Originally posted by Kriskaos
does anyone know the history of the board where it came from who made it??
"The ouija board appeared in the last half of the 1800s, when that century experienced its own version of the New Age: interest in spiritualism and
the occult reached high levels. Its predecessor was a writing device that let a medium supposedly take down communications with spirits. Two legs of
it were wooden; the other was a pencil. This flat, triangular tool evolved in the modern "planchette" that is used with the ouija. The name
planchette may have come from the last name of the French spiritualist who invented it.
Three men, E.C. Reiche, Elijah Bond, and Charles Kennard, are credited with creating the current flat board layout in the 1880s. Kennard named the
board "ouija," which supposedly was Egyptian for good luck; so a board told him. It may also be after Oujda, Morocco, a city of many mystics and
fortune tellers. Others believe "ouija" is the combination of the French and German words for "yes," a story started by William Fuld.
In 1892, Fuld, Kennard's former shop foreman, pushed his boss out of the business and took over. Fuld is credited with marketing the first commercial
ouija. He claimed its invention, made a big fortune by selling thousands of them, and sued competitors who made their own versions. Fuld ran the
business until his mysterious death in 1927, when he fell off the roof of his factory with a loose flagpole."
I asked my Moroccan wife, who was born and raised in Marrakech, if she knows a place called Oujda. She told me she has never heard of it, so I did a
webtrace for Oujda.
Oujda is the capital of eastern Morocco and is situated up north near the Algerian border. The city grew up along the roads staked out by the French,
and it now houses near half a million inhabitants.
When I asked my wife about this so-called Ouija-board, she got angry with me. Since she's three months pregnant, she's afraid something bad will
happen to our unborn baby. In fact she's REALLY superstitious. She told me I should the holy Koran and search for the Djinn. According to the Koran
the Djinn are spirits who live among us in another dimension, so we can't see them. Normally they don't bother us but we are able to contact them as
they are able to contact us. You should always be very careful to not upset them if you try to get in touch with them.
If you've upset them in any way, you should pray to Allah and see an Iman. Normally they should stop bothering you after that.
www.geocities.com...
[Edited on 22-1-2004 by Olafski]