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Subject: [FOLKLORE-L] History of the Ouija
Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 14:42:47 EDT

History of the Ouija

In the year 1848, something unusual happened in Hydesville, New York. Two
sisters, Kate and Margaret Fox, contacted the spirit of a dead peddler,
became instant celebrities and started 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 (rapping) 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 in a code to represent the different letters of the alphabet.
Entire messages from the spirits could be spelled out in this way.

Another, less noisy method, was a form of spirit writing employing a small
basket with a pencil attached to one end. The medium simply had to rest a
hand on the basket, establish contact, and the spirit would take over,
writing the message from the Great Beyond. The pencil basket quickly evolved
into a more sophisticated tool, the planchette. This was a small heart shaped
table with two rotating casters underneath. A pencil at the apex formed the
third leg. Legend has it that the inventor of this device was M. Planchette a
French medium, but no information on such a person exists and the fact that
the word "planchette" in French means "little plank" suggests a translation
error rather than an actual person.

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 job of interpreting knocks began. Planchette writing was often
difficult if not impossible to read. Just keeping the thing centered on the
paper long enough to get a decipherable message, was often a challenge. Many
mediums simply dispensed with the spiritual apparatus altogether, preferring
instead, 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 instrument. But
there were also those who felt that utilizing the right equipment was of
paramount importance if they were going to contact the spirit world properly.
They experimented with rotating planchettes and alphanumeric tables and came
up with the first "talking board." Léon-Dénizarth-Hippolyte Rivail (Allan
Kardec), the founder of French Spiritism, described two of these devices in
his 1861 book, Le Livre des Mediums (translated by Anna Blackwell):

In order to render spirit-communications independent of the medium's mind,
various instruments have been devised. One of these is a sort of dial-plate,
on which the letters of the alphabet are ranged like those on the dial of the
electric telegraph; a moveable needle, set in motion through the medium's
influence, with the aid of a conducting thread and pulley, points out the
letters.

A more simple contrivance, is the one devised by Madame Emile de Girardin,
and by which she obtained numerous and interesting communications. The
instrument alluded to, consists of a little table with a moveable top,
eighteen inches in diameter, turning freely on an axle, like a wheel. On its
edge are traced, as upon a dial-plate, the letters of the alphabet, the
numerals, and the words "yes" and "no." In the centre is a fixed needle. The
medium places his fingers on this table, which turns and stops when the
desired letter is brought under the needle. The letters thus indicated being
written down one after the other words and phrases are obtained, often with
great rapidity. It is to be remarked that the top of the little table does
not turn round under the fingers, but that the fingers remain in their place
and follow the movement of the table.

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