Quija Board Essentials

 

Good morning boys and girls.  Today, we take a look at the Quija board.  Yes, that strange magic board that some consider a game and others, well, the gate to hell -- as if such thing exist.  I, for one, believe the Quija board  is a place for mischievous spirits to hang out and fuck with you if you're not careful; you know, beggars on the side of the spiritual highway with a sign that reads, "Please Help, Needs a Ride, God Bless." And if you are lucky, he'll not hijack the car and put you in the back seat and control the rest of your life, which is reason I got rid of my Quija board. 

Unfortunately, the history of the Quija board is as elusive as its "Yes" and "No" answers to serious questions like, "Will The World Ever End?"  "NO."   "Are you sure?"  "YES."

You see. 

The Planchette -- French word for "little plank" -- originated in Europe in the 1850's.  Although it is not clear how it was used back then,  most agree it wasn't for scanning the alphabet for words as it is today, but a tool for automatic writing.  The Quija board we know today comes from a company called the Kennard Novelty Company, which was founded on October 30th, 1890 -- yes, the day before Halloween, or as we used to call it in Detroit, Devil's Night.   And on the same day the company was founded, a patent for the first "talking board" was approved in the US and assigned to Charles W. Kennard et al. 

The word "Quija" itself is a mysterious.  (Alternately pronounced wee-JAA and wee-GEE).   It was originally defined as "good luck" by Charles W Kennard -- the money guy -- but where he got that no one knows, and seems to be one of the reasons that William Fuld, the sweat guy, had Kennard removed from the company and the name changed from the Kennard Novelty Company to The Ouija Novelty Company.  

Eventually the Fuld family sold the Quija Novelty Company to Parker Brothers who moved the company to Salem Massachusetts of Witch Trial fame, and the rest is history as they say. 

 

So, I'll leave it there and tell you that a spiritual guide I worked with in my youth told me the Quija board was a place where bottom feeders of the spirit world live and one should seek spiritual guidance elsewhere.  She noted the dark side of the board which includes such stories as Syvial Plath, who used it to help with her poetry before given into the dark forces of it and taking her own life.  Those dark stories are everywhre with the board.  Once, when I was sixteen a group of us teens played with it and this guy who was a tough guy, doubter, started getting messages from someone who said he knew him.  It the course of several questions he found out it was a friend he had when he was seven and lived in San Antiono.  He hadn't seen that kid since moving away years earlier.  The kid told him he died after he left.  A few days later the guy found out that the kid had died, and swore to never touch the Quija board again. 

Earlier that same year, the woman who lived in the apartment upbove me had a Quija party I attened.  That one got crazy too with the plancett shooting across the room, which ended the game for us all.  That mornoing she banged on my door because her car wouldn't start.  I opened the hood of the car to see what was the matter.  The engine was covred in blood and guts from a black cat that had tried sleeping in the radiator belt.  I felt it had someting to do with the Quija board. 

Then I've told the story before about how I used a board in a

I personally believe somewhere along the way, the "Quija" simply named itself.  "Isn't That Right Quija?"  "YES."  "Really?"  "YES!"

Okay, let's move on. 

 

Frank Gaynor's 1953 Dictionary of Mysticism states that primeval boards of different shapes and sizes were used in the sixth century before Christ.  This claim has been hard to trace and I tend to lean more towards the Lewis Spence's 1920 Encyclopedia of Occultism, where he says: "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 sec held frequent séances or circles at which 'a mystic table moving on wheels, moved towards signs, which the philosopher and his pupil, Philolaus, interpreted to the audience as being revelations from the unseen world.'"

Yes, yet another wonderful thing from Pythagoras.

So there you have it boys and girl straight from the Quija's Planchette.

-- Oh, by the way, that William Fuld guy who made millions off of the Quija board fell off a six-story building to his death kind of freakishly on February 24th, 1927 while supervising a flag-pole replacement on his building.  Not that it matters, but it DOES!

ciao Quija