Is Ouija Board a Fad?
How did the ouija board become so overrated? Ouija is not overrated just because the board's power isn't real. We know it is the psychological ideomotor effect powers it. A type of subconscious movement that guides the responses. However, it doesn't explain why the board has existed a part of our lives and why Ouija and Ouija to rip offs are what you see over and over again in T.V. and movies. Awful movies.
Nevertheless, the real shock is that the piece of cardboard has a story that spans two centuries. It says something about our history and culture. 'There is no Death what seems so is transition.' This life of mortal breath Is but a suburb of the life Elysian whose portal we call death that's from Longfellow, the same legendary poet who wrote about the midnight ride of Paul Revere. In the 1800s, spiritualism and Americanism were intertwined in weird ways. We call spiritualism started in the early to mid-1800s in Europe- seances, ghost stuff, etc. It picked up in the U.S. in the 1850s and 1860s. The civil war caused around a million casualties.
However, more broadly, death was a constant in 1857, hundreds of spiritualism newspapers like Banner of light. It even had a column filled with messages that claimed to be from the spirit world beyond. The spiritual fixation endured. The Long fellow poem was the epigraph to a hit book in 1891- the bestselling "there is no death." Where does the Ouija come in? For that, you have to go to the patent office. A patent from 1891 has a direct ancestor to the Ouija Board. Fittingly the game has a murky origin. Nevertheless, Americans Elijah Bind and Charles Kennard were behind that version. It had all of the ingredients on the board with the yes and no and a planchette- that's the name for the pointy things that picks your letter. There were theories about the name- Some say It was for the novelist Ouida.
Others claimed the board itself spelled its names. However, the most likely explanation is that it was Egyptian- sounding. That is how it was marketed and explained on that first patent. The next year, Entrepreneur William Fuld Patented his talking board. However, Ouija was the brand that took off, so Fuld and the company bought it. The spirits pointed to profit. He fended off tons of competitors, including his family members and built a name he had legal backings. The spirit world finally had what had eluded it in life: a solid brand identity. When the Washington Times did a puff article on mental trouble in D.C., they didn't mention they didn't mention boards. However, they did mention about "Ouija" When Pearl Curran Claimed to have written novels by channelling her ouija board. She wrote the name that she allegedly contacted Patience worth she used Ouija. This brand kept Ouija Going through the 20th Century, Along with Fuld's regular maintenance. The spirit world went corporate, further merging into pop culture and the occult. Today, Ouija is a little horror, a little kitsch, and a little fun. There have been corporate shifts, but the board is a staple, an awe-inspiring journey for a simple image and plastic piece. That journey was powered by people's beliefs like Longfellow and the mysterious forced United states patent systems. Moreover, we are being spoken to, in a way, by people from the past, not through the messages from the spirit realm, but the history of a decorated piece of cardboard. Ouija might be overrated, and it's probably not real.
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