The Saturday Evening Post

Orion Peyrol

Staff Writer

Ouijas have been a part of our cultural zeitgeist for over a century, generating millions upon millions of dollars and innumerable horror stories. The question now is: where did this board come from, and how has it lasted this long ?

The Ouija board owes everything to the spiritualism movement. The start of spiritualism in America is often linked to Kate and Maggie Fox, two sisters living in New York in 1848. These women claimed they could communicate with spirits from beyond the grave. They did this through knocks, automatic writing, and turning tables. These tricks caught mainstream attention, and soon enough they took their show on the road, spreading spiritualism across America.

At the time spiritualism was accepted by the wider public. Christians saw these practices as compatible with their beliefs, even if the Church did not.

“Speaking to ghosts was the hot new thing!”

Even Mary Todd Lincoln was conducting séances in the White House. There were no mass crusades or fear of demonic possessions and, for a while, séances were as mundane as Thanksgiving dinners in American culture. 

The original Ouija board, however, was never spiritual—it was always a capitalistic endeavor. It was made by multiple men who worked at the Kennard Novelty Company in 1890: Charles Kennard, Elijah Bond and Washington Bowie. Their concept was simple: these séances took too long. The usual séance communicated with spirits by calling out the alphabet and awaiting a knock or sound from a ghost when they reached the right letter. Waiting for a knock once every 26 letters. Boringggg. The solution came in the form of a board and planchette—and a whole lot of marketing. 

It was never explicitly advertised as a tool for spirit communication. Instead, they sold it as a tool for answering questions and divination—the most similar product being the Magic-8 Ball.

The now iconic name was coined by Bond’s sister-in-law, a medium who had simply asked the board what it wanted to be called—to which the board responded with O-U-I-J-A. It was a séance darling from the moment it was released, immediately being adopted by spiritualists across the nation.

The ouija board was successful, incredibly so, especially when everything was going to the dogs. They hadn’t normalized therapy and hadn’t quite invented doomscrolling yet, so they talked to ghosts to deal with their problems. In 1966, Parker Brothers bought the rights to the board, and a year later, it outperformed Monopoly. It sold two million copies, out capitalism-ing the board game about capitalism!

So when did it all go wrong? How did the Ouija go from séance fun to being burned on bonfires for satanism and witchcraft? Well, a little film called The Exorcist came out in 1973.

The movie is based on a book, which is itself loosely based on a real-life case from 1949. The inspiration was a case in which a priest was called to perform a series of exorcisms on a 14-year-old boy. The Ouija board was not present in the original cases, compared to the film, in which it’s implied that the Ouija is partially what caused the young girl’s possession. That artistic choice would take hold in the minds of millions of Americans—and still has ripple effects to this day.

The late ‘70s and ‘80s was the time of the Satanic Panic. Suburban America had demons to exorcise, and they came in the forms of Dungeons and Dragons, rock music, and Ouija boards. Satanic Panic started because of a general feeling of danger and fear for their children. Child abuse cases were being denounced left and right. People grew afraid for the safety of their children and families. A villain that could be hiding anywhere is much more terrifying than one you can easily spot and name. The fear needed a face, and with pop culture churning out films like The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby it’s no surprise that they chose Satanism as their scapegoat. Two hundred people were charged with Satanism-related crimes, and dozens were convicted—many of which were falsely imprisoned and later released.

All of this was enough to completely change the Ouija’s reputation. Now, it was the tool of the devil; his way of getting his fingers on your children. And even nowadays, when the panic has died down and exited the thoughts of the ordinary civilian, the Ouija is still thrown out of houses by worried parents and is the subject of more than a few horror stories. 

But when did that ever stop capitalism from doing its thing? The board has been owned by Hasbro since 1991, and sales don’t seem to be slowing down. They sell things such as Salem Witch Trial and Stranger Things themed boards, as well as Funko Pop and Hot Topic merch. It seems to me the Ouija board is here to stay—as long as it keeps expertly playing the game of capitalism…as it has been since its inception. I, for one, won’t be surprised to see a Ouija board-themed Labubu in the next few years.