Planchette
A planchette ( /plɑːnˈʃɛt/ or /plænˈʃɛt/), from the French for "little plank", is a small, usually heart-shaped flat piece of wood equipped with two wheeled casters and a pencil-holding aperture pointing downwards, used to facilitate automatic writing.
American planchettes were traditionally heart- or shield-shaped, but manufacturers produced a wide range of shapes and sizes hoping to distinguish themselves in the highly competitive and profitable market of the devices' late-1860s heyday.
Regardless of their shape or country of origin, almost all planchettes were equipped with brass casters and small wheels of bone or plastic, and their sometimes lavishly illustrated boxes were often packed with blank parchment, pencils, ouija-like folding letter sheets, and esoteric instructions espousing the mysterious communicative powers of the items.
[6] Though planchettes experienced great surges of popularity in Victorian times, in modern usage the term is most commonly associated with the heart-shaped pointers for Ouija or "talking boards".
Planchettes rose to prominence in the years following the establishment of spiritualism in America, which began with the purported spirit communications of the Fox Sisters in 1848 and the resulting popularity of supernatural-themed parlor games, séances, and experiments in mediumship and table-turning.
In other instances, sitters received more complicated messages of spelled-out words and phrases by transcribing letters indicated by the knocks or raps as the participants called out the alphabet into the empty air.
During this period, they remained popular only among devout séance circles and enthusiastic Spiritualists, who at the time still largely relied on the services of celebrity mediums (such as the Fox Sisters and D.D.
The article was reprinted in European and American newspapers,[12] and by 1868 dozens of booksellers and toy manufacturers were producing the items to meet an insatiable demand on both sides of the Atlantic.
[11] Over the years, planchette manufacturers included such established firms as Selchow & Righter, George G. Bussey, Jaques & Son, Chad Valley, and even the great magician and crystal seer Alexander.
[15] The design changes and focus on the elegantly varnished boards and their clearly stenciled letters arching across their fronts seem to have had the intended effect, and the items were enthusiastically welcomed by the public in much the same way planchettes had experienced their own craze some 23 years previously.
[20] The 9 July 1892 Volume 103 edition of Punch included a cartoon depicting an impish devil pushing a planchette toward a prediction of the next Derby winner, claiming the device would "put an end to all speculation".
[22] Use of a planchette is featured in the 1948 novel No Highway by Nevil Shute, where the written message obtained by automatic writing provides the information necessary to locate of the tail plane of a crashed aircraft.
