I love estate sales, or actually my wife loves them and takes me along, but I've finally admitted that I love them too! It's unfortunate that it usually takes a death to bring these events along, but hey so it is in the cycle of life. Records, records, records, always cheap, always random, sometimes good....
This particular house had a lot of old games, a few of which I scored!
A Ouija board possibly derived from the French and German words for "yes", (oui and ja), also known as a spirit/fire key board or talking board, is a flat board marked with the letters of the alphabet, the numbers 0-9, the words 'yes' 'no' and 'goodbye', and other symbols and words are sometimes also added to help personalize the board. Similarly pronounced Hindi word Ojha means the ones who deal with spirits. The Ouija board was invented as a means to deal with one's spiritual self, to access a part of the soul not usually accessed. However is more commonly believed to be a way of communicating with spirits of the dead. Although nobody knows where the idea for such a device came from, there are records of Ouija-like instruments being used in ancient China, Greece, Rome and many other countries. It uses a planchette (small heart-shaped piece of wood) or movable indicator to indicate the spirit's message by spelling it out on the board during a séance. The fingers of the séance participants are placed on the planchette, which then moves about the board to spell out words or become physically manifested. It has become a trademark that is often used generically to refer to any talking board.
Following its commercial introduction by businessman Elijah Bond in the late 1890s, the Ouija board was regarded as a harmless parlor game unrelated to the occult until American Spiritualist Pearl Curran popularized its use as a divining tool during World War I. Mainstream Christian religions and some occultists have associated use of the Ouija board with the threat of demonic possession and some have cautioned their followers not to use Ouija boards.
While Ouija believers feel the paranormal or supernatural is responsible for Ouija's action, it may be parsimoniously explained by unconscious movements of those controlling the pointer, a psychophysiological phenomenon known as the ideomotor effect. Despite being debunked by the efforts of the scientific community, Ouija remains popular among many young people.
One of the first mentions of the automatic writing method used in the Ouija board is found in China around 1100 BCE, in historical documents of the Song Dynasty. The method was known as fuji 扶乩 "planchette writing". The use of planchette writing as a means of ostensibly contacting the dead and the spirit-world continued, and, albeit under special rituals and supervisions, was a central practice of the Quanzhen School, until it was forbidden by the Qing Dynasty. Several entire scriptures of the Daozang are supposedly works of automatic planchette writing. Similar methods of mediumistic spirit writing have been widely practiced in Ancient India, Greece, Rome and medieval Europe.
Films, my blog is also supposed to be about films too, anyone remember this one:
My final score from the estate sale was this game that I'd never heard of...
George Joseph Kresge (born January 12, 1935), who had his name legally changed to The Amazing Kreskin, is a mentalist who became popular on North American television in the 1970s. He was inspired to become a mentalist by Lee Falk's famous comic strip Mandrake the Magician, which features a crime-fighting stage magician. And he made this game in the 1960's, thanks George!
Armed with my Ouija board and Kreskin's ESP, I will attempt to contact the late owner of the house I purchased these from and ask her about the Rapture, more on that later...
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