Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
The History of Ouija Boards
19 Plays1 year ago
It’s Part 2 of our first episode of 2023! Last week, it was reincarnation of the dead, and this week it’s speaking to the dead from beyond the Spirit Board as Felicia takes us through the history of Ouija!
The “origins of evil” of this séance-based board game are much more recent than we thought…and possibly less sinister?!
And as a bonus, we also share some of our own Boo Year’s stories with some recent paranormal experiences over the holidays!
If you have requests for future episodes or just want to hang out, follow us on Instagram @sinistersisterspodcast
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Sinister Sisters Podcast
00:00:12
Speaker
Welcome to the Sinister Sisters podcast. I'm Lauren. I'm Felicia. We're best friends. And we like spooky stuff. Yes, we do. We're back this week.
History and Origin of Ouija Boards
00:00:32
Speaker
So today I'm going into a jumping off of maybe our last episode before the break. Is that true? I think it was. Yeah, or close at least. Yeah, so I thought it was sometime in October, but I talked about seances. And then I was excited to look into the history of Ouija boards. So that's what I'm going to be covering today.
00:00:54
Speaker
And I've definitely talked about my Ouija word experience on this podcast more than once, I'm sure. But for the sake of the episode, I'll mention it one more time. When I was young, I was at my friend's house for a sleepover. We were in the basement and found a wooden
00:01:11
Speaker
Ouija board, like made out of wood, not like a Hasbro plasticy one. Not the one we brought to Sleepy Hollow, which was a Hasbro plasticy one. Yeah, which is the one I also have. I mean, I don't know if my parents still have it. I should ask someone there. But yeah, and so we like, you know, tried to contact the spirit and I believe we were successful.
00:01:34
Speaker
Um, and it was very scary and the person like told us who they were and how they died and like gave us a spell from the other world and like all this crazy stuff. And it was a lot of experience. And I mean, to this day, the friend and myself, you know, swear we didn't die. No, I didn't move it. So
00:01:55
Speaker
It was a crazy experience. So Ouija boards, you know, in my brain. Oh, what? I'm just going to say, I don't know if I should say this for another episode. I forgot to tell my.
Personal Paranormal Experiences
00:02:06
Speaker
Rufus story from Thanksgiving of him seeing the ghost potentially. But then I have like another, maybe I'll just say it and then we can always, I don't know, I can always cut it. It's too long. It's a great story. Well, I was going to say to James and I went on a ghost tour on Friday night, which was like, my mom had given us a group on like two years ago. So I'm really sorry that we only used it now.
00:02:29
Speaker
It was so fun, but we were with his two friends that we brought because we had enough money on the Groupon and his cousin. We're all relatively spooky people, but the four people that were with us were very, I don't know, I could not believe they were on the Ghost Tour, average people.
00:02:48
Speaker
And the tour guide was like, does anyone have paranormal stories? And each person shared like a paranormal experience that they have had. And it was like, I'm giving myself chills because it was like one of the most beautiful, like weird things that I've ever experienced where it was like, you know, we hadn't spoken to them the whole tour. Like I thought they were like kind of over the tour or not that interested. Then they all shared these like vulnerable experiences with spirits that they had.
00:03:17
Speaker
And I was also like, how often do you talk to random strangers? A, B, like how often do people share their paranormal experiences? Like it just felt like so beautiful. Right. And especially because like a lot of times, I mean, not in my case, but a lot of times people have ghost stories that are like kind of around their family members passes. Yes. And so they can be very vulnerable.
00:03:41
Speaker
Yes, it was just so special. I highly recommend everyone go on a ghost tour, apparently, if you want to have like a... It was just like, I don't know, it felt very like group like campfire thing. That's amazing. But very quickly, I'll share my story that I think I'm a believer now. Maybe we should end the podcast, Felicia.
00:04:04
Speaker
We started it on the premise that Alicia believes, and I do not, and I don't know. I might be a convert. I mean, we might have just accomplished goal one, which was to get you to believe, and we'll figure out what goal two is now.
00:04:18
Speaker
Please, go ahead. Exactly. So we went to Cincinnati for Thanksgiving to visit James' grandmother who just turned 90 and is a badass and incredible in every way. Also, just as a side note, she at one point- Just in case she listens to this. Just in case she listens. I don't think she does, but she walked Rufus all around the backyard one day for me and I was just like, oh my gosh. It was amazing.
00:04:47
Speaker
She was obsessed with Rufus. If you don't know, which probably not many people do, but he is the laziest dog. Always just sitting right next to me rarely does anything. Not the kind of dog that runs around, not the kind of dog that hears noises and jumps up.
00:05:08
Speaker
I don't know he's very chill and so on Thanksgiving we were sitting in the living room me and his grandmother James's grandmother and James's mom and Rufus kept looking up at this place in the hallway and then he would like run into the hallway and then come back into the living room and sit there for a second and then look up at the same spot in the hallway run into the hallway come back around and chill and
00:05:32
Speaker
And it was very unsettling and we were like kind of laughing and being like, this is so weird. Like maybe he hears a noise or something. And so then like after 15 minutes had gone by, I realized that he wasn't in the room anymore. And so I was like, Oh my gosh. And so I went to go look for him and he was curled up on.
00:05:50
Speaker
James's grandfather's bed and he has this like saints blanket that Rufus was asleep on and James's grandfather has passed. So I bring out Rufus and I was like, Oh my gosh, I don't know if he was, you know, not supposed to be on this blanket. I'm so sorry, but he was like curled up asleep on this blanket. And both James's grandma and mom like looked at me and were just like, Oh my gosh, like we didn't really talk about this, but we brought him to their grandfather's grave that day.
00:06:20
Speaker
And they were like that we'd been there that whole week. He had never gone back into that room. He had never been on the blanket. Like it was just, it felt so weird that he had, you know, quote unquote met him that day and then was asleep on the blanket. And then when we got back home to Dallas, we were telling this story and I was like, you know, a little freaked out about it already to James's cousin. And she was like, well, you know, my, my grandfather died there in the hallway, like where Rufus had been looking at.
00:06:49
Speaker
And I just was like, oh my, like, I, there's no way. I mean, I have chills right now. Like my stomach is like going crazy.
00:06:58
Speaker
And it's like, I mean, you know, you feel this way about Toby too. Like I don't want to be too much like he's my baby, but it's like, I was like, he doesn't act this way. Like this is not your dog. You know, he doesn't do things like this. Like we were, you know, at Christmas with my entire family and he was like right in the middle of everyone. Like he doesn't go off by himself. He doesn't go into other rooms. He doesn't like do that weird dog thing where they hear a sound. Like none of that is him. And so I don't know. I just believe.
00:07:28
Speaker
It's an amazing story. I'm so grateful for Rufus for showing you the light, Lauren. He did. The craziest thing too is I didn't have the privilege of meeting James' grandfather, but he's definitely a larger than life personality that everybody talks about and loved dogs. I'm like, I don't know. There you go. There you go. Rufus met him.
00:07:57
Speaker
Yeah, Rufus met him. And then took a nap with him. And then took a nap with him. He said things with blanket. That's so sweet. That is so sweet. So I hope there's an afterlife. I like believing it. Me too. Me too. Okay, that was amazing. Sorry for that. No, it's so beautiful. I loved all like both parts of that story was so satisfying. But it could take us back. So we'll go back into Ouija.
Ouija Board's Evolution and Media Influence
00:08:22
Speaker
So the last time I talked about seances, we spoke a little bit about the spiritualism movement of the 19th century and we talked about the Fox sisters and we did speak a little bit about the invention and
00:08:40
Speaker
popularity of different ways to talk to spirits and one of those being talking boards. So mediums, you know, started using talking boards. So instead of writing out what spirits were saying to them, they had pre written alphabets and symbols and whatever that then the spirit could guide them to, to communicate.
00:09:06
Speaker
And so in my head, like as a kid, and even I think until really researching this, the idea of the Ouija board in name, in construction and imagery and all of it, to me always felt very ancient. Not true. Yeah, not true. But particularly
00:09:32
Speaker
I guess the way in which like the first Ouija board ever used was like made out of wood and like was like very scary and old looking. So like my brain just made it be like this very ancient thing. It's about the shape of the thing. Like, I don't know the thing. What is that even called? The thing that you move around? Like it looks like I don't know, an ancient thing. It looks like an ancient symbol. It almost seems like a little Egyptian or something. Yes. Yes. Hard to say.
00:10:02
Speaker
It's called a planchette, a planchette. It's like a heart-shaped object and then has the hole in the middle so you can see what it's pointing towards. But yeah, so yeah, Ouija, I mean, it turns out talking boards, you know, really didn't come until, you know, after the American Civil War. And then the name Ouija is really from a group of people trying to patent the talking board so that they could sell it.
00:10:32
Speaker
So for the sake of good old capitalism, because they're becoming so popular. No idea. I know, it's crazy. So Ouija actually created a name in Baltimore, Maryland, which I'm from Maryland. I claim that, thank you. Yes. And it was in 1890.
00:10:52
Speaker
And by this point, once again, talking boards were very common, but nobody had tried to patent it and sell it. People were just kind of making their own. And so this guy named William, William Bold, and let's see, it was him and he got a whole group of people together. So let's see, Charles Kennard, Elijah Bonds,
00:11:20
Speaker
and a couple of other people, they kind of got together and made the version of it that we have now, which is the square or rectangle to me. It has the entire alphabet. It has letters one through nine and also zero. It has yes and no with a sun and a moon. And then at the bottom it has goodbye. So they created that and they took it to the patent office and there is like
00:11:50
Speaker
kind of a fun story about that. So, but before we, I tell a story. Let me, let me talk about the name Ouija. So no one really understands where the word Ouija came from. Some people say it's a mix of we, which is like yes in French, French and Ja, which is yes in German. But I'm not really sure that's true. Some people say that the creators of the Ouija board
00:12:20
Speaker
asked the board what to call it and it spelled out Weegee. I like that. And then they asked, what does Weegee mean? And then the board spelled out good luck. Which I'm like, I like it. So either way, there's no like official, you know, story about it. There's a bunch of different ones. But
00:12:44
Speaker
When they took it to the patent office, they went to the guy and they're like, all right, we have this board, like, you know, it's a board game. In a way, it's a game, a toy. It's a toy or a game. And they took it to the guy and he was like, I will patent this if you can prove to me that it's usable and that it works.
00:13:07
Speaker
And they were like, okay, we can do that. And so they took the board and the guy said, ask the board how to correctly spell my name. And none of them apparently, he has a complicated last name. I don't know.
00:13:23
Speaker
And so the board spelled the last name perfectly. And then the guy was very shaken, apparently. And on February 10th, 1891, he said, fine, here's your patent. That was very scary. Off you go. Wow, that's a good story. Yeah. And and yeah, and the people that made it, you know, it's it's I mean, it's sort of a bummer because it really is just like they just wanted to make
00:13:52
Speaker
money off of it. They weren't necessarily spiritualists themselves. They didn't really care necessarily about how well it works or anything. From what I understand, they were mostly the businessmen trying to capitalize on something that was very popular with people at the time.
Controversies and Cultural Perspectives on Ouija
00:14:09
Speaker
So it is what it is.
00:14:11
Speaker
And the people that own the patent now is Hasbro. And then it sort of became a thing, sort of like Kleenex, where Ouija became the name for a talking board when it ultimately was just a brand of talking board. Like how you say like, hand me a Kleenex, even though that means hand me a tissue for my nose. Yeah. So yeah. That's how you know you've become a Nikon.
00:14:38
Speaker
Yes, so Ouija became an icon. And people liked it. People bought it. People were excited about it. And it seemed generally safe to use. So people were using it mostly to contact, like, in their minds, dead family members or ghosts. And there hadn't been a lot of fear or worry about the idea of it contacting demons or something evil.
00:15:06
Speaker
until the Exorcist came out in the 70s. Wow, I didn't know that that was the first. Yeah. Yes. So like, and this is like the Exorcist was such a turning point for so much in America. Like, yes, this like new look at Ouija boards, but also just like satanic panic, like it started so much it like I don't think they knew what they were starting when they put that movie out. But it is a good movie.
00:15:34
Speaker
Oh yeah, it's a freaking awesome movie. But yeah, but it is, I mean, it's very scary. And so the scene that you have is the little girl and she's using, she's showing her mom, right, how to use the Ouija board down in the basement, and it's moving by itself. And that is the way that she gets possessed in the film.
00:15:54
Speaker
And then it's very scary. So people then started associating Ouija boards with something that could get you possessed. And that along with satanic panic was just like, people really rose up against it, including the Catholic church, of course. So the Catholic church has even said, have spoken out against Ouija boards. Some different Catholic bishops have asked for it to be banned.
00:16:21
Speaker
because they say it's, you know, a practice that's related to the occult and dangerous and ultimately opens the door to evil for young people, which I'm like, yeah. It's true. I guess that's why. It's just so crazy to me that they like that the Catholic Church like just believes in all of that still.
00:16:44
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, as we said in previous episodes, they're still training priests to perform exorcisms. This stuff has not gone away. She's so crazy. Yeah. And then someone else, good old Alistair Crowley, English occultist, also
00:17:06
Speaker
kind of praise the Ouija board for being something to use to communicate with the dead. And so it just, it got a lot of popularity and it got a lot of hate. And even to the point where like my mom, when I was growing up and I asked for a Ouija board, she was like, no, those are evil. And eventually she gave in because I think she was kind of like, okay, if the toys are Russ is selling this product.
00:17:32
Speaker
like maybe it's crazy. It can't be that bad. Yeah, it can't be that bad. But then also like I remember one time after I had gotten a Ouija board for myself that has broken version. One time I was in a store with my friends and like
00:17:48
Speaker
I think in high school because I know we drove there so I was definitely in high school and we were in this like very witchy store in Maryland and we had asked the lady like have you heard of like any like we were like very interested in witchcraft and of course like us yes and I was just asking like you know like
00:18:09
Speaker
Have you heard any like stories or like have people come in to hear with problems that needed magical solutions? Like what like what has like kept you believing in all this that you're selling in the store? And she was she said that she had recently had a group of kids come in that had been messing around with a Ouija board and were being stalked by something. And she had like had to help them or give them stuff to help them, like cleanse their house. Yeah, I was like, oh,
00:18:39
Speaker
And then of course I was so excited, which I know is terrible, but I was like, oh my God, it's real.
00:18:47
Speaker
So yeah, and and so the Ouija board, you know, they're still being sold today, like you can literally go and target and buy one. It's the same exact pattern and same appearance that's had for, you know, over 100 years now. And then just like a random fun fact. And you can watch a YouTube video about this guy. If you look up collector Ouija boards, but there is a man named Bob Bob merch, who lives in Denver, Colorado.
00:19:14
Speaker
And he is the foremost collector of Ouija boards in the world. Wow. And he has, I mean, I don't even know what the count is. Definitely over 100, but he has so many different types of Ouija boards. Like, you know how Monopoly will be like every time something pop culture happens, they'll make like a Monopoly game based on that pop culture, whatever. Yeah.
00:19:39
Speaker
Yeah. So it's like that. So he's like a Ghostbusters one, a Scooby Doo one. I can't even think of all of them. I'll just skip through the video a little bit. But he has so many. And he collects them not as someone that's necessarily interested in the occult, but as someone that's very interested in the art of Ouija. The one was really funny. He has one that's called
00:20:04
Speaker
Ouija, W, E, E, D, J, A, and it says for paranormal potheads. That's a really excellent one. I like that. He's got like Halloween themed ones, of course. Wizard of Oz. I mean, he has like every kind of possible Ouija board imaginable.
Interview with Bob Merch: The Ouija Collector
00:20:23
Speaker
Some that are like pink and like very girly. Some that are like supposed to look more ancient. It's just
00:20:30
Speaker
It's of all shapes and sizes. It's a really fun collection to look at. But he sells them or no? He just collects them. Yeah, he's not selling them. He's just collecting. Like he has an entire room in his house that is like, you know, just for his collection. Yeah. Apparently his wife is not a great, a big fan, but hey, it got him on TV. So there you go. Yeah.
00:20:55
Speaker
There's one picture that he has there that is someone holding a puppy who's controlling the Ouija board. It's just crazy because a lot of them are just so lighthearted looking, which is so funny because they're games. So they're marketed towards children, not necessarily towards adults. So it's just such an interesting thing.
00:21:17
Speaker
But yeah, that's sort of the history of the Ouija board. It's actually much more modern than I ever would have thought. Yeah. And much more capitalist than I would have imagined. But still fun. Still fun for me. I love that. I think that was, yeah, I never have thought about them being so recent. That blew my mind. Yeah. Yeah.
00:21:38
Speaker
Amazing.
Closing Remarks and Gratitude
00:21:39
Speaker
Well, thank you guys for listening. Welcome back or welcome back to us, I guess. Yes. We hope you had an amazing 2022. I know I'm really excited about 2023. Oh my gosh. I can't even believe we're like saying that right now. That's so crazy.
00:21:57
Speaker
Oh my god, like I did you see that? It's like a meme or a tweet or something. That's just like, how does it feel to still be recovering from like 2020 or we still be processing basically still be processing 2019. Yep. Because you've been just in fight or flight ever since and now it's like gonna be four years later. Like it's like that that to me is crazy. I still feel like I'm in yeah.
00:22:20
Speaker
March of 2020 sometimes. Yeah, exactly. Me too. Me too. It's crazy. But yes, thank you all so much for listening and for being so supportive and sweet during our break. And yeah, we're happy to be back. Yes, we are. We hope you have some sweet, sweet nightmares in 2023. Bye.