First
things first...
HAPPY
HALLOWEEN!!!
I
hope that all of you have a wonderful Halloween night, and that you
have lots of tricks and treats headed your way. I imagine that quite
a few of you will be headed out for candy collecting this evening,
and I hope that your pillowcases, reusable grocery bags, and plastic
pumpkin buckets get filled to capacity this year.
But
before I go on with today's special Halloween topic, I just want to
remind you all to play it safe this Halloween. Halloween can be a
day that is filled with lots of fun and haunting good times. But it
can also be a day that can be dangerous if you don't take the proper
precautions. Here is a mandatory list of things that you can do to
make this Halloween a safe one.
- If you're going trick-or-treating, wear bright colours so that drivers can see you. If your costume does not have any bright colours, wear reflective tape or carry a glo-stick so that you can be seen.
- Always make sure that you are with at least one other person when you go trick-or-treating. There is safety in numbers!
- When you get home, have your parents or guardians check over your stash of candy for unwrapped or peculiar looking candies. Although most homes are safe to accept treats from, you can never be too careful.
- A good rule of thumb is to toss out any homemade treats that are given out, unless they happen to come from someone that you know and trust, like a neighbour or family member.
- If you are 21 or over (19 in Canada), make sure you have a designated driver if you drink a little bit too much. Barring all that, make plans to stay overnight. A Halloween DUI is no fun.
But,
most of all, HAVE FUN! Halloween is supposed to be a fun holiday,
and it only comes around once a year, so make the best of it!
Now
for today's special Halloween themed blog entry, I thought that I
would choose something that has been the focal point of many
Halloween parties. Most times, they are used in harmless fun...but
there have been a few instances in which they have awakened the dead,
and caused spiritual unrest. Sometimes they can even be cursed, or
deadly, depending on the movie in which you see them in.
Hard
to believe that a piece of wood could have so much power.
Yes,
today's topic is all about the Ouija Board...a fitting end to the
month of spookiness known as October.
By
all accounts, the Ouija (pronouced Wee-Jee)...
...ahem...thank
you, Luigi.
As
I was saying, the Ouija Board upon first glance doesn't look all that
frightening. It's a piece of wood with all the letters in the
alphabet, the numerals 0-9, and a few words that include “Yes”,
“No”, “Hello” (sometimes), and “Goodbye”. If anything,
it might look like something that could be sold at Mr. Hooper's Store
on Sesame Street.
The
trick with the Ouija Board comes from the second piece of the game.
Each Ouija Board comes with a small, triangular piece known as a
planchette, and how it works is that the person who is calling the
séance uses the planchette to communicate messages from the dead to
the living, and everyone else involved in the séance is supposed to
hold the planchette as well. For instance, if a spirit wants to
indicate that they are present, the planchette will mysteriously move
to the word “Hello”. Or, sometimes the spirit might wish to
spell out a person's name, so the planchette will move to each letter
in the person's name. It'd take a short time if your name was Lee,
but forever if your name happened to be Elizabeth-Maria or something
similar.
Would
you believe that the Ouija Board has been sold in stores for well
over one hundred years? The idea behind the Ouija Board was first
pitched by businessmen Elijah Bond and Charles Kennard. They had the
idea of patenting a planchette sold with a board with the alphabet
written on it, because at the time, planchettes were considered to be
a novelty toy.
Bond
and Kennard filed the patent on May 28, 1890, and from there invented
the very first Ouija Board. The issue date on the patent was
February 10, 1891, receiving the U.S. Patent number of 446,054.
William Fuld, an employee of Kennard, took over the talking board
production, and by 1901, he started production of his own boards,
using the name “Ouija”, a word that he claimed was an ancient
Egyptian word meaning “good luck”. But the word “Ouija” is
also a combination of both the French and German translations of the
word “yes”.
At
some point, despite the fact that the board was patented by Bond and
Kennard, Fuld would end up getting notoreity for the board by
rewriting history, claiming that he himself had invented it! Several
companies tried to come up with their own versions of the board using
the “Ouija” name, and Fuld launched lawsuits against all of them
right up to his death in the late 1920s! Fuld's estate sold the
rights to the Ouija board to Parker Brothers in 1966, which was then
transferred to Hasbro when the company bought out Parker Brothers in
1991.
As
far as whether I believe that Ouija Boards can be used to communicate
with the spirit world, I cannot confirm or deny that they do or
don't. I have never owned a Ouija Board, nor have I ever used one.
I imagine that those of you who have might have used a Ouija Board
must have some interesting stories to tell (and if you have a few
minutes, please post them here if you like. I'm sure that some of us
would love to read them!
But
you know something? The Ouija Board wasn't originally meant to be a
communication aid with departed spirits. It wasn't until American
Spiritualist Pearl Curran popularized the board as a use as a
divining tool during the first World War that the meaning changed.
And,
not everyone is pleased over the fact that Ouija Boards exist. There
has been criticism from people of various religions, particularly
from evangelical Christians. In 2001, a demonstration was held in
Alamogordo, New Mexico which saw Ouija Boards and Harry Potter books
burned in a gigantic bonfire by several fundamentalist groups,
claiming that they were “symbols of witchcraft”. Some people
have even claimed that the Ouija Board is actually a tool of Satan!
Other
people claim that the Ouija Board cannot contact spirits, and is
simply just another way for people to part with their money.
But,
I happen to like the mystery behind the Ouija Board. I really think
that the Ouija Board is what you make of it, and if you want to
believe that it works, then work it shall. Or something like that.
To
conclude this Halloween piece, why not take a look at some of the
movies that have used Ouija Boards as part of the plot?
The
Uninvited (1944)
13
Ghosts (1960)
Tales
From The Crypt (1972)
The
Exorcist (1973)
Alison's
Birthday (1979)
Amityville
3-D (1983)
Spookies
(1985)
Awakenings
(1990)
Radio
Flyer (1991)
Grim
(1995)
What
Lies Beneath (2000)
Spirit
Trap (2005)
Downtown
Abbey (2011)
The
Pact (2012)
Happy
Halloween, everybody!
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