Anne Stokes Aracnafaria Spirit Board ~ Talking Board with planchette and instructions ~ Ouija.

An Anne Stokes Spirit Board in an Aracnafaria design. The back of the board features a sentimental poem. Comes with a planchette and instructions as pictured.

H:30.5cm W:39cm D:0.4cm Gift box H:32cm W:40cm D:3cm MDF

The ouija also known as a spirit board or talking board, is a flat board marked with the letters of the alphabet, the numbers 0–9, the words "yes", "no", occasionally "hello" and "goodbye", along with various symbols and graphics. It uses a planchette (small heart-shaped piece of wood or plastic) as a movable indicator to spell out messages during a séance. Participants place their fingers on the planchette, and it is moved about the board to spell out words. "Ouija" is a trademark of Hasbrox but is often used generically to refer to any talking board. Spuritualists in the United States believed that the dead were able to contact the living and reportedly used a talking board very similar to a modern Ouija board at their camps in the U.S. state of Ohio in 1886 to ostensibly enable faster communication with spirits. Following its commercial introduction by businessman Elijag Bond on 1 July 1890, the Ouija board was regarded as an innocent parlor game unrelated to the occult until American spiritualist Pearl Curran popularized its use as a divining tool during World War.