The Ouija bored dates back to the ancient Greeks and Romans. The Romans used a kind of divination in which a ring was suspended from a Wand of Vervain on a length of thread over a bowl inscribed around its rim with Greek letters. A question was asked, and note was taken of which letters the ring indicated when it tapped against the inner rim of the bowl. We know of this method in some detail only because it was used by a group of Roman conspirators seeking ways to bring about the death of the ruler of the Eastern Empire, Valens (reigned 364-378). By using magical rituals, the conspirators animated their oracular device by infusing a spiritual intelligence into it. According to the testimony of the conspirator speaking at the trial, the ring not only gave a response, but gave it in heroic verse. Another method was used my Greeks and Romans also in the 19th century in England. The letters of the English alphabet were written on small cards, and were arranged on the smooth surface of a table in a circle. Instead of a ring upon a thread, an inverted glass tumbler or goblet was used to point out the letters. Each person involved in rested a single fingertip upon the base of the glass while they asked the sprits questions.

In the year 1848, something out of the ordinary happened in Hydesville, New York. Two sisters, Kate and Margaret Fox, contacted the spirit of a dead peddler, became instant celebrities and sparked a national obsession that spread all across the United States and Europe. It was the birth of modern Spiritualism. The whole world it seemed, was ripe for communication with the dead. Spiritualist churches sprang up everywhere and persons with the special gift or "pipeline" to the "other side" were in great demand. 

In 1864 a French spiritist, Allan Kardec published Le Livre des Mediums (The Book of Mediums) that described two versions of a device he referred to as a "dial-plate" talking board. None of these dial-plate-talking boards became as popular as the simple planchette.

By the 1880's, the planchette was a popular parlor game actively marketed by many European toy companies and US. The dial plate talking boards were virtually ignored. This was probably because planchette’s were easier to make and could be sold inexpensively as novelty.

In 1890 an American entrepreneur named Charles Kennard, and his partners, E. C. Reiche and Elijah Bond, formed a company called Kennard Novelty and began to produce the first true Ouija Board. The Ouija bored was made from three separate hardwood boards glued together edge to edge, and reinforced on the back by two lateral wooden braces with rounded corners. It sold for $1.50. It is said Kennard who came up with the name Ouija, that spirits were speaking through his board and informed him Ouija was the Egyptian word for good luck (the name is not an Egyptian word). But according to another legend, the name came to Kennard in a dream. Who really knows??? Kennard had been forced to borrow money to establish his company, and in 1892 his business partners forced him out. William Fuld, who had worked for Kennard as shop foreman, became the new owner. Fuld patented the board design, changed the name of the operation to the Ouija Novelty Company, and with the help of his brother Isaac, increased the production of the boards. 

According to Fuld, the only time he used the board himself was when determining whether or not to build a factory to manufacture it commercially. He declared "I'm no Spiritualist . . . I'm a Presbyterian." Some say he was frightened of the bored, or it made him uneasy. The Flud brother’s split up when William fired Isaac for embezzlement of company funds. William changed the name of his company again, from the Ouija Novelty Company to the William Fuld Company. He began to sell lots and lots of Ouija’s or that he called Oriole Talking Boards, although they were pretty much exactly the same. Later, Flud claimed that he was the sole creator of the board, and that he had come up with the name "Ouija" by combining the French word for "yes" (oui) with the German word for "yes" (ja). He did his best to bury the memory of Charles Kennard. And at the end of the set of instructions for the Ouija he had the audacity to refer to himself as its "inventor and manufacturer." Over the years, Fuld changed and altered the Ouija bored by changing the designs on it, making the planchette larger and smaller, rounded corners, flattened bored, ect. Even though Fuld made a lot of money, he refused to live like a millionaire. He even did his own house maintenance. He died in 1927, by falling by retrying to place a flagpole on the top of his roof. There were rumors that he committed suicide or even a spirit came and killed him. His children continued to operate his company for nearly four decades.

In 1966, Parker Brothers bought the rights to the Ouija bored and moved its manufacturing to Salem, Massachusetts. Although most people’s first contact with the Ouija bored, is a Parker Brothers one, William Fuld was the true designer. Yet the Parker Brothers stopped producing the Ouija to Fuld's specifications in 1999.