Before the Ouija…there was the Planchette
Sep 17th, 2015 by bachmann
The Planchette, a French word for “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 was to assist with the generation of automatic writing, or as a medium to encourage communication with the spirit world. According to G.W. Cottrell, the manufacturer of the first planchettes in America, French monks were responsible for devising the planchette in a Parisian monastery. The planchette became trendy throughout 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 Spiritualist movement and featured during seances. It also had interest in various sects of society as a curiosity item for parlor entertainment, allowing men and women the opportunity to breach Victorian social mores by holding hands in a darkroom. 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 from 1868, G.W. Cottrell relays the origin and purpose of the planchette, as well as, how to purchase one.
As everybody interested in this wonderful invention
is anxious and curious to learn all that is known of
its early history, we extract, for further enlightenment,
the following, from a letter written by Dr.
H. F. Gardner to a Boston paper, dated London,
May 5th, 1859, which solves the question of the origin
of Planchette in this country.
“In Paris I witnessed a method of communication of which
I had not heard in America. The instrument used by them
they call a Planchette. The method of communication is by
writing. In order to give you some idea of the interest taken
in the investigation of the subject in Paris, it will only be
necessary to state, that I called upon the manufacturer of the
above-mentioned instrument to purchase one to take home
with me, and he informed Mr. Owen (Hon. Robert Dale
Owen), who was with me, that he had made and sold several
hundred in Paris alone.
” Not being able to speak the French language, I could not
enjoy the society of the household of Faith as I could have
done under more favorable circumstances ; yet, on visiting in
a family where Planchette was used, there was no difficulty
in -writing in my own native tongue.”
Dr. Gardner brought to Boston the Planchette
which he purchased in Paris, and some few were
made for the use of his friends : reference to which
is made in a recent number of a St. Louis paper as
The Boston Planchette, which is now to be found
in thousands of homes throughout the land.
- Description:
- Revelations of the great modern mystery, planchette, and theories respecting it. Boston : G.W. Cottrell, 1868.
- Persistent Link:
- http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:957645
- Repository:
- Widener Library
- Institution:
- Harvard University