Occult America_ The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation - Mitch Horowitz [36]
While successive generations of Pythagoreans produced a wide range of mathematical and mystical treatises, precious little is known today about the philosopher and his original school. No writings of Pythagoras survive, and the historical record depends upon interpretive works—some of which were written centuries after his death at the end of the sixth century B.C. Hence, commentators on occult topics are sometimes tempted to project backward onto Pythagoras all sorts of arcane practices, Ouija and modern numerology among them.
Still other writers, when not repeating claims like the one above, tend to misread ancient historical accounts and mistake other divinatory tools, such as pendulum dishes, for Ouija boards. Oracle methods were rich and varied from culture to culture—from Germanic runes to Chinese pictograms to African cowrie shells. But the prevailing literature on oracular traditions supports no suggestion that talking boards were in use before the American Spiritualist era.
And what, finally, of the beguiling name Ouija? Alternately pronounced wee-JA and wee-GEE, its origin raises another question mark. Baltimore’s Charles W. Kennard at one time claimed it was Egyptian for “good luck” (it’s not). William Fuld later said it was simply a marriage of the French and German words for “yes.” One early investor claimed the board had spelled out its own name. As with other aspects of Ouija history, the board seems determined to withhold a few secrets of its own.
Ouija Boom
By 1920, the Ouija board was so well known that artist Norman Rockwell painted a send-up of a couple using one—the woman dreamy and credulous, the man fixing her with a cloying grin—for a cover of The Saturday Evening Post. For manufacturer Fuld, though, everything was strictly business. “Believe in the Ouija board?” he told a reporter. “I should say not. I’m no Spiritualist. I’m a Presbyterian—been one ever since I was so high.” In 1920, the Baltimore Sun reported that Fuld, by his own “conservative estimate,” had pocketed an incredible $1 million from sales.
Whatever satisfaction Fuld’s success may have brought him was soon lost: On February 24, 1927, he fell to his death from the roof of his Baltimore factory. The fifty-six-year-old manufacturer had been supervising the replacement of a flagpole when an iron support bar gave way, and he fell three stories backward.
Fuld’s children took over his business, and they generally prospered. While sales dipped and rose—and competing boards came and went—only the Ouija brand endured. And by the 1940s, Ouija was experiencing a new run of sales.
Historically, séances and other Spiritualist methods have proliferated during times of war, when families struggled with uncertainty and loss. “People have had to bear so many things they had not thought possible,” wrote Thomas Mann on an upsurge of Spiritualism after World War I, “and to undergo such dramatic events, that the indignation we are still struggling to feel … is combined, in a not negligible proportion, with a tendency to make concessions.” During World War II, many American families “made concessions” to unseen powers and looked toward Ouija for news of loved ones, or to reach those who had died. In a 1944 article, “The Ouija Comes Back,” The New York Times reported that one New York City department store alone had sold fifty thousand Ouija boards in a five-month period.
For all its commercial reach, Ouija remained essentially a family-operated business. But after the war, novelty manufacturing shed its slightly disreputable, carnival-style reputation and became a more mainstream line of business. And American toy giants began looking more closely at the enduring curio. In a move that would place an instrument from the age of Spiritualism into playrooms all across America, the manufacturer Parker Brothers bought the rights to Ouija for an undisclosed sum in 1966. With the Fuld family out of the picture, Ouija was poised for its biggest success ever.