PLANCHETTE’S OWN THEORY.

Planchette is intelligent; she can answer questions, and often answer them correctly, too. On what class of subjects, then, might she be expected to give answers more generally correct than those which relate to herself, especially if the questions be asked in a proper spirit, and under such conditions as are claimed to be requisite for correct responses? Following the suggestion of this thought, the original plan of this essay has been somewhat modified, and a careful consultation instituted, of which I here submit the results:

Inquirer. Planchette, excuse me if I now treat you as one on whom a little responsibility is supposed to rest. An exciter of curiosity, if as intelligent as you appear to be, should be able to satisfy curiosity; and a creator of doubts may be presumed to have some ability to solve doubts. May I not, then, expect from you a solution of the mysteries which have thus far enveloped you?

Planchette. That will depend much upon the spirit in which you may interrogate me, the pertinence of your questions, and your capacity to interpret the answers. If you propose a serious and careful consultation for really useful purposes, there is another thing which you should understand in the commencement. It is that, owing to conditions and laws which may yet be explained to you, I shall be compelled to use your own mind as a scaffolding, so to speak, on which to stand to pass you down the truths you may seek, and which are above the reach of your own mind alone. Keep your mind unperturbed, then, as well as intent upon your object, or I can do but little for you.

I. The question which stands as basic to all others which I wish to ask is, What is the nature of this power, intelligence, and will that communicates with us in this mysterious manner?

P. It is the reduplication of your own mental state; it is a spirit; it is the whole spiritual world; it is God—one or all, according to your condition and the form and aspect in which you are able to receive the communication.

I. That is covering rather too much ground for a beginning. For definiteness, suppose we take one of those points at a time. In saying, “It is a spirit,” do you mean that you yourself, the immediate communicating agent, are an intelligence outside of, and separate from, myself, and that that intelligence is the spirit or soul of a man who once occupied a physical body, as I now do?

P. That is what I assert—only in reaffirmation of what the world, in explanation of similar phenomena, has been told a thousand times before.

I. Excuse me if I should question you a little closely on this point. There are grave difficulties in the way of an acceptance of this theory. The first of these is the prima facie absurdity of the idea.

P. Absurdity! How so?

I. It is so contrary to our ordinary course of thought; contrary, I may say, to our instincts; contrary to what the human faculties would naturally expect; contrary to the general experience of the world up to this time. In fact, the more highly educated minds of the world have long agreed in classing the idea as among the grossest of superstitions.

P. If you would, in place of each one of these assertions, affirm directly the contrary, you would come much nearer the truth. It is certain that the highest minds, as well as the lowest, of all ages and nations, with only such exceptions as prove rather than disprove the rule, have confidently believed in the occasional interposition of spirits in mundane affairs. True, there are in this age many of the class which you call the “more highly educated minds,” who, spoiled by reasonings merely sensual, and hence necessarily sophistical, do not admit such an idea; but do not even these generally admit that there is an invisible world of spirits?

I. Most of them do; all professing Christians do. I do, certainly.

P. Let me test their consistency, and yours, then, by asking, Do they and you hold that one and the same God made all worlds, both natural and spiritual, and all things in them?

I. Of course they do; how otherwise?

P. Then, seeing that you acknowledge the unity of the Cause of all worlds and all things in them, you must acknowledge a certain union of all these in one universal system as the offspring of that one Cause, must you not?

I. Yes; I suppose the totality of things, natural and spiritual, must be acknowledged as forming, in some sense, one united system, of diverse but mutually correlated parts.

P. Please tell me, then, how there can be any united system in which the component parts, divisions, and subdivisions, down even to the most minute, are not each, necessarily and always, in communication with all the others, either immediately or mediately?

I. I see the point, and acknowledge it is ingeniously made; but do you not see that the argument fails to meet the whole difficulty?

P. What I do see is, that in admitting a connection of any kind, whether mediate or immediate, between the natural and spiritual worlds, you admit that a communication between the two worlds—hence between all things of one and all things of the other; hence between the intelligent inhabitants of one and those of the other—is logically not only possible but probable, not to say certain; and in this admission you yield the point under immediate discussion, and virtually concede that the idea of spirit-communication is not only not absurd, but is, indeed, among the most reasonable of things, to which ignorance and materialistic prejudice alone have given the aspect of absurdity.

I. Well, there is something in that which looks like argument, I must admit.

P. Can you not go a little farther and admit for established fact, proved by the testimony of the Book from which you derive your religious faith, that communications between spirits and mortals have sometimes taken place?

I. True, but the Bible calls the spirits thus communicating, “familiar spirits,” and those who have dealings with them, “witches” and “wizards,” and forbids the practice under severe penalties. How does that sound to you, my ingenious friend?

P. The way you put it, it sounds as though you did not quite understand the full scope of my question; but no matter, since it is at once a proof and an acknowledgment on your part that spirits have communicated with mortals—the essential point in dispute, which when once admitted will render further reasonings more plain. Let me ask you, however, was not the practice of consulting familiar spirits that is forbidden in the Bible, a practice that was common among the heathen nations of those times?

I. It was, and is spoken of as such in several passages.

P. Did not the heathens consult familiar spirits as petty divinities, or gods, and as such, follow their sayings and commands implicitly? and would not the Israelites to whom the Old Testament was addressed have violated the first command in the decalogue by adopting this practice? and was not that the reason, and the only reason, why the practice was forbidden?

I. To each of those questions I answer, Yes, certainly.

P. Do the Old or New Testament writings anywhere command us to abstain from all intercourse with spirits?—or from any intercourse which would not be a violation of the command, “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me?”

I. Really I do not know that the Bible contains any such command.

P. Do you not know, on the contrary, that spirits other than those called “familiar spirits,” often did communicate, and with apparently good and legitimate purposes, too, with men whose names are mentioned in the Bible?

I. Well, I must in candor say that there were some cases of that kind.

P. May you not, then, from all this learn a rule which will always be a safe guide to you in respect to the matters under discussion? I submit for your consideration, that that rule is, “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” But even if the “strangers” that may come to you, either of your own world or the spirit-world, should prove to be “angels,” do not follow them implicitly, or in an unreasoning manner, nor worship them as gods, for in so doing you would render yourself amenable to the law against having dealings with “familiar spirits.”

I. I must admit that your remarks throw a somewhat new light on the subject, and I do not know that I can dispute what you say. But even admitting all your strong points thus far, the spirit-theory of Planchettism and other and kindred modern wonders remains encumbered with a mass of difficulties which it seems to me must be removed before it can be considered as having much claim to the credence of good and rational minds. On some of these points I propose now to question you somewhat closely, and shall hope that you will bear with me in the same patience and candor which you have thus far manifested.

P. Ask your questions, and I shall answer them to the best of my ability.