Invented in the late 1800s, the Ouija (WEE-juh) board was part of a fascination with spiritualism and the occult (supernatural phenomena) that swept the United States and Europe during the last half of the nineteenth century. What made the "talking board" special was that the average person could use it to try to contact the spirit world without the help of a psychic or a medium (someone said to be naturally sensitive to the spirit world and able to communicate with its spirits). Since its invention, the Ouija board has been marketed and sold as a toy. Both its fans and its critics, however, have taken it much more seriously at times, viewing it as the key to an unseen world of spirits that some think is better left alone.

In 1848, two sisters, Kate Fox (1839–1892) and Margaret Fox (1833–1893) of Hydesville, New York, became famous when they...