History
Ouija Boards have been around for about one-hundred years now, and people are still trying to decide if they are just a toy or not. Ouija boards were first invented in 1891 by two men named Elijah Bond and Charles Kennard. People got bored of the way they were communicating with spirits, and everyone stopped buying Planchettes. Which are heart shaped pieces of wood with two wheels. On the tip of the heart is a hole, where you stick a pencil. You and the medium put your fingers on it and chant, ask questions or just sit there in silence until it begins to write. This was slow and boring. People wanted a more exciting and fun way to communicate with spirits and read minds. The two men came up with many ideas and finally came up with one, and it worked! Their idea was to put the Planchette with out wheels and a pencil, on a board with numbers, letters, yes, no and goodbye on it, so you wouldn't have to wait for the spirit to messily scribble out your answers. All you needed to do was ask your questions and it would quickly (or slowly, depending on the spirit or their mood,) spell out the answer! Anyway, William Fuld, an employee of Charles Kennard, took over the idea in 1901. He quickly took it under his own company name and patented the word "Ouija" , then Fuld started selling them. He thought the word was Ancient Egypt for "good luck" but he was wrong. It actually means, "yes, yes." William Fuld attempted to sue every company that tried to use the name "Ouija", the design, the game or who ever tried to have the same concept, all the way up to his death in 1927. The Fuld business was eventually sold off to Hasbro who now have a couple designs of the board, such as: The pink Ouija Board, the glow in the dark Ouija board and many more based of the original design by Bond and Kennard.
This board is over 100 years old, designed by William Fuld. | Here is a Parker Brothers Ouija board. It was one of William Fuld's original designs, then when he died Hasbro or Parker Bros. bought it. | This is a Planchette. A pencil is attached and the spirit would write for you instead of spell things out like a Ouija Board. |
In Victorian times, Ouija Board's were a fun family game. Friends and family would gather at dinner parties and be entertained for hours. This was up until the 1920's when people tried to ban Ouija boards and communicating with the dead. The reason why people tried to communicate the spirits in the first place was for entertainment purposes and mind reading. Mind readers and fortune tellers would put their hands and their clients hand on the board or Planchette and ask questions and they would believe that spirits and the clients minds would mix and answer the questions.
Famous magician, Harry Houdini once wrote that five people in California were drove insane from using the Ouija board. Dr. Curry, a former medical direct of the State Insane Asylum of New Jersey claimed that the Ouija board was a dangerous factor in unbalancing the mind and believed that if their popularity persisted, insane asylums would be filled with people who used them.
The biggest downfall of the Ouija board was in 1973, after the movie, The Exorcist was released. The movie was based on a book written by William Peter Blatty, who based his book of real events. The movie is about a girl named Regan who contacted a spirit named Captain Howdy over the Ouija board. Captain Howdy was a “door way” for Pazuzu the Demon to get into Regan’s body. Some of the events in the movie were real also, like bed shaking and moving of furniture while people not possessed were in the room. It was one of the scariest movies when it was made. For the first time the public wholeheartedly believed in the movie's idea that playing with a Ouija board could result in nothing but trouble. The Ouija board then suffered a great decline in its popularity, people began burning their own boards and shunning the sale of them from game stores.
Famous magician, Harry Houdini once wrote that five people in California were drove insane from using the Ouija board. Dr. Curry, a former medical direct of the State Insane Asylum of New Jersey claimed that the Ouija board was a dangerous factor in unbalancing the mind and believed that if their popularity persisted, insane asylums would be filled with people who used them.
The biggest downfall of the Ouija board was in 1973, after the movie, The Exorcist was released. The movie was based on a book written by William Peter Blatty, who based his book of real events. The movie is about a girl named Regan who contacted a spirit named Captain Howdy over the Ouija board. Captain Howdy was a “door way” for Pazuzu the Demon to get into Regan’s body. Some of the events in the movie were real also, like bed shaking and moving of furniture while people not possessed were in the room. It was one of the scariest movies when it was made. For the first time the public wholeheartedly believed in the movie's idea that playing with a Ouija board could result in nothing but trouble. The Ouija board then suffered a great decline in its popularity, people began burning their own boards and shunning the sale of them from game stores.