The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1868-04-15

whats this, By" asked.
20, THAT'S Planchette?"
song!' was
Cant, maa tO mt You seen it? o, forgot, you only
| ah; rouay. f,anchetle is not song" he sad,
"This is 'Planchette.'"
well, what is t?''
| "And its use?"
ton well ven 4 VIII write down the answer to any ques-
"Of course it will, replied; "as would anv nsnci,
in yoar hand or mine" "A' pe"o'i
NO. mean that, without any voluntary action
answer TO any question: don't say pecessariIr ,I
proper answer, hut an answer '"o
looked naturally incfedulous, and nv friend then
proceeded to tell me that it was not only common.
but was by many implicitly believed in as something
"No canny, eh?'' remarked. as held + in INV
hard. "Why you have had this made specially for
your visit to Scotland for anticipating that here il
Mod,a DC eaiied me DeI you have met the charge by
.Al," said b., you don't believe it,"
bfelieve what? That it will write without the di-
recuon o human hands? Certainly not"
Nor did till had tried it. Now YOU give it a
ialr trial. l have left one with friends here /
Miss A., and you try it with her Tomorrow
Of examined the machine, as he explained the mode
1t is made of wood-oak, in this instapce-and 10
shaped like heart. GNU -
Board e inches long by inches in its WIDEST part
A the widest end are two pentagraph whees In the
nole at the other is fixed sof pencil which is SO adj
JIsteu az 70 FORM as 1t were the third leg The 'litlle
prank OF board is hen placed upon shee OF paper-
common white cartridge. paper is the best-and two
persons lay their their hands very lightly upon it.
not III any way influencing its motion, hen one Of
them; or a thru person, asks a qoestior. and The
wheels move "Planc1ette taverses the p pap ane
| wheels, writes the reply. 20 " 'Ao
.,,i you mean" asked, that it always does so
No il rarely writes, at first, for any one but gen
e,aiiy runs about the paper, round and round or
up and down, hut it will almost always write in the
PIE it won't move at all. must say, he Continued
sae answers are generally wrong, and that its
ail?" ''''i ~ sh'u'o write at
| VERY" remarkd dryly
"Ah, you don't believe it, and don't wondar
ana then he told me his experiences of it, far too
numerous to mention, and dwelt particularly on The
| INST specimen he had of its powers.
1.-TWO ladies' he said, chad their hands on II and
| was asked to question it. was as Incredulons ne
you are; SO resolved to ask puzzler had been
ana. was struck with his text the words of which
l distinctly remembered, thoug Oh 1 had forgotten
where they came from. So L asked 'Planchette.' If
instantly wrote sd Cor, and mentioned CHAPTER and
verse. we Looked it up, and it right! Now that
| was extraordinary, was it not?" -
| mo suppose you repeated the words of the
text, and the young ladies recognized it, and wrote
..Not at all; asked where the text came from
| without repeating it, 80 '"i'io iioin
could not deny that the circumstances. as stated.
1 mVSpIi wv
making the very original remark 81 should like TO
have witnessed it myself" > - ~ ''A' "
ousstan ann that it was not ask the
cient; and that all languages were alike 10 it.
"A pi; ne SAID don't suppose such fool
| pernatural about t. merely tell YOU what 1 have
seen, judge for yourself But as it is getting into
| tne small hours L must go on packng"9 VI
| Planchette wa restored to its usual plaee-B "a
hat-bOx-and 1 went to bed paw '
It was I'm ssible not to feel some interest in this
fhar r,.x- rfa g.
man whomI had known intimately for nearly TWEEN
" years,-a man of scruplious truth,-his perfect
his friends; man of great ability but wilbont one
pa,Geie OF imagnation,-n short The very last man
creduy What was to bSkS YIN IT. enthusiasm as1 n or
WORD, which knew cOuld tr ST. that there was no
trick In It,-that what he told me he had seen; and
ne chaleIged me to give the matter far rial md
Judge ior myself Now, there are hundreds of men,
and more hundreds fwomen, from whom one wo i Id
ssit no a. o. TINS sort with many grains of
cause their TEN erament would incline them to be
lea captive by the wonderful and the Mysterious
| .ohane tgsotam pro mdgnifc0.' But my frien, as
have said was not one them mot one to be carried
away by aoy speculative or Imaginative question.
ne y essentially cear-headed and hard AIDED and
| IL would be very poor compliment to his common
sense to suppose that he believed in the spriluay
81 pta,, "a little BOARD. My curiosity piqued-and
Next morning at breakfast referred to "Plan-
Gne et e., MISS A. was evidently convert. My
uost saia nothng My hostess confessed she did not
quite like it,. Others ridiculed it, and the su biect
dropped. 'NSO
Most of the guests left that day to make wav for
new batch; and when evening came Miss A and
| sat down to "Planchette" with two AT least Of
our iookers-on, who had never heard Of the acrit-
We placed our hands on 'sPlanchette," and ask I'd
some question For while, it was stationary: then
began 10 move under our hands, and to run about
the paper, scoring lines up and down sometimes
ast, sometimes slow; our hands 8 ;arcely touched
Rnt us ~ merely tue effect of pulsation" said
letters. 4t = "'O'-N'' - 'e'N-' ' " '''A'A
Our first question was, "whatletters are engrav-
Gu IN TINS locket?" The lOcket was mine, and of
course knew Inc letters, though j had not opened
the loekeG for long time Miss A. was ignorani of
wei e the last two. Planchette wrote "K. BIZ T oh
served that the * formed differently from the
manner Wan IN which write The letter, and asked
and this was unlike the X written by Planchette,
and on examining the letter in the ocket, it exactly
| Now, as knew the letters, and Miss A. di not
the influence which produced them must Il presume
for cerainl did not consciously direct the pencil
a naeea, he'd been dishonest and intentionally in
the letters and not two only.
Igave my hostess five letters, which had receiy-
ed that day, and begged her to select one without
S S;i knowledge, and question SIP anchetle." She
0iu so, asking the initials of the writer The reply
a aa rt, b. 1t proved that the letter selected
Mas nou Wr5'en Dy n b. tut by one of our most
an envelope (not seen by us) directed by the owner
| infu-
enced py those whose hands are on the board, 1
have no doubt; but assuming these persons to be
honest, and to abstain fir. m any voluntary move
ment it is equally beyond doubt that this influence
whatever it may be, is involuntary. 1t u.s. of course
perfectly easy to make the pencil wrte en- agraph
wheels being, as every one Knows mo. sensitive
| Let us suppose that A. and b. intend to make it
write one of two things Is necessary either thew
must be confederate, and agree to write The same
WORD, or one must lie passive, and must allo,r the
| her to write IL. ekSI 500 -s7tFNlF
Assume, for the sake of argument, this to be the
n avUn eora
following admit Of explanation?
One of the guests who had inst arrived, the oc-
chase these sleeve -links9" Neither MissA. nor
knew. iL4t sll-fI T77a-'
,.riaucheite' instantly, in great hurry, wrote,
rWroSgn exclaimed the inquirer, trumpbantly;
But wrong as the answer was it was, in my judg-
ment, exceedingly curious answer showing rs
think, that the influence of those whose hands are
on the board is unconscious and involuntary. L
certainly was net thinking of any pla in particu-
lar. nor was Miss A.; but we both knew that The
gentleman who put the question was an -4berdeen-
ness Here, then, was conglomeration ftwo places
| with which he was connected, and this, think
proves thar Miss A. and were perfectly honest in
| Aberdeen or Inverness, we should scarcely have
| produced such aquant combination of the two.
| We put many more questions that evening, the
answers to which were, some right and some wrong;
but am bound to say that all the answers were
wrong when the questions related to subjects un-
almost all cases, this has been the result of NV ex
perience; but not in all, as will show afterwards
was sufficiently interested in this curious LITTLE
| machine to make every kind OF experiment AFTER
| wards, that could think of, my friend b. having
presented me with one.
| found most amusing in replying to answers re-
la'ing to the future, all the answers proving wrog
OF course; but some were so unexpected and SO alb
sJrd, that they caused the greatest possible fun If
replied equally willingly in French Latin, an in
ment was honestly made, the operators did not con-
| sciously influence the pencil.
| The following is curious, and, supposng me to
be incapable of alsehood in the matter conclusive
| instance of this:- 4lf.--97', : = -
A bracelet was lying on the table. On the CLASH
was VOID in Oriental characters; on the back OF
the clasp ini ials in English. had nv hands
/ on Planchette," friend joining me- knew The
language to which the word belonged; my friend
did not The question was, g. What are the Eng{ish
| Initials on the back of the casp?" "Planchelte"
| instead wrtin, the English letters at the back
write the infal letter, in the Oriental character of
the word on the front Of the clasp Now here was
| MI hit have been supposed to have formed. knew
| what written either side OF the clasp nv
friend did not. i'll had formed any expectation It
| would have been that 6 Planchette' would have
written what asked. | certainly should not had
/ W shed to astonsh my friend by making it appear
that 'sPlanchetie' would answer the q estions mt
to l., have written reply so inappropriate what
produced the answer? Al least there was no collu-
/ sion. sd. 1.s.a 80
Often Planehette'' misspells. Once IL insisted
on spelling commander" with one I'm" again and
again acihed it to ell it right; but no. We tried
it letter by letter, pausi"g between each letter; bat