The Strange and Mysterious History of the Ouija Board Tool of the devil, harmless family gameor fascinating

glimpse into the non-conscious mind? In February, 1891, the first few advertisements started appearing in papers: Ouija, the Wonderful Talking Board, boomed a Pittsburgh toy and novelty shop, describing a magical device that answered questions about the past, present and future with marvelous accuracy and promised never-failing amusement and recreation for all the classes, a link between the known and unknown, the material and immaterial. Another advertisement in a New York newspaper declared it interesting and mysterious and testified, as sProven at Patent Office before it was allowed. Price, $1.50. This mysterious talking board was basically whats sold in board game aisles today: A flat board with the letters of the alphabet arrayed in two semi-circles above the numbers 0 through 9; the words yes and no in the uppermost corners, goodbye at the bottom; accompanied by a planchette, a teardrop-shaped device, usually with a small window in the body, used to maneuver about the board. The idea was that two or more people would sit around the board, place their finger tips on the planchette, pose a question, and watch, dumbfounded, as the planchette moved from letter to letter, spelling out the answers seemingly of its own accord. The biggest difference is in the materials; the board is now usually cardboard, rather than wood, and the planchette is plastic. Though truth in advertising is hard to come by, especially in products from the 19th century, the Ouija board was interesting and mysterious; it actually had been proven to work at the Patent Office before its patent was allowed to proceed; and today, even psychologists believe that it may offer a link between the known and the unknown. The real history of the Ouija board is just about as mysterious as how the game works. Ouija historian Robert Murch has been researching the story of the board since 1992; when he started his research, he says, no one really

knew anything about its origins, which struck him as odd: For such an iconic thing that strikes both fear and wonder in American culture, how can no one know where it came from? The Ouija board, in fact, came straight out of the American 19th century obsession with spiritualism, the belief that the dead are able to communicate with the living. Spiritualism, which had been around for years in Europe, hit America hard in 1848 with the sudden prominence of the Fox sisters of upstate New York; the Foxes claimed to receive messages from spirits who rapped on the walls in answer to questions, recreating this feat of channeling in parlors across the state. Aided by the stories about the celebrity sisters and other spiritualists in the new national press, spiritualism reached millions of adherents at its peak in the second half of the 19th century. Spiritualism worked for Americans: it was compatible with Christian dogma, meaning one could hold a sance on Saturday night and have no qualms about going to church the next day. It was an acceptable, even wholesome activity to contact spirits at sances, through automatic writing, or table turning parties, in which participants would place their hands on a small table and watch it begin shake and rattle, while they all declared that they werent moving it. The movement also offered solace in an era when the average lifespan was less than 50: Women died in childbirth; children died of disease; and men died in war. Even Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of the venerable president, conducted sances in the White House after their 11-year-old son died of a fever in 1862; during the Civil War, spiritualism gained adherents in droves, people desperate to connect with loved ones whod gone away to war and never come home. Communicating with the dead was common, it wasnt seen as bizarre or weird, explains Murch. Its hard to imagine that now, we look at that and think, Why are you opening the gates of hell? But opening the gates of hell wasnt on anyones mind when they started the Kennard Novelty Company, the first producers of the Ouija board; in fact, they were mostly looking to open Americans wallets.

As spiritualism had grown in American culture, so too did frustration with how long it took to get any meaningful message out of the spirits, says Brandon Hodge, Spiritualism historian. Calling out the alphabet and waiting for a knock at the right letter, for example, was deeply boring. After all, rapid communication with breathing humans at far distances was a possibilitythe telegraph had been around for decadeswhy shouldnt spirits be as easy to reach? People were desperate for methods of communication that would be quickerand while several entrepreneurs realized that, it was the Kennard Novelty Company that really nailed it. In 1886, the fledgling Associated Press reported on a new phenomenon taking over the spiritualists camps in Ohio, the talking board; it was, for all intents and purposes, a Ouija board, with letters, numbers and a planchette-like device to point to them. The article went far and wide, but it was Charles Kennard of Baltimore, Maryland who acted on it. In 1890, he pulled together a group of four other investorsincluding Elijah Bond, a local attorney, and Col. Washington Bowie, a surveyorto start the Kennard Novelty Company to exclusively make and market these new talking boards. None of the men were spiritualists, really, but they were all of them keen businessmen and theyd identified a niche. But they didnt have the Ouija board yetthe Kennard talking board lacked a name. Contrary to popular belief, Ouija is not a combination of the French for yes, oui, and the German ja. Murch says, based on his research, it was Bonds sister-in-law, Helen Peters (who was, Bond said, a strong medium), who supplied the now instantly recognizable handle. Sitting around the table, they asked the board what they should call it; the name Ouija came through and, when they asked what that meant, the board replied, Good luck. Eerie and crypticbut for the fact that Peters acknowledged that she was wearing a locket bearing the picture of a woman, the name Ouija above her head. Thats the story that emerged from the Ouija founders letters; its very possible that the woman in the locket was famous author and popular womens rights activist Ouida, whom Peters admired, and that Ouija was just a misreading of that.

According to Murchs interviews with the descendants of the Ouija founders and the original Ouija patent file itself, which hes seen, the story of the boards patent request was true: Knowing that if they couldnt prove that the board worked, they wouldnt get their patent, Bond brought the indispensible Peters to the patent office in Washington with him when he filed his application. There, the chief patent officer demanded a demonstrationif the board could accurately spell out his name, which was supposed to be unknown to Bond and Peters, hed allow the patent application to proceed. They all sat down, communed with the spirits, and the planchette faithfully spelled out the patent officers name. Whether or not it was mystical spirits or the fact that Bond, as a patent attorney, may have just known the mans name, well, thats unclear, Murch says. But on February 10, 1891, a white-faced and visibly shaken patent officer awarded Bond a patent for his new toy or game. The first patent offers no explanation as to how the device works, just asserts that it does. That ambiguity and mystery was part of a more or less conscious marketing effort. These were very shrewd businessmen, notes Murch; the less the Kennard company said about how the board worked, the more mysterious it seemedand the more people wanted to buy it. Ultimately, it was a money-maker. They didnt care why people thought it worked. And it was a money-maker. By 1892, the Kennard Novelty Company went from one factory in Baltimore to two in Baltimore, two in New York, two in Chicago and one in London. And by 1893, Kennard and Bond were out, owing to some internal pressures and the old adage about money changing everything. By this time, William Fuld, whod gotten in on the ground floor of the fledgling company as an employee and stockholder, was running the company. (Notably, Fuld is not and never claimed to be the inventor of the board, though even his obituary in The New York Times declared him to be; also notably, Fuld died in 1927 after a freak fall from the roof of his new factorya factory he said the Ouija board told him to build.) In 1898, with the blessing of Col. Bowie, the majority shareholder and one of only two

remaining original investors, he licensed the exclusive rights to make the board. What followed were boom years for Fuld and frustration for some of the men whod been in on the Ouija board from the beginningpublic squabbling over whod really invented it played out in the pages of the Baltimore Sun, while their rival boards launched and failed. In 1919, Bowie sold the remaining business interest in Ouija to Fuld, his protg, for $1. The boards instant and now, more than 120 years later, prolonged success showed that it had tapped into a weird place in American culture. It was marketed as both mystical oracle and as family entertainment, fun with an element of other-worldly excitement. This meant that it wasnt only spiritualists who bought the board; in fact, the people who disliked the Ouija board the most tended to be spirit mediums, as theyd just found their job as spiritual middleman cut out. The Ouija board appealed to people from across a wide spectrum of ages, professions, and education mostly, Murch claims, because the Ouija board offered a fun way for people to believe in something. People want to believe. The need to believe that something else is out there is powerful, he says. This thing is one of those things that allows them to express that belief. Its quite logical then the board would find its greatest popularity in uncertain times, when people hold fast to belief and look for answers from just about anywhere, especially cheap, DIY oracles. The 1910s and 20s, with the devastations of World War I and the manic years of the Jazz Age and prohibition, witnessed a surge in Ouija popularity. It was so normal that in May 1920, Norman Rockwell, illustrator of blissful 20th century domesticity, depicted a man and a woman, Ouija board on their knees, communing with the beyond on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. During the Great Depression, the Fuld Company opened new factories to meet demand for the boards; over five months in 1944, a single New York department store sold 50,000 of them. In 1967, the year after Parker Brothers bought the game from the Fuld Company, 2 million boards were sold, outselling Monopoly; that same year saw more American troops in

Vietnam, the counter-culture Summer of Love in San Francisco, and race riots in Newark, Detroit, Minneapolis and Milwaukee. Strange Ouija tales also made frequent, titillating appearances in American newspapers. In 1920, national wire services reported that would-be crime solvers were turning to their Ouija boards for clues in the mysterious murder of a New York City gambler, Joseph Burton Elwell, much to the frustration of the police. In 1921, The New York Times reported that a Chicago woman being sent to a psychiatric hospital tried to explain to doctors that she wasnt suffering from mania, but that Ouija spirits had told her to leave her mothers dead body in the living room for 15 days before burying her in the backyard. In 1930, newspaper readers thrilled to accounts of two women in Buffalo, New York, whod murdered another woman, supposedly on the encouragement of Ouija board messages. In 1941, a 23-year-old gas station attendant from New Jersey told The New York Times that he joined the Army because the Ouija board told him to. In 1958, a Connecticut court decided not to honor the Ouija board will of Mrs. Helen Dow Peck, who left only $1,000 to two former servants and an insane $152,000 to Mr. John Gale Forbesa lucky, but bodiless spirit whod contacted her via the Ouija board.

Ouija boards even offered literary inspiration: In 1916, Mrs. Pearl Curran made headlines when she began writing poems and stories that she claimed were dictated, via Ouija board, by the spirit of a 17th century Englishwoman called Patience Worth. The following year, Currans friend, Emily Grant Hutchings, claimed that her book, Jap Herron, was communicated via Ouija board by the late Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain. Curran earned significant success, Hutchings less, but neither of them achieved the heights that Pulitzer Prize-winning poet James Merrill did: In 1982, his epic Ouija-inspired and dictated poem, The Changing Light at Sandover, won the National Book Critics Circle Award. (Merrill, for his part, publicly implied that the Ouija board acted more as a magnifier for his own poetic thoughts, rather than as hotline to the spirits. In 1979, after he

wrote Mirabelle: Books of Number, another Ouija creation, he told The New York Review of Books, If the spirits arent external, how astonishing the mediums become!) Ouija existed on the periphery of American culture, perennially popular, mysterious, interesting and usually, barring the few cases of supposed Ouija-inspired murders, non-threatening. That is, until 1973. In that year, The Exorcist scared the pants off people in theaters, with all that pea soup and head-spinning and supposedly based on a true story business; and the implication that 12-year-old Regan was possessed by a demon after playing with a Ouija board by herself changed how people saw the board. Its kind of like Psychono one was afraid of showers until that scene Its a clear line, says Murch, explaining that before The Exorcist, film and TV depictions of the Ouija board were usually jokey, hokey, and sillyI Love Lucy, for example, featured a 1951 episode in which Lucy and Ethel host a sance using the Ouija board. But for at least 10 years afterwards, its no joke [The Exorcist] actually changed the fabric of pop culture. Almost overnight, Ouija became a tool of the devil and, for that reason, a tool of horror writers and moviemakersit began popping up in scary movies, usually opening the door to evil spirits hell-bent on ripping apart co-eds. Outside of the theatre, the following years saw the Ouija board denounced by religious groups as Satans preferred method of communication; in 2001 in Alamogordo, New Mexico, it was being burned on bonfires along with copies of Harry Potter and Disneys Snow White. Christian religious groups still remain wary of the board, citing scripture denouncing communication with spirits through mediumsCatholic.com calls the Ouija board far from harmless and as recently as 2011, 700 Club host Pat Robertson declared that demons can reach us through the board. Even within the paranormal community, Ouija boards enjoyed a dodgy reputationMurch says that when he first began speaking at paranormal conventions, he was told to leave his antique boards at home because they

scared people too much. Parker Brothers and later, Hasbro, after they acquired Parker Brothers in 1991, still sold hundreds of thousands of them, but the reasons why people were buying them had changed significantly: Ouija boards were spooky rather than spiritual, with a distinct frisson of danger. In recent years, Ouija is popular yet again, driven in part by economic uncertainty and the boards usefulness as a plot device. The hugely popular Paranormal Activity 1 and 2 both featured a Ouija board; its popped up in episodes of Breaking Bad, Castle, Rizzoli & Isles and multiple paranormal reality TV programs; Hot Topic, mall favorite of Gothy teens, sells a set of Ouija board bra and underwear; and for those wishing to commune with the beyond while on the go, theres an app (or 20) for that. This year, Hasbro released a more mystical version of the game, replacing its old glow-in-the-dark version; for purists, Hasbro also licensed the rights to make a classic version to another company. In 2012, rumors that Universal was in talks to make a film based on the game abounded, although Hasbro refused to comment on that or anything else for this story. But the real question, the one everyone wants to know, is how do Ouija boards work? Ouija boards are not, scientists say, powered by spirits or even demons. Disappointing but also potentially usefulbecause theyre powered by us, even when we protest that were not doing it, we swear. Ouija boards work on a principle known to those studying the mind for more than 160 years: the ideometer effect. In 1852, physician and physiologist William Benjamin Carpenter published a report for the Royal Institution of Great Britain, examining these automatic muscular movements that take place without the conscious will or volition of the individual (think crying in reaction to a sad film, for example). Almost immediately, other researchers saw applications of the ideometer effect in the popular spiritualist pastimes. In 1853, chemist and physicist Michael Faraday, intrigued by table-turning, conducted a series of experiments that proved to him (though not to most

spiritualists) that the tables motion was due to the ideomotor actions of the participants. The effect is very convincing. As Dr. Chris French, professor of psychology and anomalistic psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London, explains, It can generate a very strong impression that the movement is being caused by some outside agency, but its not. Other devices, such as dowsing rods, or more recently, the fake bomb detection kits that deceived scores of international governments and armed services, work on the same principle of non-conscious movement. The thing about all these mechanisms were talking about, dowsing rods, Oujia boards, pendulums, these small tables, theyre all devices whereby a quite a small muscular movement can cause quite a large effect, he says. Planchettes, in particular, are well-suited for their taskmany used to be constructed of a lightweight wooden board and fitted with small casters to help them move more smoothly and freely; now, theyre usually plastic and have felt feet, which also help it slide over the board easily. And with Ouija boards youve got the whole social context. Its usually a group of people, and everyone has a slight influence, French notes. With Ouija, not only does the individual give up some conscious control to participateso it cant be me, people thinkbut also, in a group, no one person can take credit for the planchettes movements, making it seem like the answers must be coming from an otherworldly source. Moreover, in most situations, there is an expectation or suggestion that the board is somehow mystical or magical. Once the idea has been implanted there, theres almost a readiness to happen. But if Ouija boards cant give us answers from beyond the Veil, what can they tell us? Quite a lot, actually. Researchers at the University of British Columbias Visual Cognition Lab think the board may be a good way to examine how the mind processes information on various levels. The idea that the mind has multiple levels of

information processing is by no means a new one, although exactly what to call those levels remains up for debate: Conscious, unconscious, subconscious, pre-conscious, zombie mind are all terms that have been or are currently used, and all have their supporters and detractors. For the purposes of this discussion, well refer to conscious as those thoughts youre basically aware that youre having (Im reading this fascinating article.) and non-conscious as the automatic pilot-type thoughts (blink, blink). Two years ago, Dr. Ron Rensink, professor of psychology and computer science, psychology postdoctoral researcher Hlne Gauchou, and Dr. Sidney Fels, professor of electrical and computer engineering, began looking at exactly what happens when people sit down to use a Ouija board. Fels says that they got the idea after he hosted a Halloween party with a fortune-telling theme and found himself explaining to several foreign students, who had never really seen it before, how the Ouija works. They kept asking where to put the batteries, Fels laughed. After offering up a more Halloween-friendly, mystical explanationleaving out the ideomotor effecthe left the students to play with the board on their own. When he came back, hours later, they were still at it, although by now much more freaked out. A few days post-hangover later, Fels said, he, Rensink, and a few others began talking about what is actually going on with the Ouija. The team thought the board could offer a really unique way to examine non-conscious knowledge, to determine whether ideomotor action could also express what the non-conscious knows. It was one of things that we thought it probably wont work, but if it did work, itd be really freaking cool, said Rensink. Their initial experiments involved a Ouija-playing robot: Participants were told that they were playing with a person in another room via teleconferencing; the robot, they were told, mimicked the movements of the other person. In actuality, the robots movements simply amplified the

participants motions and the person in the other room was just a ruse, a way to get the participant to think they werent in control. Participants were asked a series of yes or no, fact-based questions (Is Buenos Aires the capital of Brazil? Were the 2000 Olympic Games held in Sydney?) and expected to use the Ouija board to answer. What the team found surprised them: When participants were asked, verbally, to guess the answers to the best of their ability, they were right only around 50 percent of the time, a typical result for guessing. But when they answered using the board, believing that the answers were coming from someplace else, they answered correctly upwards of 65 percent of the time. It was so dramatic how much better they did on these questions than if they answered to the best of their ability that we were like, This is just weird, how could they be that much better? recalled Fels. It was so dramatic we couldnt believe it. The implication was, Fels explained, that ones non-conscious was a lot smarter than anyone knew.

The robot, unfortunately, proved too delicate for further experiments, but the researchers were sufficiently intrigued to pursue further Ouija research. They divined another experiment: This time, rather than a robot, the participant actually played with a real human. At some point, the participant was blindfoldedand the other player, really a confederate, quietly took their hands off the planchette. This meant that the participant believed he or she wasnt alone, enabling the kind of automatic pilot state the researchers were looking for, but still ensuring that the answers could only come from the participant. It worked. Rensink says, Some people were complaining about how the other person was moving the planchette around. That was a good sign that we really got this kind of condition that people were convinced that somebody else was there. Their results replicated the findings of the experiment with the robot, that people knew more when they didnt think

they were controlling the answers (50 percent accuracy for vocal responses to 65 percent for Ouija responses). They reported their findings in February 2012 issue of Consciousness and Cognition. You do much better with the Ouija on questions that you really dont think you know, but actually something inside you does know and the Ouija can help you answer above chance, says Fels. UBCs experiments show that the Ouija could be a very useful tool in rigorously investigating non-conscious thought processes. Now that we have some hypotheses in terms of whats going on here, accessing knowledge and cognitive abilities that you dont have conscious awareness of, [the Ouija board] would be an instrument to actually get at that, Fels explains. Now we can start using it to ask other types of questions. Those types of questions include how much and what the non-conscious mind knows, how fast it can learn, how it remembers, even how it amuses itself, if it does. This opens up even more avenues of explorationfor example, if there are two or more systems of information processes, which system is more impacted by neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimers? If it impacted the non-conscious earlier, Rensink hypothesizes, indications of the illness could show up in Ouija manipulation, possibly even before being detected in conscious thought. For the moment, the researchers are working on locking down their findings in a second study and firming up protocol around using the Ouija as a tool. However, theyre running up against a problemfunding. The classic funding agencies dont want to be associated with this, it seems a bit too out there, said Rensink. All the work theyve done to date has been volunteer, with Rensink himself paying for some of the experiments costs. To get around this issue, theyre looking to crowd-funding to make up the gap.

Even if they dont succeed, the UBC team has managed to make good on one of the claims of the early Ouija advertisements: The board does offer a link between the known and the unknown. Just not the unknown that everyone wanted to believe it was.

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Detailed History of William Fuld and the Ouija Board Page One Over the last century, spirit or talking boards have brought endless hours of entertainment to those who have dared to play. Spirit boards, witchboards, oracle boards, and mystery boards are all guises of the talking board. Though talking boards Early Kennard Ouija Board made their debut in America circa 1880, many precursor incarnations appeared by the mid-1800s in Europe. Edward OBrian discovered the earliest known patent for a talking board in the patent offices in London, England. Adolphus Theodore Wagner, a professor of music and resident of Berlin of the Kingdom of Prussia, filed his patent for a PSYCHOGRAPH, OR APPARATUS FOR INDICATING

PERSONS THOUGHTS BY THE AGENT OF NERVOUS ELECTRICITY on January 23, 1854. That was 30 years before the first talking board patent was even filed in the United States. This patent goes on to describe the device and identify it as a talking board. The apparatus consists of a combination of rods or pieces of wood joined so as to permit of free action in all parts. From one of the legs of the instrument hangs a tracer; on one or more of the other extremities is fixed a disc, upon which the operator is to place his hand, and from this extremity or these extremities depends another tracer. The other parts of the apparatus consist of a glass slab or other non-conductor, and of an alphabet and set of figures or numerals. Upon a person possessing nervous electricity placing his hand upon one of the discs the instrument will immediately work, and the tracer will spell upon the alphabet what is passing in the operators mind. It is quite curious that no mention of the spiritual or the occult occurs in his patent. This gentleman clearly believes that the messages spelled out by his device are created in the mind of the operator. This train of thought is duplicated throughout talking board patents. Though many spiritualists and practitioners of the occult claim to use talking boards to communicate with the other side, the inventors, or shall we say patentees, make no such claim. As you will see, almost from the beginning, talking boards began to take on lives of their own. Seven years later, similar devices were documented in Allan Kardecs follow-up novel Le Livre des Mediums, translated by Anna Blackwell as The Mediums Book. Allan Kardec, considered by many to be the father of French spiritualism, wrote detailed accounts of such talking board variants. The following full documentation can be found on page 160, under the section SEMATOLOGY AND TYPOLOGY: In order to render spirit-communications independent of the mediums mind, various instruments have been devised. One of these is a sort of dial-plate, on which the letters of the alphabet

are ranged like those on the dial of the electric telegraph; a moveable needle, set in motion through the mediums influence, with the aid of a conducting thread and pulley, points out the letters. We cannot help thinking, however, that the independence of the mediums thought is insured as well by the raps, and that this independence is proved more conclusively by the unexpectedness and pertinence of the answers, than by all the mechanical contrivances yet invented for this purpose. Moreover, the incredulous, always on the lookout for wires and machinery, and are more inclined to suspect deception in connection with any special mechanical arrangements than with a bare table, devoid of all accessories. A more simple contrivance, but one open to abuse, as we shall see in the chapter on Frauds, is the one devised by Madame Emile de Girardin, and by which she obtained numerous and interesting communications; for that lady accomplished and clever as she was, had the weakness to believe in spirits and their manifestations. The instrument alluded to consists of a little table with a moveable top, eighteen inches in diameter, turning freely on an axle, like a wheel. On its edge are traced, as upon a dial plate, the letters of the alphabet, the numerals, and the words yes and no. In the centre is a fixed needle. The medium places his fingers on this table, which turns and stops when the desired letters is brought up under the needle. The letters thus indicated being written down one after the other words and phrases are obtained, often with great rapidity. It is to be remarked that the top of the little table does not turn round under the fingers, but that the fingers remain in their place and follow the movement of the table. A powerful medium might probably obtain an independent movement; in which case the experiment would be more conclusive, because less open to the possibility of trickery. Interestingly, Kardecs first line seems to completely contradict the last line of Wagners patent. The patentee states the tracer will spell upon the alphabet what is passing in the operators

mind. Kardecs states In order to render spirit-communications independent of the mediums mind So begins the division of the intended and actual use of the talking board. It wouldn't be long before the same would follow in North America. Detailed History of William Fuld and the Ouija Board Page Two - Continued In the United States the first talking board combined the curiosity of the planchette and the ease of use of its European cousin, the dial plate. However, the birth of the talking board was a much more secular capitalist venture. We know that homemade talking boards were documented in the mid 1880's described in detail in a New York Daily Tribune article dated March 28th 1886 and reprinted countless times. However, it would take seven men to create a commercial success and put talking boards in nearly every home in North America. Together Charles W. Kennard, Harry Welles Rusk, Col. Washington Bowie, Elijah J. Bond, William H. A. Maupin, John T. Green, and of course, William Fuld succeeded in doing just that. Five of these men Kennard, Rusk, Bowie, Maupin, and Green pooled their land, resources, and money to create the Kennard Novelty Company of Baltimore, Maryland. While many were Masons they had two things in common. All of them were looking to try something new, and each were either lawyers or politicians. It's likely they met through their everyday business dealings, yet many of their connections run deeper. William H. A. Maupin married Elijah Bond's niece, Elijah Bond and Rusk attended law school together, Bond and Col. Washington Bowie had other patents assigned to them, Col. Washington Bowie and William Fuld formed a life long friendship and worked together in the Custom's office, while Harry Welles Rusk and Charles Kennard remained friends for years. Perhaps sitting around a table smoking cigars and with a drink in hand they made a pact to form the Kennard Novelty Company. They appeared on October 20th 1890 in a Baltimore court to sign the incorporation papers which were certified on October 30th 1890.

Col. Washington Bowie held a firm grip on any matters involving the company. A capitalist a heart, this business venture was about the bottom line. Rusk was named president, as he had the most experience in patent law. Kennard had the land and a building left over from his fertilizer business that he had recently dissolved. The address of 220 South Charles Street in Baltimore was perfect, and Kennard, for his land, probably got his last name into the new company's. Bond held the first talking board patent which would dominate the young company. To date there is no record of Bond officially being part of the company, but his talking board patent, when filed, was immediately assigned to Charles W. Kennard and William H. A. Maupin both members of the company. Maupin's relation to Bond through marriage explains his association with the company. Early on, the Kennard Novelty Company struck a deal with what would become the Northwestern Toy and Manufacturing Company of Chicago, Illinois doing business at 212 Illinois Street in Chicago, Illinois. To date they remains their only known Branch Factory. The Kennard Novelty Company was new to the manufacturing business, and they might have needed help filling such large orders. Certainly having a branch factory centrally located must have eased shipping costs and lent some experience to their operations. Listed as a painter and varnisher in the Baltimore City directories in 1889 and 1890, William Fuld played a major role in the daily operations, including production for the Kennard Novelty Company. This would not last for long. Fuld was full of inventions of his own. Less than a year passed before Fuld began his sudden climb. Historically, William Fuld has been cited as the inventor and father of the Ouija board. In fact, the first patent on the Ouija or talking board (No. 446,054) was granted to Elijah Bond on February 10th 1891 and assigned to Charles Kennard and William H. A. Maupin, both of Baltimore and two of the founders of the Kennard Novelty Company. The trademark on the word Ouija (No. 18,919) was granted to the Kennard Novelty Company on

February 3rd, 1891. However, it wouldn't be long before William Fuld, under Col. Washington Bowie's guidance, would take over production of the Ouija board and forever be tied to it as its Father and promoter. By 1891, the Ouija board was selling well and they opened up a second factory in Baltimore, Maryland at 909 East Pratt Street. Just eight days after the Bond patent was granted, Kennard filed for an improved version of the talking board and called it that by name. On November 10, 1891, Kennard's patent (No. 462,819) was registered. It states, "Be it known that I, Charles W. Kennard, residing at Baltimore, State of Maryland, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Talking-Boards of which the following is a specification." This talking board was more like the previously mentioned dial plates, where the moveable piece was fixed on one end and could swing in an arc to point at the letters, numbers, or words. This was Charles Kennard's final act as a member of the Kennard Novelty Company. Shortly after his patent was granted, Charles Kennard, John T. Green, and William H. A. Maupin were no longer associated with the company. The Kennard Novelty Company's incorporation papers read the said corporation will be managed by five directors...who will manage the concerns of the said Corporation for the first year. One year to the day of that agreement Col. Washington Bowie and Harry Welles Rusk would dismiss the other founders of the company. In 1892 Rusk was listed as the President, Bowie the manager, and William Fuld the supervisor. They moved the company out of 220 South Charles Street and into the 909 East Pratt Street factory, renamed the company the Ouija Novelty Company on March 8th, 1892, and put their close friend William Fuld at the helm. William Fuld was a former Kennard Novelty Company employee. On February 1st 1893 the 909 East Pratt Street factory "burned out" and the Ouija Novelty Company moved to 20 North High Street.

Almost immediately, Charles Kennard tried to sell another version of the talking board. We believe Kennard approached the former branch factory of the Kennard Novelty Company and struck a deal. He then co-founded the Northwestern Toy and Manufacturing Company in Chicago, Illinois out of its ashes. They named their new talking board Volo. According to Bill Long's definition the word is a fitting name for a talking board. Its roots are Latin meaning "to fly about (especially applied to the imagined movement of disembodied souls)." Coincidently, Volo is also the name of a small town just fifty miles north of Chicago. Perhaps this also has something to do with why Kennard chose it as its name? Regardless, Bowie and Fuld of the Ouija Novelty Company weren't impressed. They answered the Volo with both swift legal and marketing maneuvers. First, the newly reorganized Ouija Novelty Company would file a Bill of infringement against its former branch factory as they held the Bond patent. While the case awaited trial The Ouija Novelty Company and the Northwestern Toy and Manufacturing Company settled out of court. Northwestern agreed to halt production of the Volo and any and all other talking boards. For the time being Kennard's dream of re-entering the talking board business ended abruptly. About the same time the W. S. Reed Toy Company located in Leominster, Massachusetts, began producing their very own talking board named and trademarked Espirito (No. 20,566). Described in the trademark as a toy resembling planchette this game proved no match. Whether the Espirito just couldn't compete as the W. S. Reed Company contented in 1892, or The Ouija Novelty Company filed a similar Bill of infringement against them, the Reed company ceased production of it's talking boards and directed all sales of the like to the Ouija Novelty Company. Part of the deal transferred use of the Espirito trademark over to them, and the Ouija Novelty Company placed an exact copy of Kennard's Volo design on the back of their Ouija. Customers delighted in getting two talking boards for the price of one, while Kennard would be reminded how far his former business associates would go to protect the Ouija board from competition.

Bruised and battered from the confrontation, five years would pass before Kennard would reemerge. In 1897 his next talking board would be named Igili. An advertisement for "Igili - the marvelous talking board" places the American Toy Company at 222 South Charles Street, Baltimore Maryland. Though it's one number off from the original address of the Kennard Novelty Company, it's likely it is the same location. For the Igili board Charles Kennard joined with J. M. Raffel and Albert C. Strobel to form the American Toy Company. Like others once involved with the Ouija board Kennard kept trying to get back in the game. The American Toy Company was only listed for two years in Baltimore City directories, and the Igili board never caught on. Perhaps it simply couldn't escape the shadow of the uber popular Ouija. It's equally possible the Ouija Novelty again threatened legal action as their patent was still in force. Detailed History of William Fuld and the Ouija Board Page Three - Continued With those early victories for the Ouija Novelty Company, the message was clear. People would fight over the Ouija board for years to come and many would attempt to lay claim to it. Competition was fierce, and with the Ouija board's success came more controversy. Countless other talking boards, some even marketed by its original founders would try to recreate that success. William Fulds first talking board trademark Oracle (No. 37,806) was filed on January 22th 1902 and was granted on February 18th 1902. William Fulds first talking board patent (No. 479,266) was filed on March 28th 1892 and granted on July 19th 1892. This patent made improvements upon the finger or moveable piece of the talking board. His drawings also offer a strange new layout to the board itself as well as directions which mention this board asks you questions back. This is the only talking board found to date to integrate the use of magnetism, which was popular at the time for fostering spirit communications.

In 1894, with Col. Washington Bowie maintaining control of the company and Fuld and Rusk at his side, Ouija boards began to turn out in greater numbers. The company was moved to 20 North High Street to handle greater production. By 1898, Bowies life was getting full. Acting as Surveyor of Customs and running The Ouija Novelty Company proved to be too great of a split. On April 12, 1898, The Ouija Novelty Company assigned its assets, including Elijah Bond's Ouija patent, to Harry Welles Rusk and Bowie in the following proportions: 1/6 to Rusk and 5/6 to Bowie. Rusk in turn would sell his remaining 1/6 assets to Bowie in 1902, giving Bowie complete ownership of the Ouija trademark and patent. These assignments are recorded in the Trademark and Patent Office in Washington D.C. Though Bowie would turn over production of Ouija boards to William Fuld, he wouldnt officially assign over the rights until 1919. With Rusk and Bowie taking an enormous step into the background, William Fuld was in need of a full-time partner. Fuld himself was a customs inspector, and knew he couldnt commit all his time to his toy business. Isaac Fuld & Brother began with a verbal agreement in November of 1897 between William and his brother Isaac Fuld. On July 18th 1898 the Ouija Novelty Company signed an agreement with William and Isaac, trading as Isaac Fuld & Brother to manufacture and sell Ouija boards for the term of three years. William and Isaac used this agreement to make Ouija boards and other novelties. In 1899, the two expanded their agreement to include payments to Isaac for extra labor. They used the same location of 20 North High Street to run their business and continued to pay royalties to both Harry Welles Rusk and Col. Washington Bowie. On March 28th 1900 the brothers reworked their partnership again. It stated, This is to certify that Wm. Fuld and Isaac Fuld (Both of Baltimore City) have this day entered into a partnership, in the manufacture and sale of games etc. known as Ouija, U.C. Billies Return Pool & U.C. Billies Calculator etc. That they have agreed to do business on equal profits

except that in addition to the above, Wm. Fuld shall receive ten cents per Dozen royalty on the Return Pool & ten cents per dozen on the Calculator. And for this consideration he shall let remain in the business the sum of five hundred dollars, to be used in defraying expenses for the material, in the manufacture of the said games. Unfortunately, the business and their relationship did not last. On July 18th 1901 William and the Ouija Novelty Company exercised their option not to continue their agreement allowing Isaac Fuld and Brother to manufacture and sell Ouija boards. The Ouija Novelty Company then signed a new agreement exclusively with William Fuld. Whether William and Isaac had a falling out that led to this decision, or that act itself caused their bad feelings it would result in a family feud that would last almost a century. William founded his own company named the William Fuld Manufacturing Company and moved its headquarters to his home at 1208 Federal Street. Isaac continued making Ouija boards and put his name and address on its box as well as on the back of the board. In December of 1901 William took his brother Isaac to court and promptly received an injunction against Isaac prohibiting him from making Ouija boards and any other patented game William owned. Isaac and William never spoke with one another again, except in court. Col. Washington Bowie employed his son, Washington Bowie Jr., to represent William Fuld in court against his brother. The brothers would go to court twice. The first time William filed suit against Isaac and the second time Isaac Fuld, trading as the Southern Toy Company, filed suit against William in 1919. This reopened the original 1901 case. In this first case William Fuld petitioned the court to force Isaac to hand over the books and records of the former partnership to figure out how to distribute any remaining money. William asked for and received an injunction that would stop Isaac from manufacturing any games in which William either owned patents and trademarks on or leased them including the Ouija board. Washington Bowie Jr. was named as the receiver for the said books, and any profit the company made. The case quickly got nasty.

Col. Washington Bowie and William held and opened mail addressed to Isaac at the 20 North High Street address. Their defense was that it was business mail and since he was no longer part of the business, the mail was not his. Sibling rivalry had been taken to a whole new level. Detailed History of William Fuld and the Ouija Board Page Four - Continued William Fuld then founded the William Fuld Manufacturing Company and moved his Ouija business to his home at 1208 Federal Street. From 1905 to 1907, William moved his company into his home at 1306 North Central Avenue. In the early 1900s Elijah Bond moved from Baltimore, Maryland to Charleston, West Virginia where he decided to reenter the talking board fray. On March 28th 1907 he filed for a trademark (No. 63,360) on the word Nirvana that was registered on June 18th 1907. The word Nirvana is placed in the middle of a swastika logo. On June 20th 1907 Bond assigned this trademark to The Swastika Novelty Company who manufactured and sold the Nirvana talking boards. Unfortunately for Bond and The Swastika Novelty Company lightening didn't strike twice. The Nirvana talking board couldn't overcome the popularity of the original Ouija board, and production eventually ceased. The arc layout of the letters is very similar to his first Ouija design though the moon, stars, and Goodbye are missing. Instead, the Nirvana board displays Farewell and unusual symbols such as an elephant crawling out of a snail shell, a warrior with a flail, the staff of Hermes with twin serpents, and a cloudy, windy face. In 1908, sales were up and William Fuld relocated to 331 North Gay Street until 1911, when William launched his official showrooms on 1226-1228 North Central Avenue. William applied for yet another patent improving talking boards (No. 1,125,833) on January 24th 1914 that was granted on January 19th 1915. This address would remain the Ouija boards home until another boom in sales in 1918.

Meanwhile, Isaac Fuld was breaking the injunction against him in 1901. In 1904, Isaac began sending out samples of his version of the talking board, appropriately named the Oriole talking board. These boards were exact duplicates of the original Ouija boards produced by his former partnership with his brother. Isaac used the Ouija board stencils he kept from Isaac Fuld & Brother to make his new Oriole boards. He cut out the top where the word Ouija appeared and inserted his new logo. In 1919 Isaac began trading as the Southern Toy Company, and ran it out of his home at 2002 Homewood Avenue. Having mastered public relations and the mystery of the Ouija William told reporters that the board warned him to prepare for big business. He took on the enormous task and had a three-story thirty-six thousand square foot factory built to house his company at 1508-14 Harford Avenue, Lamont Avenue, and Federal Street. Its doors opened in 1918, and Williams gamble paid off. Ouija sales began to climb. 1919 proved to be a memorable year for William. He applied for a design patent (No. 56,001) that was registered on August 10th 1920 which revolutionized his pointer or planchette. He was finally assigned all outstanding rights to the Ouija by Col. Washington Bowie and enjoyed his income from skyrocketing sales and national acclaim. Charles Kennard also resurfaced in 1919 with a trademark (No. 127,563) on a game he called WEIRD-A. Notably he mentions his business as the Kennard Novelty Company. To date nothing WEIRD-A has surfaced. In April of 1919, William Fuld Inc. began mailing letters warning retailers buying Oriole talking boards that they violated Williams patents and trademarks, and that whoever bought and sold them was also breaking the law. The Oriole boards might have been cutting into Ouija sales, and that was not to be tolerated. Once Isaac learned of the letters, he brought a suit against William, contending that he and his company were trying to injure the reputation of The Southern Toy Company and Isaac with these mailings. William countered, believing Isaac had broken the injunction of 1901 with his own testimony saying he had mailed out samples of Oriole boards in 1904.

Isaac testified that his boards were different because his moveable tables did not use legs with felt but rather steel rollers (In the samples sent out in 1904, we know this is false. To date, no rolling tables have been found; only felt tipped legs have been discovered). The 1901 case was reopened to discover whether Isaac had indeed violated the injunction. Both courts believed Isaac had violated it, but that damage could not be ascertained. Isaac kept no formal books, so his actual sales could not be proven. The 1901 case was finally settled, and William did not collect a penalty from his brother because the court felt William had let too much time pass. The court ordered the case to be paid equally. The 1919 case brought by Isaac was dismissed, because they could not prove that Williams mailings damaged Isaac. The judge ruled that Isaac had copied and distributed his Oriole boards in violation of the injunction. Isaac claimed he had a trademark on his Oriole board that was filed on December 29th 1911 and granted on May 14th 1912. A review of his trademark revealed that it did not apply to his talking boards, but rather his pool tables. He applied for another trademark on the word Oriole to cover his talking boards on April 30th 1919, which was granted on June 22nd 1920. The courts felt that this did not help his case. Isaac would have to pay for all costs incurred by the 1919 case, and would never make another talking board. The Southern Novelty Company continued its toy business until 1924. Detailed History of William Fuld and the Ouija Board Page Five - Continued With his brothers court battles behind him, William Fuld never looked back. He retired from his customs position in 1924 after twenty-eight years of service to dedicate more of his time to the Ouija board and would later serve in the General Assembly keeping his political ties close. In an interview with a Baltimore Sun reporter on July 4th 1920, William claimed to have made about three million dollars of total profits from the Ouija board.

Washington Bowie Jr. served as Williams attorney in every case involving the Ouija board. Washington Bowie Jr.s son, Washington Bowie V, remembers his father sitting the children down and giving them toy catalogs to browse through. They were asked to circle any talking board ad that might have infringed on William Fulds patents and trademark. There were of course many, and Bowie Jr. aggressively pursued any infringement. He recalls that his father never accepted any payment for his services. In 1920, another talking board company came into the legal spotlight. The Baltimore Talking Board Company, located at 36-38 South Paca Street, was run by two gentlemen by the names of Charles Cahn and Gilbert Michael. They had absolutely no connection with William Fuld or his business, but they must have leased the right to call their boards Ouija boards. The Internal Revenue Service collected a tax on their Ouija boards in 1920. The Baltimore Talking Board Company did not believe the Ouija board to be a game or sporting good, and thus should not be taxed as such. They took the IRS to court and mysteriously, Washington Bowie Jr. represented them in court. They lost, and Ouija boards were considered taxable. They appealed this ruling all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Disappointingly, the Supreme Court threw the case out without being heard and thus talking boards are taxable to this day. From 1919 to 1927, William filed more patents and trademarks on his talking boards. He extended his Oracle trademark (No. 130,142) to the Mystifying Oracle in 1919. This second line of talking boards was introduced to combat the growing number of knock-off boards entering the market. William knew that if he made a cheaper version he would get their business. He was right. He also launched a line of trademarked Ouija jewelry (No. 140,126) and Ouija Oil for rheumatism (No. 143,008.) The Ouija board became trademarked as the Egyptian Luck board (No. 148,331), and the Mystifying Oracle became trademarked as the Hindu Luck board (No. 137,521.) Fearing an infringement on the pronunciation of Ouija, William also filed for a trademark on WE-JA (No.142,00.) His last

trademark (No. 164,563) to be filed would be on the way the word Ouija would be displayed. Disaster struck the Fuld family on February 24th 1927. William always supervised any work on his factory. When a flagpole at 1508-1514 Harford Avenue needed to be repaired atop the three-story building, William followed. When the iron support he was leaning on ripped out of its mooring he fell backwards over the back of the building. He caught himself briefly on one of the factory windows, but the force of the fall slammed the window shut, and he was thrown to the ground. Initially suffering minor broken bones and a concussion, William received his fatal injury while being transported. One of his broken ribs pierced his heart, and he died at the hospital. Williams children took over the company. Katherine Bowie and William Andrew Fuld ran the company until their youngest brother, Hubert Fuld, became president of William Fuld Inc. in 1942. William Andrew would devise a new talking board and apply for a patent on his electrically equipped Mystifying Oracle (No. 1.870,677) on June 6th 1930 which was granted on April 9th 1932. He applied for a trademark on this electric version of the Mystifying Oracle (No. 305,398) which was registered August 15th 1933. This invention could have revolutionized talking boards, but that was not its fate. It was made of metal and cost roughly three times the regular Ouija board. The moveable planchette would spark light as its connectors made contact and rolled across the board. The Great Depression did not allow people to spend money frivolously, and the Electric Mystifying Oracle did not sell well. After a year of slow sales, the project was scrapped and the boards were melted down. The talking board industry saw a renewed interest in the 1940s. To prepare for this William Andrew would file for a design patent (No. 114,534) that was registered on May 2nd 1939 for what we currently recognize as the Ouija board. Many companies introduced their own talking boards. Though the layout was similar, many offered extravagant colors and graphics.

Eventually, out of disinterest or a declining market, all of these companies folded to the Fulds. The Fulds relocated two additional times before occupying their final offices. From 1950-1961 the Fulds would rent space on 2511 North Charles Street and Warwick Avenue respectively. In 1962 construction was completed on their final address of 1318 Fort Avenue. Williams heirs continued renewing their trademarks and followed sales up and down over the years until one fateful day. Ouija board sales were again climbing and the Fulds were made an offer they couldnt refuse. President Robert Barton of Parker Brothers announced that it had acquired William Fuld Inc. and all its assets on February 24th 1966, effectively ending the Fulds association with the Ouija board. Hasbro Inc. currently owns the trademarks Ouija and Mystifying Oracle.

In the year 1848, something unusual happened in a Hydesville, New York cabin. Two sisters, Kate and Margaret Fox, contacted the spirit of a dead peddler, became instant celebrities, and sparked a national obsession that spread all across the United States and Europe. It was the birth of modern Spiritualism. The whole world, it seemed, was ripe for communication with the dead. Spiritualist churches sprang up everywhere and persons with the special gift or "pipeline" to the "other side" were in great demand. These unique individuals, designated "mediums" because they acted as intermediaries between spirits and humans, invented a variety of interesting ways to communicate with the spirit world. Table turning (tilting or tipping) was one of these. The medium and attending sitters would rest their fingers lightly on a table and wait for spiritual contact. Soon, the table would tilt and move, and knock on the floor to letters called from the alphabet. Entire messages from the spirits were spelled out in this way. A less noisy technique was a form of spirit writing using a small basket with a pencil attached to one end. The medium simply had to touch the basket, establish contact, and the spirit would take

over, writing the message from the Great Beyond. This pencil basket evolved into the heart-shaped planchette, a more sophisticated tool with two rotating casters underneath and a pencil at the tip, forming the third leg. Spiritualists immediately discovered that in addition to writing messages, the planchette could perform as a pointer, setting the stage for the talking boards to come. Kate Field wrote, "Major W. wished to be told his wife's name, and presented me with a list of thirteen names. After three attempts, Planchette pointed out the correct one." Planchette's Diary, 1868. According to some writers, the inventor of the planchette was a well-known French medium named M. Planchette. This is unlikely considering that no information on this individual exists and that the French word "planchette" translates to English as "little plank." The problem with table turning was that it took far too long to spell out messages. Sitters became bored when the novelty of a rocking table wore off and the chore of interpreting knocks began. Planchette writing was often difficult or impossible to read. It was a challenge just keeping the instrument centered on the paper long enough to get a decipherable message. Consequently, many mediums dispensed with the spiritual apparatuses altogether, preferring to transmit from the spirit world mentally in an altered state of consciousness called "trance." Others eliminated the planchette but kept the pencil, finding the hand a more precise and less troublesome writing instrument. But there were also those who felt it crucial to use the right equipment if they were going to contact the spirit world properly. These resourceful individuals built weird alphanumeric gadgets and odd-looking table contraptions with moving needles and letter wheels. Clearly, these early machines suffered from over engineering if not lack of imagination. Called dial plate instruments or psychographs, a few

of these devices appeared in the marketplace under various names and incarnations. Exactly when the alphabet board with the detached message indicator came into use is unknown although it would have been early: "On another occasion, we happened to be on a visit at a house at which two ladies were staying, who worked the planchette on the original method (that of attaching to it a pointer, which indicated letters and figures on a card), and our long previous knowledge of whom placed them beyond all suspicion of anything but self-deception. One of them was a firm believer in the reality of her intercourse with the spirit-world; and her 'planchette' was continually at work beneath her hands, its index pointing to successive letters and figures on the card before it, just as if it had been that of a telegraph-dial acted on by galvanic communication." Quarterly Review, October, 1871. Spiritualists freely communicated ideas with each other through the specialty magazines and bulletins of the time. "LK" had this bit of important information to share: Many of your readers may wish to communicate with their spirit friends, but lack even that feeble mediumistic power which is generally considered the first step to or beginning of mediumistic development, viz: the power to communicate by tippings of the table. But there has been discovered, by my wife, a method which will enable many persons to get manifestations who could not get tippings of the table; and for those who require tipping of the table to point out the letters when the alphabet is called, a method is here offered that will facilitate operations greatly. My wife and myself having discovered that we conjointly (not singly) were able to have intercourse with our spirit friends by tippings, found the process very tedious; but soon as we tried

the new method our spirit son exclaimed: "Oh dear papa and mama you have made our work so easy now." The method is this: I have on the table painted the letters of the alphabet, thus: On this table we place a polished little rod, rounded below and pointed on both ends; The upper side is wide for the fingers to rest, and also rough so they do not glide off. The table of course must be very smoothI facilitate operations by putting a little powdered soap-stone on it. On this rod the fingers of the two persons sitting on the opposite sides are placed, and the rod is allowed to glide from letter to letter. With this little arrangement we receive messages now faster than by writing. If you think this information useful, your readers are welcome to it. Fraternally yours. LK American Spiritualist Magazine, December 18, 1876. American and European toy companies actively peddled the planchette, making it immensely popular. The dial plate devices, although more sophisticated, were largely ignored. This was most likely because planchettes were easier to make and market inexpensively as novelties. Both took a back seat in 1886 when reports of an exciting new "talking board" sensation hit the newsstands. Mentioned in the March 28, 1886 Sunday supplement of the New York Tribune, the story quickly spread across the country. Here is a reprint of the Tribune article in an Oakland, California publication for Spiritualists, The Carrier Dove: THE NEW PLANCHETTE. .............. A Mysterious Talking Board and Table. .............. "Planchette is simply nowhere," said a Western man at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, "compared with the new scheme for mysterious communication that is being used out in Ohio. I know of whole communities that are wild over the 'talking board,' as some of

them call it. I have never heard any name for it. But I have seen and heard some of the most remarkable things about its operationsthings that seem to pass all human comprehension or explanation." "What is the board like?" "Give me a pencil and I will show you. The first requisite is the operating board. It may be rectangular, about 18 x 20 inches. It is inscribed like this:"The 'yes' and the 'no' are to start and stop the conversation. The 'good-evening' and 'good-night' are for courtesy. Now a little table three or four inches high is prepared with four legs. Any one can make the whole apparatus in fifteen minutes with a jack-knife and a marking brush. You take the board in your lap, another person sitting down with you. You each grasp the little table with the thumb and forefinger at each corner next to you. Then the question is asked, 'Are there any communications?' Pretty soon you think the other person is pushing the table. He thinks you are doing the same. But the table moves around to 'yes' or 'no.' Then you go on asking questions and the answers are spelled out by the legs of the table resting on the letters one after the other. Sometimes the table will cover two letters with its feet, and then you hang on and ask that the table will be moved from the wrong letter, which is done. Some remarkable conversations have been carried on until men have become in a measure superstitious about it. I know of a gentleman whose family became so interested in playing with the witching thing that he burned it up. The same night he started out of town on a business trip. The members of his family looked for the board and could not find it. They got a servant to make them a new one. Then two of them

sat down and asked what had become of the other table. The answer was spelled out, giving a name, 'Jack burned it.' There are, of course, any number of nonsensical and irrelevant answers spelled out, but the workers pay little heed to them. If the answers are relevant they talk them over with a superstitious awe. One gentleman of my acquaintance told me that he got a communication about a title to some property from his dead brother, which was of great value to him. It is curious, according to those who have worked most with the new mystery, that while two persons are holding the table a third person, sitting in the same room some distance away, may ask the questions without even speaking them aloud, and the answers will show they are intended for him. Again, answers will be returned to the inquiries of one of the persons operating when the other can get no answers at all. In Youngstown, Canton, Warren, Tiffin, Mansfield, Akron, Elyria, and a number of other places in Ohio I heard that there was a perfect craze over the new planchette. Its use and operation have taken the place of card parties. Attempts are made to verify statements that are made about living persons, and in some instances they have succeeded so well as to make the inquirers still more awe-stricken."New York Tribune. Carrier Dove (Oakland) July, 1886: 171. Reprinted from the New York Daily Tribune, March 28, 1886: page 9, column 6. "The New 'Planchette.' A Mysterious Talking Board and Table Over Which Northern Ohio Is Agitated." This was so amazing because this "new" message board was simple to make and required absolutely no understanding, skill, or mediumistic training to door so people were led to understand. When the message indicator "moved by itself" from letter to letter to spell out a message, it looked genuinely magical and astonishing. Maybe this was a new invention. But whose was it? Right about the same time, one of the nation's largest toy

makers, W. S. Reed Toy Company of Leominster Massachusetts, put out a device strikingly similar to the "new planchette." Whether this new board was a reaction to or possibly responsible for the craze we can only guess. Dubbed the "witch board" it was described like this: "Upon the four corners of the board are respectively "Yes," "No," "Good-by" and "Good-day," while the alphabet occupies the centre of the board. A miniature standard, which rests upon four legs, stand upon the "witch board," upon which the hands are placed, and then the spirits begin their work. Should an answer be "Yes" or "No," the small table will travel to the respective corner, et cetera. Communications are spelled out by the diminutive table resting over such letters as may be wanted to spell out the message.Boston Globe June 5, 1886* Reed's short-lived "witch board" might have been completely forgotten had it not been for an amusing incident. Charles S. Dresser, Reed's treasurer, sent President Grover Cleveland one as a wedding gift with the wish that "it may be of service." Whether Dresser might have been joking about the marriage is up for speculation. Frances Folsom was 27 years younger than the President and the age difference between the two had society atwitter. Cleveland replied with a courteous "I except it as an evidence of kind feelings and friendship, and can admire it for its ingenuity, but I hardly think that I shall immediately test its power to disclose the past and foretell the future." Although Reed wouldn't trademark another similar item, the Espirito, until 1891, other interested parties leapt aboard the talking board bandwagon within a few short years. The first patent for "improvements," filed on May 28, 1890 and granted on February 10, 1891, lists Elijah J. Bond as the inventor and the assignees as Charles W. Kennard and William H. A. Maupin of Baltimore, Maryland. Whether Bond or his Baltimore cronies knew about Reed's earlier "witch board" is, as the board might say,

unclear, but there is no question that they were the first to heavily promote the board as a novelty. Charles Kennard stated that he named the new board Ouija (pronounced wE-ja) after a session with Miss Peters, Elijah Bond's sister-in-law: "I remarked that we had not yet settled upon a name, and as the board had helped us in other ways, we would ask it to propose one. It spelled out O-U-I-J-A. When I asked the meaning of the word it said 'Good Luck.' Miss Peters there upon drew upon her neck a chain which had at the end a locket, on it a figure of a woman and at the top the word 'Ouija'. We asked her if she had thought of the name, and she said she had not. We then adopted the word. There were present Mr. Bond, his wife, his son, Miss Peters and myself." Kennard and Bond, doing business as Kennard Novelty Company, wasted no time advertising in local periodicals: "The Ouija" THE WONDER OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY This most interesting and mysterious Talking Board has awakened great curiosity wherever shown. It surpasses in its results second sight, mind reading or clairvoyance. It consists of a small table placed upon a large board containing the alphabet and numerals. By simply resting the fingers of two persons upon the small table, it moves, and to all intents and purposes becomes a living sensible thing giving intelligent answers to any questions that can be propounded. Wonderful as this may seem, the Ouija was thoroughly tested and the above facts demonstrated at the United States patent office before the patent was allowed. For sale by all first-class Toy Dealers and Stationers. Manufactured by The Kennard Novelty Company, 220 South Charles street, Baltimore, Md.Baltimore Sun, December 6, 1890*

Charles Kennard left the company after fourteen months to found Northwestern Toy Company in Chicago, Illinois. His ex-financial partners, headed by powerful Baltimore capitalist Washington Bowie, who was also manager, secretary, and treasurer of Kennard Novelty, continued the business under corporate control, then changed the name of the firm to Ouija Novelty Company. This didn't concern Kennard who made, as his flagship product, the Volo boarda Ouija replica. Bowie immediately filed suit for patent infringement forcing the end of the Volo along with a rather embarrassed apology from Northwestern to the trade. Unrepentant, Charles Kennard continued in real estate and other business ventures and produced one more talking board, the Igili, in 1897. Perhaps Kennard's sense of entitlement came from his claim as inventor of the Ouija board. A series of letters to the Baltimore Sun* in 1919, hotly discussed the issue. Kennard wrote that he was the sole inventor, having in 1886 (the year of the talking board craze) put together a crude board, using a cake board and a table with four legs and a pointer, marking in pencil the alphabet and numerals. Next to his office was a cabinetmaker by the name of E.C. Reiche who, at Kennard's request, made several copies of the board. Asked to make them in numbers for market, Reiche refused, complaining of a heavy workload. After shopping the idea around Baltimore and finding no takers, Kennard met Elijah Bond who made several improvements including the semicircular alphabet pattern and the addition of felt cushions on the indicator legs, and had those improvements patented. Bond then joined with Kennard as manufacturers under the Kennard Novelty Company name. Elijah Bond sided with Kennard but clarified that it was he, Bond, who had incorporated the company and had full control, he being the major stockholder. He called it Kennard Novelty out of

compliment to Mr. Kennard. Bond also reported that he had gone to Washington with a lady, a strong medium, and so impressed one of the chiefs of the patent office that the chief assured him then and there that the patent would be allowed. Similar patents in Canada, England, and France followed. Bond credited Kennard with having brought the Ouija to his attention and having the great energy and ability to make the board a success. After going to London and failing to successfully exploit his English patent in 1892, Bond was forced to sell his shares and relinquish his interest in the company. Washington Bowie disputed Kennard on several counts. He said that the inventor of the Ouija was not Charles Kennard but Mr. E. C. Reiche, of Chestertown, Maryland. He further stated that Kennard Novelty paid Reiche in stock for "using his invention without compensation" and that this happened, not once but twice, Reiche being discontented with the first settlement. E. C. Reiche's son, W. Mack Reiche, backed Washington Bowie and allowed that although Kennard may have named the Ouija, he did not invent it. It was his opinion that Kennard never entertained the idea of such a device until it was shown to him in the home of Judge Joseph A. Wickes, Kennard's father-in-law. W. Mack Reiche was adamant that the Ouija "came into existence through the brains and hands of father alone." Whatever the story, Washington Bowie remained the powerhouse behind the Ouija Novelty Company making most of the corporate decisions and installing his son, Washington Bowie Jr., as manager of the Chicago factory. Early on, he took 20 year old William Fuld under his wing and taught him everything he could about the business. Fuld rose quickly to position of foreman and became one of the original company stockholders. In 1897, Washington Bowie leased the rights to manufacture the Ouija board to William and his brother Isaac. With that single stroke of

fate, William Fuld came to be the one history would forever remember as the father of the Ouija board. William and Isaac Fuld embarked successfully on their new venture and manufactured Ouija boards in record numbers. Nevertheless, this business partnership was not to last. Ouija Noveltys contract with the Fulds was for three years only. At the end of this period, William formed his own companyended the partnership, and with that Isaacs rights to produce the Ouija board ended also. A legal battle followed. The acrimony created a bitter family feud that was to last for generations. Isaac worked from his home workshop where he produced and sold Ouija facsimiles, called Oriole talking boards and pool and smoking tables. Ouija Novelty collected revenues on the Ouija name from Willam Fuld and then in 1919 relinquished the remaining rights. William sold millions of Ouija boards, toys, and other games and kept a job as a US customs inspector. Later in life he became a member of Baltimore's General Assembly. For twenty-six years William Fuld ran the company through good times and bad. When interviewed about the Ouija he was amusingly frank. He was a Presbyterian, didn't believe that it was a medium of communication with departed spirits, but at the same time thought that the Ouija was a reliable advisor in matters of business and personal life. His explanation was that the board, through a type of magnetism or some kind of psychological phenomenon controlled the hands and led to the right answers. He offered personal anecdotes to illustrate. The board told him to "prepare for big business" and he did, building a new factory to support huge demands. When a large shipment consigned to St. Paul, Minnesota got lost, and a search by

railroad officials failed to find it, Fuld asked the Ouija board and it directed him to Ohio, right where it had been misdirected. "The talking board named itself." He said. "We didn't know what to name it, so put the question up to the board and it spelled out OU-I-J-A. We hadn't any idea what it meant and scratched a long time before we found any clue. Finally we discovered that it was a very close approximation of an Egyptian word which meant good luck." Although "inventor" was printed on the back of every board, William Fuld didn't claim to be the originator. He credited E. C. Reiche but said that he had been working on a similar board and had been beaten to the patent office. In February 1927, William Fuld climbed to the roof of his Harford Street factory in Baltimore to supervise the replacement of a flagpole. A support post that he was holding gave way and he fell backwards to his death. Following his death, William's children took over and marketed many interesting Ouija versions of their own, including the rare and marvelous Art Deco Electric Mystifying Oracle. In 1966, they retired and sold the business to Parker Brothers. Parker Brothers produced an accurate Fuld reproduction and briefly even made a Deluxe Wooden Edition Ouija. They own all trademarks and patents to this day. Almost from the beginning, William Fuld's Ouija board suffered fierce competition from other toy makers. Everyone wanted to make a variation of the Wonderful Talking Board. Ouija imitations with names like "The Wireless Messenger" and I Do Psycho Ideograph, flooded the market. Some companies, like J.M. Simmons and Morton E. Converse & Son even used the Ouija name and the identical board layout. Fuld responded with legal threats and by marketing a second, less expensive talking board, the Mystifying Oracle.

The 1940s saw a virtual cornucopia of artistic and colorful talking boards. Perhaps the most beautiful were Haskelite's Egyptian themed Mystic Boards and Mystic Trays. Other major players were two Chicago novelty companies, Gift Craft, and Lee Industries. Adorned with everything from wizards to cannibals, these talking boards were wonderful departures from Fuld's simple number boards. Gift Craft's popular Swami featured a flying carpet scene and a genii consulting a crystal ball. Lee's Magic Marvel, done in eye-catching red and yellow, had four turbaned soothsayers, the zodiac, and a couple of grumpy demons thrown in just for luck. Love them or not, no one could call them boring. In early 1999, Parker Brothers stopped manufacturing the classic Fuld Ouija board and switched to a smaller less detailed glow in the dark version. Gone is the faux bird's eye maple lithograph and gone is the name William Fuld. Although some of us may morn its passing, we must remember the Parker Brothers slogan: "It's only a gameisn't it?" Today, as in the past, there are companies that produce interesting variants of the talking board. It may be accurate to say that there is a renaissance afoot. Hasbro, who currently owns Parker Brothers, has introduced two new limited edition versions of the Ouija board within the past few years. Other manufacturers have also joined in with imaginatively styled, contemporary talking boards. Online auction sites allow artists, who formerly would not have had the opportunity, to display and sell their handcrafted creations to a worldwide audience. Talking board enthusiasts are creating websites, sponsoring public shows and events, and connecting with other collectors in an entirely new

way. At this period in time, the Wonderful Talking Board has never been more popular.

"As an invention it is very old. It was in use in the days of Pythagoras, about 540 B.C. According to a French historical account of the philosopher's life, his sect held frequent sances or circles at which a mystic table, moving on wheels, moved towards signs, which the philosopher and his pupil, Philolaus, interpreted to the audience as being revelations supposedly from the unseen world." -Encyclopedia of Psychic Science

Writers of occult literature love to talk about the Ouija board's ancient roots. Ouija boards, they tell us, were in use in ancient Greece, Rome, China, or whatever other cultures the authors deem important. They steadfastly maintain that modern Ouija boards are the direct descendants of its more primitive ancestors. If the ancestor wasn't a Ouija board exactly, it was "Ouija-like." This can mean that almost any early divination device qualifies. Few question this and new writers repeat the words of the old without thinking critically about it. Ancient Ouija boards: fact or fiction? Let's take a look. The term Talking board is the original designation for a message board with numbers, letters, and a movable pointer. You may also know it as a spirit board, witch board, oracle board, or most recently, channeling board. Most recognize it by its most popular name

Ouija board. The word Ouija is Hasbro's trademarked name for Parker Brothers' talking board set. Hasbro, at the time of this writing, owns Parker Brothers. Originally, Ouija was the name chosen by patent holder Elijah Bond, and assigned to Kennard Novelty Company's 1890 parlor game. The Ouija board operates in a strange and mysterious manner. Lightly touched by one or more participants, a special pointer slides or pivots along the surface of the board to spell out supernatural messages. Hence, the name talking board. These messages may instruct, warn, give council, or foretell the future and in this way, the unknown becomes known. During the session, some users believe that they are communicating with the spirits of the dead and that the board opens a direct channel between the sitters and the inhabitants of the spirit world. When discussing talking boards in any detail, it is important to know what they are and what they are not. The other most common and widely known devices in the same divination class as talking boards are: divining rods, planchettes, tables used for table tipping (table turning), and pendulum oracles. Let's look at each one. A divining or dowsing rod is a rod, branch, or twig that the dowser holds horizontally to find buried water or a variety of other hidden things. The rod or rodswhen there is one in each hand, dip over the hidden object but may also respond to direct questions by moving one way for yes, and the other for no. Some dowsers or water witches also believe that they can use their skills to find missing people or diagnose diseases. A planchette (plan-'shet), also known as an automatic writer, is a small board supported by two wheels at one end and a pencil at the other making the third leg. The planchette writes messages when lightly touched by one or more users. Remove the wheels and the pencil and the planchette becomes the familiar Ouija board pointer. Planchettes may be any shape

but are most often heart-shaped to take advantage of the point as an indicator. Tables used for table tipping (table turning), are normal tables like you have in your own home. Sitters place their hands on the table and it tips to specific letters of the alphabet spelling out messages from the spirits. Early Spiritualists chose the table as a divination device because it was a common piece of furniture and that made it perfect for home circles or meetings. One member of the group would call out the letters of the alphabet or hold up an alphabet card and run a finger over it. The table would tip and knock at the chosen letter. A pendulum oracle is a thread, rope, or cord held by the fingers with a connected hanging weight at the end. It swings back and forth to answer yes and no questions or to find hidden objects. It can have any kind of weight but it is often a crystal or ring. One method of operation is to hold the pendulum in the mouth of a glass. The pendulum strikes the inside of the glass to answer questions. Expert readers believe that they can gain productive information from the faintest pendulum movements. As you can see, these divination devices each have their own special characteristics. Put them next to one another and you can easily distinguish between them. What connects them in a class is that they all facilitate messaging, regardless of whether you think the messages are natural or supernatural, and they all require the same hands-on engagement. Unfortunately, people frequently mistake one for the other, particularly when discussing the history of the talking board. This is why you may read that Ouija boards date to ancient Greece or China or Rome. A talking board is unique because of the sliding message indicator and spelling board configuration. Although commonly confused and lumped in with talking boards, it's important to remember that the other instruments are not the same, even if they produce similar results. Think of it this way: a car and a horse will both get you to

the store because they are methods of transportation. If you call your car a horse, people will think it a bit odd. If you see the alphabet, words, or symbols that can be translated into sentences or coherent messages and you get to them using a hands-on sliding or rolling message indicator, you have a talking board. Otherwise, it is something else. Since talking boards come in different patterns and fancy names, you may have to look closely. A talking board is a talking board no matter how plain or embellished or constructed. Makers may scrawl one on a wall or fashion it from metal or stone. All function in a similar fashion. The practice of obtaining secret knowledge through supernatural means is as old as humankind, or nearly so. Divination by shamans and seers was a staple of most ancient civilizations. While we no longer predict the future by sifting through bird droppings and animal entrails, there is still a thriving market for popular forms of fortune telling like astrology, tarot, the I Ching, palmistry, and the Ouija board. When we search the distant past for ancient talking boards we simply don't find any, despite claims to the contrary. Talking boards are unique to the Spiritualist movement of the 1800's. Not so for the other divination instruments writers often mistake for Ouija boards. The pendulum oracle described by fourth-century Roman historian, Ammianus Marcellinus, in his The Later Roman Empire (A.D. 354-378), is the most notable example and is often offered as proof that talking boards existed in ancient civilizations. In Marcellinus' narrative, two unfortunate individuals, Patricius and Hilarius are under arrest for creating an oracle to define who would succeed the emperor. They plead before the court: My lords, in an unlucky moment we put together out of laurel twigs in the shape of the Delphic tripod the hapless little table before you. We consecrated it with cryptic spells and a long series of magical rites, and at last made it work. The way in which it did so, when we wished to consult it about hidden matters, was this. It was placed in the middle of a room thoroughly fumigated with spices from Arabia, and was covered with a round dish made from the alloys of various metals. The outer rim of the dish was

cunningly engraved with the twenty-four letters of the alphabet separated by accurate intervals. A man dressed in linen garments and wearing linen sandals, with a fillet around his head and green twigs from a lucky tree in his hand, officiated as priest. After uttering a set prayer to invoke the divine power which presides over prophecy, he took his place above the tripod as his knowledge of the proper ritual had taught him, and set swinging a ring suspended by a very fine cotton thread which had been consecrated by a mystic formula. The ring, moving in a series of jumps over the marked spaces, came to rest on particular letters, which made up hexameters appropriate to the questions put and in perfect scansion and rhythm, like the lines produced at Delphi or by the oracle of the Branchidae. Circumstances did not go well for Patricius and Hilarius after the inquisition: "both the accused were fearfully mangled by the torturers hooks and taken away unconscious." This is a wonderful example of an ancient alphabet oracle in the same divination class as talking boards but it is clearly a pendulum oracle. As we mentioned earlier, pendulum divination uses a hanging, swinging weight as a message indicator. It does not slide or pivot across the surface of a board and that's an important distinction. That doesn't mean that you can't use a pendulum over a talking board but once you do, it becomes a pendulum oracle and it is no longer a talking board. Non-believers may say that there is no supernatural intervention and that you are moving the pendulum or the divining rod yourself. Therefore, they are the same. This is a basic misunderstanding and has nothing to do with the operation of the devices. You shoot a gun and you shoot a bow and arrow but you can't mistake one for the other. This early account of an ancient Ouija board from Lewis Spence's, An Encyclopedia of Occultism (1920), is sited so often that many commonly accept it as fact: Another form is the Ouija board on which in a convenient order the letters of the alphabet are printed and over which a pointer easily moves under the direction of the hand of the person or

persons acting as mediums It is stated that a form of this mystic toy was in use in the days of Pythagoras about 540 BC. In a French history of Pythagoras the author describing his celebrated school of philosophy asserts that the brotherhood held frequent sances or circles at which a mystic table moving on wheels moved towards signs inscribed on the surface of a stone slab on which the moving table worked. This might be of interest except that Spence does not name the French author who makes this statement and no research of Pythagoras, who left no written record, speaks of a mystic table on wheels. There are no divination devices of the period that fit this description. With no evidence to support such a claim we have to wonder. Spence also tells us in 1853, a well-known French spiritualist, M. Planchette, invented this instrument to which he gave his name. The word planchette is French for little board and there is no record of a French spiritualist named M. Planchette, odd because Spence describes him as wellknown. Again, we have to draw our own conclusions. In 1934, Nandor Fodor borrowed heavily from Spence and published his Encyclopedia of Psychic Science. His description of the Ouija board sounds very familiar with an interesting addition: As an invention it is very old. It was in use in the days of Pythagoras, about 540 B.C. According to a French historical account of the philosopher's life, his sect held frequent sances or circles at which a mystic table, moving on wheels, moved towards signs, which the philosopher and his pupil, Philolaus, interpreted to the audience as being revelations supposedly from the unseen world. Now we read that Pythagoras with his pupil Philolaus held sances and officiated as seers. Although dates are foggy for this period, history tells us that Philolaus was born long after the death of Pythagoras and that he wasn't one of his students. It's surprising so few writers have caught this but it is an example of

how misinformation and misclassification passes from one to the other and is further compounded. Stoker Hunt writes in his Ouija the Most Dangerous Game (1985): "In China, centuries before the birth of Confucius (551? -479 B.C.), the use of Ouija-like instruments was commonplace, considered a nonthreatening way to communicate with the spirits of the dead." "Ouijalike" can be confusing. It's an easy way to lump all divination devices in the same group and it is historically inaccurate if you fail to clarify distinctions. What he is talking about is a form of Chinese spirit writing (Fu Chi, Fuji). Some Chinese mystics believe that a divine spirit can take possession of a writing brush or a writing tool similar to the western planchette. Opinions vary among historians about the age of this practice, but it is undoubtedly very old. This is clearly automatic writing. You could call this type of divination planchette writing if you insist on using the French name for a Chinese writing device, but it is not a talking board. Ouija the Most Dangerous Game continues with, "In thirteenthcentury Tartary, the Mongols used Ouija-like instruments for purposes of divination and instruction." Although uncredited, this comes directly from Epes Sargent's book, Planchette; or The Despair of Science (1869): "According to Huc, the Catholic missionary, table-rapping and table-turning were in use in the thirteenth century among the Mongols, in the wilds of Tartary. The Chinese recognize spiritual intervention as a fact, and it is an element in their religious systems." Evariste Rgis Huc was a French missionary of the Vincentian order who traveled throughout China for several years in the 1840's sometimes disguised as a Tibetan Llama. His popular account of his adventures Souvenirs d'un voyage dans la Tartarie was widely read and reprinted. According to Daniel MacGowan, a medical missionary during the same time, Huc claimed that "table-rapping

and table-turning were, at that period, familiar to the Mongols in the wilds of Tartary, and that the soothsayers frequently asked the spirits by the sound of the tambourine." This is intriguing because it asserts that table tipping and spirit tambourines, both a part of American Spiritualist sances, were common in China hundreds of years before the birth of modern Spiritualism. When we read Huc's own words in his Christianity in China, Tartary and Thibet (Volume 1-1857) we gain an entirely different understanding: If they wished to ruin any one, they had nothing to do but to accuse him of having by his malignant arts occasioned any misfortune that might have occurred. When they were interrogated, they evoked their demons by the sound of the tambourine, shaking it furiously; then falling into an ecstasy, they feigned to receive answers from their familiar spirits, and proclaimed them as oracles. It is rather curious, too, that tablerapping and table-turning were in use in the thirteenth century among these Mongols in the wilds of Tartary. Rubruk himself witnessed an instance of the kind. On the eve of the Ascension, when the mother of Mangou feeling very ill, the first soothsayer was summoned for consultation, he "performed some magic by rapping on a table." This sounds nothing like American Spiritualism. During American sances, the tambourine was not used by the officiating medium but by the spirit to signal its presence. This was exposed many times as trickery but it doesn't relate in any way to the way the Mongols used itto evoke demons. To Huc, the performance of magic by "rapping on a table" was comparable to table rapping and table turning in the West. The actions of rapping on a table and a table knocking on the floor or turning under the fingers during a sance, are entirely different. This may have been a simple mistake for Huc whose interests were more Chinese than American but we can dig a little deeper. Huc mentions William Rubruck, a Flemish Franciscan monk who traveled for three years throughout the southern steppes, now Russia and Ukraine, in the mid 13th century. Rubruck wrote a detailed and famous account

of his travels and experiences in, The Journey of William Rubruck to the Eastern Parts of the World 1253-55. It is from this journal that Huc cites. Rubruck tells of treacherous soothsayers, of Mangu Chan's terminally ill mother, and of Nestorian priests who, "strike a board and chant their offices." The priests struck boards with mallets instead of bells during worship and this is most likely where Huc went astray. Nowhere in any of Rubruck's current translations does it mention soothsayers rapping on a table. Not having the resources available to us today, perhaps Huc the missionary read Rubruck in Latin and simply confused the words pulsant tabulam, "struck board" with "struck table." In any event, it is interesting that over one hundred and fifty years later, writers still quote Huc when assigning the Ouija board ancient roots. So, were there ancient Ouija boards? Until one shows up in an archaeology dig, the evidence is lacking. To be an ancestor of something, there must be a connection, evolution, or at least some influence. The instrument has to have been in wide enough use to connect to the popular imagination. As relationships go, the talking boards of today grew out the use of the alphabet and alphabetic pasteboards during 19th century spiritualistic sances and not from pendulum oracles or other devices used many centuries earlier. In 1848, the Fox sisters realized immediately that calling out the individual letters of the alphabet, and having the spirits knock accordingly, was easier than asking lengthy "yes-no" questions. The use of alphabet pasteboards became common among table-tippers who came to the same conclusion. And there were mediums who didn't wait for the spirits to knock but instead relied on a kind of divine intuition: "During a communication between the medium and the supposed spirit, the former passed his hand over the alphabet, until he found his finger sensibly and irresistibly arrested at a certain letter, and so on, until the word, the sentence, was completed." The Rappers (1854).

Starting in the 1850's, alphabet boards made the transition to the dial-plate instruments, also known as psychographs, first in the United States and then in Europe. The first talking board with a detachable sliding message indicator appeared around 1886. That's a short thirty-eight year time frame. These are the real relatives of the Ouija board. They are the devices of this period: the talking tables, the alphabet pasteboards, and the early dialplate instruments.

Don't drop that mirror or you'll have bad luck for seven years. Never let a black cat cross your path. Throw salt over your shoulder to ward off bad luck. We have all heard these admonitions before. Somehow its comforting to know that you might be able to ward off misfortune with a pinch of salt or a knock on wood. This is especially true when dealing with the unknown or something particularly scary. So it isn't surprising that the Ouija board has its own set of rules and warnings; you may even know some yourself. But are they true? Do you really need to worry about these things, or are they just superstitions garnered from Ouija folklore? Well, we're not going to let you off easy with a simple answer,

especially since the Ouija has a reputation to maintain. Instead, just for your amusement, we are going to treat you to just about every Ouija caveat we know. There is no need to thank us. Consider it a little reward for staying with us this long. Oh, and you may wish to read them over before your next session with the Wonderful Talking Board.

Never play alone! Never let the spirits count down through the numbers or go through the alphabet as they can get out of the board this way. If the planchette goes to the four corners of the board it means that you have contacted an evil spirit. If the planchette falls from a Ouija board, a spirit will get loose. If the planchette repeatedly makes a figure eight, it means that an evil spirit is in control of the board. If you should get an evil spirit, quickly turn the planchette upside down and use it that way. The board must be "closed" properly or evil spirits will remain behind to haunt the operator. Never use the Ouija when you are ill or in a weakened condition since this may make you vulnerable to possession. The spirit of the Ouija board creates "wins" for the user, causing him to become more and more dependent on the board. Addiction follows. This is called "progressive entrapment." Evil spirits contacted through the Ouija board will try to win your confidence with false flattery and lies. Always be respectful and never upset the spirits.

Never use the Ouija in a graveyard or place where a terrible death has occurred or you will bring forth malevolent entities. Witchboards are so named because witches use them to summon demons. The very first Ouija boards were made from the wood of coffins. A coffin nail in the center of the planchette window served as the pointer. Sometimes an evil spirit can permanently "inhabit" a board. When this happens, no other spirits will be able to use it. When using a glass as a message indicator, you must always cleanse it first by holding it over a burning candle. Ouija boards that are disposed of improperly, come back to haunt the owner. A Ouija Board will scream if you try to burn it. People who hear the scream have less than thirty-six hours to live. There is only one proper way to dispose of it: break the board into seven pieces, sprinkle it with Holy Water then bury it. If you must use a Ouija board, make your own. Arrange the letters and numbers, into a circle so whatever is trapped within that circle can't escape. If you place a pure silver coin on the board, no evil spirits will be able to come through. NEVER leave the planchette on the board if you aren't using it. Lecherous spirits from the Ouija board will sometimes ask young women to do rather . . . ah, odd things. Ignore them and always remember that your Ouija partner (i.e. boyfriend) has nothing to do with this.

Three things never to ask a Ouija board:

Never ask about God. Never ask when you are going to die. Never ask where the gold is buried.

Here is a cautionary tale that has been around for a long, long time. The point is (obviously) to warn a potential Ouija user that spirits are a deceitful lot. One gets the idea that they may not be too smart either. We were having a Ouija session one evening and we contacted a friendly spirit who told us all about himself when he had a body. We asked him several questions about his life and family, to which he cheerfully responded. Next we asked him when he died and he said, "1948." He also mentioned that he liked talking to us and that he felt safe with the living. We then asked him the year of his birth. To this question he replied, "1955." We looked at each other, confused, and asked, "You mean you died BEFORE you were born?" The message indicator circled the board wildly for a moment then spelled out, "O - O - P - S"

then stopped and refused to move, effectively ending our session for the night.