Ouija board: a bridge between the world of the living and the dead, or a successful commercial project? (13 photos)

Curiosity and the desire to touch the unknown and unknown are common human traits.





Do you want answers? I have them! Something like this should tell Widge, if he really exists. But such a person there was no reality, but there was interest and need on the part of public. Ready to part with money. Why not satisfy demand, if any?



In the second half of the century before last, interest in everything otherworldly, mysterious, mysterious, as well as the theme of death increased significantly. Contributed to this war: people lost loved ones and every fiber of the soul sought to contact those who had gone beyond the line, in order to say the last "I'm sorry" or ask a question that they did not have time to ask in life. Medicine was in the process of becoming, so the infant mortality rate was also high. And inconsolable mothers passionately wanted to connect with children who did not have time to live in this world.



Actually, even before the Ouija, primitive tabletop technique. A medium who allegedly sensed the presence of guests from the other world, asked questions, and the spirits "tapped" on the table answers, acting in accordance with a given algorithm.



Elijah Bond

But people wanted comfort and more information content. The need in 1890 was successfully clothed in a material form by an American Elijah Bond. A year later, Mr. Bond received a patent for his invention. Although not without problems: the patent office clerk, rightly skeptical about the novelty, asked the spirit called his name through the blackboard (assuming that the applicant did not know it). Like, then the contraption can be recognized as valid.



Tombstone of the creator in the form of a Ouija board

It is clear that the team of the entrepreneur prepared and received maximum information (including personal data of the employee). Tem moreover, it is obvious that the board did not appear as a result of the labors a lawyer who believed in the other world, who decided to share insight with others. And due to the well-coordinated work of the team that worked through everything nuances of customer needs.



The process went on, and boards began to be sold in the hundreds of thousands at a unit price of $1.50.



Why did the product get such a name? It wouldn't make more sense call the product a Bond board? There is speculation that the name Ouija contains two positive answers - "yes" in French and German languages. There is also a more romantic version of the origin of the name. Board called herself that when the inventors asked her opinion. In ancient Egyptian, Ouija means good luck.



Wooden polished lacquered board supplied tablet. The Ouija board was supposed to give answers, moving around the field and stopping at the corresponding letters that formed the words. The field also contains numbers, the words "yes" and "no" and in some greetings and farewells.

Weirdness, interestingness and income






Pearl Curran

Over the next decades, the board remained very popular and affordable entertainment. Some have also used Ouija for enrichment. Like, for example, the rather famous spiritualist named Pearl Curran, who published a whole series of books purportedly written in co-authored with a deceased woman named Patience Worth.



James Merrill

James Merrill, an American poet and a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright who also wrote in collaboration with a ghost. But gradually the novelty became familiar, lost sharpness and evolved into a way to pass the time like board games.



Already in our time, this topic began to return, because spiritism is back in vogue. The board is used by mediums, they are filmed films and write books. Engage the legacy of Elijah Bond in their work and psychologists. In particular, it was found experimentally that during determining the level of general erudition, the subjects make mistakes when answering questions about half the time. When using the Ouija board, when they give the right to answer to otherworldly forces, the number of correct responses increased by 15%.



Do you admit that through the Ouija board they really can make themselves felt spirits and ghosts? Or is it nothing more than a simple way to have fun and kill time?