The Salem Witchcraft, the Planchette Mystery, and Modern Spiritualism: With Dr. Doddridge's DreamStowe, Harriet Beecher
History
The Salem Witchcraft, the Planchette Mystery, and Modern Spiritualism: With Dr. Doddridge's Dream
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Spiritualism; Upham, Charles Wentworth, 1802-1875. Salem witchcraft; Witchcraft -- Massachusetts -- Salem
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:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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