Development of the Ouija board
As spiritualism grew, so did frustration with the time it took to get messages from the afterlife.
People didn’t have all day and substituting raps on the walls for letters of
the alphabet took too long. In 1886, a new device appeared in spiritualists’
camps in Ohio. It was called a talking board and had letters, numbers and a teardrop-shaped
device with a window called a planchette. Two people placed their fingertips on
the planchette, asked a question and voila. The planchette moved of its own
accord to spell the answer.
Sound familiar? It sounded profitable to an enterprising man
in Baltimore, Maryland named Charles Kennard. He pulled together a group of
four other investors to start the Kennard Novelty Company to make and market
the new talking boards. None of the men were spiritualists, and the original advertisement
skewed toward family entertainment. Spiritualists actually disapproved of the
Ouija board as it cut out the middle man and their source of income. The first
Ouija board went on sale in Pittsburg in February 1891, marketed as a “link
between the known and unknown.” The cost of communing with the dead was $1.50.
Where did the name come from?
Contrary to popular belief, “Ouija” is not a combination of
the words for yes in French and German, oui and ja. One of
Kennard’s initial investors was a man named Bond. His sister-in-law, a
proponent of spiritualism, supplied the name in very sensible way. She asked
the board what it would like to be called and it spelled out “Ouija.” She asked
what that meant and the board replied, “Good luck.” At the time, she happened
to be wearing a locket with picture of a woman, with the name “Ouija” printed above
her head, but that was only coincidence, of course. There was also a popular
women’s rights activist named Ouida and “Ouija” may have been a misspelling, but the
name sounded exotic, a little creepy and oh so suitable for summoning the dead.
How does a Ouija Board work?
The mysterious mechanism that powers the Ouija board is
called the ideomotor effect. It can generate a strong impression of movement
controlled by an outside agency. The brain signals your body to move without
conscious awareness. Dowsing rods work
on the same principal, a small muscle movement causes a larger effect.
Planchettes are particularly well-suited to this as they have felt pads to
glide smoothly over the even, flat surface of the board.
In the case of a Ouija board, the brain unconsciously creates
images and memories in response to questions. The body responds by causing the
muscles in hands and arms to move the planchette to the answers the person may unconsciously
want to receive. Multiple scientific studies have shown the ideomotor effect in
action. For instance, the Ouija board only works when participants can see the
pointer. If blindfolded, the messages are garbled and incoherent.
Despite the spiritualism silliness, Researchers at the
University of
British Columbia’s Visual Cognition Lab believe the Ouija Board may be a good way to examine how the mind processes information on different levels. The ideomotor can express what the non-conscious knows. Dr. Sidney Fels, professor of electrical and computer engineering, began looking at exactly what happens when people sit down to use a Ouija board. “You do much better with the Ouija on questions that you really don’t think you know, but actually something inside you does know. The Ouija can help you answer above chance.” In other words, forget about calling the ghost of Great Aunt Olga for advice and instead, if you can’t decide, let your subconscious be your guide.
4 comments:
So interesting. I only participated once with a group using a Ouija board. A bunch of women at a conference. At one point, one woman believed she was talking to her deceased cousin. Chills ran down my arms and back. So weird. I didn't realize how long it's been around. Great post.
What a great post- especially finding out the Ouija board started out in Pittsburgh (that's about an hour North for me). We had one growing up - it both fascinated and terrified us. It's probably still in my parent's basement.
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