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COMMUNICATING 4
Communicating With the Departed Soul

The Mysterious Talking Board - The Ouija
The History Behind It


















In the year 1848, something unusual happened in a Hydesville,
New York cabin. Two sisters, Kate and Margaret Fox, contacted the
spirit of a dead peddler, became instant celebrities, and sparked a
national obsession that spread all across the United States and
Europe. It was the birth of modern Spiritualism.

The whole world, it seemed, was ripe for communication with the
dead. Spiritualist churches sprang up everywhere and persons with
the special gift or "pipeline" to the "other side" were in great
demand. These unique individuals, designated "mediums" because
they acted as intermediaries between spirits and humans, invented
a variety of interesting ways to communicate with the spirit world.
Table turning (tilting) was one of these. The medium and attending
sitters would rest their fingers lightly on a table and wait for spiritual
contact. Soon, the table would tilt and move, and knock on the floor
to letters called from the alphabet. Entire messages from the spirits
were spelled out in this way.

A less noisy technique was 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, a more
sophisticated tool with two rotating casters underneath and a pencil
at the tip, forming the third leg. According to some writers, the
inventor of the planchette was a French medium named M.
Planchette. This is unlikely considering that no information on this
individual exists and that the French word "planchette" translates to
English as "little plank."

The problem with table turning was that it took far too long to spell
out messages. Sitters became bored when the novelty of a rocking
table wore off and the chore of interpreting knocks began.
Planchette writing was often difficult or impossible to read. It was a
challenge just keeping the instrument centered on the paper long
enough to get a decipherable message. Consequently, many
mediums dispensed with the spiritual apparatuses altogether,
preferring to transmit from the spirit world mentally in an altered
state of consciousness called "trance." Others eliminated the
planchette but kept the pencil, finding the hand a more precise and
less troublesome writing instrument. But there were also those who
felt it crucial to use the right equipment if they were going to
contact the spirit world properly. These resourceful individuals built
weird alphanumeric gadgets and odd-looking table contraptions
with moving needles and letter wheels. Clearly, these early
machines suffered from over engineering if not lack of imagination.
Called dial plate instruments or psychographs, a few of these
devices appeared in the marketplace under various names and
incarnations.

American and European toy companies actively peddled the
planchette, making it immensely popular, but virtually ignored the
dial-plates. This was most likely because planchettes were easier
to make and market inexpensively as novelties. In any event, both
took a back seat in 1886 when reports of an exciting new "talking
board" sensation hit the newsstands. Mentioned in the March 28,
1886 Sunday supplement of the New York Tribune, the story
quickly spread across the country. Here is a reprint of the Tribune
article in an Oakland, California publication for Spiritualists, The
Carrier Dove:

THE NEW PLANCHETTE.
..............
A Mysterious Talking Board and Table.
..............
"Planchette is simply nowhere," said a Western man at the Fifth
Avenue Hotel, "compared with the new scheme for mysterious
communication that is being used out in Ohio. I know of whole
communities that are wild over the 'talking board,' as some of them
call it. I have never heard any name for it. But I have seen and
heard some of the most remarkable things about its operations—
things that seem to pass all human comprehension or explanation."
"What is the board like?"
"Give me a pencil and I will show you. The first requisite is the
operating board. It may be rectangular, about 18 x 20 inches. It is
inscribed like this:
"The 'yes' and the 'no' are to start and stop the conversation. The
'good-evening' and 'good-night' are for courtesy. Now a little table
three or four inches high is prepared with four legs. Any one can
make the whole apparatus in fifteen minutes with a jack-knife and a
marking brush. You take the board in your lap, another person
sitting down with you. You each grasp the little table with the thumb
and forefinger at each corner next to you. Then the question is
asked, 'Are there any communications?' Pretty soon you think the
other person is pushing the table. He thinks you are doing the
same. But the table moves around to 'yes' or 'no.' Then you go on
asking questions and the answers are spelled out by the legs of
the table resting on the letters one after the other. Sometimes the
table will cover two letters with its feet, and then you hang on and
ask that the table will be moved from the wrong letter, which is
done. Some remarkable conversations have been carried on until
men have become in a measure superstitious about it. I know of a
gentleman whose family became so interested in playing with the
witching thing that he burned it up. The same night he started out
of town on a business trip. The members of his family looked for
the board and could not find it. They got a servant to make them a
new one. Then two of them sat down and asked what had become
of the other table. The answer was spelled out, giving a name,
'Jack burned it.' There are, of course, any number of nonsensical
and irrelevant answers spelled out, but the workers pay little heed
to them. If the answers are relevant they talk them over with a
superstitious awe. One gentleman of my acquaintance told me that
he got a communication about a title to some property from his
dead brother, which was of great value to him. It is curious,
according to those who have worked most with the new mystery,
that while two persons are holding the table a third person, sitting
in the same room some distance away, may ask the questions
without even speaking them aloud, and the answers will show they
are intended for him. Again, answers will be returned to the
inquiries of one of the persons operating when the other can get
no answers at all. In Youngstown, Canton, Warren, Tiffin,
Mansfield, Akron, Elyria, and a number of other places in Ohio I
heard that there was a perfect craze over the new planchette. Its
use and operation have taken the place of card parties. Attempts
are made to verify statements that are made about living persons,
and in some instances they have succeeded so well as to make the
inquirers still more awe-stricken."—New York Tribune.

—Carrier Dove (Oakland) July, 1886: 171. Reprinted from the New-
York Daily Tribune, March 28, 1886: page 9, column 6. "The New
'Planchette.' A Mysterious Talking Board and Table Over Which
Northern Ohio Is Agitated." Article courtesy John Buescher.

All this was so amazing because this new message board was
simple to make and required absolutely no understanding, skill, or
mediumistic training from the participants. When the message
indicator "moved by itself" from letter to letter to spell out a
message, it looked genuinely magical and astonishing. This really
was a new invention. It didn't take long before interested parties
filed a patent for a device strikingly similar to the "new planchette."
This first patent, filed on May 28, 1890 and granted on February
10, 1891, lists Elijah J. Bond as the inventor and the assignees as
Charles W. Kennard and William H. A. Maupin, all from Baltimore,
Maryland. Whether Bond or his Baltimore cronies actually invented
anything or merely took advantage of an existing fad using their
own design is open to conjecture, but there is no doubt that they
were the first to market the board as a novelty. Charles Kennard
called the new board Ouija (pronounced wE-ja) after the Egyptian
word for good luck. Ouija is not Egyptian for good luck, but since
the board reportedly told him it was during a session, the name
stuck. Or so the story goes. It is more likely that the name came
from the fabled Moroccan city Oujda (also spelled Oujida and
Oudjda. This makes sense given the period's fondness for Middle
Eastern cites and the psychic miracles of the Fakirs. Charles
Kennard and his business partners incorporated as the Kennard
Novelty Company and began producing the first ever commercial
line of Ouija or Egyptian luck-boards. 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