No Aunt Marge, We Will Not Be Staying in Touch By Spirit Board🧐

If I thought I had seen everything, Twitter topped it today. This photo is circulating of someone handing out a homemade Ouija or spirit board at a funeral.

With an invitation to “stay in touch?”

Yikes. No.

I don’t mess with Ouija boards, especially after the story my mom told me. When she was a kid, her sister and brother got out their board. It has been advertised for years as a “toy” and you can buy them at Toys R Us.

They were asking the board questions and then something touched my aunt on the arm. They freaked out and told their parents. And never played with the board again.

In the 1800’s, when the average lifespan was 50, the use of Ouija or spirit boards was a lot more commonplace. It offered solace to those who lost loved ones. According to the Smithsonian magazine:

The real history of the Ouija board is just about as mysterious as how the “game” works. Ouija historian Robert Murch has been researching the story of the board since 1992; when he started his research, he says, no one really knew anything about its origins, which struck him as odd: “For such an iconic thing that strikes both fear and wonder in American culture, how can no one know where it came from?”