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 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 year-old Regan was possessed by a demon after playing with a Ouija board by herself changed how people saw the board.
Almost overnight, Ouija became a tool of the devil and, for that reason, a tool of horror writers and moviemakers—it began popping up in scary movies, usually opening the door to evil spirits hell-bent on ripping apart co-eds. Christian religious groups still remain wary of the board, citing scripture denouncing communication with spirits through mediums—Catholic. Even within the paranormal community, Ouija boards enjoyed a dodgy reputation—Murch 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 , 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 , 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. Ouija boards are not, scientists say, powered by spirits or even demons. Ouija boards work on a principle known to those studying the mind for more than years: the ideometer effect. In , 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. The effect is very convincing.
As Dr. Moreover, in most situations, there is an expectation or suggestion that the board is somehow mystical or magical. Quite a lot, actually. 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.
Two years ago, 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.
After offering up a more Halloween-friendly, mystical explanation—leaving out the ideomotor effect—he 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.
After numerous rejections, Elijah Bond, a local attorney who claimed his sister-in-law was a strong medium, finally took an interest. Soon enough, the Kennard Novelty Company, which incorporated the day before Halloween years ago, began manufacturing Ouija boards much as they appear today. So, yes, an undertaker and an opportunist named Kennard invented the only patented board game—billed as both a mystical oracle for communicating with the spirits and wholesome amusement—ever to outsell Monopoly in a given year.
The story of the Ouija board, however, is more than a tale of snake oil salesmen duping the Victorian masses or, subsequently, a game of harmless fun at a million junior-high sleepovers. Now, we do everything we can in hopes of avoiding aging, let alone engage in any real thoughts of death.
But in the s, people only lived to be 50 years old. Mothers would have 12 children and six of them would die. Their parlor rooms were also their funeral rooms. There always is when money is at stake, and by the early s, some 2, Ouija boards were already being sold a week.
William Fuld, who worked for and invested in the Kennard Novelty Company—and eventually gained control of the Ouija business after the founder cashed out too early—went on to make millions manufacturing the board in Baltimore and elsewhere, but only after his brother was cut out of the company.
Their ensuing lawsuits were no mere spat. The two sides of the family would not speak for 96 years. And, tragically, William Fuld would suffer a fatal accident at his Harford Avenue factory, one he claimed in a Baltimore Sun story that the Ouija had told him to build. In , the first year it was headquartered in the town infamous for its witch trials, Ouija sold two million boards.
Norman Rockwell, who was fond of depicting the revealing moments of everyday life, painted a well-dressed suitor and young woman, chairs pulled face-to-face, playing with a Ouija board for the cover of The Saturday Evening Post in You can also pick up the board like you would any other object to move it somewhere more convenient.
When you're ready, left click on the Ouija board. When the letters glow orange, you're ready to start asking away through local voice chat.
But be careful: Using a Ouija board has 76 percent chance to get a response and 33 percent chance to just piss off the ghost you're hunting. If the ghost gets angry, you'll take a pretty big hit to your sanity. To make matters worse, you'll immediately lose whatever time was left on the setup clock in your truck if any was remaining. If you manage to get an answer, you'll still take a sanity hit, but not nearly as much.
If the ghost is a Demon, you won't take any at all. If it's worked, the indicator on the board will start moving to spell out the answer to your question.
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