During a séance, it spells out messages using a planchette, a tiny, heart-shaped piece of plastic or wood, which is movable. To spell out words, participants place their fingers on the planchette and move it around the board. A trademark of Hasbro (acquired from Parker Brothers), the term "Ouija" is frequently used to refer to any talking board.

In order to facilitate quicker communication with spirits, American spiritualists, who held the belief that the deceased could communicate with the living, reportedly employed a talking board at their camps in Ohio in 1886 that was strikingly similar to the contemporary Ouija board. Prior to American spiritualist Pearl Curran popularizing its usage as a divining tool during World War I, the Ouija board was considered a harmless parlor game unrelated to the occult when businessman Elijah Bond's commercial patent was granted on February 10, 1891. The scientific community has attacked and labeled Ouija and other supernatural and paranormal ideas as pseudoscience. The ideomotor effect, a psychophysiological phenomena, best explains the board's function through the unconscious movements of the person operating the pointer.

While some religious groups believe that Ouija boards can result in demonic possession, mainstream Christian faiths, including Catholicism, have cautioned against their usage due to their use in Satanic practices. On the other hand, occultists have diverse opinions. Some contend that it can be an instrument for constructive change, while others restate the cautions of numerous Christians and advise "inexperienced users" against it. It is a common misperception that the word Ouija is derived from the French (oui) and German (ja) words for "yes." When medium Helen Peters Nosworthy requested the board to name itself, the name really came from a word written on the board. "Good Luck" was the word's response when asked what it meant.

Around 1100 AD, historical records from the Song dynasty in China contain one of the earliest references to the Ouija board's automated writing system. The technique was called "planchette writing" in Fuji. Prior to being outlawed by the Qing dynasty, the Quanzhen School relied heavily on planchette writing as a purported method of necromancy and communication with the spirit realm, albeit under strict supervision and unique rites.

Mediums started using a variety of techniques to communicate with the deceased as part of the spiritualist movement. After the American Civil War, mediums reportedly made a lot of money by enabling surviving to get in touch with departed family members. By 1886, talking boards had become so widespread that news outlets reported on the phenomenon encroaching on Ohio's spiritualist camps. In Baltimore, Maryland, medium and spiritualist Helen Peters

Nosworthy gave the Ouija its name in 1890.

The founder of the Kennard Novelty Company, Charles Kennard, asserts that he and his business partner, Elijah Bond, devised the board. Bond patented it with the assistance of his sister-in-law, Helen Peters Nosworthy, a spiritualist and medium. A patent was first denied by the local patent office. After traveling to Washington, D.C., Bond and Nosworthy were similarly denied a patent until the top patent officer requested that the board explicitly include his name, which was done. William Fuld, a Bond employee, assumed control of the talking board production in 1901 under the moniker "Ouija".

The scientific community believes that the ideomotor reaction is what causes the Ouija phenomenon. This effect was initially described by Michael Faraday in 1853 while he was researching table-turning. Numerous experiments have been carried out that replicate the Ouija board's effects in a scientific setting and demonstrate that the participants were moving the planchette uncontrollably. According to a 2012 study, using Ouija to answer yes-or-no questions was noticeably more accurate than guesswork, which may indicate that it taps into the unconscious mind.

Ouija board users have been referred to as "operators" by skeptics. Critics have pointed out that the messages purportedly sent by spirits resembled whatever was going on in the participants' minds. Terence Hines, a neurology professor, claims in his 2003 book Pseudoscience and the Paranormal:

Unconscious muscle movements, similar to those that move tables, control the planchette. However, in both situations, the appearance of the item (table or planchette) moving on its own is frequently very strong and enough to persuade a lot of people that spirits are indeed at work. A class of phenomena caused by what psychologists refer to as a dissociative state includes the unconscious muscular movements that cause the moving tables and Ouija board phenomena observed during seances. When consciousness is somehow separated from some facets of a person's typical cognitive, motor, or sensory processes, it is referred to as a dissociative state.

Numerous Christian faiths have denounced Ouija boards since their inception. Any kind of divination, including the use of Ouija boards, is expressly prohibited by the Catholic Church in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. According to the Roman Catholic Christian apologetics group Catholic Answers, "The Ouija board is far from harmless, as it is a form of divination (seeking information from supernatural sources)."

In 2005, Catholic bishops in the Federated States of Micronesia's Chuuk State demanded that Ouija boards be outlawed and cautioned congregations that using them was tantamount to speaking to devils. Because Ouija boards are "related to the occult," the Dutch Reformed Churches advised its communicants to stay away from them in a pastoral letter published in 1995. In violation of the Ten Commandments, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod prohibits its members from using Ouija boards.

Fundamentalist organizations burnt Ouija boards in Alamogordo, New Mexico, in 2001 because they were "symbols of witchcraft." According to religious criticism, the Ouija board is a tool of Satan since it discloses information that should only be in God's hands. Human Life International's representative referred to the boards as a way to communicate with ghosts and demanded that Hasbro be barred from selling them.

Ostension-style folklore has emerged in the communities where the Ouija board is used as a result of these religious objections. Particularly for young people, cautionary tales that the board invites evil spirits transform the game into a supernatural challenge.

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