Chapter III: Part 3

Mr. Parris' parsonage soon went to ruin, as did some of the dwellings of the "afflicted" children, who learned and practiced certain things in his house which he afterward pronounced to be arts of Satan, and declared to have been pursued without his knowledge and with the cognizance of only his servants (John and Tituba, the Indian and the negress). Barn, and well, and garden disappeared in a sorry tract of rough ground, and the dwelling became a mere handful of broken bricks. The narrative of the pastor's struggles and devices to retain his pulpit is very interesting; but they are not related to our object here; and all we need say is, that three sons and sons-in-law of Mrs. Nurse measured their strength against his, and, without having said an intemperate or superfluous word, or swerved from the strictest rules of congregational action, sent him out of the parish. He finally opined that "evil angels" had been permitted to tempt him and his coadjutors on either hand; he admitted that some mistakes had been made; and, said he, "I do humbly own this day, before the Lord and his people, that God has been righteously spitting in my face; and I desire to lie low under all this reproach," etc.; but the remonstrants could not again sit under his ministry, and his brethren in the Province did not pretend to exculpate him altogether. He buried his wife--against whom no record remains--and departed with his children, the eldest of whom, the playfellow of the "afflicted" children, he had sent away before she had taken harm in the "circle." He drifted from one small outlying congregation to another, neglected and poor, restless and untamed, though mortified, till he died in 1720. Mr. Noyes died somewhat earlier. He is believed not to have undergone much change, as to either his views or his temper. He was a kind-hearted and amiable man when nothing came in the way; but he could hold no terms with Satan; and in this he insisted to the last that he was right.

Cotton Mather was the survivor of the other two. He died in 1728; and he never was happy again after that last batch of executions. He trusted to his merits, and the genius he exhibited under that onslaught of Satan, to raise him to the highest post of clerical power in the Province, and to make him--what he desired above all else--President of Harvard University. Mr. Upham presents us with a remarkable meditation written by the unhappy man, so simple and ingenious that it is scarcely possible to read it gravely; but the reader is not the less sensible of his misery. The argument is a sort of remonstrance with God on the recompense his services have met with. He has been appointed to serve the world, and the world does not regard him; the negroes, and (who could believe it?) the negroes are named Cotton Mather in contempt of him; the wise and the unwise despise him; in every company he is avoided and left alone; the female sex, and they speak basely of him; his relatives, and they are such monsters that he may truly say, "I am a brother to dragons;" the Government, and it heaps indignities upon him; the University, and if he were a blockhead, it could not treat him worse than it does. He is to serve all whom he can aid, and nobody ever does anything for him; he is to serve all to whom he can be a helpful and happy minister, and yet he is the most afflicted minister in the country; and many consider his afflictions to be so many miscarriages, and his sufferings in proportion to his sins. There was no popularity or power for him from the hour when he stood to see his brother Burroughs put to death on the Hill. He seems never to have got over his surprise at his own failures; but he sank into deeper mortification and a more childish peevishness to the end.

"ONE OF THE AFFLICTED"--HER CONFESSION.

Of only one of the class of express accusers--of the "afflicted"--will we speak; but not because she was the only one reclaimed. One bewildered child we have described as remorseful, and brave in her remorse; and others married as they would hardly have done if they had been among the "profligate." Ann Putnam's case remains the most prominent, and the most pathetic. She was twelve years old when the "circle" at Mr. Parris' was formed. She had no check from her parents, but much countenance and encouragement from her morbidly-disposed mother. She has the bad distinction of having been the last of the witnesses to declare a "vision" against a suspected person; but, on the other hand, she has the honor, such as it is, of having striven to humble herself before the memory of her victims. When she was nineteen her father died, and her mother followed within a fortnight, leaving the poor girl, in bad health and with scanty means, to take care of a family of children so large that there were eight, if not more, dependent on her. No doubt she was aided, and she did what she could; but she died worn out at the age of thirty-six. Ten years before that date she made her peace with the Church and society by offering a public confession in the meeting-house. In order to show what it was that the accusers did admit, we must make room for Ann Putnam's confession:

"'I desire to be humbled before God for that sad and humbling providence that befell my father's family in the year about '92; that I, then being in my childhood, should, by such a providence of God, be made the instrument for the accusing of several persons of a grievous crime, whereby their lives were taken away from them, whom now I have just grounds and good reason to believe they were innocent persons; and that it was a great delusion of Satan that deceived me in that sad time, whereby I justly fear that I have been instrumental with others, though ignorantly and unwittingly, to bring upon myself and this land the guilt of innocent blood; though what was said or done by me against any person I can truly and uprightly say, before God and man, I did it not out of any anger, malice, or ill-will to any person, for I had no such thing against one of them; but what I did was ignorantly, being deluded by Satan. And particularly, as I was a chief instrument of accusing Goodwife Nurse and her two sisters, I desire to lie in the dust, and to be humbled for it, in that I was a cause, with others, of so sad a calamity to them and their families; for which cause I desire to lie in the dust, and earnestly beg forgiveness of God, and from all those unto whom I have given just cause of sorrow and offense, whose relations were taken away or accused. (Signed) Ann Putnam.'

"This confession was read before the congregation, together with her relation, August 25, 1706; and she acknowledged it.

"J. GREEN, _Pastor_." (Vol. ii. p. 510.)

THE TRANSITION.

The most agreeable picture ever afforded by this remarkable community is that which our eyes rest on at the close of the story. One of the church members had refused to help to send Mr. Parris away, on the ground that the village had had four pastors, and had gone through worse strifes with every one; but he saw a change of scene on the advent of the fifth. The Rev. Joseph Green was precisely the man for the place and occasion. He was young--only two-and-twenty--and full of hope and cheerfulness, while sobered by the trials of the time. He had a wife and infants, and some private property, so that he could at once plant down a happy home among his people, without any injurious dependence on them. While exemplary in clerical duty, he encouraged an opposite tone of mind to that which had prevailed--put all the devils out of sight, promoted pigeon-shooting and fishing, and headed the young men in looking after hostile Indians. Instead of being jealous at the uprising of new churches, he went to lay the foundations, and invited the new brethren to his home. He promoted the claims of the sufferers impoverished by the recent social convulsion; he desired to bury not only delusions, but ill offices in silence; and by his hospitality he infused a cheerful social spirit into his stricken people. The very business of "seating" the congregation was so managed under his ministry as that members of the sinning and suffering families--members not in too direct an antagonism--were brought together for prayer, singing, and Sabbath-greeting, forgiving and forgetting as far as possible. Thus did this excellent pastor create a new scene of peace and good-will, which grew brighter for eighteen years, when he died at the age of forty. At the earliest moment that was prudent, he induced his church to cancel the excommunication of Rebecca Nurse and Giles Corey. It was ten years more before the hard and haughty mother church in Salem would do its part; but Mr. Green had the satisfaction of seeing that record also cleansed of its foul stains three years before his death. Judge Sewall had before made his penitential acknowledgment of proud error in full assembly, and had resumed his seat on the bench amid the forgiveness and respect of society; Chief Justice Stoughton had retired from the courts in obstinate rage at his conflicts with Satan having been cut short; the physicians hoped they should have no more patients "under the evil hand," to make them look foolish and feel helpless; and the Tragedy was over. There were doubtless secret tears and groans, horrors of shame and remorse by night and by day, and indignant removal of the bones of the murdered from outcast graves; and abstraction of painful pages from books of record, and much stifling of any conversation which could grow into tradition. The Tragedy was, no doubt, the central interest of society, families, and individuals throughout the Province for the life of one generation. Then, as silence had been kept in the homes as well as at church and market, the next generation entered upon life almost unconscious of the ghastly distinction which would attach in history to Massachusetts in general, and Salem in particular, as the scene of the Delusion and the Tragedy which showed the New World to be in essentials no wiser than the Old.

How effectually the story of that year 1692 was buried in silence is shown by a remark of Mr. Upham's--that it has been too common for the Witch Tragedy to be made a jest of, or at least to be spoken of with levity. We can have no doubt that his labors have put an end to this. It is inconceivable that there can ever again be a joke heard on the subject of Witchcraft in Salem. But this remark of our author brings us at once home to our own country, time, and experience. It suggests the question whether the lesson afforded by this singular perfect piece of history is more or less appropriate to our own day and generation.

THE FETISH THEORY THEN AND NOW.

We have already observed that at the date of these events, the only possible explanation of the phenomena presented was the fetish solution which had in all ages been recurred to as a matter of course. In heathen times it was god, goddess, or nymph who gave knowledge, or power, or gifts of healing, or of prophecy, to men. In Christian times it was angel, or devil, or spirit of the dead; and this conception was in full force over all Christendom when the Puritan emigrants settled in New England. The celebrated sermon of the Rev. Mr. Lawson, in the work before us, discloses the elaborate doctrine held by the class of men who were supposed to know best in regard to the powers given by Satan to his agents, and the evils with which he afflicted his victims; and there was not only no reason why the pastor's hearers should question his interpretations, but no possibility that they should supply any of a different kind. The accused themselves, while unable to admit or conceive that they were themselves inspired by Satan, could propose no explanation but that the acts were done by "some bad spirit." And such has been the fetish tendency to this hour, through all the advance that has been made in science, and in the arts of observation and of reasoning. The fetish tendency--that of ascribing one's own consciousness to external objects, as when the dog takes a watch to be alive because it ticks, and when the savage thinks his god is angry because it thunders, and when the Puritan catechumen cries out in hysteria that Satan has set a witch to strangle her--that constant tendency to explain everything by the facts, the feelings, and the experience of the individual's own nature, is no nearer dying out now than at the time of the Salem Tragedy; and hence, in part, the seriousness and the instructiveness of this story to the present generation. Ours is the generation which has seen the spread of Spiritualism in Europe and America, a phenomenon which deprives us of all right to treat the Salem Tragedy as a jest, or to adopt a tone of superiority in compassion for the agents in that dismal drama. There are hundreds, even several thousands, of lunatics in the asylums of the United States, and not a few in our own country, who have been lodged there by the pursuit of intercourse with spirits; in other words, by ascribing to living but invisible external agents movements of their own minds. Mr. Parris remarked, in 1692, that of old, witches were only ignorant old women; whereas, in his day, they had come to be persons of knowledge, holiness, and devotion who had been drawn into that damnation; and in our day, we hear remarks on the superior refinement of spirit-intercourses, in comparison with the witch doings at Salem; but the cases are all essentially the same. In all, some peculiar and inexplicable appearances occur, and are, as a matter of course, when their reality can not be denied, ascribed to spiritual agency. We may believe that we could never act as the citizens of Salem acted in their superstition and their fear; and this may be true; but the course of speculation is, in "spiritual circles," very much the same as in Mr. Parris' parlor.

And how much less excuse there is for our generation than for his! We are very far yet from being able to explain the well-known and indisputable facts which occur from time to time, in all countries where men abide and can give an account of themselves; such facts as the phenomena of natural somnambulism, of double consciousness, of suspended sensation while consciousness is awake, and the converse--of a wide range of intellectual and instinctive operations bearing the character of marvels to such as can not wait for the solution. We are still far from being able to explain such mysteries, in the only true sense of the word _explaining_--that is, being able to refer the facts to the natural cause to which they belong; but we have an incalculable advantage over the people of former centuries in knowing that for all proved facts there is a natural cause; that every cause to which proved facts within our cognizance are related is destined to become known to us; and that, in the present case, we have learned in what direction to search for it, and have set out on the quest. None of us can offer even the remotest conjecture as to what the law of the common action of what we call mind and body may be. If we could, the discovery would have been already made. But, instead of necessarily assuming, as the Salem people did, that what they witnessed was the operation of spiritual upon human beings, we have, as our field of observation and study, a region undreamed of by them--the brain as an organized part of the human frame, and the nervous system, implicating more facts, more secrets, and more marvels than our forefathers attributed to the whole body.

THE VIEWS OF MODERN INVESTIGATORS.

It is very striking to hear the modern lectures on physiological subjects delivered in every capital in Europe, and to compare the calm and easy manner in which the most astonishing and the most infernal phenomena are described and discussed, with the horror and dismay that the same facts would have created if disclosed by divines in churches three centuries ago. Dr. Maudsley, in his recent work on "The Physiology and Pathology of Mind," and other physicians occupied in his line of practice, lead us through the lunatic asylums of every country, pointing out as ordinary or extraordinary incidents the same "afflictions" of children and other morbid persons which we read of, one after another, in the Salem story. It is a matter of course with such practitioners and authors to anticipate such phenomena when they have detected the morbid conditions which generate them. Mr. Upham himself is evidently very far indeed from understanding or suspecting how much light is thrown on the darkest part of his subject by physiological researches carried on to the hour when he laid down his pen. His view is confined almost exclusively to the theory of fraud and falsehood, as affording the true key. It is not probable that anybody disputes or doubts the existence of guilt and folly in many or all of the agents concerned. There was an antecedent probability of both in regard to Mr. Parris' slaves, and to such of the young children as they most influenced; and that kind of infection is apt to spread. Moreover, experience shows us that the special excitement of that nervous condition induces moral vagaries at least as powerfully as mental delusions. In the state of temper existing among the inhabitants of the Village when the mischievous club of girls was formed at the pastor's house, it was inevitable that, if magic was entered upon at all, it would be malignant magic. Whatever Mr. Upham has said in illustration of that aspect of the case his readers will readily agree to. But there is a good deal more, even of the imperfect notices that remain after the abstraction and destruction of the records in the shame and anguish that ensued, which we, in our new dawn of science, can perceive to be an affair of the bodily organization. We are, therefore, obliged to him for rescuing this tremendous chapter of history from oblivion, and for the security in which he has placed the materials of evidence. In another generation the science of the human frame may have advanced far enough to elucidate some of the Salem mysteries, together with some obscure facts in all countries, which can not be denied, while as yet they can not be understood. When that time comes, a fearful weight of imputation will be removed from the name and fame of many agents and sufferers who have been the subjects of strange maladies and strange faculties, in all times and countries. As we are now taught the new discoveries of the several nerve-centers, and the powers which are appropriated to them; and when we observe what a severance may exist between the so-called organ of any sense or faculty and the operation of the sense or faculty; and how infallibly ideas and emotion may be generated, and even beliefs created in minds sane and insane, by certain manipulations of the nerves and brain, we see how innocently this phenomenon may be presented in natural somnambulism. Sleepwalkers have been known in many countries, and treated of in medical records by their physicians, who could not only walk, and perform all ordinary acts in the dark as well as in the light, but who went on writing or reading without interruption though an opaque substance--a book or a slate--was interposed, and would dot the _i's_ and cross the _t's_ with unconscious correctness without any use of their eyes. There is a wide field of inquiry open in this direction, now that the study of the nervous system has been begun, however minute is the advance as yet.

IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT.

It is needless to dwell on the objection made to the rising hopefulness in regard to the study of Man, and the mysteries of his nature. Between the multitude who have still no notion of any alternative supposition to that of possession or inspiration by spirits, or, at least, intercourse with such beings, and others who fear "Materialism" if too close an attention is paid to the interaction of the mind and the nerves, and those who always shrink from new notions in matters so interesting, and those who fear that religion may be implicated in any slight shown to angel or devil, and those who will not see or hear any evidence whatever which lies in a direction opposite to their prejudices, we are not likely to get on too fast. But neither can the injury lapse under neglect. The spectacle presented now is of the same three sorts of people that appear in all satires, in all literatures, since the pursuit of truth in any mode or direction became a recognized object anywhere and under any conditions. Leaving out of view the multitude who are irrelevant to the case, from having no knowledge, and being therefore incapable of an opinion, there is the large company of the superficial and light-minded, who are always injuring the honor and beauty of truth by the levity, the impertinence, the absurdity of the enthusiasm they pretend, and the nonsense they talk about "some new thing." No period of society has been more familiar with that class and its mischief-making than our own. There is the other large class of the cotemporaries of any discovery or special advance, who, when they can absent themselves from the scene no longer, look and listen, and bend all their efforts to hold their ground of life-long opinion, usually succeeding so far as to escape any direct admission that more is known than when they were born. These are no ultimate hindrance. When Harvey died, no physician in Europe above the age of forty believed in the circulation of the blood; but the truth was perfectly safe; and so it will be with the case of the psychological relations of the nervous system when the present course of investigation has sustained a clearer verification and further advance. On this point we have the sayings of two truth-seekers, wise in quality of intellect, impartial and dispassionate in temper, and fearless in the pursuit of their aims. The late Prince Consort is vividly remembered for the characteristic saying which spread rapidly over the country, that he could not understand the conduct of the medical profession in England in leaving the phenomena of mesmerism to the observation of unqualified persons, instead of undertaking an inquiry which was certainly their proper business, in proportion as they professed to pursue _science_. The other authority we refer to is the late Mr. Hallam. A letter of his lies before us from which we quote a passage, familiar in its substance, doubtless, to his personal friends, to whom he always avowed the view which it presents, and well worthy of note to such readers as may not be aware of the observation and thought he devoted to the phenomena of mesmerism during the last quarter-century of his long life. "It appears to me probable that the various phenomena of mesmerism, together with others, independent of mesmerism properly so called, which have lately [the date is 1844] been brought to light, are fragments of some general law of nature which we are not yet able to deduce from them, merely because they are destitute of visible connection--the links being hitherto wanting which are to display the entire harmony of effects proceeding from a single cause."

[Persons curious to know what has been developed in this class of studies may find the same in a work published at this office, entitled THE LIBRARY OF MESMERISM AND PSYCHOLOGY--comprising the Philosophy of Mesmerism, Clairvoyance, and Mental Electricity; Fascination, or the Power of Charming; The Macrocosm, or the World of Sense; Electrical Psychology, or the Doctrine of Impressions; The Science of the Soul, treated Physiologically and Philosophically. Complete in one illustrated volume. Price, $4.]

What room is there not for hopefulness when we compare such an observation as this with Mr. Parris' dogmatical exposition of Satan's dealings with men! or when we contrast the calm and cheerful tone of the philosopher with the stubborn wrath of Chief Justice Stoughton, and with the penitential laments of Judge Sewall! We might contrast it also with the wild exultation of those of the Spiritualists of our own day who can form no conception of the modesty and patience requisite for the sincere search for truth, and who, once finding themselves surrounded by facts and appearances new and strange, assume that they have discovered a bridge over the bottomless "gulf beyond which lies the spirit-land," and wander henceforth in a fools' paradise, despising and pitying all who are less rash, ignorant, and presumptuous than themselves. It is this company of fanatics--the first of the three classes we spoke of--which is partly answerable for the backwardness of the second; but the blame does not rest exclusively in one quarter. There is an indolence in the medical class which is the commonest reproach against them in every age of scientific activity, and which has recently been heroically avowed and denounced in a public address by no less a member of the profession than Sir Thomas Watson.[1] There is a conservative reluctance to change of view or of procedure. There is also a lack of moral courage, by no means surprising in an order of men whose lives are spent in charming away troubles, and easing pains and cares, and "making things pleasant"--by no means surprising, we admit, but exceedingly unfavorable to the acknowledgment of phenomena that are strange and facts that are unintelligible.

[1] Address on the Present State of Therapeutics. Delivered at
the opening meeting of the Clinical Society of London, January
10, 1868. By Sir Thomas Watson, Bart., M.D.

This brings us to the third class--the very small number of persons who are, in the matter of human progress, the salt of the earth; the few who can endure to see without understanding, to hear without immediately believing or disbelieving, to learn what they can, without any consideration of what figure they themselves shall make in the transaction; and even to be unable to reconcile the new phenomena with their own prior experience or conceptions. There is no need to describe how rare this class must necessarily be, for every one who has eyes sees how near the passions and the prejudices of the human being lie to each other. These are the few who unite the two great virtues of earnestly studying the facts, and keeping their temper, composure and cheerfulness through whatever perplexity their inquiry may involve. It is remarkable that while the world is echoing all round and incessantly with the praise of the life of the man spent in following truth wherever it may lead, the world is always resounding also with the angry passions of men who resent all opinions which are not their own, and denounce with fury or with malice any countenance given to mere proposals to inquire in certain directions which they think proper to reprobate. Not only was it horrible blasphemy in Galileo to think as he did of the motion of the earth, but in his friends to look through his glass at the stars.

This Salem story is indeed shocking in every view--to our pride as rational beings, to our sympathy as human beings, to our faith as Christians, to our complacency as children of the Reformation. It is so shocking that some of us may regret that the details have been revived with such an abundance of evidence. But this is no matter of regret, but rather of congratulation, if we have not outgrown the need of admonition from the past. How does that consideration stand?

At the end of nearly three centuries we find ourselves relieved of a heavy burden of fear and care about the perpetual and unbounded malice of Satan and his agents. Witchcraft has ceased to be one of the gravest curses of the human lot. We have parted with one after another of the fetish or conjectural persuasions about our relations with the world of spirit or mind, regarded as in direct opposition to the world of matter. By a succession of discoveries we have been led to an essentially different view of life and thought from any dreamed of before the new birth of science; and at this day, and in our own metropolis, we have Sir Henry Holland telling us how certain treatment of this or that department of the nervous system will generate this or that state of belief and experience, as well as sensation. We have Dr. Carpenter disclosing facts of incalculable significance about brain-action without consciousness, and other vital mysteries. We have Dr. Maudsley showing, in the cells of the lunatic asylum, not only the very realm of Satan, as our fathers would have thought, but the discovery that it is not Satan, after all, that makes the havoc, but our own ignorance which has seduced us into a blasphemous superstition, instead of inciting us to the study of ourselves. And these are not all our teachers. Amid the conflict of phenomena of the human mind and body, we have arrived now at the express controversy of Psychology against Physiology. Beyond the mere statement of the fact we have scarcely advanced a step. The first can not be, with any accuracy, called a science at all, and the other is in little more than a rudimentary state; but it is no small gain to have arrived at some conception of the nature of the problem set before us, and at some liberty of hypothesis as to its conditions. In brief, and in the plainest terms, while there is still a multitude deluding and disporting itself with a false hypothesis about certain mysteries of the human mind, and claiming to have explained the marvels of Spiritualism by making an objective world of their own subjective experience, the scientific physiologists [those especially who are true phrenologists] are proceeding, by observation and experiment, to penetrate more and more secrets of our intellectual and moral life.

THE PLANCHETTE MYSTERY.

WHAT PLANCHETTE IS AND DOES.

This little gyrating tripod is proving itself to be something more than a nine days' wonder. It is finding its way into thousands of families in all parts of the land. Lawyers, physicians, politicians, philosophers, and even clergymen, have watched eagerly its strange antics, and listened with rapt attention to its mystic oracles. Mrs. Jones demands of it where Jones spends his evenings; the inquisitive of both sexes are soliciting it to "tell their fortunes;" speculators are invoking its aid in making sharp bargains, and it is said that even sagacious brokers in Wall Street are often found listening to its vaticinations as to the price of stocks on a given future day. To all kinds of inquiries answers are given, intelligible at least, if not always true. A wonderful jumble of mental and moral possibilities is this little piece of dead matter, now giving utterance to childish drivel, now bandying jokes and badinage, now stirring the conscience by unexceptionably Christian admonitions, and now uttering the baldest infidelity or the most shocking profanity; and often discoursing gravely on science, philosophy, or theology. It is true that Planchette seldom assumes this variety of theme and diction under the hands of the same individual, but, in general, manifests a peculiar facility of adapting its discourse to the character of its associates. Reader, with your sanction, we will seek a little further acquaintance with this new wonder.

The word "Planchette" is French, and simply signifies a _little board_. It is usually made in the shape of a heart, about seven inches long and six inches wide at the widest part, but we suppose that any other shape and convenient size would answer as well. Under the two corners of the widest end are fixed two little castors or pantograph wheels, admitting of easy motion in all horizontal directions; and in a hole, pierced through the narrow end, is fixed, upright, a lead pencil, which forms the third foot of the tripod. If this little instrument be placed upon a sheet of printing paper, and the fingers of one or more persons be laid lightly upon it, after quietly waiting a short time for the connection or _rapport_ to become established, the board, if conditions are favorable, will begin to move, carrying the fingers with it. It will move for about one person in every three or four; and sometimes it will move with the hands of two or three persons in contact with it, when it will not move for either one of the persons singly. At the first trial, from a few seconds to twenty minutes may be required to establish the motion; but at subsequent trials it will move almost immediately. The first movements are usually indefinite or in circles but as soon as some control of the motion is established, it will begin to write--at first, perhaps, in mere monosyllables, "Yes," and "No," in answer to leading questions, but afterward freely writing whole sentences, and even pages.

For me alone, the instrument will not move; for myself and wife it moves slightly, but its writing is mostly in monosyllables. With my daughter's hands upon it, it writes more freely, frequently giving, correctly, the names of persons present whom she may not know, and also the names of their friends, living or dead, with other and similar tests. Its conversations with her are grave or gay, much according to the state of her own mind at the time; and when frivolous questions are asked, it almost always returns answers either frivolous or, I am sorry to say it, a trifle wicked. For example, she on one occasion said to it: "Planchette, where did you get your education?" To her horror, it instantly wrote: "In h--l," without, however, being so fastidious as to omit the letters of the word here left out. On another occasion, after receiving from it responses to some trival questions, she said to it: "Planchette, now write something of your own accord without our prompting." But instead of writing words and sentences as was expected, it immediately traced out the rude figure of a man, such as school children sometimes make upon their slates. After finishing the outlines--face, neck, arms, legs, etc., it swung around and brought the point of the pencil to the proper position for the eye, which it carefully marked in, and then proceeded to pencil out the hair. On finishing this operation, it wrote under the figure the name of a young man concerning whom my daughter's companions are in the habit of teasing her.

My wife once said to it: "Planchette, write the name of the article I am thinking of." She was thinking of a finger ring, on which her eye had rested a moment before. The operator, of course, knew nothing of this, and my wife expected either that the experiment would fail, or else that the letters R-i-n-g would be traced. But instead of that, the instrument moved, very slowly, and, as it were, deliberately, and traced an apparently _exact circle_ on the paper, of about the size of the finger ring she had in her mind. "Will you try that over again?" said she, when a similar circle was traced, in a similar manner, but more promptly. During this experiment, one of my wife's hands, in addition to my daughter's, was resting lightly upon the board; but if the moving force had been supplied by her, either consciously or unconsciously, the motion would evidently have taken the direction of her thought, which was that of writing the letters of the word, instead of a direction unthought of.

While Planchette, in her intercourse with me, has failed to distinguish herself either as a preacher or a philosopher, I regret to say that she has not proved herself a much more successful prophet. While the recent contest for the United States Senatorship from the State of New York was pending, I said to my little oracular friend: "Planchette, will you give me a test?" "Yes." "Do you know who will be the next U. S. Senator from this State?" "Yes." "Please write the name of the person who will be chosen." "_Mr. Sutton_," was written. Said I, "I have not the pleasure of knowing that gentleman; please tell me where he resides." _Ans._ "In Washington."

I do not relate this to disturb the happy dreams of the Hon. Reuben E. Fenton by suggesting any dire contingencies that may yet happen to mar the prospect before him. In justice to my little friend, however, I must not omit to state that in respect to questions as to the kind of weather we shall have on the morrow? will such person go, or such a one come? or shall I see, or do this, that, or the other thing? its responses have been generally correct.

To rush to a conclusion respecting the _rationale_ of so mysterious a phenomenon, under the sole guidance of an experience which has been so limited as my own, would betray an amount of egoism and heedlessness with which I am unwilling to be chargeable; and my readers will now be introduced to some experiences of others.

A friend of mine, Mr. C., residing in Jersey City, with whom I have almost daily intercourse, and whose testimony is entirely trustworthy, relates the following:

Some five or six months ago he purchased a Planchette, brought it home, and placed it in the hands of Mrs. B., a widow, who was then visiting his family. Mrs. B. had never tried or witnessed any experiments with Planchette, and was incredulous as to her power to evoke any movements from it. She, however, placed her hands upon it, as directed, and to her surprise it soon began to move, and wrote for its first words: "Take care!" "Of what must I take care?" she inquired. "Of your money." "Where?" "In Kentucky."

My friend states that Mrs. B.'s husband had died in Albany about two years previous, bequeathing to her ten thousand dollars, which sum she had loaned to a gentleman in Louisville, Ky., to invest in the drug business, on condition that she and he were to share the profits; and up to this time the thought had not occurred to her that her money was not perfectly safe. At this point she inquired: "Who is this that is giving this caution?" "B---- W----." (The name of a friend of hers who had died at Cairo, Ill., some six years before.) Mrs. B. "Why! is my money in jeopardy?" Planchette. "Yes, and needs prompt attention." My friend C. here asked: "Ought she to go to Kentucky and attend to the matter?" "Yes."

So strange and unexpected was this whole communication, and so independent of the suggestions of her own mind, that she was not a little impressed by it, and thought it would at least be safe for her to make a journey to Louisville and ascertain if the facts were as represented. But she had at the time no ready money to pay her traveling expenses, and not knowing how she could get the money, she asked: "When shall I be able to go?" "In two weeks from to-day," was the reply.

She thought over the matter, and the next day applied to a friend of hers, a Mr. W., in Nassau Street, who promised to lend her the money by the next Tuesday or Wednesday. (It was on Thursday that the interview with Planchette occurred.) She came home and remarked to my friend: "Well, Planchette has told one lie, anyhow; it said I would start for Louisville _two weeks_ from that day. Mr. W. is going to lend me the money, and I shall start by _next_ Thursday, only _one_ week from that time."

But on the next Tuesday morning she received a note from Mr. W. expressing regret that circumstances had occurred which would render it impossible for him to let her have the money. She immediately sought, and soon found, another person by whom she was promised the money still in time to enable her to start a couple of days before the expiration of the two weeks--thus still, as she supposed, enabling her to prove Planchette to be wrong in at least that particular. But from circumstances unnecessary to detail, the money did not come until Wednesday, the day before the expiration of the two weeks. She then prepared herself to start the next _morning_; but through a blunder of the expressman in carrying her trunk to the wrong depot, she was detained till the five o'clock P.M. train, when she started, just two weeks, _to the hour_, from the time the prediction was given.

Arriving in Louisville, she learned that her friend had become involved in consequence of having made a number of bad sales for large amounts, and had actually gone into bankruptcy--reserving, however, for the security of her debt, a number of lots of ground, which his creditors were trying to get hold of. She thus arrived not a moment too soon to save herself, which she will probably do, in good part, at least, if not wholly--though the affair is still unsettled.

Since this article was commenced, the following fact has been furnished me from a reliable source. It is offered not only for the test which it involves, but also to illustrate the remarkable faculty which Planchette sometimes manifests, of calling things by their right names. A lady well known to the community, but whose name I have not permission to disclose, recently received from Planchette, writing under her own hands, a communication so remarkable that she was induced to ask for the name of the intelligence that wrote it. In answer to her request, the name of the late Col. Baker, who gallantly fell at Ball's Bluff, was given, in a perfect _fac-simile_ of his handwriting. She said to him: "For a further test, will you be kind enough to tell me where I last saw you?" She expected him to mention the place and occasion of their last interview when she had invited him to her house to tea; but Planchette wrote: "_In the hall of thieves_." "In the hall of thieves," said the lady; "what on earth can be the meaning of that? O! I remember that after he was killed, his body was brought on here and laid in the City Hall, and there I saw him."

THE PRESS ON PLANCHETTE.

In Planchette, public journalists and pamphleteers seem to have caught the "What is it?" in a new shape, and great has been the expenditure of printer's ink in the way of narratives, queries, and speculations upon the subject. There are now lying before me the following publications and articles, in which the Planchette phenomena are noticed and discussed,--from which we propose to cull and condense such statements of fact as appear to possess most intrinsic interest, and promise most aid in the solution of the mysteries. Afterward we shall discuss the different theories of these writers, and also some other theories that have been propounded.

"PLANCHETTE'S DIARY," edited by Kate Field, is an entertaining pamphlet, consisting of details in the author's experience, with little or no speculation as to the origin or laws of the phenomena. The author herself was the principal medium of the communications, but she occasionally introduces experiences of others. The pamphlet serves to put one on familiar and companionable terms with the invisible source of intelligence, whatever that may be, illustrating the leading peculiarities of the phenomena, giving some tests of an outside directing influence more or less striking, and candidly recording the failures of test answers which were mixed up with the successes. We extract two or three specimens:

"May 26th--Evening. Our trio was reinforced by Mr. B., a clever
young lawyer, who regarded Planchette with no favorable eye--had no
faith whatever in 'Spiritualism,' and maintained that for his part
he thought it quite as sensible, if not more so, to attribute
unknown phenomena to white rabbits as to spirits.... Planchette
addressed herself to Mr. B. thus:

'You do not think that I am a spirit. I tell you that I am. If I am
not an intelligence, in the name of common sense what am I? If you
fancy I am white rabbits, then all I have to say is, that white
rabbits are a deal cleverer than they have the credit of being among
natural historians.'

Later, doubt was thrown upon the possibility of getting mental
questions answered, and Planchette retorted:

'Do you fancy for one moment that I don't know the workings of your
brain? That is not the difficulty. It is the
impossibility--almost--of making two diametrically opposed
magnetisms unite.'

After this rebuke, Mr. B. asked a mental question, and received the
following answer:

'I am impelled to say that if you will persevere in these
investigations, you may be placed _en rapport_ with your wife, who
would undoubtedly communicate with you. If you have any faith in the
immortality of the soul, you can have no doubt of the possibility of
spiritual influences being brought to bear upon mortals. It is no
new thing. Ever since the world began, this power has been exerted
in one way or another; and if you pretend to put any faith in the
Bible, you surely must credit the possibility of establishing this
subtile connection between man and so-called angels.'

This communication was glibly written until within eleven words of
the conclusion, when Planchette stopped, and I asked if she had
finished.

'No,' she replied.

'Then why don't you go on?' I continued. '_I_ can write faster than
this.'

Planchette grew exceeding wroth at this, and dashed off an answer:

'Because, my good gracious! you are not obliged to express yourself
through another's brain.'

I took it for granted that Planchette had shot very wide of the mark
in the supposed response to Mr. B.'s mental query, and hence was not
prepared to be told that it was satisfactory, in proof of which Mr.
B. wrote beneath it:

'Appropriate answer to my mental question, _Will my deceased wife
communicate with me?_--I. A. B.'"

"May 28th. At the breakfast-table Mr. G. expressed a great desire to
see Planchette perform, and she was brought from her box. Miss W.
was also present. After several communications, Miss W. asked a
mental question, and Planchette immediately wrote:

'Miss W., that is hardly possible in the present state of the money
market; but later, I dare say you will accomplish what you desire to
undertake.'

_Miss W._ 'Planchette is entirely off the track. My question was,
_Can you tell me anything about my nephew?_'

_Mr. G._ 'Well, it is certainly very queer. _I_ asked a mental
question to which this is to a certain extent an answer.'

Mr. G. was seated beside me, thoroughly intent upon Planchette. Miss
W. was at a distance, and not in any way _en rapport_ with me. If
this phenomenon of answering mental questions be clairvoyance, the
situation of these two persons may account for the mixed nature of
the answer, beginning with Miss W. and finishing with Mr. G."

_Putnam's Monthly Magazine_ for December, 1868, contains an interesting article entitled "_Planchette in a New Character_." What the "new character" is in which it appears, may be learned from the introductory paragraph, as follows:

"We, too, have a Planchette, and a Planchette with this signal
merit: it disclaims all pretensions to supermundane inspirations; it
operates freely--indeed, with extraordinary freedom; it goes at the
tap of the drum. The first touch of the operators, no matter under
what circumstances it is brought out to reveal its knowledge, sets
it in motion. But it brings no communications from any celestial or
spiritual sources. Its chirography is generally good, and frequently
excellent. Its remarks evince an intelligence often above that of
the operators, and its talent at answering or evading difficult
questions is admirable. We have no theories about it."

It seems, from other passages in the article, that this Planchette disclaims the ability to tell anything that is not contained in the minds of the persons present, although it frequently gives theories in direct contradiction to the opinions of all present, and argues them with great persistence until driven up into a corner. It simply assumes the name of "Planchet," leaving off the feminine termination of the word; and "on being remonstrated with for illiteracy, it defended itself by saying, 'I always was a bad _speler_,'--an orthographical blunder," says the writer, "that no one in the room was capable of making."

Although the writer in the paragraph above quoted disclaims all theories on the subject, he does propound a theory, such as it is; but of this we defer our notice until we come to put the several theories that have been offered into the hopper and grind them up together; at which time we will take some further notice of the amusing peculiarities of this writer's Planchette.

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.

_Harper's 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.

THEORY FIRST--THAT THE BOARD IS MOVED BY THE HANDS THAT REST UPON IT.

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."