It’s that time again….goblins, spooks and witches (oh my)….the streets will be filled with sugar addicted children looking for that next fix.

I will take a break from my normal posting for today….I would like to do something unusual….I will drop a little history on my readers.

Since it is Halloween let’s look at something creepy….a conduit to the spirit realm….the Ouija board.

As a method of supposed communication with the spirit world, the Ouija board has terrified countless slumber partying children and served as a plot vehicle in a number of Hollywood films.

Ouija boards have their roots in spiritualism, which began in the United States in the late 1840s. (Claims that ancient Ouija boards existed are unfounded.) The new movement was led by mediums, who claimed to be intermediaries between the living and the dead.

There were a number of ways mediums made followers believe that they were communicating messages from those who had passed. One, table turning, involved the table moving or knocking on the floor in response to letters called out from the alphabet. Another method used planchettes—heart-shaped devices with two wheels at one end and a pencil at the point. Users would place their fingers on the device, which would then be guided by spirits who would “write” messages.

Both methods were problematic. Table turning took too long, and planchette writing was hard to decipher. According to the Museum of Talking Boards, some mediums got rid of these methods altogether, preferring to channel while in a trance, while others built complicated tables, dials, and tables painted with letters that required people to use a planchette as a pointer. This method became the most popular—and paved the way for the Ouija board.

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/12952/brief-history-ouija-board

Unfortunately I do not subscribe to this fad of communicating with the spirit world….but this has been used to scare the be-jesus out of numerous gullible people.

Have a good day and a restful one….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”