As a part of his ministry as rector of the Baltimore Basilica, Father James Boric made a point of periodically walking two blocks up Charles Street to pray outside an old building right near the Washington Monument.
Wearing a black cassock, white surplice and stole, the priest offered blessings at the site using holy water and salt – traditional tools for combatting the spiritual forces of darkness.
This wasn’t just any building.
The former boarding house at the corner of Charles and Centre streets, which today houses a 7-Eleven in the heart of the city’s cultural district, is where the Ouija board “received” its name in 1890.
According to a commemorative plaque installed by the City of Baltimore inside the building, Charles Kennard, the Ouija’s first manufacturer, and a woman friend asked the board to propose a name for itself. It allegedly spelled out “O-U-I-J-A” over an alphabet and said the name meant “good luck.”
The Ouija exploded in popularity in the decades that followed, with Baltimore becoming a national center of Ouija manufacturing. From 1890 to 1966, 13 different city factories churned out untold numbers of an otherworldly implement used to try to contact other spiritual realms.
Some might shrug.
Why make a fuss over an “innocent” party game that’s so deeply ingrained in the culture that even Mr. Americana – Norman Rockwell – once painted a picture of a couple “having fun” with it?
“The spiritual world is real,” said Father Boric, who now serves as pastor of St. Mary in Hagerstown. “When you use a Ouija board, you’re really opening yourself up to something very dangerous. You’re opening yourself up to the devil and his lesser angels – and they can really do harm, just as the good angels really do a tremendous amount of good.”
Father Brian Nolan, pastor of St. Ignatius in Ijamsville, has seen the consequences of using Ouija boards. When he was chaplain of a Maryland university, some students approached him about strange occurrences in a dormitory. People witnessed dark figures and there was a general sense of foreboding. It turned out that students had been using a Ouija board, Father Nolan remembered.
He offered a blessing and the ominous activities ceased.
“Sacramentals such as holy water and house blessings have great power because Jesus Christ is more powerful than Satan,” Father Nolan said, “and honoring him invites the peace of God in our home.”
Father Boric and Father Nolan both emphasized that the sacraments are the best way for people to break free from involvement with Ouija boards or other occult practices. Good, thorough confessions are especially important, they said.
“The two effects of sin are darkening the intellect and weakening the will,” Father Nolan said. “But confession reverses that, where we humbly bring sins to light and humbly ask for forgiveness and receive his mercy – and then we have a great clarity about ourselves.”
Placing trust in Ouija boards, fortune tellers, horoscopes and the like means one is breaking the First Commandment of having no other gods besides the one true God, Father Nolan said.
“Seeking knowledge from anything outside of God offends the Lord,” he said.
Many people dabble in Ouija boards because they want to connect with deceased loved ones, Father Nolan said. But he warned that it may not be loved ones who speak with them.
“If you put your spiritual antennae up to contact the dead, the response you receive may claim to be your Uncle Lou or Aunt Sarah, but it really might be fallen spirits,” he said.
Growing up in Baltimore, Matthew D’Adamo remembered that his father had a Ouija board in the family basement. D’Adamo steered clear of the object, but in his 20s began to have an attraction to the occult. He and his then-girlfriend visited cemeteries to take photographs in hopes of capturing images of spirits. They even visited the ruins of the old Patapsco Female Institute in Ellicott City, where they heard strange, ghostly noises.
Soon after he started pursuing those activities, D’Adamo, now 45, was almost trapped between two trucks on the road. Within that same week, he and his girlfriend witnessed a puppy get crushed by a car in front of them during a walk. Coming home from a drive-in movie theater, the pair was then almost run down by a speeding car that ultimately flipped over a guardrail, D’Adamo said.
Although he wasn’t practicing his Catholic faith, D’Adamo sought the counsel of a priest at St. Ursula in Parkville, who told him to stop messing around with the occult and to return to the sacraments.
D’Adamo, a parishioner of St. Ignatius in Hickory, has been a faithful Catholic ever since and has given local presentations on the spiritual dangers of the occult. A painter, his religious works have also been featured in displays within the archdiocese.
“Ultimately, this stuff is a play from the devil,” he said. “He wants to interact with you. The things on the other side know an infinite level more than we do, so they can easily just prey on our interests and desires.”
William Fuld, a Baltimore businessman who patented the Ouija board and promoted it, died in 1927 when he fell from the roof of one of his factories while overseeing the installation of a flagpole. He was rushed to St. Joseph Hospital in Baltimore, ultimately dying of a broken rib that pierced his heart.
According to the official William Fuld website, operated by Robert Murch, Fuld asked his children on his deathbed never to sell Ouija boards. Despite that plea, the family business continued until being sold to Parker Brothers in 1966. Hasbro now owns the trademark for the name “Ouija.”
Today, the “game” remains popular and there are even online versions of “talking boards” that purport to be portals to other worlds.
Don’t be tempted, Father Boric said.
“My encouragement is to never be afraid of the devil,” he said, “but let’s just not open ourselves up to him. Let’s live a life of grace. Stay close to the sacrament of confession. Stay close to the Eucharist, stay close to the Blessed Mother and you’re guaranteed to win this battle.”
And if you have Ouija boards in your home?
“They should be destroyed and disposed of – some may suggest burning them,” Father Nolan said.
What does the Catholic Church say?
• U.S. bishops, gathered at the Second Plenary Council in Baltimore in 1866, warned against the use of “magnetism” to forecast the future. They noted that some of the phenomena of “spiritism” – attempts at communicating with the dead – are the work of Satan.
• The Catechism of the Catholic Church says all forms of divination are to be rejected, including recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead, practices meant to predict the future, consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and more.
Email George Matysek at gmatysek@CatholicReview.org
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