ouija - Buried Secrets Podcast

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ouija

A collection of 13 posts

Digital drawing of an automatic writing planchette.

Following a vintage automatic writing planchette ad down a rabbit hole

Digging into the backstory of an ad in Mystic magazine.

A black and white digital drawing of an automatic writing planchette with a marbled background.

Modern automatic writing planchettes

Are automatic writing planchettes still a thing?

A black and white digital drawing of an automatic writing planchette with halftone shading and a grungy border.

The History of Automatic Writing Planchettes

The story of the planchette, a predecessor of the Ouija board.

Kill Daddy: The Turley Ouija Board Murder (Ouija Boards Part 9)

Kill Daddy: The Turley Ouija Board Murder (Ouija Boards Part 9)

The Turley Ouija Board Murder: In 1933, a girl shot her father on the orders of a Ouija board. Or was it her former-beauty-queen mother who encouraged the violence? When playing with a Ouija board with her mother, 14-year-old Mattie Turley receives the message that she must kill her father

More 1920s Ouija Board Stories (Ouija Boards Part 8)

More 1920s Ouija Board Stories (Ouija Boards Part 8)

We take a look at more 1920s Ouija board stories, including more tales of Ouijamania. Highlights include: • The ghost of Marie Antoinette • A supposedly Ouija-crazed cop who hijacked a car at gunpoint and proceeded to disrobe • A doomed treasure hunter • Queerness in 1920s San Francisco • The ghosts who haunted European

1920s Ouijamania (Ouija Boards Part 7)

1920s Ouijamania (Ouija Boards Part 7)

We take a look at “Ouijamania” in the 1920s, relating the panic over Ouija boards to big movements in the year 1920, including womens suffrage, prohibition, and, unfortunately, eugenics. Ouijamania is the phenomenon where people, usually women, supposedly went crazy because of their Ouija board use, usually resulting in their

Ouija after World War I (Ouija Boards Part 6)

Ouija after World War I (Ouija Boards Part 6)

Ouija after World War I: We tried talking about 1920s Ouijamania but there was too much good stuff in the late 19teens. Highlights include: • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini playing with a Ouija board in an Atlantic City hotel room • The pope hiring a former psychical researcher to

Victorian Egyptomania (Ouija Boards Part 5)

Victorian Egyptomania (Ouija Boards Part 5)

We take a detour in our look at the Ouija board and dive into Victorian Egyptomania. In the Victorian Era, people were really into death and the supernatural. Americans and Europeans also started traveling to Egypt and bringing back mummies and other pieces of Egyptian culture. We talk about some

19th Century Ouija Board Stories / Early Ouijamania (Ouija Boards Part 4)

19th Century Ouija Board Stories / Early Ouijamania (Ouija Boards Part 4)

19th century Ouija board stories: Chris digs up some early stories of people getting waaay too obsessed with their Ouija boards. Highlights include: • a rare story of a 19th century black woman’s experience with Ouija • a couple destroying their home to (supposedly) convert the world to Masonic principles • Presidential

William Fuld (Ouija Boards Part 3)

William Fuld (Ouija Boards Part 3)

In the 20th century, William Fuld’s name became synonymous with Ouija boards. We look at how William Fuld got into the Ouija game, the feud with his brother that split the family for nearly a century, his mysterious death that resulted from some advice that the board gave him,

Helen Peters and Ouida / Invention (Ouija Boards Part 2)

Helen Peters and Ouida / Invention (Ouija Boards Part 2)

We take a look at the board’s invention, in particular two women behind it, Helen Peters and Ouida: a highly-educated, unconventional medium who later ended up denouncing Ouija, and the eccentric, dog-obsessed English writer whose name may have inspired the board’s. In 1886, homemade talking boards became a

Planchette and Automatic Writing (Ouija Boards Part 1)

Planchette and Automatic Writing (Ouija Boards Part 1)

Starting with the automatic writing method planchette, we begin a series about Ouija boards. We’ll dig into the strange history of the much admired and maligned method of communicating with spirits and/or having fun at parties. Before Ouija, there was planchette. Invented in Paris in the 1850s, planchette

Investigating the Hawthorne Hotel in Salem, Part 2

Investigating the Hawthorne Hotel in Salem, Part 2

We deep dive into the stories of other guests who’ve stayed at the haunted Hawthorne Hotel in Salem and seen ghosts and other phenomena, as well as the hotel’s history. After sifting through all of the haunting-related reviews of the Hawthorne Hotel on Trip Advisor, we talk about