With Halloween in a few days, a lot of folks out there will be getting together for a little harmless fun (a.k.a. scaring the crap out of your friends).  Most of the time, this includes haunted houses and watching Halloween.  But occasionally, for those who want to push the envelope (or the planchette), out comes the Ouija board.

Not me.  Growing up, I was never allowed to have a spirit board.  Although the most common variety was available from Parker Brothers on Wal-Mart shelves, the game was banned from my house.

According to family lore, my mother and aunts used to dabble in divination. (This was a usual pastime in the Ozarks, even amongst Baptists.)  One of the things they did was to hold séances in which they would cause a table to levitate.  Eventually, they even had a Parker Brothers William Fuld Ouija Board. That changed when my aunt broke the cardinal rule and made the spirits mad.  Immediately, at least according to my mom, the board spelled out the words: KILL YOU. 

When that happened, my grandma decided that it was time to burn the board. So, she stuffed it into a burn barrel with the kitchen trash and lit it on fire.  Then, so the story goes, the burning pile of trash exploded.

In retrospect, this explains a lot.  Though my Monopoly board never threatened to kill me, I once slipped during a game of Twister and cracked my head against the side of the china cabinet (although my cousin pushing me may have factored into that).

So what's the deal with Ouija boards?  Are they a gateway to malevolent forces?  Or a fancy fortune cookie?

According to Wikipedia, a Ouija board is a tool used to talk to spirits at a séance.  It can be home made or store-bought. (If you've ever played ask the glass at a slumber party, you're already familiar with the homemade Ouija board.)

Essentially, it's a board with letters and numbers written across it, and some kind of indicator, usually a planchette (or pointer) on casters.  All the users of the board touch the planchette, and the spirit you are speaking with moves the pointer.  Skeptics believe that the pointer actually moves through unconscious muscle movement of the users (ideomotor action).

 The oldest mention of anything resembling spirit writing may be a form of planchette writing that was used in China during the Ming Dynasty.  Although some people maintain that Pythagoras used a spirit table in séances, others say that both accounts are incorrect.

Actual talking boards first came about with the rise of the spiritualist movement in the nineteenth century.  The first “Ouija” board was introduced to the public in 1890.  Prior to this, mediums used a large number of complicated devices, including: dial plates, spirit-o-scopes, live chickens, or just relied on the low-tech knock-once-for-yes method.

When the boards were mass-marketed, the makers often incorporated images of witches or swamis to play into the idea that the board was a tool to talk to spirits.  Boards with witch motifs were known as witchboards.  Ones with swamis on them were known as swamiboards.

So what is the deal with Ouija boards?  What makes them more controversial than Bonnie and Clyde, Howard Hughes, Britney Spears and Katie Holmes all rolled into one?

According to the Museum Of Talking Boards: What makes the Ouija so different and controversial is that it has a certain notoriety. Without this reputation it would be just another board game like Monopoly or Chinese Checkers. . . . Ouija is really just Scrabble with attitude.

The board certainly has a fascination in our culture.  Poets Sylvia Plath and James Merril both claimed that some of their work was influenced by experiments with the Ouija board.  John G. Fuller used the board to research his book The Ghost of Flight 401.

Despite this, many people (like my grandma) believe that the boards are more than just a child's toy or a tool for writing the next Pulitzer Prize winning novel. Many people, with as diverse backgrounds as psychologists, religious teachers and paranormal investigators, have expressed misgivings about the board.  Escape artist Harry Houdini, psychic Silvia Brown and the Rev. Dr. Malachi Martin of the Roman Cathloic Church have all warned of the dangers of using Ouija.  

Use of the board as a literary device is also seen in numerous movies, such as The Exorcist as a gateway for demonic possession, Awakenings as a means to reach out to catatonic patients, a way to investigate Bigfoot in Radio Flyer and part of an elaborate spoof in Repossessed.

This Halloween, if you're going to play around with a spirit board, be careful.  It might be harmless.  But you never know.

 As for me?  I'm just going to rent the movie Witchboard.  Let, Tawny Kitaen deal with the demons and evil spirits.  I'd rather deal with the popcorn.