GHOST WRITERS

TALKING BOARD HISTORIAN AND COLLECTOR BRANDON HODGE HELPS US TRACE THE STRANGE HISTORY OF THE PLANCHETTE

APRIL SNELLINGS

ON ITS OWN, A OUIJA BOARD IS ABOUT AS MYSTICAL AS A BAG OF SCRABBLE TILES. For all the board’s vaguely occult iconography and the off-the-charts creep factor ascribed to it by movies such as 13 Ghosts and The Exorcist, it’s just a useless slab of wood (or chipboard, if you’re contacting the beyond on a budget) without the planchette that comes with it. For those who believe a talking board is truly a hotline to the beyond, the board simply gives the dead a vocabulary – it’s the planchette that gives them a voice. Though they’re mostly known as Ouija accessories today, planchettes actually predate talking boards by several decades, and were once popular spirit communication tools in their own right. In fact, the first known mention of what would…

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RUE MORGUE (Digital) - 1 Issue, Issue 160 October 2015 Halloween Special Issue

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