| Show TRUE AND STRANGE I j Stories of the Supernatural I Julian Hawthorne r r SATAN IN EVENING DRESS The Work of The PJanchettc How it Makes Frivolous Bemarks Ghost Lore alone For THE SUNDAY HERAID Copyrighted S LONG AGO AS < c 186 a story was published > pub-lished in The Galaxy magazine called AutDiaboluaut 1 R nlhil About two years ago a some W hat enlarged A version of the same talc with the same title appeared in Blacfcicooda magazine m London Whether tho second version was a clean steal or whether the author of the first himself rewrote re-wrote and republished it I dont know at any rate it was an uncommonly cood story The gist of it was that a company of young men of birth education in Paris were in the habit of assembling periodically for a certain mysterious purpose An outsider out-sider having secretly obtained admission saw from his place of concealment behind a curtain a handsome square room with a bare polished floor and without furniture furni-ture brilliantly lighted by gas jets along the cornices The company of young men in evening dress stood round the room in a circle with hands joined and chanted some sort of incantation As it proceeded a species of excitement was infused into them and electric sympathy of will and definite purpose The chant grew more intense in-tense at length they prostrated themselves them-selves and bending forward kissed the polished floor simultaneously Whereupon the onlooker became aware that another figure was standing in the centre of the circle cir-cle He was very tall of stately figure clad like the rest of the company in full dress his hair was black and crisp and his countenance refined polished and haughty Be glanced down at his worshippers with an expression of condescension of scorn of satanic composure such as could belong only to his diabolic majesty himself until the profound fastidious wickedness of the whole performance drew an involuntary exclamation from the observer the lights went out in the pitchy darkness he lelt himself seized and hurried away and hj a fortunate accident he lived to tell the taleThis This I say is an excellent story but it might conceivably be true The conjuring up of spirits is an ancient practice Let a number of persons animated by a consensus consen-sus of purpose and desire meet together arrange themselves in symbolic order and attitude and simulate and intensify their common object by harmonizing words and postures and they will presently work themselves and one another up to a pitch of expectant attention the effect whereof upon their minds and their senses it would not bo easy to exaggerate The apparation evoked by the young Parisians was noth less than the essence of their combined conception con-ception of the Eni principle The figure resembled them much as the composite photographs lately in vogue unite the prevailing pre-vailing traits of the contributing individuals individu-als into a derivative Of them all it would have been strango if an objective result had not been obtained We may say of course that the result while seeming to be objective was in fact subjective but what after all is a spirit Confident anticipation and concerted action ac-tion are all that is necessary to raise the devil or any other spectre To the same i Drder of phenomena belong the manipulation manipula-tion of spiritualism In spiritualistic circles cir-cles the table becomes the medium of sympathy sym-pathy or magnetic communion between the persons who sit around it I have been amused by the efforts of skeptical persons to prove that tabletipping is the result of prank or of unconscious muscular action on the part of the sitters I believe in God Almighty said one gentleman to me quite seriously and I know He wouldnt come down here to work any such nonsense non-sense Neither I suppose would He through the medium ruffians murder innocent in-nocent people or cause any other iniquitous iniqui-tous or ridiculous act nevertheless the world is full of folly and iniquity Tao gentlemans statement had no application to the matter in hand The table is moved of course but not by the pushing or pullIng pull-Ing of hands and feet The alternative to physical hands and feet is not however necessarily spirits For my own part though I have no particular objection to the spirit theory it seems to me gratuitous If the force must have a name the old one of animal magnetism suits me as well as any I dont know what it means but it seems to point to living human beings as the source of the phenomena and that is satisfactory satis-factory as it goes I Who the genius was who invented the little table on wheels with a pencil on it I have never heard He deserves the thanks of the many people who have been entertained enter-tained by the little instrument A man of an inventive turn might doubtless greatly improve upon it I first heard of planchett about thirty years ago but the first ono that I possessed was made by my own handout hand-out of the bit of a cigar box 1SS4 Summer Sum-mer visitors were staying with us and there were a half dozen children always on hand I expected to amuse them for an evening or two but the fun lasted three or four months and was even renewed the following fol-lowing year The grand initial march is that piano bette will move when you first sit aowi to it the idea seems so palpably absurd that it is with difficulty you compel yourself your-self to remain in position After ten minutes min-utes of silence and immobility you are tempted to give the thing u second jerk on your own account and you are morbidly suspicious of your partner in the transaction transac-tion All of a sudden planchette with a faint preliminary crash starts off and makes a longing swinging sidelong movement move-ment marked by the pencil with a straight dash It takes you by surprise and you know you are innocent in the matter but you are convinced your partner is jjuiltv He meets your glance and you see an his eyes his own corresponding conviction re gardin you No you are both alike blameless blame-less But then what made planchett move A 8TATXLT riGUKE APPEARS IX THEIR MIDST I confess this question interests me more than any ghost story I ever heard A more curious sensation than this movement beneath be-neath your hand of a thing which is not alive and which you are not yourself propelling pro-pelling is seldom experienced by mortal man We see iron filings move about the poles of a magnet or bits of paper flutter to a piece of rubber sealing wax but this is different forplanchotte moves in no fixed direction towards a certain objective point but in all directions impartially and moreover more-over it moves intelligently It writes draws and does other things which I shall presently describe Barring certain habits j that is falls into its manifestations certainly I cer-tainly contradict expectation it does not I do what some think it is going to do In vain you ask it a question which seems to necessitate neces-sitate a particular answer plauchetto replies re-plies from quite another standpoint and and current of thought and its reply is a surprise In pursuance of the theory of unconscious centration you explore your mind and memory for the source of plan chettes remarks with no very satisfactory results Besides admitting that the contents con-tents of your memory and the springs of your character lie open to planchette to make therefrom such selections and combi nations as it chooses now does it do itl How do the contents of your mind get into the piece of tobacco box and how does it cntrive to write them I have spoken of the attraction of a magnet mag-net It you hold a small piece of iron close to a strong magnet you feel a slight pull The pull the planchette gives to your lingers lin-gers when it proceeds on itsperigrinations is very similar to this But in writing out a word it pulls in a dozen different directions direc-tions within the space of a few seconds The effect is not like that of a machine however complex or of a body obeying fixed and inevitable laws but of an independent inde-pendent personality endowed with intelligence intelli-gence purpose ana memory For it remembers re-members what is has said and done in the past and knows what it is about to do Our lanchette > in answer to questions suggested ested by its own answers related to us in daily installments extending over three weeks a long story comprising upwards often of-ten thousand words It was so good a story that it was afterwards accepted and pub ished by a leading periodical word for vord as it was originally written down and from beginning to end there was not an inconsistency in-consistency Nor was it all written through the mediumship of one pair of people peo-ple a aozen different couples at different times sat down to the work and the tale proceeded uninterruptedly In short the oaiDlete story must have been stored up in planchettes mind before it began to to write it After we have become accustomed to the thing and familiar with its ways many I queer peculiarities are noticed Planchetto has no morality and no regard for truth If we ask it a question as to a matter of fact or about something in the future its reply is always ready and generally very explicit but never true save by accident By far the best method is to let it take the lead in the conversation Will you write planchette Yes Well who is writ np Jobn Srnlthor any other imaginary imagi-nary person You now proceed to ques tion John Smith on any imaginable detail of his person his life death occupation desires de-sires reccollections purposes and sentiments senti-ments By and by John becomes a human and recognizable individual to you and you are even able to tell by the preliminary sensation in the nerves whether it is John or someone else who is about to write the next sentence Planchette never confesses its own dramatis jtcrsanae Sometimes three or four different persons to call them that will each write a sentence one after I another but the sentences are ail chauac teristic in style and conception Occasionally I Occasion-ally I have seen two communicants contend for the possession of planchette jerking it away from each other tripping up each others writing fighting in a word Jiko two angry children and in one instance breaking the pencil in their struggle Plaq chette often betrays faults of temper vanity van-ity mirth cynicism scornall manner of human foibles Tell Mary it once suddenly sud-denly wrote breaking in upon some yarn it was spinning that she had better shut up Now Mary did not have her hands on planchette but she was sitting at the table distracting our attention by making frivolous remarks Planchette always wants the whole attention of everybody insight in-sight and is apt to grow sulky or abusive if this is not ccorded It only does its best work in fact when the general interest and curiosity of the spectators is at its height Wo also found that other things being equal it wrote better bet-ter on a warm day than on a cold one and that the hands of those who are working it should be warm The bestwood to make it out of was of the resinous varieties The proper shape was that of the heart on a playing card and the dimensions seven inches by five Wheels are not necessary on the legs it writes more steadily without them It will do other things besides write Let some one hide an object say a key or glove somewhere in the room and let two others who dont know where it is hidden take up a planchette and let it rest on their risht and left hands respectively the forefinger hooked on the legs of the instrument Now I tell it to find the object and you will immediately imme-diately find a slight pressure of the legs against your fingers indicating the direction direc-tion in which planchetto wishes to go You step in this direction carefully heeding and obeying the pressure Sometimes there will also be an upward and downward pressure pres-sure Thus you will bo led all round the room and in three cases out of five perhaps the object will be found If one take it out doors it will act like the witchhazel of tradition it will dip very perceptibly in passing over certain places Whether underneath these places there was water or gore I never made investigation in-vestigation but the movement was always repeated at the same spot Planchette wili perform such feats however only after it has become thoroughly domesticated so to say and of course one of the persons handling hand-ling the instrument must be a medium what ever that may mean About one person per-son in five according to my observation has more or less of this faculty and one out of twenty will have it in a marked degree de-gree Having thus in some measure prepared the way I shall relate next time an experience ex-perience of our own with planchette which is so far as I know unprecedented JULIAN HAIVTHOHKE |
