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