciousness and Cognition.
Final Thoughts
The Ouija Board is a hot topic. It did not start off as an evil demon-summoning tool. It was a game that helped people come to terms with a devastating period, offered a glimmer of hope, and perhaps some fun in an already bleak world.
And yes, a money-making scheme, too.
But who’s to say that with enough faith, it can’t work?
I leave that up to you to decide.
Until next time, Keep Reading and Stay Caffeinated.
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