It is supposed that this movement is made either by design or
unconsciously, and that the answers are either the result of adroit
guessing, or the expressions of some appropriate thoughts or memories
which had been previously slumbering in the minds of the operators, and
happen to be awakened at the moment.
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 _Harper's_ 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."
This writer has somewhat the advantage of me. I confess I have no means
of coming to the knowledge of the truth but those of careful thought,
patient observation, and collection of facts, and deduction from them.
But here is a mind that can with one bold dive reach the inner mysteries
of the sensible and supersensible world, penetrate the motives and
impulses that govern the specific moral acts of men, and disclose
at once to us the horrible secret of a conspiracy which, without
preconcert, has been entered into by thousands of men, women, and
children in all parts of the land, to cheat the rest of the human
race--a conspiracy, too, in which certain members of innumerable private
families have banded together to play tricks upon their fathers,
mothers, brothers, and sisters! I feel awed by the overshadowing
presence of such a mind--in fact, I do not feel quite _at home_ with
him, and therefore most respectfully bow myself out of his presence
without further ceremony.
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.)
That 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.