THEORY FIRST--THAT THE BOARD IS MOVED BY THE HANDS THAT REST UPON IT.
It is supposed that this movement is made either by design or unconsciously, and that the answers are either the result of adroit guessing, or the expressions of some appropriate thoughts or memories which had been previously slumbering in the minds of the operators, and happen to be awakened at the moment.
After detailing his exploits (whether real or imaginary he has left us in doubt) in a successful and sustained course of deception, the writer in _Harper's_ reaches this startling conclusion of the whole matter:
"It would only write when I moved it, and then it wrote precisely what I dictated. That persons write 'unconsciously,' I do not believe. As well tell me a man might pick pockets without knowing it. Nor am I at all prepared to believe the assertions of those who declare that they do not move the board. I know what operators will do in such cases; I know the distortion, the disregard of truth which association with this immoral board superinduces."
This writer has somewhat the advantage of me. I confess I have no means of coming to the knowledge of the truth but those of careful thought, patient observation, and collection of facts, and deduction from them. But here is a mind that can with one bold dive reach the inner mysteries of the sensible and supersensible world, penetrate the motives and impulses that govern the specific moral acts of men, and disclose at once to us the horrible secret of a conspiracy which, without preconcert, has been entered into by thousands of men, women, and children in all parts of the land, to cheat the rest of the human race--a conspiracy, too, in which certain members of innumerable private families have banded together to play tricks upon their fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters! I feel awed by the overshadowing presence of such a mind--in fact, I do not feel quite _at home_ with him, and therefore most respectfully bow myself out of his presence without further ceremony.
As to the hypothesis that the person or persons whose hands are on the board move it _unconsciously_, this is met by the fact that the persons are perfectly awake and in their senses, and are just as conscious of what they are doing or not doing as at any other time. Or if it be morally possible to suppose that they all, invariably, and with one accord, _lie_ when they assert that the board moves without their volition, how is it that the answers which they give to questions, some of them mentally, are in so large a proportion of cases, _appropriate_ answers? How is it, for example, that Planchette, under the hands of my own daughter, has, in numerous cases, given correctly the names of persons whom she had never seen or heard of before, giving also the names of their absent relatives, the places of their residence, etc., all of which were absolutely unknown by every person present except the questioner?