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July 1, 1890The Ouija board was commercially introduced by businessman Elijah Bond, and regarded as an innocent parlor game unrelated to the occult until American spiritualist Pearl Curran popularized its use as a divining tool during World War I...
1) The ouija, also known as a spirit board or talking board, is a flat board marked with the letters of the alphabet, the numbers 0–9, the words "yes", "no", occasionally "hello" and "goodbye" uses a small heart-shaped piece of wood to spell out messages during a seance...
2) One of the first mentions of the automatic writing method used in the ouija board is found in China around 1100 AD, in historical documents of the Song Dynasty. The method was known as fuji "planchette writing"...
3) The use of planchette writing as an ostensible means of necromancy and communion with the spirit-world continued, and, albeit under "special rituals and supervisions", was a central practice of the Quanzhen School, until it was forbidden by the Qing Dynasty..
4) The spiritualist movement mediums began to employ various means for communication with the dead. Following the Civil War, mediums did significant business in presumably allowing survivors to contact lost relatives....
5) The "ouija" that we know now, was created and named in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1890, but the use of talking boards in America was so common by 1886 that news reported the phenomenon taking over the spiritualists' camps in Ohio...
6) Elijah Bond had the idea to patent a planchette sold with a board on which the alphabet was printed. Bond filed on May 28, 1890 for patent and is credited with the invention of the Ouija board. Issue date on the patent was February 10, 1891. He received U.S. Patent 446,054.
7) An employee of Elijah Bond, William Fuld, took over the talking board production. In 1901, Fuld started production of his own boards under the name "Ouija". Charles Kennard claimed he learned the name "Ouija" from using the board; it was an ancient Egyptian for "good luck"...
8) Fuld took over production of the boards, he popularized the more widely accepted etymology: that the name came from a combination of the French and German words for "yes". The Fuld name became synonymous with the Ouija board....
9) Fuld re-invented its history from Kennard's version and claimed that he, Fuld, himself had invented it. The strange talk about the boards from Fuld's competitors flooded the market, and all these boards have enjoyed a heyday ever since the 1920s...
10) I personally dont believe in this device, and think it ranks right up there with palm readers and fortune tellers. When people ask me why? I usually point to the tons of Hasbro boxs on the shelves of just about every Walmart, Target, Toys R us, etc...
What are your thoughts?
What are your thoughts?
