Did You Know?
Long before it became a staple of horror movies and late-night sleepovers, the Ouija board was born out of a mix of 19th-century American spiritualism, clever marketing, and a massive patent battle.
It wasn't created by occultists, but by shrewd businessmen who saw a golden opportunity to monetize a parlor craze.
1. The Spiritualist Craze (Late 1800s)
In the late 19th century, Spiritualism—the belief that the living could communicate with the dead—swept across the United States. High mortality rates from the Civil War left millions of grieving families desperate for a connection to lost loved ones.
Mediums used various clunky methods to "channel" spirits, including automatic writing and "alphabet rapping" (where a medium knocked on a table as they read through the alphabet). People eventually started building DIY "talking boards" with letters and a small moving pointer to speed up the process.
2. Birth of a Commercial Board (1890)
Seeing how popular these homemade boards were, a Baltimore businessman named Charles Kennard pulled together a group of investors to form the Kennard Novelty Company. Their goal was simple: turn a popular parlor game into a mass-marketed, commercial product.
While Kennard came up with the idea to manufacture it, a man named Elijah Bond took out the patent, and a medium named Helen Peters (Bond’s sister-in-law) is credited with giving the board its famous name.
How it got its name: According to lore, Peters sat with the board in 1890 and asked what it wanted to be called. It spelled out O-U-I-J-A. When she asked what that meant, the board replied, "Good luck." (In reality, Peters was likely wearing a locket at the time featuring the famous women's rights activist and author Ouida, whose name she likely misread).
3. Proving It Worked to the Patent Office
To secure a patent, the US government demanded proof that the "talking board" actually worked. In 1891, Bond and Peters took the board to the patent office in Washington, D.C.
The chief patent attorney demanded a demonstration: if the mysterious board could accurately spell out his name—which was supposed to be unknown to Bond and Peters—he would approve the application. They sat down, the planchette moved, and it spelled the attorney's name perfectly. A heavily shaken patent official signed off on the patent the next day.
4. The William Fuld Era
By 1892, a young employee named William Fuld took over the company. Fuld was a marketing genius who reinvented the history of the board, claiming he invented it himself and that "Ouija" was a combination of the French and German words for yes (oui and ja).
Fuld opened multiple factories, fought off dozens of copycat competitors in court, and turned the Ouija board into an international sensation.
5. From Innocent Parlor Game to Pop Culture Terror
For the first several decades of its existence, the Ouija board was marketed as a harmless, magical family game and a romantic date-night activity (since players had to sit knee-to-knee with the board on their laps).
The shift from a fun party trick to something sinister happened almost entirely due to Hollywood.
1966: The Fuld family sold the rights to Parker Brothers, who moved manufacturing to Salem, Massachusetts. The board instantly hit peak sales, even outselling Monopoly for a brief window.
1973: The movie The Exorcist hit theaters. In the film, a young girl becomes possessed by a demon after playing with a Ouija board alone.
Overnight, the public perception changed. Religious groups condemned it, people burned their boards, and it permanently cemented its place in pop culture as a gateway to the supernatural.
The Science: The Ideomotor Effect
Scientists have a much less supernatural explanation for why the planchette moves: the ideomotor effect.
This is a psychological phenomenon where a person makes subconscious, involuntary physical movements. When you sit with a group of people, your brain naturally anticipates where the pointer "should" go to answer a question, causing your muscles to twitch and guide the planchette without you consciously realizing you are doing it.
Today, Hasbro owns the rights to the Ouija board, continuing to sell it in the toy aisle right alongside games like Clue and Battleship.
