Ouija: Infamy, History, True Encounter
In my review of The Exorcist novel I mentioned that around the same time in which I watched the film for the first time, I had also successfully used a Ouija board with my older sister. The following is an excerpt from my book Becoming the Devil They Fear: A Gay Book of Shadows:
After my parents divorced, my mother, sisters and I moved into a duplex as a new beginning. A strange memory I have in our home was during an Easter break. My older sister, her friend and I had the idea to purchase a Parker Brother’s Ouija board from a store close to our home. I still remember the funny looks I got from other shoppers and the cashier.
We took it home, lit a candle and immediately opened the board from the box. My older sister and her friend used it at this time for the most part. The planchette looked as though it moved while they barely touched it and they seemed to be talking to a spirit. They asked general questions about the spirit but I was rather skeptical at this point and wished that we had taken that money which our mother left us for lunch to buy something else.
However later in the evening I became less skeptical. My mom came home and we hid the Ouija board in my older sister’s bedroom in the basement. After supper, her friend and I joined her in her bedroom where I participated with them using Ouija board. We spoke with a spirit who rather quickly started to scare the hell out of me.
The planchette started to spell out the word “curse” after numerous obscenities and name calling geared towards us. Whenever we would ask what the spirit was talking about, the planchette repeatedly spelled "curse". We eventually gave up on speaking with the spirit and put the board away.
For weeks, maybe months I feared the dark. I couldn't sleep by myself without getting so frightened that I was vomiting. I felt the spirit’s eyes staring at me and I never wanted to be alone, especially at night. I slept in my mother’s bed and she didn’t understand why I was so frightened, until she heard that we watched the film “The Exorcist” at my father's house one evening.
“It's no wonder why you're always so scared Ryan,” she mentioned.
But not even “The Exorcist” scared me as much as this strange invisible presence I sensed.
However, I kept using the board with my older sister while my mother went to work during the day. Even though I was so scared at night, I was drawn to the Ouija board because I had never experienced anything like it. But every night it terrified me so much that something was still in my presence watching me.
Being the good brother I usually was to my sister, I didn’t let my mom in on the secret that we had this Ouija board in our home at first. However, I wanted to get over my fear and eventually told my mother. She made my sister throw the Ouija board in the garbage outside and I was able to start sleeping by myself again shortly after that.
My sister left our home shortly after that and moved in with my father due to difficulties of getting along with my mother. I eventually got the courage to start sleeping in my older sister’s room and watched TV in there, staying up late during the summer break. However, I saw the edge of that Ouija board staring at me under my sister’s dresser one night...
I wish I could make this part seem creepier by telling you that the board came back after being thrown away. However, it was just the matter of fact that my sister only threw away the box it came in and hid the board from us. My heart was pounding and all of that fear started coming back, so I broke the board in half and ran upstairs into my room. I left the broken board out for my mother to see. At this point, she didn’t care so much because she just wanted my sister to come back home.
I was eleven years old when I used the Ouija board for the first time and ever since, I’ve had a connection with “the other side”. I wonder if the reason why I have this connection was because of the silly little ritual the little girl and I had in “the forest”... Or maybe it was just simply because I dabbled with something that is spiritually taboo.
Now for some history on the infamy of Ouija and the board itself...
Since early in the Ouija board's history, it has been criticized by several Christian groups including Roman Catholics. Catholic Answers, a Christian apologetic's organization, states that "The Ouija board is far from harmless, as it is a form of divination (seeking information from supernatural sources)." In 2001, Ouija boards were burned in Alamogordo, New Mexico, by fundamentalist groups alongside Harry Potter books as symbols of witchcraft. Religious criticism has also expressed beliefs that the Ouija board reveals information which should only be in God's hands, and thus it is a tool of Satan. A spokesperson for Human Life International described the boards as a portal to talk to spirits and called for Hasbro to be prohibited from marketing them. Bishops in Micronesia called for the boards to be banned and warned congregations that they were talking to demons and devils when using the boards.
The name Ouija (we-ja) came from a session with Miss Peters, inventor 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.' 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. For twenty-six years William Fuld ran a company, selling Ouija boards. 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 planchette came first, 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 with a pencil at the tip. Spiritualists immediately discovered that in addition to writing messages, the planchette could perform as a pointer. They later found that the pointing method was a better way of communication as planchette writing was often difficult or impossible to read. When the message indicator moved by itself from letter to letter to spell out a message, it looked genuinely magical and astonishing. Whether this new board was a reaction to or possibly responsible for the craze we can only guess. It was a challenge just keeping the instrument centered on the paper long enough to get a decipherable message. The French word "planchette" translates to English as "little plank." Others eliminated the planchette but kept the pencil, finding the hand a more precise and less troublesome writing instrument.
People started to use message boards with the planchette which were simple to make and required absolutely no understanding, skill, or mediumistic training to do, or so people were led to understand. 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, etc. Communications are spelled out by the diminutive table resting over such letters as may be wanted to spell out the message.
After my parents divorced, my mother, sisters and I moved into a duplex as a new beginning. A strange memory I have in our home was during an Easter break. My older sister, her friend and I had the idea to purchase a Parker Brother’s Ouija board from a store close to our home. I still remember the funny looks I got from other shoppers and the cashier.
We took it home, lit a candle and immediately opened the board from the box. My older sister and her friend used it at this time for the most part. The planchette looked as though it moved while they barely touched it and they seemed to be talking to a spirit. They asked general questions about the spirit but I was rather skeptical at this point and wished that we had taken that money which our mother left us for lunch to buy something else.
However later in the evening I became less skeptical. My mom came home and we hid the Ouija board in my older sister’s bedroom in the basement. After supper, her friend and I joined her in her bedroom where I participated with them using Ouija board. We spoke with a spirit who rather quickly started to scare the hell out of me.
The planchette started to spell out the word “curse” after numerous obscenities and name calling geared towards us. Whenever we would ask what the spirit was talking about, the planchette repeatedly spelled "curse". We eventually gave up on speaking with the spirit and put the board away.
For weeks, maybe months I feared the dark. I couldn't sleep by myself without getting so frightened that I was vomiting. I felt the spirit’s eyes staring at me and I never wanted to be alone, especially at night. I slept in my mother’s bed and she didn’t understand why I was so frightened, until she heard that we watched the film “The Exorcist” at my father's house one evening.
“It's no wonder why you're always so scared Ryan,” she mentioned.
But not even “The Exorcist” scared me as much as this strange invisible presence I sensed.
However, I kept using the board with my older sister while my mother went to work during the day. Even though I was so scared at night, I was drawn to the Ouija board because I had never experienced anything like it. But every night it terrified me so much that something was still in my presence watching me.
Being the good brother I usually was to my sister, I didn’t let my mom in on the secret that we had this Ouija board in our home at first. However, I wanted to get over my fear and eventually told my mother. She made my sister throw the Ouija board in the garbage outside and I was able to start sleeping by myself again shortly after that.
My sister left our home shortly after that and moved in with my father due to difficulties of getting along with my mother. I eventually got the courage to start sleeping in my older sister’s room and watched TV in there, staying up late during the summer break. However, I saw the edge of that Ouija board staring at me under my sister’s dresser one night...
I wish I could make this part seem creepier by telling you that the board came back after being thrown away. However, it was just the matter of fact that my sister only threw away the box it came in and hid the board from us. My heart was pounding and all of that fear started coming back, so I broke the board in half and ran upstairs into my room. I left the broken board out for my mother to see. At this point, she didn’t care so much because she just wanted my sister to come back home.
I was eleven years old when I used the Ouija board for the first time and ever since, I’ve had a connection with “the other side”. I wonder if the reason why I have this connection was because of the silly little ritual the little girl and I had in “the forest”... Or maybe it was just simply because I dabbled with something that is spiritually taboo.
Now for some history on the infamy of Ouija and the board itself...
The name Ouija (we-ja) came from a session with Miss Peters, inventor 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.' 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. For twenty-six years William Fuld ran a company, selling Ouija boards. 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 planchette came first, 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 with a pencil at the tip. Spiritualists immediately discovered that in addition to writing messages, the planchette could perform as a pointer. They later found that the pointing method was a better way of communication as planchette writing was often difficult or impossible to read. When the message indicator moved by itself from letter to letter to spell out a message, it looked genuinely magical and astonishing. Whether this new board was a reaction to or possibly responsible for the craze we can only guess. It was a challenge just keeping the instrument centered on the paper long enough to get a decipherable message. The French word "planchette" translates to English as "little plank." Others eliminated the planchette but kept the pencil, finding the hand a more precise and less troublesome writing instrument.
People started to use message boards with the planchette which were simple to make and required absolutely no understanding, skill, or mediumistic training to do, or so people were led to understand. 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, etc. Communications are spelled out by the diminutive table resting over such letters as may be wanted to spell out the message.
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. They retired and sold the business to Parker Brothers. Parker Brothers produced an accurate Fuld reproduction but while they were eye-catching in the beginning, they eventually were made in a more cost-effective manner, looking more like typical board games. Parker Brothers slogan was "It's only a game, isn't it?" Hasbro currently owns Parker Brothers.
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. To read a more thorough history on the Ouija board, visit http://www.museumoftalkingboards.com/history.html.
While many claim that Ouija boards are evil, there are also those who believe it's just like any other method of medium-ship and that contacting evil spirits from the other side is in the eye of the beholder. In other words, if your only knowledge of Ouija boards is what the church tells you or from horror movies, then you might contact evil spirits upon using one as it has often been said that evil spirits feed off of fear. However if you are a person like me who grew out of the notion that the board itself is evil, the Ouija Board can be a wonderful tool for medium-ship.
Today's Ouija encounter story is just the beginning of a series of Ouija stories from my book... I will be sharing more of my Ouija stories in the future, so keep checking in to see how my use of the Ouija board has progressed, as well as strange paranormal occurrences upon using the board...
SOURCES:
Becoming the Devil They Fear: A Gay Book of Shadows
by Ryan Willey
ORDER HERE!
The Museum of Talking Boards
http://www.museumoftalkingboards.com/history.html
"Ouija" Wikipedia Article
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouija
Pictures:
http://www.museumoftalkingboards.com/history.html
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/82/63/7d/82637d856a3434c26a3fab8844ade599.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/3a/75/c3/3a75c3e98abbdf20aa9a5bee0f309d3e--ouija-hand-made.jpg
https://www.picclickimg.com/d/l400/pict/262942440827_/Custom-handmade-Ouija-board-and-Spirit-Planchette-Artist.jpg
http://www.halloweenforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=240622&d=1430344058
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIK5dH2sQ3zVi06rsl0qhLjoi7PRk28jvN5BSo1UQcKc_1Nj1L7_if7JF-Z6rVNEHYGfmgHdSvGE8I2PfGrAMlUW_lYQ_YGwp7wrweOizToUmvnAtP4OtRmF4WLYbU_AAoRT0T-ursdfg/s1600/SturmbergPlanchetteIllo1876.jpg
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/9V-Si-MNK9c/hqdefault.jpg
https://www.google.ca/search?q=ouija&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwivuPuyzOvVAhVq4YMKHUx7AicQ_AUICigB&biw=1024&bih=715#imgrc=nVtRZ1_L3hVM4M:
https://giphy.com/gifs/horror-scary-ouija-gMF6ENdRij3lS
https://giphy.com/gifs/scary-fear-spirits-qzSS8f77ikQlW
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. To read a more thorough history on the Ouija board, visit http://www.museumoftalkingboards.com/history.html.
While many claim that Ouija boards are evil, there are also those who believe it's just like any other method of medium-ship and that contacting evil spirits from the other side is in the eye of the beholder. In other words, if your only knowledge of Ouija boards is what the church tells you or from horror movies, then you might contact evil spirits upon using one as it has often been said that evil spirits feed off of fear. However if you are a person like me who grew out of the notion that the board itself is evil, the Ouija Board can be a wonderful tool for medium-ship.
Today's Ouija encounter story is just the beginning of a series of Ouija stories from my book... I will be sharing more of my Ouija stories in the future, so keep checking in to see how my use of the Ouija board has progressed, as well as strange paranormal occurrences upon using the board...
SOURCES:
Becoming the Devil They Fear: A Gay Book of Shadows
by Ryan Willey
ORDER HERE!
The Museum of Talking Boards
http://www.museumoftalkingboards.com/history.html
"Ouija" Wikipedia Article
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouija
Pictures:
http://www.museumoftalkingboards.com/history.html
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/82/63/7d/82637d856a3434c26a3fab8844ade599.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/3a/75/c3/3a75c3e98abbdf20aa9a5bee0f309d3e--ouija-hand-made.jpg
https://www.picclickimg.com/d/l400/pict/262942440827_/Custom-handmade-Ouija-board-and-Spirit-Planchette-Artist.jpg
http://www.halloweenforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=240622&d=1430344058
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIK5dH2sQ3zVi06rsl0qhLjoi7PRk28jvN5BSo1UQcKc_1Nj1L7_if7JF-Z6rVNEHYGfmgHdSvGE8I2PfGrAMlUW_lYQ_YGwp7wrweOizToUmvnAtP4OtRmF4WLYbU_AAoRT0T-ursdfg/s1600/SturmbergPlanchetteIllo1876.jpg
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/9V-Si-MNK9c/hqdefault.jpg
https://www.google.ca/search?q=ouija&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwivuPuyzOvVAhVq4YMKHUx7AicQ_AUICigB&biw=1024&bih=715#imgrc=nVtRZ1_L3hVM4M:
https://giphy.com/gifs/horror-scary-ouija-gMF6ENdRij3lS
https://giphy.com/gifs/scary-fear-spirits-qzSS8f77ikQlW
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