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
That phenomena of the latter class are sometimes exhibited is not
only proved by many other facts that might be cited, but is clearly
exemplified by this same writer in _Putnam's Magazine_. The intelligence
whose performances and communications he relates seems to stand out with
a character and individuality as strongly marked and as distinct from
any and all in the circle as any one of them was distinct from another.
This individuality was first shown by giving its own pet names to the
different persons composing the circle--"Flirt," "Clarkey," "Hon.
Clarke," "The Angel," and "Sassiness." The young lady designated by the
last _sobriquet_, after it had been several times repeated, petitioned
to be indicated thereafter "only by the initial 'S,'" which the
impertinent scribbler accorded only so far as omitting all the letters
except the five S's, so that she was afterward recognized as
"S.S.S.S.S."
The writer further says:
"It is always respectful to 'Hon. Clarke,' and when pressed to state
what it thought of him, answered that he was 'a good skipper,' a
reputation fairly earned by his capacity for managing a fleet of
small boats. But we were not contented with so vague an answer, and
our urgent demand for an analysis of his character produced the
reply: 'A native crab apple, but spicy and sweet when ripe.' * * *
When asked to go on, it wrote: 'Ask me Hon. Clarke's character
again, and I will flee to the realms of imperishable woe; or, as
Tabitha is here, say I'll pull your nose;' and on being taunted with
its incapacity to fulfill the threat, it wrote: 'Metaphorically
speaking, of course.' Not satisfied with this rebuff, on another
occasion the subject was again pursued, and the answer elicited as
follows: 'Yes, but you can't fool me. I said nay once, and when I
says nay I means nay.' [A mind of _its own_, then.] More than once
it has lapsed into the same misuse of the verb, as: 'I not only
believes it, but I knows it;' and again: 'You asks and I answers,
because I am here.' * * *
"Again, on being remonstrated with for illiteracy, it defended
itself by saying: 'I always was a bad speler' (_sic_); an
orthographical blunder that no one in the room was capable of
making. But on the whole, our Planchette is a scientific and
cultivated intelligence, of more than average order, though it may
be, at times, slightly inaccurate in orthography, and occasionally
quote incorrectly; I must even confess that there are moments when
its usual elegance of diction lapses into slang terms and abrupt
contradictions. But, after all, though we flatter ourselves that as
a family we contain rather more than ordinary intelligence, still it
is more than a match for us."
Who can fail to perceive, from these quotations and admissions, the
marked and distinctive _individuality_ of the intelligence that was
here manifested, as being of itself totally fatal to the idea of
derivation from the circle?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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