This is a question that has bugged me for some time now, and I can’t seem to find an answer to it.
Whilst I have no interest in using these things myself, as i am firmly of the ‘Your mate is pushing it’ camp of belief, I know that in the US, the (Parker Bros.) Ouija board is commonly available at many toy stores and the like. I also know that here in the UK it is not sold in normal highstreet shops. I have heard lots of different explanations for this, but most of them seem to revolve around claims as to the legality of the product in this country. The main ones I have run across are:
The ouija board was sold here, but was banned by a government panicking about the dangers of it.
The ouija board is illegal under old, never repealed, witchcraft laws.
It is illegal to sell the board, but legal to own/use one
It is both illegal to sell, and own/use.
Now, whilst the idea of the Ouija board being banned by a scared government after a group of teenagers were posessed/torn apart/driven mad as a result of using one is appealing in to the mind of a horror film buff, the whole thing seems to stink of urban legend, as i find it difficult to believe that a government is usually in the business of draughting laws based on possible other-worldly threats. Equally, if a legal explanation is the reason it is not sold here, number 2 seems the most likely, although i do wonder if such laws would really be enforced in a modern, (supposedly) rational world.
So, the real question is: Why is the Ouija board readily sold in the US, but not in the UK? Is there some legal reason for it, or some other reason?
There are laws in the UK which control “fraudulent mediums” … the main purpose is to prevent supposedly psychic con artists from using this sort of trickery to get people to part with money. Here’s a link.
There’s no prohibition on doing this stuff for non-fraudulent reasons; although the 1951 Act prohibits you from using “any fraudulent device”, a ouija board is not, in itself, a fraudulent device … merely a device which doesn’t work.
The 1824 Vagrancy Act was used quite a lot against so-called mediums in Victorian times (Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel about spiritualism, The Land of Mists, contains a lot of ranting about this.) Of course, since so many of these mediums were frauds … maybe they deserved it?
Anyway. There’s no prohibition against ouija boards, per se. But if you rig one to say “True believers in Spiritualism, send me all your money now”, you’d probably fall foul of the 1951 Act. (Usual disclaimer about legal advice from unqualified persons applies, of course. IANAL. Void where prohibited. All that stuff.)
I like explanation #2 – if it’s true, then it implies the corollary that longbows must be easier to find in the UK than in the US, since everyone needs to buy one for archery practice on Sundays. (Urban legend status of the archery law notwithstanding.)
Does the Fradulent Mediums act forbid the kind of storefront psychics (Tarot card readers, palm readers and so on) that are common in the US? Or are they permitted “for entertainment only”?
For that matter, Spiritualist churches operate perfectly openly, and have done for donkey’s years. I know one that’s only five minutes’ walk from the local police station … at a guess, the mediums at these things claim (perfectly legitimately, of course) that they’re being paid to be ministers of religion … there’s no intent to defraud, hence no foul.
I’ve bought tarot cards, rune stones, books on demonology and tons of such stuff over the counter at major high street shops … All I can say is, if you actually followed the advice in some of the demonology books, you’d run into trouble with the RSPCA.
Oh, and I shoot with a composite recurve bow - longbows are a bit old-fashioned for my tastes.
Thanks evryone, I was just unwilling to accept ‘pub wisdom’ on this, reliant as it tends to be on mis-hearings, mis-interpretation, urban legends and downright b/s.