Ouija Boards

People have claimed for centuries to be able to communicate in many ways with the spirits of those passed. Usually only the highest and most capable of priests, priestesses, seers and Sharman's have such talents, however during the time of the Spiritualist Movement the general population became more interested in learning such abilities. Indeed, trying to communicate with the deceased became a daily occurrence in many households, and the seemingly 'in' thing to do.

With the popularity of spiritualism steadily increasing, so did the ways of communicating with eh spirits evolve. One of the earliest 'modern' interactive methods included the gathering of several people, known then as a 'home circle' - usually being made up of friends and family. These groups experimented with knocking and rapping types of communication methods; something along the lines of a spirit answering questions with one knock for yes and two knocks for no.

Knocking and rapping soon fell out of favour, mostly due to its very limited scope of communication. Table tilting, another popular 'communication' method soon followed suit, because like with knocking - an experienced medium was a necessity in the group to instigate the connection with the other realm. They were also needed to interpret any responses gathered for the group. This wasn't what many spiritualist group members wanted; they wanted the freedom to learn more from the spirit world where, how and as they wished.

The next popular form of spirit communication to surface, one that remains fairly popular in some schools today, was Automatic Writing. During a sitting with a medium using automatic writing it is said the spirits would enter the medium, controlling their hand and mind - spelling out messages for those present. Although obviously fraudulent mediums had been caught out while using this sometimes dubious method, messages were often eerily precise too. Even today as many questions remain about automatic writing as possible answers have been found.

The next step in spirit communication was the creation of the 'Planchette', basically the mother of the Ouija or Talking Board as we know it today. It is speculated from some quarters that French spiritualist M Planchette is the founder of the planchette, 'a small, heart shaped table with pencils attached to its legs.' It was supposedly controlled by spirits to write out their messages or symbols. Compared to more modern Ouija it seems awkward and cumbersome.