page_title: Planchette
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Planchette / History
caption_attribution_description: "The Boston planchette ... first made in Boston in 1860 ... For sale by G.W. Cottrell, 36 Cornhill, Boston."
context_page_description: A planchette, from the French for "little plank", is a small, usually heart-shaped flat piece of wood equipped with two wheeled casters and a pencil-holding aperture, used to facilitate automatic writing. The use of planchettes to produce mysterious written messages gave rise to the belief that the devices foster communication with spirits as a form of mediumship. The devices were popular in séances during the Victorian era, before their eventual evolution into the simpler, non-writing pointing devices for ouija boards that eclipsed the popularity of their original form. Paranormal advocates believe the planchette is moved by the presence of spirits or some form of subtle energy. Scientists explain the motion is due to the ideomotor effect.
  Planchettes took on a variety of forms during the height of their popularity. American planchettes were traditionally heart- or shield-shaped, but manufacturers produced a wide range of shapes and sizes hoping to distinguish themselves in the highly competitive and profitable market of the devices' late-1860s heyday.
context_section_description: Planchettes rose to prominence in the years following the establishment of spiritualism in America, which began with the purported spirit communications of the Fox Sisters in 1848 and the resulting popularity of supernatural-themed parlor games, séances, and experiments in mediumship and table-turning. Participants in these events would experience strange movements of tables, and communicate with spirits that indicated their messages through a series of coded negative or affirmative knocks. In other instances, sitters received more complicated messages of spelled-out words and phrases by transcribing letters indicated by the knocks or raps as the participants called out the alphabet into the empty air. Believers in these spirit communications soon began to experiment with refining and expediting various forms of communication, including pointing to letters printed on alphabet cards, automatic writing, direct channeling, and other methods.
  In the winter of 1852–53, the fervor of the Modern Spiritualism movement and spirit communications reached Europe, where the French educator and eventual founder of Spiritism, Allan Kardec recorded the invention of planchettes on 10 June 1853. That night, Kardec witnessed a séance participant propose a more expedient alternative to the laborious processes of alphabet-calling and rapped responses. He secured a pencil to a small upturned basket, allowing multiple participants to cooperatively write out messages from the attending spirits. The idea produced astonishing results, and after some refinements to construct a more sturdy wooden plank, word of the invention spread throughout Paris and into England, where a cottage industry sprang up to produce the devices.
  The use of planchettes in Europe became popular enough to attract the attention of the Bishop of Viviers, who railed against their use in a pastoral letter in 1853. Despite their respected status in the growing religion of Spiritualism, planchettes remained a specialized novelty for adherents for the next 15 years, produced only within a small cottage industry or on special request by scientific instrument manufacturers. During this period, they remained popular only among devout séance circles and enthusiastic Spiritualists, who at the time still largely relied on the services of celebrity mediums (such as the Fox Sisters and D.D. Home) to lead spirit communications, rather than using planchettes and other "do-it-yourself" devices. Mediums, seeing their monopoly threatened, often rallied against the devices and warned of the dangers of amateur experimentation.
  Planchettes came to America in 1858 when Spiritualist and social reformer Robert Dale Owen and his friend Dr. H.F. Gardner observed the devices in use at séances in Paris, and returned with several of them. Their friend, the Boston bookseller G.W. Cottrell, became the first to manufacture planchettes on a large scale the following year.
  In 1867, the British publication Once a Week published a sensational piece on planchettes. The article was reprinted in European and American newspapers, and by 1868 dozens of booksellers and toy manufacturers were producing the items to meet an insatiable demand on both sides of the Atlantic. Kirby & Co., the undisputed kings of planchette manufacturing, claimed to have sold over 200,000 in their first season alone.
  Over the years, planchette manufacturers included such established firms as Selchow & Righter, George G. Bussey, Jaques & Son, Chad Valley, and even the great magician and crystal seer Alexander.
caption: 1860 ad for Boston Planchette
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