Here, as illustrating the common principles and course of action which are adopted and followed in all parts of the World by those who seek information by forbidden means, the following may be set forth:--
There is a dreary-looking House in one of the London Squares which is reported to be haunted. And certainly this opinion, as the Editor can testify from a careful personal enquiry, is tolerably current in the neighbourhood. A Lady, curious about the fact, was present on an occasion when certain inquiries were made regarding this House by means of "Planchette,"--the instrument just referred to as so commonly used in China. It is a small board, in shape like a heart, which is made to run on two wheels or castors, and a hole is provided for a pencil so to be placed with its point downward as that, when put upon a sheet of white paper the point may just touch the surface. After the usual invocation or incantation (or whatever it be), the persons who practise modern divination place their hands on the board. Questions are put, and answers given. No one touches the pencil, but the board is so guided, as the Necromancers and Spiritualists assert, that the pencil is made to write intelligible answers to expressed (and sometimes to mere mental) queries. The following, printed _verbatim et literatim_, are in the handwriting of the lady who witnessed them put and responded to, and are given as a fair specimen of this mode of divination, now so generally practised in England:--
Is any house haunted in B---- Square? Yes.
What killed the two people in the haunted room? Fright.
How could any one be afraid of me? Without your body.
How did they know they were there? Thought they saw them.
Then how did the spirits make themselves known--by what means? Mesmeric.
Why do those spirits haunt that house? Murder was committed there.
Who was murdered, a man or a woman? A woman.
What was the name of the woman? (Writing not intelligible.)
Who murdered her? (Writing not intelligible.)
Is it the woman's spirit, or the man's, who haunts the house? Both.
Was the murder found out while he lived? No.
Is it what the Bible calls "divination" to consult you in this way? Yes.
It is only right to add that those who made and obtained the foregoing intelligible responses to intelligible questions, for good and sufficient reasons came to hold such practices to be unlawful and wicked, and threw the instrument by which they had been given into the Thames.