The Talking Board

A parlor game that patented itself as a telephone. The question was always who answers.

The talking board: patented 1891 by Elijah Bond, named 'Ouija' per its own planchette, commercialized by William Fuld and later Parker Brothers. Documented mechanism: the ideomotor effect — Faraday demonstrated unconscious muscular action in table-turning experiments in 1853, and modern studies replicate it reliably. Also documented: the board outsold Monopoly in 1967, and 'The Exorcist' (1973) converted it from parlor toy to portal in the public mind. A mass-produced divination device whose explanation predates its invention by forty years.