Their first year producing it, Parker Brothers shipped two million copies of the game. Players sit with their fingers resting on a plastic heart-shaped piece called a planchette. They ask questions, and the planchette glides around the board, pointing to letters and numbers and supposedly spelling out answers. The common explanation is that one of the players moves the planchette without realizing it. Felt pads on the planchette let it move easily, and having several people touching it makes it hard to tell why it's moving.
Some people think such boards are associated with the occult and are dangerous.
Parker Brothers, however, says their Ouija board is for anyone aged eight and up. The Ouija's roots go back to the Romans, who believed a ring hung from a branch spelled answers from their gods by hitting letters carved onto the rim of a bowl. Since then, people have tried many methods to communicate with unseen forces. In 1890, Charles Kennard sold the first board called Ouija. William Fuld, a friend of Kennard's, bought the rights to the board and then claimed he invented it.