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The following year, Parker Brothers is reported to have sold more than two million Ouija boards—topping sales of its most popular game, Monopoly. An occult vogue that rode the countercultural tides of the late 1960s, as astrologers adorned the cover of Time magazine and witchcraft became a fast-growing “new” religion, fueled the board’s sales for the following decades. A Parker Brothers spokesperson reports the company has sold more than ten million boards since 1967.

The ’60s and ’70s saw Ouija’s reinvention as a fad among adolescents. For some it was a mere diversion, while for others its secret messages and intimate communiqués became a youthful rite of rebellion. Ouija circles sprang up in college dormitories, often with young women at their helm, unconsciously reprising the role of spirit medium that women had held in the Spiritualist days. A onetime teenage experimenter recalled an enticing atmosphere of danger and intrigue—“like shoplifting or taking drugs”—that allowed her and a girlfriend to bond together over Ouija sessions in which they reached the spirit of “Candelyn,” a nineteenth-century girl who had perished in a fire. Sociologists suggested that Ouija sessions were a way for young people to project and work through their own fears. But many Ouija users claimed that the verisimilitude of the communications was reason enough to gather around the board. Not all sessions were titillating or adventurous, however. As will be seen, some were tragically, terribly frightening.

Ouija in Winter

While officials at Parker Brothers (today a division of Hasbro) do not disclose the ebb and flow of sales, there’s little question that Ouija declined commercially as it neared the twenty-first century. In 1999, the company brought a tradition to an end when it discontinued the vintage Fuld-era design and switched to a smaller glow-in-the-dark version of the board. In consumer manufacturing, the redesign of a classic product often indicates an effort to reinvigorate shaky sales. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, Ouija retailed at $22.99, about sixty percent more than old favorites like Monopoly and Scrabble, further suggesting its transformation into a specialty item.

Today, the “Ouija Game” (ages 8 to Adult) merits barely a mention on Hasbro’s Web site. The company posts no official history for Ouija, as it does for its other storied brands, such as Twister and Yahtzee. And the claims from the original 1960s-era box—Weird and mysterious. Surpasses, in its unique results, mind reading, clairvoyance and second sight—are now significantly toned down. Given the negative attention the board sometimes attracts—both from frightened users and religionists who smell a whiff of Satan’s doings—as well as the fact that its sales are likely on the wane, Ouija seems like a product that Hasbro would just as soon forget.

And yet Ouija has a way of hanging on. It receives more customer reviews—alternately written in tones of outrage, fear, delight, or ridicule—than most other “toys” for sale on Amazon.com: “DANGER—YOU CAN BE POSSESSED.” “I wouldn’t even consider using it without deep and sincere prayers for protection.” “This IS a TOY, made by Parker Brothers, NOT a Satanic Board Game!” Even in its September years, Ouija polarizes opinion among those who dismiss it as a childhood plaything and others who condemn or extol it as a portal to the other side. Just as it figured in The Exorcist in the 1970s, Ouija saw new life in the early-twenty-first-century fright films What Lies Beneath and White Noise. A Ouija-based movie entered the early stages of production in 2008. And its urban mythology remains a ubiquitous presence online. There seems little doubt that Ouija—as it has arisen time and again—awaits a revival in the future. But what has made this game board and its molded plastic pointer so resilient in our culture and, some might add, in our nightmares?

“An Occult Splendor”

One of the most notable characteristics of Ouija lore is the vast—and sometimes authentically frightening—history of stories reported by users.