Ouija Table / Psychic Investigators' Research Instrument. Hastings, England: Metaphysical Research Group, ca. 1960s. Paper on hardboard with felt backing, covered in a heavy plastic wrap secured with meatal clasps at each corner. A variant of this board was used in the Morrissey (Steven Patrick Morrissey) music video for “Ouija Board Ouija Board". Approx. 15 ¼ x 22 ¼". Scuffing, scattered foxing and staining. Uncommon.
The Metaphysical Research Group served as the mail-order business branch of Britain's Society of Metaphysicians, founded in 1944 by John J. Williams. A radio instructor for the Royal Air Force during WWII, Williams had begun lecturing on his beliefs in psychic and mystical forces to his colleagues while stationed in Cranwell, which formed the foundation of the Society of Metaphysicians, who within three years had established a small community of believers at Archers' Court, Sussex.
There, Williams and his followers generated income by running their headquarters as a boarding house for those seeking metaphysical knowledge in a wide range of subjects, from aura reading, automatic writing, dowsing, channeling, and mediumship, and by the late 1950s had established a productive publishing house that offered an amazing array of books on diverse metaphysical subjects, as well as an assortment of psychic appliances, including the Ouija Table, aura goggles, crystal balls, and automatic writing planchettes.
– Brandon Hodge, The Mysterious Planchette