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The Ladies Repository of November, 1868, contains an article, written by Rev. A. D. Field, entitled Planchette; or, Spirit-Rapping Made Easy. This writer mentions a number of test questions asked by him of Planchette, the answers to which were all false. Yet he acknowledges that the mysterious little creature called Planchette is no humbug; that some mysterious will-power causes it to answer questions, and that it is useless to ignore these things, or to laugh at them. The writer submits a theory by which he thinks these mysteries may be explained, in a measure, if not wholly, but this, with others, will be reserved for notice hereafter.
Harpers Monthly Magazine for December, 1868, contains an article entitled The Confessions of a Reformed Planchettist . In this article, the writer, no doubt drawing wholly or in part from his imagination, details a series of tricks which he had successfully practiced upon the credulity of others, and concludes by propounding a very sage and charitable theory to account for all Planchette phenomena, on which theory we shall yet have a word to offer.
Hours at Home , of February, 1869, contains an article, by J. T. Headley, entitled Planchette at the Confessional . In this article, the writer cogently argues the claims of these new phenomena upon the attention of scientific men. He says: That it [the Planchette] writes things never dreamed of by the operators, is proved by their own testimony and the testimony of others, beyond all contradiction; and goes so far as to assert that to whatever cause these phenomena may be attributed, they will seriously affect the whole science of mental philosophy. He relates a number of facts, more or less striking, and propounds a theory in their explanation, to which, with others, we will recur by-and-by.
The foregoing are a few of the most noted, among the many less important, lucubrations that have fallen under our notice concerning this interesting subject enough, however, to indicate
the intense public interest which the performances of this little board are exciting. We will now proceed to notice some of the theories that have been advanced for the solution of the mystery.
After detailing his exploits (whether real or imaginary he has left us in doubt) in a successful and sustained course of deception, the writer in Harpers reaches this startling conclusion of the whole matter:
It would only write when I moved it, and then it wrote precisely what I dictated. That persons write unconsciously, I do not believe. As well tell me a man might pick pockets without knowing it. Nor am I at all prepared to believe the assertions of those who declare that they do not move the board. I know what operators will do in such cases; I know the distortion, the disregard of truth which association with this immoral board superinduces.at home
As to the hypothesis that the person or persons whose hands are on the board move it unconsciously , this is met by the fact that the persons are perfectly awake and in their senses, and are just as conscious of what they are doing or not doing as at any other time. Or if it be morally possible to suppose that they all, invariably, and with one accord, lie when they assert that the board moves without their volition, how is it that the answers which they give to questions, some of them mentally, are in so large a proportion of cases, appropriate answers? How is it, for example, that Planchette, under the hands of my own daughter, has, in numerous cases, given correctly the names of persons whom she had never seen or heard of before, giving also the names of their absent relatives, the places of their residence, etc., all of which were absolutely unknown by every person present except the questioner?
A theory propounded by the Rev. Dr. Patton, of Chicago, in an article published in The Advance , some time since, may be noticed under this head. He says:
How, then, shall we account for the writing which is performed without any direct volition? Our method refers it to an automatic power of mind separate from conscious volition. * * * Very common is the experience of an automatic power in the pen, by which it finishes a word, or two or three words, after the thoughts have consciously gone on to what is to follow. We infer, then, from ordinary facts known to the habitual penman, that if a fixed idea is in the mind at the time when the nervous and volitional powers are exercised with a pen, it will often express itself spontaneously through the pen, when the mental faculties are at work otherwise. We suppose, then, that Planchette is simply an arrangement by which, through the outstretched arms and fingers, the mind comes into such relation with the delicate movements of the pencil, that its automatic power finds play, and the ideas present in the mind are transferred unconsciously to paper . (Italics our own.)
may all be, Doctor, and no marvel about it. That the fixed idea the ideas present in the mind , should be transferred unconsciously to paper, by means of Planchette, is no more wonderful than that the same thing should be done by the pen, and without the intervention of that little board. But for the benefit of a sorely mystified world, be good enough to tell us how ideas that are not present, and that never were present, in the mind, can be transferred to paper by this automatic power of the mind. Grant that the mind possesses an automatic power to work in grooves , as it were, or in a manner in which it has been previously trained to work, as is illustrated by the delicate fingerings of the piano, all correct and skillful to the nicest shade, while the mind of the performer may for the moment be occupied in conversation; but not since the world began has there been an instance in which the mind, acting solely from itself, by automatic powers or otherwise, has been able to body forth any idea which was not previously within itself. That Planchette does sometimes write things of which the person or persons under whose hands it moves never had the slightest knowledge or even conception, it would be useless to deny.