Ouija look at that!
A brief history of spirit boards and their relationship to Spiritualism in the United States
We held a séance and asked to speak to one of the founding fathers and James Madison showed up. Noisy spirit, that guy. His frustration is understandable.
Spirit boards came to the United States in the mid to late 19th century, dovetailing with a Spiritualist movement that swept the country at that time. Adherents to Spiritualism held that they could communicate with the dead through mediums attuned to the spirit world, sometimes aided with special props like bells or candles or moving tables. Spiritualists believed that those “on the other side” had access to greater wisdom and hidden mysteries that they might choose to impart to the living, if receptive, and could provide guidance and moral clarity. While Spiritualism had been around in Europe for at least a century earlier, the movement gained momentum in America at the advent of the Civil War: family members who had lost loved ones in the deadly conflict consulted with Spiritualists in the hopes of reconnecting with their dearly departed. World War I would again usher in an influx in Spiritualist consultations.
While Spiritualists like the Fox Sisters of upstate New York claimed to interpret messages from a series of knocks and raps (until they were ultimately exposed as frauds), others looked for faster and less ambiguous ways to communicate with the beyond. In 1886, the AP published an article detailing the use of spirit boards at a Spiritualist camp in Ohio: these were wooden planks with letters, numbers, and sometimes a few words or short phrases burned into the surface. The board delivered messages through navigation by means of a “planchette” that moved, seemingly of its own accord, under the lightly resting fingers of the medium and their guests and through which the spirits allegedly were able to spell out messages.
Among those reading the news coverage of Ohio spirit boards were entrepreneurs Charles Kennard and E.C. Reiche. Kennard had recently come out from under a boom-to-bust venture in the fertilizer industry and his Baltimore office neighbor Reiche was a coffin-maker/undertaker also looking to make a quick buck or two on the side. Together they hatched a scheme to manufacture and distribute spirit boards to the general public. Their endeavor failed to capture much market interest until another local gent, attorney Elijah Bond joined the enterprise. Bond’s sister-in-law Helen Peters was a professed psychic and lent an air of legitimacy to the claims of spirit contact. In fact, her demonstration of the board’s function convinced a patent office clerk of its merit by spelling out his name (purportedly unknown to her), earning a patent for the game. Of note, the patent was issued on the claims that the board “worked” without detailing exactly how it was accomplished. This was a loophole that the Kennard Novelty Company would exploit fully in marketing their product, heavily implying that the board channeled mysterious powers.
The company would brand their product a “Ouija Board.” This name was “received” in a séance with the investors in which Helen Peters had asked the board what it should call itself and it spelled out “O-U-I-J-A.” When asked what the word meant, the board replied “good luck.” In truth, Peters was wearing a locket with the picture of a woman, her name “Ouija,” or perhaps “Ouida” written above her head. It is possible that the locket was of English writer Marie Louise de la Ramée, known by the pseudonym Ouida (a diminutive of “Louisa”). In addition to her popular stirring, melodramatic, escapist fantasy novels, de la Ramée was well-known for her extravagant lifestyle as an independent, self-supporting, unmarried woman with a colorful and flamboyant social circle. She owned several dogs and horses and was a tireless supporter of animal rights. She was an outspoken critic of the institution of marriage, particularly as it was connected to women’s abuse under the patriarchy. She was, however, no feminist trailblazer. Ouida was opposed women’s suffrage and what she termed New Women (riding bicycles? wearing pants? quelle horreur!), and she was a staunch supporter of aristocratic privilege, believing socialism to be abhorrent.
In contrast, Spiritualism was particularly popular with abolitionists, suffragettes and outspoken women. Spirit medium was one of the few professions open to women in the 19th century. Women were naturally well-suited to a profession that provided comfort to the grieving, and the role of spirit medium elevated countless women, providing them a means to control their own finances and career. There was no hierarchy associated with the religion and anyone with “the gift” could participate, regardless of social status. As such, Spiritualism, was a unique and socially progressive movement. Ann Braude, author of “Radical Spirits” says that “In mediumship, women’s religious leadership became normative for the first time in American history.” Messages that came from “the spirit world” were more easily accepted; therefore women’s issues, for example the concepts of equality and voting rights for women, were made more palatable by a believing public. Suffrage supporters Victoria Woodhull, Achsa W. Sprague and Laura de Force Gordon were all involved in the Spiritualist movement. While not practitioners themselves, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott drafted their Declaration of Sentiments for the Seneca Falls Convention on the parlor table were they had reportedly received raps from the spirits. Among others, Susan B Anthony and Margaret Sanger both spoke at the Spiritualist community of Lily Dale during summers in the 1890’s.
By this time (the early 1890’s), Ouija Boards were selling as the most popular board game in the US, around 2,000 boards being sold per week. The business was assumed by the Fudd family and became wildly profitable, generating millions of dollars in sales. As Spiritualism’s popularity waned, the Ouija board became more of a parlor amusement. While even at its inception there were a handful of critics that held that communing with spirits was evil, the board was widely regarded as harmless game in the next few decades. But towards the end of the 20th century, people came to associate them with more sinister forces. Hollywood would capitalize on the occult connotations with movies like “The Exorcist,” where young Regan communes with—and is soon overtaken by—the demon Captain Howdy through a Ouija Board. From then on, Ouija Boards became a frequent trope in Hollywood as a gateway to malevolent hordes.
While believers handle their Ouija boards with superstitious rituals and reverence, the scientific community regards spirit boards with extreme skepticism. The movement of the planchette has been studied and shown to be the result the ideomotor phenomenon—the body reflexively performing slight muscle movements towards a desired outcome without realizing that one is doing it. Those that have scientifically analyzed the history believe it likely that most messages received from “otherworldly forces” during all the decades of Spiritualist movement séances and sessions were driven by ideomotor actions; people subconsciously creating the conditions to generate the wished-for responses that they magically received. That, and the downright fraud of the some of its less-scrupulous practitioners, that is.
To learn more of the fascinating history surrounding Ouija and spirit boards, as well as some information on Spiritualism, I recommend the articles and sites below.
Baltimore Magazine: "Not Dead Yet" by Ron Cassie
WilliamFuld.com, maintained by Robert Murch
Geri Walton: "Spiritualism: A Religious Movement of the 1800s", 7/5/21
Ms. Magazine: "Waking the Witch: The Feminist History of Spiritualism" by Pam Grossman, 10/29/19
I have a ouija board decorated bathroom. It's the only bathroom in the house where the door closes completely. Still looking forward to my RWNJ MlL needing to go.
women riding bicycles is just a slippery slope towards women voting.