Not way back one in every of my nieces casually mentioned that she and a friend of hers had recently used a Ouija board. Instantaneously, I went from “Thinks he’s cool with the youngsters” Uncle Jim to “You’ll do as I command” Catholic priest. “What? No! You possibly can’t—that’s not—that is bad!”
I consider myself pretty open-minded. I definitely have quite a lot of my very own questions with regards to the realities of hell or the devil. But with regards to the Ouija board I get pretty freaked out.
A part of that is unquestionably a results of growing up within the Seventies and ’80s. Satanic panic was all over the place; the Ouija board was right up there with Dungeons and Dragons and listening to “Stairway to Heaven” backwards—all things considered perilous, not only in your soul but your existence.
But as an adult I even have also interviewed and skim books by quite just a few real-life exorcists for various projects. And again and again the Ouija board pops up as a thing that has led to some really bad stuff happening in people’s lives.
Still, the more my niece and I talked, the more I noticed I needed more information to back up my stance. I dug into the history of this object that has long captured popular imagination. Here’s what I learned.
Where Did the Ouija Board Come From?
The origins of the Ouija board actually lie on the intersection of two other American phenomena, neither of which has anything to do with the devil or the Catholic Church.
Repeatedly the Ouija board pops up as a thing that has led to some really bad stuff happening in people’s lives.
The primary is Spiritualism, a serious Nineteenth-century religious movement during which people believed that it was possible to speak with the dead. By many accounts, this phenomenon began with two teenage girls in upstate Latest York. In 1848, Kate and Maggie Fox told a neighbor of theirs that something crazy was happening of their house. When the neighbor got here over, the ladies began to discuss with the home, and so they heard knocking sounds in response. The ladies said this was happening every evening, and so they had come to consider that spirits of dead people were communicating with them.
(Now, as Smithsonian Magazine points out, the ladies brought their neighbor over on March thirty first, the night before April Idiot’s Day, and so they were teenagers, so…)
Soon after, the family moved out of the home, and the 2 girls were sent to live with their older sister in Rochester. That may need been the top of the story, aside from the incontrovertible fact that their sister retained a robust interest in what they were doing, and Rochester on the time was a community with quite a lot of interest in unusual religious experiences. Joseph Smith is claimed to have received from the Angel Moroni the golden plates that led to the founding of Mormonism in the world just a pair a long time before. More recently the Millerite movement, which predicted that Jesus would return to cleanse the Earth on Oct. 22, 1844, had also been extremely popular within the region. When Jesus didn’t show up, one in every of its members had a vision of him working in heaven that may grow to be a foundation of the Seventh Day Adventists, who wait for Jesus to return.
Because it seems, two girls who claimed they might speak to the dead went over rather well—not only on the town but all over the place else. Before long they were touring the US. Their act got an increasing number of complex: Reasonably than simply “knock one for yes, two for no” type questions, they began to have the spirits spell out words, by reading through the letters of the alphabet and waiting for the spirits to knock. “Talking boards,” during which spirits were capable of spell out words via letters on a board, was an outgrowth of that.
Years later, younger sister Maggie would recant the entire thing, showing in public demonstrations how she and her sister had made the sounds using apples on string and the crack of their very own knuckles and joints. Still, it’s necessary to notice that the attraction to Spiritualism was an outgrowth of something very real: the grief and disconnection people felt on the lack of their family members. The movement really took off after the Civil War, during which so many across the country had lost parents and youngsters far-off and with none real knowledge of how they died. Con artists just like the Foxes and devices like talking boards offered a way for people to get some closure and say goodbye. There was a similarly inspired resurgence within the Twenties after the Spanish flu pandemic. Somewhere along the best way talking boards became such a typical a part of life that President Grover Cleveland was given one for his wedding to Frances Folsom in 1886.
The origins of the Ouija board actually lie on the intersection of two other American phenomena, neither of which has anything to do with the devil or the Catholic Church.
The Ouija board itself was way more a product of capitalism than Spiritualism. Charles Kennard was a failed Baltimore fertilizer salesman who read concerning the popularity of talking boards and got an area attorney to take a position in a business of selling one in every of their very own. The name “Ouija” is usually explained because the French and German for “yes” put together, but in reality it got here from Kennard’s sister-in-law, a self-professed medium, who said she had asked the spirits what they need to call the board and had been given the word “Ouija,” which they said meant “good luck.” (Baltimore Magazine notes the word was also on the locket she was wearing on the time.)
The Kennard Novelty Company obviously couldn’t prove that their board actually talked to the dead, so that they patented it as an alternative as a children’s toy. It became one in every of quite a lot of youth entertainment products they sold, together with pool tables and other billiards supplies, and so they marketed the device as a fun way for young people to spend a night, perhaps even a romantic one. In May of 1920, the quilt of the “Saturday Evening Post” featured a Norman Rockwell painting of two young adults using a Ouija board. The girl’s eyes look up as if toward the spirit world, while the person watches, smiling, their knees touching under the table.
When asked if he believed the Ouija board actually had the capability to contact the dead, longtime head of the corporate William Fuld replied, “I should say not. I’m no spiritualist. I’m a Presbyterian.”
So Wait, How did a Kid’s Toy Get Connected to the Devil?
While many Christians were Spiritualists, the Catholic Church had never supported these types of talking to the dead. In 1898 a decree of the Holy Office condemned automatic writing, which included any practices during which spirits were believed to guide the hand of the living. In 1917 it likewise condemned any form of participation in séances, including just watching.
Intriguingly, as Spiritualism expert Herbert Thurston points out, in neither decree did the church fully shut the door on such practices. “To real students who’re well grounded in theological principles and sufficiently versed in psychology to cope with these manifestations in a scientific spirit,” Mr. Thurston explains, “permission could also be accorded to experiment with a medium and attend seances.” The church desired to protect the young, the uneducated, the idle—those that were most vulnerable to the potential dangers of those practices. But they allowed for the opportunity of real, scientifically informed research.
In 1898 a decree of the Holy Office condemned automatic writing, which included any practices during which spirits were believed to guide the hand of the living.
Still, there have been stories of Ouija boards resulting in strange and terrible things, like the Cincinnati couple who tore their home to shreds and threatened to kill their children because, they said, American journalist and politician Horace Greeley had told them to do it on a Ouija board. In one other Ohio story, a complete community went on a large treasure hunt because of this of data “learned” from a Ouija board. A lady in Buffalo, N.Y., was beaten to death by an area widow after the widow’s dead husband supposedly spoke to her on a board claiming the girl was a witch who had killed him.
But the important thing moment in our current understanding of the Ouija board appears to be the 1971 book The Exorcist and the 1973 film adaptation. “The Exorcist” tells the story of a lady who has been using a board to speak with a spirit generally known as “Captain Howdy” and is then nightmarishly possessed. Across the country and beyond, the book and movie were a sensation. The lines to get into the film were limitless, the flight of terrified viewers out of the theaters frequent, its power over the favored imagination almost immediate.
A decade later, the Catechism of the Catholic Church would condemn “all types of divination,” saying “all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, within the last evaluation, other human beings, in addition to a want to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the dignity, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.” (No. 2116)
So is the Ouija Board Dangerous?
Let me provide you with two answers to that query, one from secular research and one other from my very own life experience as a priest.
As you may imagine, there was quite a lot of investigation into how exactly a Ouija board works. How is it possible that you would be able to place your fingers on a bit plastic planchette and have it start moving in any respect?
It seems, it’s actually so much less surprising than you may think. The “ideomotor effect” is a scientifically established phenomenon during which the body unconsciously creates tiny involuntary physical movements based upon our mental images. Put simply: If we visualize an individual or event, our bodies will sometimes respond with small muscle movements. For example, how we sometimes suddenly jerk awake out of a dream? That’s a dramatic version of the identical thing. (This BBC article has an incredible little experiment to prove that is in reality an actual thing that is occurring in all of us on a regular basis.)
In terms of automatic writing or talking boards, what’s occurring is that sort of subconscious conversation between your brain and your body. Your brain sends out certain images as you ask a matter; your fingers unconsciously respond with movement.
If we do think that a spiritual plane of existence might include forces which can be malevolent or simply plain indifferent to humanity, why would we would like to do anything that may see us tangling with them?
As Vox points out in its study of the Ouija board, there are some excellent reasons to simply accept this explanation over the concept spirits are speaking through us. For example, when individuals are blindfolded, the answers they get from the board are sometimes gibberish. It is smart: In the event you can’t see the board, your fingers can’t guide your hands appropriately. But why would a spirit need you to have the opportunity to see? In reality, why would a spirit need to make use of your hands in any respect? Why couldn’t it just move the planchette by itself?
So from a scientific standpoint, the Ouija board has nothing to do with spirits or the devil. It’s only a toy that plays upon a natural but little-known technique of the body, similar to the Fox sisters weren’t actually talking to the dead; they were playing havoc with their joints. (Oy, the arthritis they will need to have had later.)
But as a priest, I even have a special answer to the query of the board’s “danger.” It’s got nothing to do with discounting the science, and every part to do with intention. When people use a Ouija board, what’s it they wish to see occur? Generally speaking, whether or not they are thrill-seekers or searchers, I feel most are there because they need something supernatural to occur. They need some external force to maneuver that pointer.
From a spiritual standpoint, desires like which have significance. There’s that old story about vampires and doorways; they will’t are available in unless they’re invited. After we sit down and say we would like to discuss with a spirit, we may not be opening the door wide to any crazy thing that exists within the universe, but we’re sort of putting a lightweight on on the market in the dead of night and presenting ourselves as available. Who knows what might answer that?
My very own sense—based on quite a lot of reading, years of spiritual conversations with people and admittedly a reasonably trusting imagination (ask me about UFOs)—is that there’s an incredible big universe on the market beyond what we will see. And in it exist numerous different spiritual forces. Some are good, some are bad, so much are probably in between.
An individual might say, Well, I don’t consider in evil spirits. And that’s fantastic. Nevertheless it’s also form of like saying I don’t consider within the state police. Fair enough, but in the event that they pull you over for speeding you’re still going to need to pay the ticket. (Trust me on this.)
If we do think that a spiritual plane of existence might include forces which can be malevolent or simply plain indifferent to humanity, why would we would like to do anything that may see us tangling with them? What’s the upside?
Or to place it more simply, higher secure than sorry—especially with regards to children and adults who is perhaps vulnerable.
None of that is to say that we will’t communicate with our beloved dead or the next power. That’s the excellent news in all of this: As Catholics, we consider we don’t need a seer for that, or a game board with a plastic pointer sold by Hasbro. It is correct there in our theology of communion with the saints and prayer. We just need to take a seat and listen, to share our longing and our care.
As Pope Francis said in 2019, “True faith means abandoning oneself to God who makes himself known not through occult practices but through revelation and with gratuitous love.”