August 20, 2024 • 17 mins
George Noory and authors John Kozik and Robert Murch explore the history of Ouija boards, whether they are a game or a supernatural tool, the connection between Ouija boards and the story that inspired the classic horror movie "The Exorcist," and if they can be used to summon demonic spirits.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now here's a highlight from coast to coast am on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
And welcome back. George Nory with you, Robert merchstill with us,
Now we're joined with John Kozik's obsession with collecting and
researching Ouiji began when he inherited his grandmother's board in
the late nineteen nineties. Now he was surprised to discover
that Ouigi was simply one specific brand of a talking board,
and that they date much further back than the Ouigi
(00:27):
of Parker Brothers fame. You remember that. Of course, through
the years of dedication, John John is now one of
the most knowledgeable people on the subject. Back in twenty thirteen,
he became a founding member of the Talking Board Historical
Society in twenty nineteen. He opened the doors of the
Salem Which Board Museum to the public. In May of
(00:49):
two thousand and four, just a few months ago, he
opened the second location Which Board Museum in Baltimore. John,
welcome to the program.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Oh, thank you so much for having me this great looking.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Forward to this. So your grandmother got you started into this? Huh?
Speaker 4 (01:05):
She did. She used the wija board alone and her fingers.
She would fly on the plan chat it would, you know,
go all across the board really fast. She would yell
out letters and numbers quicker than anyone could write down
what she was saying. So yeah, that's really how me started,
was inheriting that board.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Now, well, we're talking with merch and he hasn't really
had a bad experience with the Luigi boards, have you.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
Well, to be honest with you, I actually don't use
Wija boards. And I really hate for people to think
that maybe it's because I'm nervous or afraid. That's really
not it at all. But I just don't have the
same connection to the board that my grandmother did. And
you know, I've been a musician for over thirty five
years as well, and I always make a joke that
if Jimmy Hendrix was my father, I wouldn't want to
(01:52):
play guitar. It's kind of how I feel about the
Wijia board. I mean, I believe they work, and they
work definitely for everyone, But because you influenced the board,
I'm very nervous that it won't work for me, that
I will influence into not working with me.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
How far back John do they go? How old are they?
Speaker 4 (02:09):
Well, I mean they really come about just post civil war,
and they're homemade at that point, So really it's those
two devices that are crossing paths. It's an alphabet board
that people had believed that they could communicate with spirits.
They heard knocking responses back to them, and so they
basically try asking yes and no questions, waiting for a
(02:32):
knock or eventually pointing to the alphabet on a board
and wait for a knock. And then it crosses paths
with the automatic writing plan CHAT, which has a pencil
at the front and wheels in the back where someone
would channel a spirit to themselves and write or draw
on a piece of paper whatever came through. So really
just post civil wars where these devices are coming together
(02:53):
and they're homemade up until eighteen ninety, and that first
mass produce board is what becomes the Wija brand that
we all know today.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
How did we get that name Ouiji?
Speaker 4 (03:06):
Well, there was a seance one night in Baltimore. The
manufacturers had first made a board called the witchboard, kind
of a generic name for it. But at the seance,
a woman named Helen Peters she had asked the board
what it wanted to be called, and the board spelled
back Leja. When she asked, well, what does that mean?
The board spelled back good luck. So the board actually
(03:28):
named itself and then we just became that first mass
produced board.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Truly remarkable. And tell us about the Talking Boards Society.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
Yeah, so Merch and I are both founding members of
the TVHS. We're a group that registered nonprofit. We research, preserve,
celebrate the history of these boards. And you know, through
the research that Merch has done, we've uncovered, you know,
Helen's story. Sadly, she was written out of history for
(04:00):
over one hundred years and really only rediscovered about ten
years ago. We were able to raise money and put
a headstone in for her. Her brother in law, Elijah,
Elijah Bond, who patted Thelija board, he was actually buried
in an unmarked grave in Baltimore. We're able to raise
money to put a headstone.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
In for him.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
Who've done a few other projects as well. But yeah,
we continue to keep doing things and really just spreading
the word of WIJA.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Let's bring in Merch for a second here, Robert. How
long have people been collecting boards? How many different kinds
of boards are there?
Speaker 4 (04:37):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (04:38):
My gosh, Well, when I started in nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
You know, I was the baby. There were a few gray.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Beards that are even still with us, So I mean
maybe there were maybe there were five in nineteen ninety two. Today,
I mean there are you know, over one hundred collectors.
Some are very serious, some just like to put them
on the walls. As far as how many boards, I
you know, I have over a thousand, and I know
(05:08):
there are as many that I don't have. So that's like,
remember I was talking to you about this never ending story.
Why I love it because I know I'll never have
all of them, you know. And that's kind of the
beauty of this is that all the different collectors tend
to focus in a different way. Some of them really
get into the satanic panic stuff. They really like the
(05:30):
eighties and that kind of artwork. Some people are really
drawn to the forties, and they love when color really
started getting into the boards. So if you can imagine
a theme. The wonderful thing about WIJA is that it's
like a chameleon. Every decade, every generation, it tends to
find itself in it. And John and I were just
(05:53):
we just got to work on a brand new board
that's coming out. John, why don't you tell them. I
mean this was really thanks to you.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
Oh yes, this is very exciting. Actually, there's a wija
they're going to make a Salem edition of the Wija board,
and so they're tying in a lot of the Salem,
Massachusetts landmarks and actually putting it on a board all
themed around that city. That'll be out actually, I think
(06:22):
it's out in the warehouse now, so that'll be the
one that most people will see this Halloween season.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Was this a big Was this a big seller for
Parker Brothers when they came out with the game version?
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Oh yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean they knew when they
bought it, they could see that the previous company, the
William full Company, they just couldn't fulfill their orders. They
were hearing it from other people that months were going
by and they weren't getting boards. And Parker Brothers, being
a worldwide company in nineteen sixty six, knew that they
(06:58):
could just leverage this and really believed, to their credit
that they could put the Wiki board in every living
room again. And that's what they do in that first year,
nineteen sixty six is when they buy it. So from
sixty six to sixty seven, for the very first year.
It is the first time it's ever happened. It's never
happened since we just outsold Monopoly, the only game to
(07:22):
ever do it in any year. So that if you
can think about the numbers we're talking about, you know,
we're talking about millions and millions of Wiji boards. So
Parker Brothers, it was a huge hit for them.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
John, You've got a witchboard museum that you just set
up in Baltimore, And ironically, Baltimore's where that little boy
was who was the center of the movie The Exorcist.
He was a real true story. And if I recall,
didn't he play with a Wigi board before he got possessed.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
Well that's what some people believe, but I believe there's
actually nothing to back that up as far as him
using the board and that causing the possession. It's one
of those things. I know. Merchant was actually able to
meet William Peter Bladdie, who wrote the script, and we
(08:17):
have a copy of that script. Yeah, and so Merchant
probably tell you his exact words, but Bladdy explained that
really he had used the Ouija board more as a
way to explain how the kid was able to get
in a mischief without the mother knowing that, you know,
talking to that captain, talking to Captain Howdi in the
(08:39):
basement and so, and not really being part of the story,
but just as a way to explain how things were
able to progress.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Merch tell us a little bit more about Bladdy.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Yeah, I was, I was lucky enough to many years
ago do exorcism live h with. I think it was
Destination America at the time, but owned by Discovery. And
what it was was they took a bunch of us
from the paranormal field, me because of my experience with
the Ouiji Board and its history, and they took us
(09:17):
to Saint Louis and that is where the boy from
Maryland Cottage City, Maryland. Actually that's where the exorcisms happened.
So the story happens in two places. It happens, you know,
the possession begins in Maryland and it ends and Saint Louis.
So we went back to the house where that happened.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
He was he was in the now defunct Election Brothers
Hospital exactly.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Yep, he was taken there in Georgetown, you know there,
but when you know, he's moved to Saint Louis. That's
where they really, you know, start these exorcisms that are
like NonStop. Twenty four seven, and we were invited to
the house and I got to use the Wigi board
in the house, which was that was definitely an interesting experience.
(10:05):
But in the kind of getting up for that, I
got to talk to Laddie and you know, I asked him,
as I've asked many people involved in the case, was
the wigi board really used? Have you ever seen any
evidence of that? And the answer was no, he said,
I used it as a tool to introduce how this
little girl was being left alone by her mother, Like
(10:27):
she was playing the wigi board by herself. She didn't
have anyone else to play with, And so of course
that may have been the intent, but that's not how
it was received, you know, after the movie comes out,
which you know is slightly related to the true story
that affects Wigi board. So, you know, with this argument
of does art imitate life or does life imitate art?
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Who knows?
Speaker 3 (10:51):
But leading up to you know, nineteen seventy three, you're
getting to a time when these things wiki boards were
already starting to look different in movies. They were getting darker.
They were you know, originally it was all jokes. I
love Lucy the seance, everyone's laughing, they're date game. But
(11:14):
as we're getting to the seventies, things are getting darker.
People are using the Wigi board for darker purposes, and
the Wiji board is giving them darker messages. The Exorcist
comes out, and as John can tell you, it's like
the straw that breaks the camel's back.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
John, when that movie came out, it must have been
a boon for sales for the Ouiji board.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
It was funny is sales go up about fifteen percent
after that. But really, what I like about The Exorcist
is the we just seen in the movie is so
almost subliminal. It's such a short scene and they don't
really ever reference it. It takes a while for people
to kind of realize or not even realize that why
(11:59):
they might be afraid of the Wigia board, or you know,
the superstitions and rules that kind of come from the
movie that just we don't know of before. There's a
superstition that you should never use the Wigia board alone.
And I think that really starts with that movie. You know,
that's how they explained how she'd become possessed. Was using
(12:19):
it in the basement to speak to Captain Howdie. The
rule that you always say goodbye on the wija board.
You know, some might argue that that's where it starts
as well. So, you know, besides sales going up, of course,
I think the long impact of it is, you know,
some rules, some superstitions, and really people just not being
(12:40):
aware as to why they might be afraid of the
wigia board because they just they don't even remember that
there's a wiga in the movie.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Now, tell us about the museums in Salem and Baltimore.
What do you have there?
Speaker 4 (12:53):
Well, Salem was the first one that was opened, and
you know, Salem is an important city to the Wijia board.
There that's where Parker Brothers was located. I'm about a
stone's throw from where that warehouse with a factory was.
And so not only that, that museum kind of tells
as much history as I can possibly tell in one room.
(13:15):
Not only to cover the beginning and Helen and Elijah
and the people behind it, we get into a lot
of the pulp culture influence of it, and so a
lot of movies and a lot of books and plays
and music all about the Wijia board there, and that's
where I'm at myself every day. So that museum is
(13:36):
a little special because it's really my happy place in
life where I go there and I'm just so excited
to meet anyone who's interested in wanting to learn more
about the Wigia board, and so I tell a lot
of stories. I'm there, answer questions and really help people
through whatever part of the wija they might be most
interested in. You know, some people might want to just
(13:59):
talk about spiritualism and where the board started, and then
some people, really I need lawyers who study trademark infringement.
We can talk about those cases. We can talk about
five hundred plus horror movies with the wigiboard in it.
So Salem is really a special place for me to
be and spend my time talking about Wigia boards. And luckily,
(14:22):
you know, I was able to expand the museum by
going to Baltimore, and so Baltimore, of course where it
all starts. A lot of the history there needs to
be told there. I need people that came to Salem
who were from Baltimore, who had no idea of just
how much history had been in their city. So to
(14:44):
bring it to the city and be able to explain
those stories to them, and luckily Merch being extraordinary collector
and wonderful friend, he has curated a lot of really
amazing artifacts in both museums that you know, people are
very I'm very fortunate to be able to put on display,
but I think that people are very lucky to be
(15:05):
able to see. These are extremely rare items that you
just couldn't see anywhere else. In Salem. We have, you know,
a printing plate that was used by Parker Brothers. We
have a watch that William Fuld had been wearing at
the time of his death. William Fold, synonymous to the
Wigia Board, had made it for his family, made it
(15:26):
for over seventy years, and he asked the you know
the Bigia Boyd Toultonate should build a second Factor Baltimore,
which he did. He ended up sadly falling from the
roof of the building and dying from his injuries. But
we have the watch who was wearing when he died.
We have the script to the extrecist. So there's a
(15:48):
lot of amazing things that you know, a lot of
people would not be able to see in any other
way if it wasn't on public display.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Truly remarkable, do it either one of you know Karen Dolman.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
We know Karen extremely well.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Yeah, we all know Karen. She LOVESIGI boards, oh yes.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
And I love talking about her at the museum. Karen
is with Merchant myself a member of the talking about
historical society, and really for me, I talk about her
every day because she's my go to person when I
talk about when people want to know more about using
the wija board, because of all of her experience using it,
(16:30):
our YouTube videos. You know, she's really a great resource
to anyone who's went a little nervous to use the
wija board to feel more comfortable. So, yeah, Karen's great.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
But you don't feel it as if using the Ouiji
board can conjure up anything demonic.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
I mean, I do think that you know, with the
wrong intent, that you know, you can possibly have conversations
that might not be pleasant. You know, it's like a
cell phone. You don't always know who you're talking with,
and if you dial numbers in the middle of night,
you know, people might not be friendly or want to
talk to you. But I don't think there's anything to
(17:16):
be scared of to me personally, I think you just
hang up the phone. You stop talking.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at
one a m. Eastern and go to Coast to coastam
dot com for more
Now here's a highlight from coast to coast am on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
And welcome back. George Nory with you, Robert merchstill with us,
Now we're joined with John Kozik's obsession with collecting and
researching Ouiji began when he inherited his grandmother's board in
the late nineteen nineties. Now he was surprised to discover
that Ouigi was simply one specific brand of a talking board,
and that they date much further back than the Ouigi
(00:27):
of Parker Brothers fame. You remember that. Of course, through
the years of dedication, John John is now one of
the most knowledgeable people on the subject. Back in twenty thirteen,
he became a founding member of the Talking Board Historical
Society in twenty nineteen. He opened the doors of the
Salem Which Board Museum to the public. In May of
(00:49):
two thousand and four, just a few months ago, he
opened the second location Which Board Museum in Baltimore. John,
welcome to the program.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Oh, thank you so much for having me this great looking.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Forward to this. So your grandmother got you started into this? Huh?
Speaker 4 (01:05):
She did. She used the wija board alone and her fingers.
She would fly on the plan chat it would, you know,
go all across the board really fast. She would yell
out letters and numbers quicker than anyone could write down
what she was saying. So yeah, that's really how me started,
was inheriting that board.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Now, well, we're talking with merch and he hasn't really
had a bad experience with the Luigi boards, have you.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
Well, to be honest with you, I actually don't use
Wija boards. And I really hate for people to think
that maybe it's because I'm nervous or afraid. That's really
not it at all. But I just don't have the
same connection to the board that my grandmother did. And
you know, I've been a musician for over thirty five
years as well, and I always make a joke that
if Jimmy Hendrix was my father, I wouldn't want to
(01:52):
play guitar. It's kind of how I feel about the
Wijia board. I mean, I believe they work, and they
work definitely for everyone, But because you influenced the board,
I'm very nervous that it won't work for me, that
I will influence into not working with me.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
How far back John do they go? How old are they?
Speaker 4 (02:09):
Well, I mean they really come about just post civil war,
and they're homemade at that point, So really it's those
two devices that are crossing paths. It's an alphabet board
that people had believed that they could communicate with spirits.
They heard knocking responses back to them, and so they
basically try asking yes and no questions, waiting for a
(02:32):
knock or eventually pointing to the alphabet on a board
and wait for a knock. And then it crosses paths
with the automatic writing plan CHAT, which has a pencil
at the front and wheels in the back where someone
would channel a spirit to themselves and write or draw
on a piece of paper whatever came through. So really
just post civil wars where these devices are coming together
(02:53):
and they're homemade up until eighteen ninety, and that first
mass produce board is what becomes the Wija brand that
we all know today.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
How did we get that name Ouiji?
Speaker 4 (03:06):
Well, there was a seance one night in Baltimore. The
manufacturers had first made a board called the witchboard, kind
of a generic name for it. But at the seance,
a woman named Helen Peters she had asked the board
what it wanted to be called, and the board spelled
back Leja. When she asked, well, what does that mean?
The board spelled back good luck. So the board actually
(03:28):
named itself and then we just became that first mass
produced board.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Truly remarkable. And tell us about the Talking Boards Society.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
Yeah, so Merch and I are both founding members of
the TVHS. We're a group that registered nonprofit. We research, preserve,
celebrate the history of these boards. And you know, through
the research that Merch has done, we've uncovered, you know,
Helen's story. Sadly, she was written out of history for
(04:00):
over one hundred years and really only rediscovered about ten
years ago. We were able to raise money and put
a headstone in for her. Her brother in law, Elijah,
Elijah Bond, who patted Thelija board, he was actually buried
in an unmarked grave in Baltimore. We're able to raise
money to put a headstone.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
In for him.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
Who've done a few other projects as well. But yeah,
we continue to keep doing things and really just spreading
the word of WIJA.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Let's bring in Merch for a second here, Robert. How
long have people been collecting boards? How many different kinds
of boards are there?
Speaker 4 (04:37):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (04:38):
My gosh, Well, when I started in nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
You know, I was the baby. There were a few gray.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Beards that are even still with us, So I mean
maybe there were maybe there were five in nineteen ninety two. Today,
I mean there are you know, over one hundred collectors.
Some are very serious, some just like to put them
on the walls. As far as how many boards, I
you know, I have over a thousand, and I know
(05:08):
there are as many that I don't have. So that's like,
remember I was talking to you about this never ending story.
Why I love it because I know I'll never have
all of them, you know. And that's kind of the
beauty of this is that all the different collectors tend
to focus in a different way. Some of them really
get into the satanic panic stuff. They really like the
(05:30):
eighties and that kind of artwork. Some people are really
drawn to the forties, and they love when color really
started getting into the boards. So if you can imagine
a theme. The wonderful thing about WIJA is that it's
like a chameleon. Every decade, every generation, it tends to
find itself in it. And John and I were just
(05:53):
we just got to work on a brand new board
that's coming out. John, why don't you tell them. I
mean this was really thanks to you.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
Oh yes, this is very exciting. Actually, there's a wija
they're going to make a Salem edition of the Wija board,
and so they're tying in a lot of the Salem,
Massachusetts landmarks and actually putting it on a board all
themed around that city. That'll be out actually, I think
(06:22):
it's out in the warehouse now, so that'll be the
one that most people will see this Halloween season.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Was this a big Was this a big seller for
Parker Brothers when they came out with the game version?
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Oh yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean they knew when they
bought it, they could see that the previous company, the
William full Company, they just couldn't fulfill their orders. They
were hearing it from other people that months were going
by and they weren't getting boards. And Parker Brothers, being
a worldwide company in nineteen sixty six, knew that they
(06:58):
could just leverage this and really believed, to their credit
that they could put the Wiki board in every living
room again. And that's what they do in that first year,
nineteen sixty six is when they buy it. So from
sixty six to sixty seven, for the very first year.
It is the first time it's ever happened. It's never
happened since we just outsold Monopoly, the only game to
(07:22):
ever do it in any year. So that if you
can think about the numbers we're talking about, you know,
we're talking about millions and millions of Wiji boards. So
Parker Brothers, it was a huge hit for them.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
John, You've got a witchboard museum that you just set
up in Baltimore, And ironically, Baltimore's where that little boy
was who was the center of the movie The Exorcist.
He was a real true story. And if I recall,
didn't he play with a Wigi board before he got possessed.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
Well that's what some people believe, but I believe there's
actually nothing to back that up as far as him
using the board and that causing the possession. It's one
of those things. I know. Merchant was actually able to
meet William Peter Bladdie, who wrote the script, and we
(08:17):
have a copy of that script. Yeah, and so Merchant
probably tell you his exact words, but Bladdy explained that
really he had used the Ouija board more as a
way to explain how the kid was able to get
in a mischief without the mother knowing that, you know,
talking to that captain, talking to Captain Howdi in the
(08:39):
basement and so, and not really being part of the story,
but just as a way to explain how things were
able to progress.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Merch tell us a little bit more about Bladdy.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Yeah, I was, I was lucky enough to many years
ago do exorcism live h with. I think it was
Destination America at the time, but owned by Discovery. And
what it was was they took a bunch of us
from the paranormal field, me because of my experience with
the Ouiji Board and its history, and they took us
(09:17):
to Saint Louis and that is where the boy from
Maryland Cottage City, Maryland. Actually that's where the exorcisms happened.
So the story happens in two places. It happens, you know,
the possession begins in Maryland and it ends and Saint Louis.
So we went back to the house where that happened.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
He was he was in the now defunct Election Brothers
Hospital exactly.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Yep, he was taken there in Georgetown, you know there,
but when you know, he's moved to Saint Louis. That's
where they really, you know, start these exorcisms that are
like NonStop. Twenty four seven, and we were invited to
the house and I got to use the Wigi board
in the house, which was that was definitely an interesting experience.
(10:05):
But in the kind of getting up for that, I
got to talk to Laddie and you know, I asked him,
as I've asked many people involved in the case, was
the wigi board really used? Have you ever seen any
evidence of that? And the answer was no, he said,
I used it as a tool to introduce how this
little girl was being left alone by her mother, Like
(10:27):
she was playing the wigi board by herself. She didn't
have anyone else to play with, And so of course
that may have been the intent, but that's not how
it was received, you know, after the movie comes out,
which you know is slightly related to the true story
that affects Wigi board. So, you know, with this argument
of does art imitate life or does life imitate art?
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Who knows?
Speaker 3 (10:51):
But leading up to you know, nineteen seventy three, you're
getting to a time when these things wiki boards were
already starting to look different in movies. They were getting darker.
They were you know, originally it was all jokes. I
love Lucy the seance, everyone's laughing, they're date game. But
(11:14):
as we're getting to the seventies, things are getting darker.
People are using the Wigi board for darker purposes, and
the Wiji board is giving them darker messages. The Exorcist
comes out, and as John can tell you, it's like
the straw that breaks the camel's back.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
John, when that movie came out, it must have been
a boon for sales for the Ouiji board.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
It was funny is sales go up about fifteen percent
after that. But really, what I like about The Exorcist
is the we just seen in the movie is so
almost subliminal. It's such a short scene and they don't
really ever reference it. It takes a while for people
to kind of realize or not even realize that why
(11:59):
they might be afraid of the Wigia board, or you know,
the superstitions and rules that kind of come from the
movie that just we don't know of before. There's a
superstition that you should never use the Wigia board alone.
And I think that really starts with that movie. You know,
that's how they explained how she'd become possessed. Was using
(12:19):
it in the basement to speak to Captain Howdie. The
rule that you always say goodbye on the wija board.
You know, some might argue that that's where it starts
as well. So, you know, besides sales going up, of course,
I think the long impact of it is, you know,
some rules, some superstitions, and really people just not being
(12:40):
aware as to why they might be afraid of the
wigia board because they just they don't even remember that
there's a wiga in the movie.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Now, tell us about the museums in Salem and Baltimore.
What do you have there?
Speaker 4 (12:53):
Well, Salem was the first one that was opened, and
you know, Salem is an important city to the Wijia board.
There that's where Parker Brothers was located. I'm about a
stone's throw from where that warehouse with a factory was.
And so not only that, that museum kind of tells
as much history as I can possibly tell in one room.
(13:15):
Not only to cover the beginning and Helen and Elijah
and the people behind it, we get into a lot
of the pulp culture influence of it, and so a
lot of movies and a lot of books and plays
and music all about the Wijia board there, and that's
where I'm at myself every day. So that museum is
(13:36):
a little special because it's really my happy place in
life where I go there and I'm just so excited
to meet anyone who's interested in wanting to learn more
about the Wigia board, and so I tell a lot
of stories. I'm there, answer questions and really help people
through whatever part of the wija they might be most
interested in. You know, some people might want to just
(13:59):
talk about spiritualism and where the board started, and then
some people, really I need lawyers who study trademark infringement.
We can talk about those cases. We can talk about
five hundred plus horror movies with the wigiboard in it.
So Salem is really a special place for me to
be and spend my time talking about Wigia boards. And luckily,
(14:22):
you know, I was able to expand the museum by
going to Baltimore, and so Baltimore, of course where it
all starts. A lot of the history there needs to
be told there. I need people that came to Salem
who were from Baltimore, who had no idea of just
how much history had been in their city. So to
(14:44):
bring it to the city and be able to explain
those stories to them, and luckily Merch being extraordinary collector
and wonderful friend, he has curated a lot of really
amazing artifacts in both museums that you know, people are
very I'm very fortunate to be able to put on display,
but I think that people are very lucky to be
(15:05):
able to see. These are extremely rare items that you
just couldn't see anywhere else. In Salem. We have, you know,
a printing plate that was used by Parker Brothers. We
have a watch that William Fuld had been wearing at
the time of his death. William Fold, synonymous to the
Wigia Board, had made it for his family, made it
(15:26):
for over seventy years, and he asked the you know
the Bigia Boyd Toultonate should build a second Factor Baltimore,
which he did. He ended up sadly falling from the
roof of the building and dying from his injuries. But
we have the watch who was wearing when he died.
We have the script to the extrecist. So there's a
(15:48):
lot of amazing things that you know, a lot of
people would not be able to see in any other
way if it wasn't on public display.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Truly remarkable, do it either one of you know Karen Dolman.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
We know Karen extremely well.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Yeah, we all know Karen. She LOVESIGI boards, oh yes.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
And I love talking about her at the museum. Karen
is with Merchant myself a member of the talking about
historical society, and really for me, I talk about her
every day because she's my go to person when I
talk about when people want to know more about using
the wija board, because of all of her experience using it,
(16:30):
our YouTube videos. You know, she's really a great resource
to anyone who's went a little nervous to use the
wija board to feel more comfortable. So, yeah, Karen's great.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
But you don't feel it as if using the Ouiji
board can conjure up anything demonic.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
I mean, I do think that you know, with the
wrong intent, that you know, you can possibly have conversations
that might not be pleasant. You know, it's like a
cell phone. You don't always know who you're talking with,
and if you dial numbers in the middle of night,
you know, people might not be friendly or want to
talk to you. But I don't think there's anything to
(17:16):
be scared of to me personally, I think you just
hang up the phone. You stop talking.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
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