{"id":3502,"date":"2015-09-17T13:16:55","date_gmt":"2015-09-17T17:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/preserving\/?p=3502"},"modified":"2015-09-17T13:16:55","modified_gmt":"2015-09-17T17:16:55","slug":"before-the-ouija-there-was-the-planchette","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/2015\/09\/17\/before-the-ouija-there-was-the-planchette\/","title":{"rendered":"Before the Ouija…there was the Planchette"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Planchette, a\u00a0French word for\u00a0“little plank,” was a heart shaped piece of wood with wheels and a slot for holding a pencil or some other writing implement. The purpose of a planchette\u00a0was to assist with the generation\u00a0of automatic writing, or as a medium to encourage\u00a0communication with the spirit world. According to G.W. Cottrell, the\u00a0manufacturer of the\u00a0first planchettes in America, French monks were responsible for devising the\u00a0planchette in a Parisian monastery. The planchette became trendy\u00a0throughout France and England in the 1850s, with the device making its way into the United States by the 1860s. The devices were very popular amongst followers of the\u00a0Spiritualist movement and featured during seances. It also had interest in various sects of society as a curiosity item for\u00a0parlor entertainment, allowing\u00a0men and women the opportunity to breach Victorian social mores by\u00a0holding hands in\u00a0a\u00a0darkroom. The planchette design eventually morphed into the more familiar Ouija board, where automatic writing was removed in favor of a board that could dictate messages via numbers and letters. In this publication\u00a0from 1868,\u00a0G.W.\u00a0Cottrell relays\u00a0the\u00a0origin and purpose of the planchette, as well as, how to purchase one.<\/p>\n

As everybody interested in this wonderful invention <\/em>
\nis anxious and curious to learn all that is known of <\/em>
\nits early history, we extract, for further enlightenment, <\/em>
\nthe following, from a letter written by Dr. <\/em>
\nH. F. Gardner to a Boston paper, dated London, <\/em>
\nMay 5th, 1859, which solves the question of the origin <\/em>
\nof Planchette in this country. <\/em><\/p>\n

“In Paris I witnessed a method of communication of which <\/strong><\/em>
\nI had not heard in America. The instrument used by them <\/strong><\/em>
\nthey call a Planchette. The method of communication is by <\/strong><\/em>
\nwriting. In order to give you some idea of the interest taken <\/strong><\/em>
\nin the investigation of the subject in Paris, it will only be <\/strong><\/em>
\nnecessary to state, that I called upon the manufacturer of the <\/strong><\/em>
\nabove-mentioned instrument to purchase one to take home <\/strong><\/em>
\nwith me, and he informed Mr. Owen (Hon. Robert Dale <\/strong><\/em>
\nOwen), who was with me, that he had made and sold several <\/strong><\/em>
\nhundred in Paris alone. <\/strong><\/em>
\n” Not being able to speak the French language, I could not <\/strong><\/em>
\nenjoy the society of the household of Faith as I could have <\/strong><\/em>
\ndone under more favorable circumstances ; yet, on visiting in <\/strong><\/em>
\na family where Planchette was used, there was no difficulty <\/strong><\/em>
\nin -writing in my own native tongue.” <\/strong><\/em><\/h5>\n

Dr. Gardner brought to Boston the Planchette <\/em>
\nwhich he purchased in Paris, and some few were <\/em>
\nmade for the use of his friends : reference to which <\/em>
\nis made in a recent number of a St. Louis paper as <\/em>
\nThe Boston Planchette, which is now to be found <\/em>
\nin thousands of homes throughout the land. <\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
Description:<\/dt>\n
Revelations of the great modern mystery, planchette, and theories respecting it. Boston : G.W. Cottrell, 1868.<\/span><\/dd>\n
Persistent Link:<\/dt>\n
http:\/\/nrs.harvard.edu\/urn-3:FHCL:957645<\/a><\/dd>\n
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Repository:<\/dt>\n
Widener Library<\/dd>\n
Institution:<\/dt>\n
Harvard University<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Planchette, a\u00a0French word for\u00a0“little plank,” was a heart shaped piece of wood with wheels and a slot for holding a pencil or some other writing implement. The purpose of a planchette\u00a0was to assist with the generation\u00a0of automatic writing, or as a medium to encourage\u00a0communication with the spirit world. According to G.W. Cottrell, the\u00a0manufacturer of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2559,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2559"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3502"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3574,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3502\/revisions\/3574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}