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Talking Boards & the Ideomotor Response

You may have heard that the name Ouija (pronounced WEE-ja) is a combination of oui (French for "yes") and ja (German for "yes'). However, that name was made up by the first mass marketer Mr. Fuld.  Another story is that Mr. Kennard thought Ouija was Egyptian for "good luck." It isn't really, (we all know good luck translates to ?? ????  in Arabic don't we) but the board itself supposedly told him. There are many different types of Ouija Boards, which can have differing layouts and can be made from a variety of materials. The board usually consists of the letters of the alphabet, 0-9 in numbers and the words, "Yes" and "No."  The user or users of the board lightly touch a pointer (sometimes called a planchette) and the pointer moves and spells out the answers to questions asked of the Ouija.  Usually this pointer is mounted on castors to help it move freely about the board.

Ouija boards became very popular in the 1960's, a time of resurgent interest in all things occult and metaphysical, and were sold in many countries as a board game.  The board itself can be traced back to the 1800's.  Some believe that the Ouija offers proof as to life after death. Others believe that the answers to the Ouija come from the unconscious mind of one or all of the participants. 

Persons of a nervous disposition can be frightened easily when using an Ouija board and it is suggested that they should therefore avoid them.  It must also be pointed out that there is no scientific proof that they actually work, although there have been many claims over the years.

Who Invented The Ouija Board?

The earliest known patent for a talking board in the patent offices in London, England was filed by Adolphus Theodore Wagner, a professor of music and resident of Berlin of the Kingdom of Prussia.  Wagner described his device as a “PSYCHOGRAPH, OR APPARATUS FOR INDICATING PERSONS THOUGHTS BY THE AGENT OF NERVOUS ELECTRICITY” on January 23, 1854. 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 operator’s mind.”

The first Mass Marketer

William Fuld (1870-1927) American businessman, inventor, and entrepreneur from Baltimore, Maryland who is best known for his marketing and manufacture of Ouija boards from the 1890s through the 1920s. Fuld is seen as the father of the Ouija board. Though Fuld never claimed to have invented the Ouija board, intense media coverage in the 1920s credited him with it. The misinformation was sustained by his own marketing, and his practice of stamping "Original Ouija Board" and "Inventor" on the back of his boards. Fuld’s company also produced pool tables, combination game boards, furniture, wooden toys, and dart boards all rolled off his assembly lines

Advertisements in local periodicals read:

OUIJA — A WONDERFUL TALKING BOARD
Interesting and mysterious; surpasses in its results second sight, mind reading, clairvoyance; will give intelligent answer to any question. Proven at patent office before patent was allowed. Price $1.50. All first-class toy, dry goods, and stationary stores. W. S. Carr & Co., 83 Pearl street; New England News Co., 14 Franklin street; H. Partridge & Co., Hanover and Washington streets; R. Schwarz, 458 Washington street: R.H. White & Co.; Houghton & Dutton. —Hollis St. Theatre program, November 7, 1891, Boston, Massachusetts

Fuld also worked as foreman at the Kennard Novelty Co. which was founded on October 30, 1890, the same year that Elijah Bond filed for the first American patent for a talking board. This patent was assigned to William H. A. Maupin and Charles W. Kennard. For reasons unknown Kennard was removed from his company in 1891. By 1892 Fuld had taken over as supervisor and the company changed its name to The Ouija Novelty Company and moved into a new location. William Fuld filed for his first talking board patent in the same year.

William Fuld became a member of the Baltimore General Assembly in 1924. On February 24, 1927, Fuld climbed to the roof of his three-story factory to supervise the installation of a flagpole. When the rail against which he was leaning gave way, Fuld fell to the ground below. While being transported, a fractured rib pierced his heart and William Fuld died at the hospital. After his death, Fuld's children would take over the company. Catherine and William A. Fuld ran the company until the youngest brother, Hubert, became president of William Fuld Inc. in 1942. Parker Brothers acquired the company and all of its assets in 1966.

Can Using A Ouija Board Make You Psychic?

There is evidence to suggest that using an Ouija board can "open one up" in terms of sensitivity.  Pearl Curran, a housewife from St. Louis, began using a friend's Ouija board in 1913.  The Ouija board began to spell out communications that were purportedly from a spirit contact by the name of Patience Worth.  Pearl and Patience then began collaborating via automatic writing, and their output was prodigious: Patience “dictated" over a million words of poetry, plays and novels to Mrs. Curran.  The works were of sufficiently high literary quality to be published and to enjoy some success among readers, and were rich in historical detail.

Not all cases work out so well.  If using the Ouija board is the equivalent of opening a door into the unknown, then it should be understood that the user of the board has no control as to who might walk through that door and into his or her life.  It could be a pleasant and helpful spirit, as Patience Worth seemed to be.  It could be a malevolent spirit. If a person was to be contacted by a spirit claiming to be a relative, how can one be sure the spirit is the person that it claims to be?  In the hands of easily impressionable people, especially young people, if the information obtained from one of these boards was ever acted upon, the out come could be catastrophic.

Of course, other arguments can be raised.  Perhaps Pearl Curran was herself the reincarnation of Patience Worth, and had tapped into the mind of her in a previous lifetime.  Or perhaps Pearl Curran (in spite of all evidence to the contrary) was really a great writer herself with a knack for historical detail, and had simply created the persona of Patience Worth, albeit unconsciously.  In that sense, then, the Ouija board is still useful - it is a method of reaching the unconscious mind and hearing what it has to say, much like dreams.

In a recent poll conducted by about.com, 65 percent believed the Ouija to be a dangerous tool. While a majority of respondents (41 percent) believed that the board was controlled by the users’ subconscious, 37 percent believed it was controlled by spirits, and 14 percent feared that it was under the influence of demonic spirits.

Are we controlling the Ouija or not?

There are two main on how the Ouija works – the automatism theory and the spiritualist theory:

The Automatism Theory – The clinical term is “ideomotor response.” You may not know that you are moving the message indicator, but you are. This is similar to automatic writing; also know as automatism, a well-understood phenomenon. Mediums in years past would hold a pencil in one hand and pay no attention as it wrote furiously. Some believed that these written messages came from the spirits. Others felt that the messages came from a clever medium. At any rate, most proponents of the Automatism Theory generally accept that it is very possible to move the planchette unconsciously. They claim that the Ouija board opens a kind of shortcut from the conscious to the subconscious mind. Collective automatism occurs when more than one person is operating the board.  This is where trying it blindfolded comes in (provided you haven't memorized the board). If it's spirits, they should be able to guide your hands no matter whether you can see or not. But if it's you doing it unconsciously, the blindfold will cause havoc.

 The Spiritualist Theory – Ouija messages obviously come from forces beyond our control. You contact or “channel” these entities through the board. They are discarnate spirits, ghosts, or other ethereal beings that have a purpose for contacting the living. Many advocates of the Spiritualist Theory think that there is no harm in contacting the other realm because most spirits are basically benign and have important information to share. A few of these same advocates will perform elaborate cleansing rituals before using the board, just in case they run into an evil spirit. Other Spiritualist Theory supporters believe that no one should ever use the Ouija board. Malevolent forces can masquerade as good and cause emotional damage, even death to the user of the board. They offer as proof the many accounts of spirit possession reported by “experts” on the occult and demonology.

What do others in the paranormal say about the board?

Some practitioners claim to have had bad experiences related to the use of talking boards by being haunted by "demons," seeing apparitions of spirits, and hearing voices after using them. A few paranormal researchers, such as John Zaffis, claim that the majority of the worst cases of so-called demon harassment and possession are caused by the use of Ouija boards. The American demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren, stated that "Ouija boards are just as dangerous as drugs." They further state that "séances and Ouija boards and other occult paraphernalia are dangerous because 'evil spirits' often disguise themselves as your loved ones—and take over your life."

In 1944, occultist Manly P. Hall an early authority on the occult in the 20th century, stated in Horizon magazine that, "during the last 20-25 years I have had considerable personal experience with persons who have complicated their lives through dabbling with the Ouija board. Out of every hundred such cases, at least 95 are worse off for the experience." He went on to say that, "I know of broken homes, estranged families, and even suicides that can be traced directly to this source."

As early as 1924, Harry Houdini wrote that five people from Carrito, California were driven insane by using a board. That same year, Dr. Carl Wickland in his book stated that "the serious problem of alienation and mental derangement attending ignorant psychic experiments was first brought to my attention by cases of several persons whose seemingly harmless experiences with automatic writing and the Ouija board resulted in such wild insanity that commitment to asylums was necessitated."

In 1965, parapsychologist Martin Ebon in states that "it all may start harmlessly enough, perhaps with a Ouija board," which will, "bring startling information... establishing credibility or identifying itself as someone who is dead. It is common that people... as having been 'chosen' for a special task." He continues, "Quite often the Ouija turns vulgar, abusive or threatening. It grows demanding and hostile, and sitters may find themselves using the board compulsively, as if 'possessed' by a spirit or hearing voices that control or command them."

I see the biggest possible problem is that a person could become emotionally attached or dependent on the board's advice. This can be psychologically adverse as you will attempt to get more and more information out of the board and you could actually just be using the board to the inside of your own mind without realizing it. In other words, you could be asking questions of the board and then your subconscious mind would be using the planchette to answer your own questions. This often happens to those people who use the board by themselves.

Bottom line

In my opinion based on two decades of field research in the paranormal filed, I believe the board itself is not dangerous, but the form of communication that you are attempting often is. Most often the spirits whom are contacted through the Ouija are those whom reside on ‘the lower astral plane.’ These spirits are often very confused and may have died a violent or sudden death; murder, suicide, etc. Therefore, many violent, negative and potentially dangerous conditions are present to those using the board. Often, several spirits will attempt to come through at the same time but the danger lies when you ask for physical proof of their existence. You might say, ‘If you’re a spirit, then move that object!’ What you have just done is open a doorway and allowed them to enter into the physical world and future problems can and often do arise.

Parents should ask themselves a simple question, “Would I allow my child to participate in a séance with a potentially dangerous person?” 

 

Other names for a talking board:

Angel Guidance Board, 1995

Black Magic Talking Board, 1940

Charmed Spirit Board, 2006

Egyptian Luck Board, 1921

Electric Mystifying Oracle, 1933

Fickle Finger of Fate, 1979

Finger of Fate, 1971

Guiding Star Board, 1960

Hasko Mystic Board, 1940

Hindu Luck Board, 1920

I-D-O Psy-cho-I-D-E-O-Graph, 1919

Ka-Bala, 1967

Magi-Board, 1943

Magic Marvel, 1940

Midas Board, 1987

Mitche Manitou, 1920

Mysterious Planchette, 1940

Mystic, 1960

Mystic Answer Board, 1944

Mystic Genii Board, 1965

Mystic Heart, 1999

Mystic Medium, unknown

Mystic Ouija, 1920

Mystic Quiz, unknown

Mystic Soothsayer, 1944

Mystic Tray, 1940

Mystifying Oracle, 1920

Nirvana, 1907

Olympia ESP Board, 1945

Oriole, 1905

Ouija, 1891

Ouija Queen, 1940

Pen-G, 1984

Predicta, 1968

Psychic Sex Board, 1979

Psychograph, unknown

Point Pleasant, 2005

Rahjah, 1940

Swami, 1940

Talking Board, 1854

Tarot Wheel, 1967

Throne Board, 1893

Universal Mind Contact, 1968

Veda, 1940

WE-JA, 1930

Wireless=Messenger, 1898

Whitchy Board, unknown

Wizard, 1940

Yes Yes, 1971

Yogee, 1940

Ziriya, 1972

Article written by Gene Lafferty

 

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