Lore · Aaron Mahnke

Lore 300: Board Stiff

February 23, 2026·32 min·2 clips

William Fold, the 'father of the Ouija board' who publicly declared 'I'm no spiritualist, I'm a Presbyterian,' fell to his death from the roof of his own Ouija factory in 1927.

Certainty is the trap. The host starts with a quiet admission: nearly 11 years ago, a long run for Lore felt unlikely, and 300 brand new episodes would have sounded almost absurd. That note of humility fits the episode. This is a story about prediction, belief, and the human itch to know what comes next, even when the answer comes from something as flimsy as a board. Then the cases turn ugly. The Ouija board is treated like it can answer questions, but its real danger is more practical. It gives people cover. It adds pressure. It lets ordinary cruelty put on a supernatural costume. Lila Jimerson understood that. The excerpt says she helped drive the murder of Clotilde Marchand while Henri Marchand, Clotilde's husband, was having an affair with her. Then, three and a half years later in Arizona, 15-year-old Maddie Turley shot her father, Ernest, after her mother Dorothea pushed her toward it. The details stay awful because they are so small: the dark room, the lamp flicker, the question, the pointer moving toward yes. Then the board said Maddie had to do it, and Dorothea warned of terrible suffering if she refused. The motive was not mystical. Dorothea was bored with her husband and wanted another life. The board gave that desire a little theater. That is where the episode bites. The object is creepy, sure, but the people using it are worse. Nellie Hurd of Kansas City gets another grim ending in 1935, after a board falsely accused Herbert of cheating and she tortured him for two weeks. By the end, the message from beyond looks more like a mirror held up to what someone already wanted.

As heard by us

A milestone Lore episode turns a Ouija board into a steady study of belief and harm.

Lore 300, "Board Stiff," treats a milestone episode as a look back at how far the show has traveled, beginning with its 300th brand new installment and the unlikely fact of lasting this long.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want Lore's 300th brand-new episode to spiral from a Ouija-board setup into a string of eerie cases.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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