hello again, Sara, all,
the final installment of this wild tangled trail.
Sara Thejls <[log in to unmask]>:
>> I have a student who would like to write a
>> paper on the history and use of the ouija board,
<snip>
it appears that the history of the ORIGIN of
the Ouija board has been mapped out pretty
thoroughly by collectors of the boards and
aficionados of talking board or spirit board
history, who have websites and are about to
be or have publishing books with much promise
(more about those below).
> > but he has a problem of finding any relevant
> > literature and I haven't come across
> > anything myself.
<snip>
this should conclude my posting on the topic
after having acquired two books of import
to the subject and examined what i had of
relevance in occult bibliographies. if i
get one or more of the others listed in
this thread of relevance i'll provide
my reflections on them.
[log in to unmask]:
> "Occult America: The Secret History of How
> Mysticism Shaped Our Nation, by Mitch Horowitz.
Bantam Books, 2009; 291 pages.
ISBN: 978-0-553-80675-5
http://tinyurl.com/googlebooks-occult-america
"Though patented and sold as entertainment, Ouija
was no ordinary fad. It was, in fact, a homemade
device concocted by nineteenth-century American
Spiritualists who, from the earliest days of their
movement, yearned to make talking with the dead as
natural as dinnertime conversation. Whether the
object of fear or fascination, Ouija proved the
most enduring symbol of their success."
pages 67, Horowitz. this is from a chapter on
Ouija called "Don't Try This At Home: Ouija and
the Selling of Spiritualism". it is a helpful
brief description of Spiritualism and the history
of Ouija in America and provides a starting point
in a popular vein to discover numerous sources,
which i will do below.
these sources are mentioned by Horowitz, but you
have to do the fingerwork to follow up on where he
is drawing out his data for his interesting text.
for example, he credits "historians/curators Robert
Murch and Eugene Orlando for their insights into
Ouija and their intellectual doggedness in tracking
down its history. Murch has tirelessly traced
relations among Ouija's investors. Orlando and
historian John B. Buescher provided references to
the 'lost link' article from the *New York Daily
Tribune*. Fuld is quoted from 'William Fuld Made
$1,000,000 on Ouija but Has No Faith in It,'
Baltimore *Sun*, 7/4/20."
Horowitz, pp. 263-264 Chapter Four notes.
the 'lost link' article to which he refers is
mentioned in his text proper:
"A Mysterious Talking Board and Table
Over Which Northern Ohio is Agitated"
*New York Daily Tribune*, 3/28/1886.*
which predates the patent by 4 years and
featured a photograph of a rectangular talking
board Horowitz describes as "the spitting
image of Ouija".
(* - the Murch bio of E. C. Reiche, see below,
has the title slightly different: "The New
Planchette. A Mysterious Talking Board and
Table Over Which Northern Ohio is Agitated".)
in Horowitz's text he mentions Orlando critiquing
academic sources on Ouija and pointing out
"'the one recurrent quote found in almost
every academic article on the Ouija board.'"
they reproduce it here, from Lewis Spence:
"As an invention it is very old. It was in
use in the days of Pythagoras, about 540 B.C.
According to a French historical account of
the philosopher's life, his sect held
frequent seances or circles at which
'a mystic table, moving on wheels, moved
towards signs, which the philosopher and
his pupil, Philolaus, interpreted to the
audienceas being revelations supposedly
from the unseen world.'"
"Encyclopedia of Occultism",
by Lewis Spence, 1920.
you can find it here:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/googlebooks-spence-ouija
Horowitz reports Orlando's evaluation that
"the story presents two problems: The
'French historical account' is never
identified, and the Pythagorean scribe
Philalaus lived not in Pythagoras's time
but in the following century."
quotes from Horowitz, p. 71.
at this point i would like to intrude to
bring up a source that was mentioned in this
email list, in this thread, that i generally
like, but which at times has problems as it
reproduces errors with insufficient scrutiny:
J. Gordon Melton's "Encyclopedia of Occultism
& Parapsychology". in the entry _Ouija Board_,
Melton reproduces Spence almost word-for-word,
without credit to Spence, repeating these
apparently unfounded legends or speculation
(perhaps Gruss had it word for word without
proper attribution? no matter, Cornelius
is not far off of this also, see below).
Melton's encyclopedia has:
---------------------------------------------
"It is an ancient invention: a similar device
was used in the days of Pythagora, about
540 B.C.E. According to a French historical
account of the philosopher's life, his sect
held seances or circles at 'a mystic table,
moving on wheels, moved towards signs, which
the philosopher and his pupil, Philolaus,
interpreted to the audience as being
revelations supposedly from the unseen world."
"...
"_Sources:_
"Gruess [sic], Edmond G., *The Ouija Board:
Doorway to the Occult*. Chicago: Moody
Press, 1975.
"White, Stewart Edward. *The
Betty Book*. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1937."
-----------------------------------------------
"Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology:
A Compendium of Information on the Occult
Sciences, Magic, Demonology, Superstitions,
Spiritism, Mysticism, Metaphysics, Psychical
Science, and Parapsychology, with Biographical
and Bibliographical Notes and Comprehensive
Indexes", Volume Two M-Z and Indexes, edited
by J. Gordon Melton, Gale Research, 1996;
pp. 965-966; ISBN: 0-8103-9487-1 (Volume 2).
===============================================
Horowitz goes on to some depth description of
Ouija's importance in its influence on the
creation of "The Changing Light at Sandover"
by American poet James Merrill and mentions
movies and other things with Ouija themes.
all in all, Occult America is a very helpful
resource.
for those interested in the history of Ouija
in particular, however, especially its origin
and patenting, Horowitz passes on a clarity
for many of the mysteries inherent to the
board, obtained from Murch/Orlando/Buescher.
"The conventional history [that Fuld 'invented'
Ouija around 1890] is wrong.
"The patent for a 'Ouija or Egyptian luck-board'
was filed on May 28, 1890, by Baltimore resident
and patent attorney Elijah H. Bond, who assigned
the rights to two city businessmen, Charles W.
Kennard and William H. A. Maupin. The patent was
granted on February 10, 1891, and so was born
the Ouija-brand talking board.
"...The Kennard Novelty Company of Baltimore
employed a teenage varnisher who helped run shop
operations, and this was William Fuld. ... a
separate patent -- this time for an improved
planchette -- was filed by a nineteen-year-old
Flud. In years to come, it was Fuld who would
take over the novelty firm and affix his name
to every board."
Horowitz, p. 69.
with that, and the mention of the 'lost link',
Horowitz passes on the map of Ouija's origins
and places some important high points of its
history before us. his sources are mentioned
but not in a manner that easily allows us to
FIND them. in fact, this may be a general
criticism of Horowitz and his methods: that
his 'familiar' or 'tabletop' text and its
sourcing is informal and leaves pieces but
nothing complete in the way of source
referrals or indicators to follow it out
(he could easily have provided URLs on
his sources, as i will do below, but he
did not, for some reason).
for that we must turn to *Google*. after
some searching online using Horowitz's
text for key terms, i found the following
references to historical sources on Ouija,
followed by a reference or two, followed
by authors previously mentioned:
==========================================
Today's Ouija/Talking Board Experts
1) Eugene Orlando
1a) Museum of Talking Board Curator
it appears that the Museum of Talking Boards is
entirely Mr. Orlando's project. on Horowitz's
web page, Horowitz writes the following:
"At his online Museum of Talking Boards,
Ouija collector and chronicler Eugene Orlando
posts an 1886 article from the New-York Daily
Tribune (as reprinted that year in a
Spiritualist monthly, The Carrier Dove)
describing the breathless excitement
around the new-fangled alphabet board and
its message indicator. ... This was a full
four years before the first Ouija patent was
filed. Obviously Bond, Kennard, and their
associates were capitalizing on an invention
not conceiving of one."
-----------------------------------------------
-- Mitch Horowitz - Ouija: A History
http://www.mitchhorowitz.com/ouija.html
(accessed 10/17/09)
===============================================
quite a bit of the text on this page is the same
as, or largely resembles and may be a variant or
initial version of, his "Occult America" text.
you can easily read this and get a good preview,
or compare it with the googlebooks version.
1b) Contacting Mr. Orlando
if your student wants to track down the sources
that Mitch Horowitz did, then he will need to
contact Eugene Orlando, who likely has numerous
email addresses associated with his online museum.
here is the data i found from Alexa for him:
Eugene Orlando
P. O. Box 723
Corte Madera, CA 94976
[log in to unmask]
[log in to unmask]
and from PopCult Magazine:
--------------------------------------
"The 54-year-old private investor ...
has not only placed his collection of
talking boards online, but he has also
exhaustively researched their history
and cultural influences. From his
oddity-festooned home office in San
Francisco..., Orlando has created a
sterling resource on what is usually
considered to be a mysterious subject."
and
"All the boards, planchettes, and other
apparatus are from my collection with
the exception of a very few and they are
duly noted. I've written all the text,
taken all the pictures, and done all
the graphic design."
-- Eugene Orlando, quoted in
PopCult Magazine article on Museum website,
copyright 2002
http://www.popcultmag.com/passingfancies/websiteoftheweek/talkingboards/talkingboards1.html
(accessed 10/17/09)
1c) Future Projects
see below under Robert Murch!
--------------------------------------------
2) Robert L. Murch, Jr.
searching for Robert Murch yielded a LOT of
data, and this is especially pertinent to
the history of Ouija in particular and
talking boards in general.
2a) Maintainer of WilliamFuld.com
this website is a fount of information and
will likely be raw materials for the book that
Mr. Murch and Mr. Orlando are working on (see
below). Horowitz accurately describes Murch as
doing research on the people associated with
the Ouija patent, and this domain presents bios
on most if not all of them. Mr. Murch's bio page:
WilliamFuld.com -- Robert Murch
http://www.williamfuld.com/robertmurchbiography.html
2c) Collector of Spirit Boards and Noted Expert
the above is also the index page of what
may be found at robertmurch.com, and mentions
that he is the co-founder with Gary Halteman,
of Spirited Ventures, Inc. (a spirit board
manufacturer), where we can learn of his
collection of over 300 different variations of
talking boards and his 1999 employment by
Dreamworks "as a spirit board expert and
vendor in the film 'What Lies Beneath'
starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford."
Cryptique -- Spirited Ventures
http://www.cryptique.com/spiritedventures.html
(accessed 10/17/09)
also see this very thorough patent history:
WilliamFuld.com -- William Fuld's Ouija
Patents and Trademarks
http://www.williamfuld.com/ouija_patentsandtrademarks_williamfuld.html
2d) Future Projects
both also mention the following:
"...in the summer of 2008, Robert Murch began
working with Michael Albert, President of Papa's Toys,
who currently manufactures the Canadian Ouija board.
With the help of Albert, The Toronto Public Library,
and the McMaster Library, Murch has successfully
traced the Ouija through it's many Canadian locations
and document it's development throughout Canada.
Without this information much of the Ouija's
Canadian past would be lost.
"Robert L Murch Jr., resides in Boston, Massachusetts.
He is presently working with Baltimore city officials,
the Maryland Historical Society, The Baltimore Museum
of Industry, and the Maryland State Archives to preserve
their Ouija legacy and document their favorite son,
William Fuld. While he continues his research he is
currently working with Eugene Orlando from the Museum
of Talking Boards to co-write a book about the history
of the Ouija board."
2e) Contacting Robert Murch, Jr.
617-291-7451
http://www.williamfuld.com/contact.html
and note his references!
RobertMurch.com -- References
http://www.robertmurch.com/references.html
--------------------------------------------
3) Dr. John B. Buescher
I cannot find much about his latest activities,
but i did find
* two books on the history of Spiritualism
1 published by Skinner and
1 by the University of Notre Dame,
and * he used to have a very well-regarded
website at spirithistory.com (available
as late as August 4, 2008
(see the web.archive at:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.spirithistory.com
for a TREMENDOUS cache of data we can only hope
does not drop off of their holdings or goes into
print from Dr. Buescher! I explored the cache for
an hour or two, fascinated, with gasps and laments
that this wasn't still online!).
the two books i found that were pertinent were:
3a) The Other Side of Salvation
The Other Side of Salvation: Spiritualism and the
Nineteenth-Century Religious Experience
by John B. Buescher
http://www.uua.org/publications/skinnerhouse/browseskinner/titles/20434.shtml
(accessed 10/17/09)
Review here:
-- http://www.seekbooks.com.au/book/The-Other-Side-of-Salvation/isbn/9781558964488.htm
and i did not see one mention of the Ouija or of
talking/spirit boards, but it would not surprise
me at all if they were mentioned in this text.
3b) The Remarkable Life of John Murray Spear
"The Remarkable Life of John Murray Spear:
Agitator for the Spirit Land", by John Benedict
Buescher, University of Notre Dame Press, 2006;
384 pages; ISBN 978-0-268-02200-6.
http://undpress.nd.edu/book/P01101
(accessed 10/17/09)
I did not see a mention of Ouija or of talking
or spirit boards, but it is possible that it is
featured in this text, considering what a VERY
unusual person Spear seems to have been.
3c) Other Information From Dr. Buescher
scanning through the latest version of Dr. Buescher's
website, it appears he was and probably still is
dedicated to providing online reference to those
who have an interest in Spiritualism. a glance at
this bibliography makes clear that he is an amazing
resource on the subject:
Books, Articles and Links by Spiritualists
or About Spiritualism
http://web.archive.org/web/20080612074031/www.spirithistory.com/books.html
(accessed 10/17/09)
obviously Dr. Buescher is a GOOD reference.
3d) Other Projects (Future?)
Dr. Buescher more recently published something
of definite interest to occultists/magicians:
"Aquarian Evangelist: The Age of Aquarius as
It Dawned in the Mind of Levi Dowling
(Theosophical History Occasional Papers,
Volume XI)"
which was listed at Amazon published in 2008.
searching around on its title i also found
"An Interview with Dr. John B. Buescher"
http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2008/jbuescher_intrvw_apr2008.asp
Biographical on Dr. Buescher:
http://www.zoominfo.com/people/Buescher_John_2431281.aspx
(accessed 10/17/09)
--------------------------------------------
4) Philip Orbanes
> a history of games and ouija search turned up
> nothing of value to my knowledge. my Parlett
> "The Oxford History of Board Games" does not
> recognize Ouija as a game at all and so does
> not contain an entry to my read. the only one
> (without many index entries on Ouija) was:
> "The Game Makers: The Story of Parker Brothers,
> from Tiddledy Winks to Trivial Pursuit by
> Philip E. Orbanes. I'm also getting this text
> and will provide feedback on it when it arrives.
it turns out that this is a good reference on
the general subject and has some very cool tidbits
on the history of games and Parker Bros specifically.
the author consults correspondence and tapes from
the company's executives of the time, and upon
occasion makes references outside of this (within
the Ouija section of Chapter 5 noting once, for
example, to the Museum of Talking Boards!!).
"With $975,000 in cash and Channing Bacall's
blessing, [Robert Barton, president of Parker
Brothers at the time, in the late 1960] made
the most expensive product acquisition in the
firm's history. He purchased the rights for
the venerable *Ouija* board from the sons of
William Fuld, who had popularized this "Mystic
Oracle" four decades earlier.
[AUTHOR's NOTE: Robert B. M. Barton,
interview by Professor John Fox,
audiocassette, 27 December 1986.]
"...*Ouija* would outsell *Monopoly* in 1967
-- 2.3 million copies to 2 million.
[AUTHOR'S NOTE: Preston Gise, Parker
Brothers -- Acquisition Review
memorandum for General Mills,
16 January 1968.]
"...In 1891, Elijah Bond received a U.S.
patent on the forerunner of the *Ouija* board. But
the following year, 1892, Fuld purchased Bond's
rights in the patent and applied for an improvement.
(Evidence of the origins of *Ouija* devices can be
found in ancient Greece and China. The Romans were
also known to have *Ouija*-like devices.)
Notwithstanding where it may have originated,
Fuld was bent on exploiting his new acquisition.
He founded a firm known as the Southern Novelty
Company in Baltimore, Maryland. Years later, he
changed its name to the Baltimore Talking Board
Company and began to make 'Oriole' Talking Boards
and *planchettes* ...."
--------------------------------------------------
"The Game Makers: The Story of Parker Brothers
from Tiddledy Winks to Trivial Pursuit", by
Philip E. Orbanes, Harvard Business School
Publishing Compmany, 2004; pp. 145-146;
229n32, 229n33; ISBN: 1-59139-269-1.
==================================================
5) J. Edward Cornelius
noted in another post was Jerry Cornelius'
"Aleister Crowley and the Ouija Board", which
is primarily (8 of 10 chapters) a book about
Aleister Crowley, but has some references on
Ouija in its notes to chapters 1 and 2.
my Brother Cornelius cites both the Stoker
Hunt book and the text by Gruss and Hotchkiss.
in Chapter 1 he provides many pop-culture
references featuring the Ouija, and in
Chapter 2 he begins to attempt to cover its
history. he mentions Chinese sand diviners,
then repeats Lewis Spence almost word-for-word
without crediting him:
"In Greece, circa 540 B.C., the philosopher
Pythagoras was said to use a special talking
table on wheels. With hands placed upon the
table it would move toward different signs
and symbols. Pythagoras, or his pupil
Philolaus, would then interpret the message
to the waiting audience as being divine
revelations supposedly from an unseen world."
page 12.
more importantly, Brother Cornelius points
out another dimension to the Ouija origins
(repeating an 'E.C. Reichie' legend?):
"The earliest possible facts upon which
historians can agree about the origins of
the "Ouija" as we know it today center
around E.C. Reiche, a coffin maker in
Chesterson, Maryland. It is generally
believed that he had a strong interest in
spiritism and table-tapping due to his
unique trade. He wanted to create a simple
means to communicate with the deceased
more for personal reasons rather than
something for the public. Initially he
'noticed sympathetically that a large table
was a heavy thing for a frail spirit to
juggle about {so} he devised a little
table.'
[AUTHOR'S NOTE citing Gruss/Hotchkiss
and mentioning that "Original quote
from *The Literary Digest*, July 3,
1920, p. 66.]
When he teamed up with his two
friends, Elijah J. Bond and Charles
Kennard, they put their heads together
and the three of them created the final
design for the talking board. However,
no written records survive which allow
these facts to be easily verified. At
this point we can only speculate as to
what might have inspired these three
gentlemen or from where their original
design might have come."
-----------------------------------------
"Aleister Crowley and the Ouija Board",
by J. Edward Cornelius, Feral House 2005;
p. 19; ISBN: 978-1-932595-10-4.
=========================================
something of the role that Ernest Charles
Reiche played in the lives of those who
originated the Ouija board is described
by Robert Murch on his numerous biographical
pages at WilliamFuld.com (or in this case at
one of the many extended pages as in this
example at http://www.ecreiche.com/ ).
Murch explains that
"E. C. Reiche is first mentioned in an article
which appeared in the *New York World Magazine*
written by Edgar Goodman on May 23rd 1920.
[ http://www.williamfuld.com/ouija_articles_05231920.html ]
This was later retold in 'Ouija, Ouija, Who's
Got The Ouija?' in the *Literary Digest* on
July 3rd 1920.
[ http://www.williamfuld.com/ouija_articles_07031920.html ]
The article presents two theories on who invented
the Ouija board. It claims that Col. Washington
Bowie testified in court that either E. C.
Reiche [note: spelled "Reichie" -- ny] was the
actual inventor or it could be attributed to
Charles Kennard. However, after careful review
of the court transcripts we find no mention of
Reiche or any testimony of Col. Washington
Bowie for that matter."
----------------------------------------
-- E. C. Reiche's Official Biography
http://www.ecreiche.com/
(accessed 10/17/09); copyright 2007
========================================
Cornelius also references *The Baltimore
Sun* article covered by Mitch Horowitz, and
helpfully includes these other articles,
making note of them in his Ouija history
as it was seen by the American court system:
-- "Claimant to Title of Ouija Board Craze Dies,"
*The Baltimore Sun*, November 19, 1939.
-- "Wm. Fuld is Killed in Fall from Roof, Support
gives way while he is helping erect flagpole
atop factory," *The Baltimore Sun*,
February 25, 1927.
-- "Monopoly on Ouija," *The New York Times*,
February 24, 1966.
-- "Nothing Occult in Ouija, Federal Court Rules.
Boards are Taxable, according to Opinion
Handed Down by Judge Ros," *The Baltimore Sun*,
June 2, 1921.
-- "Ouija Board is Taxable, Appellate Court Says.
Judge Woods, in Richmond, Hands Down Opinion
Affirming Baltimore Judgmeent," *The Baltimore
Sun*, February 10, 1922.
-- "The Supreme Court Refuses to Say What It
Thinks of Ouija," *The Baltimore Sun*,
June 6, 1922.
nagasiva yronwode ([log in to unmask]), Director
YIPPIE*! -- http://www.yronwode.org/
-----------------------------------------------------
*Yronwode Institution for the Preservation
and Popularization of Indigenous Ethnomagicology
-----------------------------------------------------
ps -- I may make one final post (an appendix) which will be a listing of all known
manufacturers of talking / spirit boards,
their dates of operation, and what they
have sold, inclusive of what is for sale
right now! that may take me a while, tho.
perhaps at that point i'll attempt a key
term set for research revised with all
of the data and terms now disclosed.
END
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