A Week of Kokkuri!

Starting Monday morning, July 11th, my Facebook and Instagram accounts will be hosting a special event, which I'm calling "Week of Kokkuri!" I've spent the last couple of years laboriously researching table-tipping, talking boards, and spirit communication devices in Japan, slowly prying the lost secrets of these devices from antique manuscripts and other sources. And the discoveries are incredible!

I invite you to 'like' or follow those pages and join me. I’ll be doing daily posts (with some special bonus posts on some days) and debuting some photographs and illustrations that likely haven’t been seen by Westerners in over a hundred years. I think you'll enjoy it!

"High & Sacred Communications": The Seybert Dial Trials, 1857

"Do not the dry bones rattle now?"

This was the inquiry said to have been put forth by none other than Shakespeare, on July 21, 1857, through a previously-undiscovered array of alphabet dials and spirit communication devices invented, used, and refined by Philadelphia philanthropist Henry Seybert, most famously know for the namesake endowment that would sponsor the Seybert Commission 30 years hence.  Check that date again--that's 1857--less than a decade out from the birth of Spiritualism, and in the earliest years of the appearance of mechanical alphabetic séance apparatus.  For our game, that's eeeeeaaarly.

The excerpt appears in an incredible séance journal recently uncovered by my friends and colleagues John Buescher and Pat Deveney of IAPSOP at the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts at the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and is part of the Seybert Commission collection there. It is now part of IAPSOP's Ephemera Wing, along with partial transcripts I made of the device-relevant passages, of which the document is predominantly composed.

Titled "Spiritual Communications obtained with the Aid of Instruments through the Mediumship of Miss Catherine Fox and H.C. Gordon," the journal dates from April-September, 1857, and consists of 72 pages of séance transcripts describing Seybert's efforts to test and refine a series of very early spirit communication devices with the aid of several mediums -- Kate Fox, H.C. Gordon, and S.B. Brittan among them. The transcripts record the communications of these mediums, guided by the spirit of Henry's deceased father, famed chemist and Congressman Adam Seybert, along with a host of celebrity spirit guides that include Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Napoleon, and Isaac Newton, as they seek to adjust and refine the apparatus being used to solicit the communications.

"New modes of communication" is the central focus of the document, and the spirits fluctuate from
approval to disapproval of instruments from one séance to the next.

The specific number of devices tested is difficult to determine, though there was at least one "Alphabetic Rod" or "Semicircular Dial" -- a table-mounted, pulley-controlled device that drove a vertical rod to spell out messages, that relied on table-tipping movements to spell out messages similarly to the Spiritual Telegraph Dial of Isaac Pease, which had debuted only a few years prior. They also call to mind other early contrivances, such as those revealed by Emma Hardinge Brittan in Modern American Spiritualism, or even Susanna Moodie's "spiritoscope," which also had a Fox Sister's connection and took place contemporaneously with Seybert's trials. 

Constant improvement and modification of a parade of new and old instruments created for communication makes
determining what's what difficult, as passages like this demonstrate.

Other communication machines mentioned in the transcripts include a "keyed instrument," a "new sliding instrument," a "wooden dial" built by trial participant Mr. Alhauss, a "cog dial" that may have been separate from the Alphabetic Rod, and the vaguely-defined "Telegraph," along with several false starts and discarded devices. Operating in the same time and locale that Dr. Robert Hare performed his famous public trials with his own Spiritoscopes (and who was something of a rival of Seybert's in his early chemistry career, a profession he gave up on after receiving his father's substantial inheritance), the transcripts of Seybert's trials provide a window into the early evolution of alphabetic spirit communication devices.

A new day, a new dial. It has a pin, and a rod, and an alphabet, and that's about all we know!

As linked above, IAPSOP has both photofacsimile images of the original journal, and my own notes and transcribed excerpts from that journal. I discovered when transcribing the document that Seybert italicized his own inquiries to the right, and the spirits' answers to the left, so that might help you make more sense of it if you read it for yourself. And I DO encourage you to investigate this amazing document for yourself, as it is an incredibly fascinating perspective into some of the earliest experiments in mechanical spirit communication in existence, and well worth the effort. Let me know what you discover! 

An Explosion of Discoveries: Psychographs Here, There, and Everywhere!

I know the blog's been an on-again, off-again affair this year. Since I became a regular columnist for the Society for Psychical Research's publication, Paranormal Review, I have to spent a lot of time I previously spent writing here, there. And since the SPR prefers first-run materials, a lot of my backlog posts here (I have several dozen) that I had not yet published have been reserved for future use there. And that's OK, as long as word gets out of new discoveries and research in one format or another!

That, and I can't seem to just write a short, casual blog post. This is no exception.

For example, we haven't even chatted about last year's OuijaCon, which was hosted by the Talking Board Historical Society (where I now serve as official Historian!) in Baltimore. It was a pretty amazing, first-of-its-kind event, with the world's top collectors and talking board enthusiasts of every conceivable stripe in attendance. I finally had the pleasure of meeting not one, but TWO descendants of T.H. White, and my lecture on his life and work seemed well-received, along with the usual lectures and discussions on séance apparatus history.

Another curious event at OuijaCon was the research project of Danish experimental psychology researcher Marc Andersen. Marc's research focuses on religious and spiritual studies and associated phenomena and spirit communication devices, and he brought his team to OuijaCon to conduct experiments utilizing eye-tracking goggles in an effort to document behavioral patterns and responses when using talking boards. It was a fascinating experiment, and I know we all look forward to seeing the results!

The test board for Marc Andersen's team, with goggles to track eye movements of participants. Enjoyed toying around on the Ouija with my friend Gene Orlando of the Museum of Talking Boards!

Since OuijaCon, Marc and I have kept up a friendly correspondence, bonding over our interest in historical seance apparatus. And in an illustration of perhaps why we go through all of this trouble to begin with, my slide of Wagner's Psychograph in my own presentation struck a chord of recognition with Marc, who had also investigated the writings of Danish researcher Alfred Lehman, who described experiments in spirit communication, including the use of psychographs. And those discussions with Marc turned up some interesting...no--INCREDIBLE--discoveries!

I went one direction, and some deep research uncovered a brand new illustration of...well...a very early talking board. Depictions of talking boards before the advent of the Ouija are rare enough. We have some sporadic developments in the talking board, some of which I've written about before. Hell, we're incredibly lucky to have the contemporary illustration of Wagner's Psychograph. But the modern conception of a talking board: an alphabet board with an independent index--is tough to find before the advent of the Ouija. And at first that's exactly what I thought this illustration depicted: there's a rounded-top tray with the classic arch of characters on it, and the medium's hand is resting on what appears to be a small, flat planchette. 

The mysterious illustration, from the 1 December 1877 Illustre Zeitung in Leipzig.

But the small round pieces that terminate each corner of the planchette caused me to wonder if the illustrator got it right or not. Were those round points the illustrator's attempt at depicting the connecting knobs of a psychograph? I was lucky enough to acquire the original article along with the ilustration, so, I turned to my old friend and fellow freelance writer Tom Ganz for a bit of translation from the original German. It turns out my suspicions were on to something:

German Spiritualists normally use the "Psychograph" to communicate with the Ghostworld. A Psychograph is a finely polished wood board, which shows on top two rows of letters, depicting the alphabet together with the two words 'yes' and 'no'; an instrument resembling a scissor is fixed to the lower part of the wooden board, on which children can let wooden soldiers exercise. Our picture is leading our reader into a gathering of spiritualists. The session is opened with a prayer. From here on, one of the attendant ladies takes over the role of the medium. As soon as she lays here fingers on the scissors that instrument starts moving, making the pin wander from letter to letter. The medium spells out word after word to the assembled audience. First, the guardian spirit shows itself to the circle, than other ghosts show up, sometimes pretty frivolous ones. Nobody is allowed to interrupt what’s happening with speaking out loud, and also nobody thinks he is getting deceived, although a brilliant self-deceit can't be ruled out.

I'd seen the German term for scissor, "schere," before. It, along with "storchschnabel" (literally "cranesbill," referring to a pantograph writing device--see below) is commonly used in reference to the distinctive scissoring action of the psychograph's framework. Rather than using now-familiar planchettes to indicate letters, users (singly, as show in the above illustration, or, more commonly, in small groups) would place their hands on the terminal ends of the criss-crossed framework, which would then mysteriously move and pivot in the distinctive "scissoring" action familiar to user of the era as being inspired by the movement of writing pantographs, used then to replicate or enlarge drawings, as seen in this period engraving:

The distinctive "scissoring" mechanic of psychographs was inspired
by pantographs--early drawing replication devices.

So, while the article's descriptions distinctly rule out the illustration depicting a flat planchette board, and therefore a true talking board 9 years previous to its advent in 1886 in America, it's even better, for me, in that it is a brand new illustration of a psychograph! I was lucky enough to acquire two of these original illustrations, and recently had the pleasure of surprising my friend and collaborator Robert Murch with his own copy for his birthday!

Meanwhile, Marc found some more evidence in his native tongue, and it opened the floodgates of discovery into some previously-unseen devices. To see what I mean, let's look at this little slice of utter amazement. I think my peers will vouch for me to say that a data dump of new devices on this scale is fairly unprecedented. It's more than a slice--its a whole damned breadbasket!

Photo produced in collaboration with Nordiska Museet and www.mysterousplanchette.com

The collection of the Nordiska Museet in Stockholm, Sweden contains two psychographs. The first was donated to the museum on my birthday, May 12, 1939, by Lotten Falkenberg. This one is interesting because it relies on a stand that goes on top of an alphabet board, rather than attaching to the table as Wagner's original design. The museum's original collection pictures displayed an unfortunate tangle of half-assembled and incomplete devices, so I contacted them and offered a partnership to instruct them in the proper assembly of the devices, share my knowledge of these apparatus, and sponsor a new photoshoot to capture these items in all of their glory. It took us a while to get it all organized, but now we can finally see that unique "Storchschnabel" or "cranesbill" design of a true criss-crossed psychograph in the historical flesh!

Photo produced in collaboration with Nordiska Museet and www.mysterousplanchette.com

Photo produced in collaboration with Nordiska Museet and www.mysterousplanchette.com

There is another very similar psychograph in the Nordiska Museet. This one was in a few pieces, and when originally photographed the right arm was spun around the wrong way and the base disconnected, but all but one of the main components are there, minus the missing alphabet board. Like the other specimen, it has the turned-wood leg supports, but includes a screw to attach it to the table, just as Wagner's device is known to have had. It's just beautiful, with the turned knobs and the lathed legs that display lots of care and workmanship. Look at those tiny little ivory or bone wheels inset in each leg! 

Photo produced in collaboration with Nordiska Museet and www.mysterousplanchette.com

Photo produced in collaboration with Nordiska Museet and www.mysterousplanchette.com

Are either of these devices an original Wagner?

Not likely. The primary point of contradiction is that in contemporary descriptions of Wagner's device, which are quite detailed. We know that Wagner's alphabet was printed in 5 rows, and the digits in two rows. And there is no mention of Wagner's original device having the legs that support the arms of the device. In fact, the presence of such support is directly contradicted in those descriptions: a prominent complaint was that Wagner's device was prone to sagging, and the inventor often relied on an optional upright arm strung with catgut to shore up the arms and counteract the pressure of sitter's hands, which was described contemporaneously but not illustrated until the 1920s. Adolf Diesterwegstraße's 1899 treatise, Presentation of his life and his teaching and selection of science writings, Volume 2, specifically states that "two points [BH: The table clamp, and the index] support the whole thing on the table." Are the support legs a later refinement? Perhaps, but even by 1854, as we're hearing the last of Wagner in London (or anywhere for that matter), the Morgenblatt fur gebildete Leser depicted the device, as you can see below, and there are no supporting legs beneath the arms, and the index is located on the inside, not the outside, of the device. There's also the fact that there are significant structural differences, primarily in the locations of the joints and the arm length and design that leads to the table clamp.

But this illustration leaves out another key element calling its accuracy into question: the pane of glass covering the alphabet sheet that facilitated the smooth movement of Wagner's device, which was described in contemporary accounts, as well as the London patent (a "glass slab or other non-conductor").

There's another key difference: the paddles that terminate the arms where the users placed their hands. The Morgenblatt illustration shows paddles cut-out from the same piece of wood as the arms, which conforms to the contemporary descriptions that the arms ended with "wooden disks 4 to 5 inches in diameter on their ends, used to receive the hands in order to charge the instrument with vital energy." These devices, however, have small lathed knobs of ebony, in a departure from the descriptions of the 1850s. While it could be a refinement by Wagner, there are just a few too many points of departure.

The discovery of these specimens is cause enough for excitement, but they are only the start! In the collection of the Kulturmagasinet Museisamling in Helsingborgs, Sweden, there is a possibly complete specimen whose armature closely matches the second Nordiska Museet example, but with a near-identical board to the first example. Here, we can see the paper-covered alphabet board component of the device, only a little worse for wear. Note the similarities of the indented/dimpled knobs and the protruding tab from the swivel base. All three specimens, in fact, seem closely related in manufacture, though no specimens carry any signifying manufacturer's mark. While their are significant differences in the style of the legs, all 3 artifacts have rounded knobs on the underside of the innermost joints, rather than full legs. There are the indented knobs, and overall the thickness of the arms and overall construction is very similar when we compared them forensically.

Photo produced in collaboration with Kulturmagasinet Museisamling and www.mysteriousplanchette.com

Photo produced in collaboration with Kulturmagasinet Museisamling and www.mysteriousplanchette.com

Here, the presence of the board gives us other clues that point to this not being an original Wagner: the alphabet is Swedish, with the additional vowels of Å, Ä, and Ö. Of course, that makes sense given the current whereabouts of these artifacts, but Wagner originally pitched his device in Berlin, and latter advertised his psychographs to an English market in London. That the alphabet boards are in the Swedish alphabet, not German or English (Wagner's two known markets), and that ultimately makes their most probable origin the country where they now reside. Also, given that their donators of the Nordiska Museet specimens were prominent and enthusiastic Spiritualists who are known to have used the devices before their donation (as well as a fantastic writing planchette they also donated!), it puts their more likely production in the 1910s-1930s range, rather than the 1850s.

Overall, these are amazing discoveries in the world of talking boards, and I'm so excited to share them with you. For those able to attend my Lily Dale lecture late last year, I actually debuted to that audience the psychograph I produced as a mockup in preparation for the museum photoshoots, which I modeled to properly convey photo angles to my distant photographers. The night before the lecture, myself, my friend Chloe Heydt (of Haunted Hauswife fame), and my partners-in-crime Mandi Shepp, librarian of the incredible Marion Skidmore Library and her awesome husband Chris, gave my model psychograph a spin, and I capture it on film--perhaps the first use of a psychograph device of this style since the museums' specimens above were donated and locked away! Enjoy the psychograph in action!

   

Ghosts & Gadgets: Here, There & Everywhere!

It's been about a month since Ronni Thomas' new short film, Ghosts & Gadgets, debuted at the Raindance Film Festival on the biggest screen in London. The film is a retrospective of my research into spirit communication devices and features my collection of historical automatic writing planchettes and other seance apparatus. My friends at Morbid Anatomy Museum in New York helped sponsor its production, and Ronni and the Midnight Archive crew are true visionaries, condensing my enthusiastic ramblings right down to something worth watching. And they were an absolute blast to spend a few days with while they were here filming. It's been a long time coming, and I invite you to finally view the end result, Ghosts & Gadgets:

And the reception's been great so far! Check out what some of the following articles have to say on the film!

"How the Inventions of the 19th Century Brought People Closer to Talking with the Dead"--www.jezebel.com

"What Is A Planchette? "Ghosts And Gadgets" Mini Documentary Teaches Us About Devices Used To Communicate With The Dead"--www.bustle.com 

"Mini-Doc Explores the History of Devices Designed to Talk with the Dead"--www.nerdist.com 

"Ghosts And Gadgets: Communicating with the Spirits"--www.cultofweird.com

"Meet a collector of ghostly gadgets and antique paranormal tech"--www.boingboing.net

"WATCH: Antique Spirit Communication Devices"--www.huffingtonpost.com

"A Short Documentary That Explores the History of the Planchette and Other Devices Used to Communicate With the Dead"--www.laughingsquid.com

"Ghosts And Gadgets: Communicating with the Spirits"--www.realitysandwich.com

"Conduits to the Afterlife - Watch a Wonderful Short Documentary About Spirit Communication Devices"--www.dailygrail.com

"Ghosts And Gadgets: Communicating with the Spirits: A New Film by Ronni Thomas for Morbid Anatomy Museum Presents!"--www.artmag.top

"Ghosts And Gadgets: Communicating with the Spirits"--www.neatorama.com

And the hits just keep coming! Thank you so much to Ronni Thomas, the Midnight Archive crew, and Morbid Anatomy Museum for this fantastic film!

The Kirby & Co. Conundrum

Finally back from an incredible trip of Lily Dale--which you can read/see all about on my public facebook page--and have a clear morning to explore some new discoveries made just before my departure!

A recent acquisition by Gene Orlando of the Museum of Talking Boards--the lucky dog--has turned my attention back to the age-old question that's plagued me about Kirby & Co's planchettes for several years now: "What's what, and which is which, in the Kirby & Company planchette catalog?"

To see what I mean, take a look at a golden-era ad for Kirby & Co planchettes that lists all 5 offered models offered as of May 1869, in that month's edition of the American Phrenological Journal:

Five advertised Kirby & Co models; May 1869 American Phrenological Journal

This ad is pretty late in the game for Kirby & Co; in fact, it is among the last from the surviving record. The New York firm, led by brothers John and Charles Kirby, had produced planchettes from very early on in the 1868 craze, beginning with their first advertisements for “Planchett [sic] Boards” in early April 1868 editions of the New York Times. Within a week of these first ads, they are dropping "Patent Applied For" claims in ads in the New York Evening Post.

Quincy Whig, June 28, 1868

By that summer, Kirby & Co. is distributing planchettes to other dealers, including George H. Whitney of Providence, RI, Strickland & Co stationers and booksellers of Milwaukee, who advertised the No.1 and No. 2 Kirby planchettes, and probably Woodruff & Pfieffer’s “under the Opera House” shop, which sold planchettes as “No. 1 $1.50, No. 2 $3.00, No. 3 $4.00,” which corresponds with the prices and models of Kirby & Co planchettes.

Success and popularity bred imitators, or so Kirby & Co. claimed. And that's funny, because evidence overwhelmingly supports that Boston bookseller G.W. Cottrell had the lead on planchette manufacturing by a solid 8 years with his "Boston Planchette," thanks to Dr. H.F. Gardner and Robert Dale Owen. Meanwhile, glazier Cyrus H. Farley of Portland, Maine even had an early claim to manufacturing the boards before Kirby, which may have led to a partnership, as later reported in the Springfield Republican:

"He manufactured quite a number which he sold at the Cretan fair in Boston [MP: Easter weekend, March]. He attempted to awaken an interest in the subject in the mind of Boston people, but everybody laughed at him. He then went to New York and enlisted the efforts of Mr. Kirby, and since that time Farley and Kirby have manufactured over 34,000 planchettes." 

I'll explore this relationship in a later article, and how it might have led to the "No. 4" plate glass planchette. For now, whatever their claims and protestations of originality, which as we know could not be substantiated for a device invented 15 years previously in Paris (see my site or my Paranormal Review article, "Game of Firsts," for more information on planchette's earliest days), Kirby & Co. began warning against so-called imposters with patent claims. By early July, Kirby ads in the NY Evening Post and in the Boston Journal (right in  Cottrell's territory) warns of imitator planchettes “of inferior make are in the market, under various names and changes to avoid Patent, and are apt to mislead the public.”

There is no evidence that Kirby & Company actually had a patent of any kind for their planchette. In fact, the only planchette patent from the period is New Yorker Ralph Jennings' "Little Wonder" planchette from July, which was predicated on an unusual "spinner" attached to a spindle sprouting from the shield-shaped board, as a proper means of "significant improvement" that would have qualified it for a patent application. And it's curious to note that an 1868 Springfield Republican article specifically states that the Boston Planchette's inventor, G.W. Cottrell, sold the "Little Wonder" in his Boston bookstore, while another article accused Cottrell of being a Kirby turncoat--a distributor gone rogue with his own infringing product, which evidence doesn't support. But the bad blood between Cottrell and Kirby is a significant tangent for another article.

If Kirby & Company had any claim to a patent an an items others had been making for years, if would have had to have come through a "significant improvement" on the device, like Jennings' spinner. In Kirby's case, it might have come in the form of the “New Patent Wheel” of their “No. 1” planchette.

So which planchette is the No. 1? Well...that's why we're here.

Initial Kirby & Co. ads only list the "No. 1" and "No. 2." By July, the company was advertising their "No. 4"--the plate glass planchette. It follows that their "No. 3" "India Rubber" planchette (actually made of ebonite) would have predated this one slightly, being assigned previously in sequence, and present in ads (see above) before the glass planchette appears. And while those two make for fitting climaxes to any review of Kirby planchettes, they are also the easiest to identify, so here they are, as we work backward:

To the left is the Kirby & Co. "No. 4" Plate Glass Planchette, 1868. At right is the Kirby & Co "No. 3" India
Rubber Planchette, 1868, manufactured in ebonite, an early form of vulcanized rubber patented by
Charles Goodyear. This material may provide important clues to Kirby's patents and manufacturing
partners.

These unusual forms reflect a company with considerable resources and partnerships at its disposal, and the reported sales numbers of planchettes during the 1868 craze and numerous ads reflect Kirby's market dominance of the devices. One news story reported sales up to December, 1868 numbering 34,000, while The Round Table newspaper put the number at "over 200,000." With such numbers, variation of product is the norm, not the exception. Which is what makes identifying everything from "No. 2" on down--all the wood board models--so difficult.

And this is compounded by the fact that we're not only contending with two different designs. In May, 1869, months after the great craze and the holiday season rush for the devices, Kirby & Co. began advertising their new “No. 0” budget planchette, “a good substantial board” for $1.00 in the American Phrenological Journal.

Which leaves us with three wood model boards to categorize:

"No. 0 — A good substantial board...$1.00”
"No. 1 — A superior Planchette with new patent wheel...$1.50"
"No. 2 — With improved Pentagraph wheel, highly polished...$3.00"

Given that "good," "substantial," "superior," and "improved" are all fairly subjective terms, this isn't easy. And "new patent wheel" versus "improved Pentagraph wheel" was, before now, we think, anyone's guess. And gauging polish? Sheesh. But we do have some clues, and multiple boards for comparison, so let's take a look.

The most recent addition to the Kirby pantheon that sparked the discourse is a beauty. Notably, it is lacking the normal scooped "cutout" at the cleavage of the heart that is so distinctively "Kirby" in other boards, giving it the same "normal" heart shape of the glass and rubber planchettes produced by the company.

A Goodyear-wheeled Kirby Planchette, photo courtesy of the Museum of Talking Boards.

But this isn't the only truly heart-shaped Kirby known--we've got one here in the Mysterious Planchette archives, too. The wood, polish, shape, and label all compare favorably. So we have a match on the top end! But the differences in the castors and wheels are noticeable. Let's take a look and compare, and bear witness to some of the most beautiful hardware ever produced for planchettes!

The Orlando "Goodyear" castor and wheel, left, and the Hodge specimen, right.

The differences between the two castors are obvious. The castors on the MoTB specimen have a simple brass shaft and petite base, with a relatively simple straight-cut axle fork. And, as you can see from the previous picture, the shaft extends through the wood plank and is secured by two flathead screws on the board's topside. The piece from our collection, on the other hand, does not penetrate through, and is secured with a short integrated wood screw from the underside. These castors have intricately cast bases, and the axle forks are cast or stamped pieces folded around the central shafts, and their axle pin housings contains matching scrollwork. But is this an improvement over lathed brass? Is it superior? More desirable from a Victorian mindset? That's our problem--the cast castors certainly look nicer with more embellishments, but is it considered finer crastmanship or cheaper manufacturing through a casting or stamping process? We don't know.  Do note that both planchettes have a high polish on the topside and matching labels--a selling point we know was advertised for the "No. 2."

The wheels are just as different. The Hodge specimen has a thick wood wheel, likely mahogany. The MoTB specimen, on the other hand, is hard rubber, and is stamped "Goodyear's P.T.  N R Co." which, our internet sleuthing revealed usually appears on buttons from the Civil War era, and means:

A period Goodyear button
that should look familiar.

"The most common [Goodyear] company [patent] back marks to find are from: Novelty Rubber Co. (N.R. Co.); India Rubber Comb Co. (I.R.C. Co.) . During the life of the patent Charles Goodyear held (rubber hardening process), all buttons made of hard rubber had to carry evidence of his patent. Many carry just the word Goodyear's and "P=T", an abbreviation for Patent and the year 1851." [source]

So, these wheels were manufactured by New York's Novelty Rubber Company under the Goodyear patent. What to make of this? Not much more than face value, I'm afraid. It does open up the intriguing possibility that the company also manufactured the "No. 3" India Rubber planchette--Kirby, being a bookseller, certainly didn't do it themselves. So that's a great discovery for me to explore!

When the true-heart-shaped Kirby first arrived on my doorstep, and again when I saw this new one, I thought was that it must be a "No. 0"--it lacked the distinctive scoop cutout you'll see from the more well-known Kirby designs (as you'll see below). It just seemed more...basic. Is it just an early model before the scoop "improved" other Kirby planchette models? But maybe the high polish puts it as a "No. 2" model, and these are what Kirby considered "improved Pentagraph" wheels? We. just. don't. know.

1868 Kirby & Co. planchette ad--note classic "Kirby Scoop."

Another option is that the Goodyear wheels designate a "No. 1" due to the fact that the Goodyear design is, technically, patented, as the advertisement designates for that model. In other words: the "patent wheel" refers to the Goodyear patent on the wheel material, not Kirby's patent on the wheel design. But even then, it could be any model. 

Once we crack open the different variations of castors and wheels in the more traditional Kirby shape--the scooped cutout-heart--things get even more confusing. For starters, the castor style on the Hodge specimen is repeated on another Kirby in the Museum of Talking Boards collection: this time on a board with the traditional Kirby cutout-heart shape, seen below. There's absolutely no consistency in combined shapes and castor types to settle on only 3 wood model types from the 1869 ad!

The other Museum of Talking Boards Kirby & Co planchette. Note it has identical castors to the Hodge heart-shaped
plank, but on the more traditional "cutout-heart" board. It is also worth noting this board has little to no polish. 

Let's confuse matters even more, shall we? The below photograph depicts a very important planchette belonging to the Missouri History Museum. This one's special because it was a gift from Robert Dale Owen, one of the two men responsible (the other being Dr. H.F. Gardner) for originally importing planchettes to Boston in 1859, where G.W. Cottrell is said to have made copies for sale in his shop in 1860. But turning our attention to its design, we can see that here, in a bit of tit-for-tat here, we've got the same style of castors we find on the MoTB's Goodyear-tire planchette, with what appears to be the same black rubber wheels, again on a cutout-heart board. Also note the box designates this as an "Improved" planchette. Could it be that the shape itself is what Kirby & Co considered the improvement over the earlier, simpler heart-shaped design?

The Matthew Wilson planchette, a gift from Spiritualist Robert Dale Owen, in the Missouri History Museum.

Lastly, we have the Longfellow Kirby, in the collection of the Longfellow National Historic Site, which includes the house and artifacts of American author Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It has the cutout-heart shape, once had a fine polish (long scarred and worn away over much of its top), and casters we haven't yet seen in the above specimens. The base is large in diameter and flat, and unstamped, with a beveled flange supporting the upright shaft that has a small retainer/tension screw for adjusting the planchette's sensitivity. A flathead screw secures the castor to the board through the topside. The brass axle fork isn't straight like the Goodyear models--it kicks out to give the castor a little more height, and the wheel is bone, not wood or rubber.

The Longfellow Kirby, courtesy of the Longfellow National Historic Site (www.nps.gov/long/).

Now, I'm not a betting man. But in my years researching planchettes, I've come to know what a period pantograph castor looks like. And that's the source of the earliest planchette castors--they were manufactured by scientific instrument makers used to producing castors for the writing-duplicating/enlarging devices known as pantographs. My favorite planchette article ever, Confessions of a Reformed Planchettist, actually recounts a scientist's dismay at being unable to find a scientific instrument maker to undertake a personal project of his due to them all being booked making pantograph wheels to keep up with the planchette craze. See the similarities for yourself:

Period Pantograph Castors by W. & S. Jones, left, and Elliot Bros, right, who also produced some of the first UK planchettes.

But this also isn't the first time we've seen this style of casters in this article, even on a Kirby. If we revisit the plate glass and India rubber models from up above, we find a familiar form, inset screw and all:

The pantograph-stye castors of the Kirby "No. 4" plate glass planchette, left, and the "No.3" India Rubber board, right.

This leads me to consider if the "improved pentagraph wheel" listed as a feature of the "No. 2" isn't our biggest clue of differences between these models--these castors with the set screws certainly appear more traditionally "pantograph-y" than the other models, and they have bone or ivory wheels, which were a feature of most high-end pantographs of the era. It's just a thought, not confirmation, and doesn't really get us any closer than we were.

I could really throw a hardball at this hardware and start talking about the various Kirby & Co. "clones" that may or may not have been perpetrated by G.W. Pitcher, and have near-identical hardware and even shapes...but let's call it a day, shall we? Here, as at last we close our retrospective of Kirby & Co planchette castors, we really arrive no closer that we were before to settling the conundrum of their model number system. If I had to guess, I'd say the wooden-wheeled models are possibly "No. 0" models, the "new patent wheel" description of the "No. 1" refers to the patented Goodyear wheels, and the "improved Pentagraph wheels" points toward the pantograph-style castors and bone wheels common to pantographs of the period, making the bone-wheeled models like the Longfellow "No. 2s".  Wood < Rubber < Bone? Doesn't really leave room for the heart-shape=early/scoop cutout="Improved" theory, but it's something. I supposed we'll just have to dig up a few more models, and see what we can come up with!

The New Indicator, 1871

IAPSOP.com doubled in size last August. As our steadfast founder announced in December, we now have a near-complete run of the Spiritual Telegraph, and extensive run of the Progressive Thinker, added to the Harbinger of Light and Carrier Dove holdings, and, well, added about 10,000 pages of new material. This effort is invaluable, and expanding exponentially, so pick a link and get to work on something!

So these days it comes as little surprise when little gifts drop into my inbox from Marc, John, or Pat when they're out in the field or Marc's processing articles in queue. Sometimes we just turn the page and there's a gem that didn't even take the trouble of searching--just educated eyes looking at it for the first time in years. And we like surprising one another, so... Such is this discovery, and it's a double-whammy.

As the calendar turned to the 1870s, the writing planchette's bright star has fallen after a phenomenal rise just 3 years previously, and we're in a couple decades-long lull before the arrival of the talking board, in a period where all sorts of evolutionary dead-ends and false-starts in spirit communication devices will arrive and depart, all on the way to the ultimate refinement in Kennard's Ouija in 1890. It is a prolific period, however, bringing us Tuttle's Psychograph, Lippitt's Psychic Stand and Detector in the mid-1870s (which the patent office rejects), the "L.K." table in Savannah in 1876, Frederick Becker's strange alphabet board patent in 1880, and others known and unknown.

And now, thanks to The Medium & Daybreak we have not one, but TWO new devices to add to the archives. In the January 20, 1871 edition, Richard Bewley made a suggestion of an "indicator" or "telegraph" to facilitate spirit communication. It's a great little contrivance, modifying a planchette to run on a baseboard and "plate-glass strips on which the alphabet is inscribed." 

A NEW INDICATOR.
To the Editor of the Medium and Daybreak.
Sir,—With pleasure I send you a description of a telegraph I have found efficient; it will spell out words as fast as an ordinary writer can take them down. I have tried all the alphabetic methods, from calling over the alphabet, discs, and pointers, &c., and planchette and other experiments for facilitating communications, and have found the one I am about to describe a great improvement, and both simple and inexpensive. Take your planchette, and instead of the pencil substitute a third wheel or castor; procure a piece of board about 24 inches long, three-quarters of an inch thick, and as wide as the planchette is long; cut three grooves in it lengthways—one on the outer edge sufficiently wide and deep to receive the edge of a strip of window plate-glass of the same length as the board, and about two inches and a half to three inches wide; the other two grooves are to form a tramway for the castors, and their place will be determined by the distance between the back and front castors; put a stop at each end of the front groove to prevent the planchette running beyond or off the base-hoard. On the glass plate paint or paste the letters of the alphabet. The plate now standing at right angles to the base-hoard, the glass may be either cemented in the groove or removable at pleasure. To operate, place your altered planchette on the tramroad, and the point of the heart will be on a level with the letters, and in moving along point to them in succession, stopping at the one to be noted till the word is formed. I find it saves time to pull the carriage back to the A end and let the invisible operator push it forward to the next letter. I hope I have made the description sufficiently plain; if not, I shall have pleasure in giving you any further information.—Yours, &c.,

Richard Bewley.

Uttoxeter, January 16,1871.

Just one edition later, an interested reader suggested a refinement to Bewley's instrument, who communicated some suggested simplifications in the January 25 edition 
   

 

The "Psychologist" author of the letter not only suggest refinements, but constructed one of his own envisioned devices, which he was kind enough to illustrate for the world.

As it turns out, the refined device fits snugly with an evolutionary branch of talking boards of which Downe's Snitch Baby is a member. In casual conversation, collectors lump such instruments in the "dial plate" category, even as we know it is inaccurate, since there's no true dial as we find on Tuttle's device, Hornung's Emanulector, or Pease's Spiritual Telegraph Dial. But "slide plates" or "slide dials" aren't all that accurate either, and just don't roll of the tongue.

The device is pretty basic, and all the components of a talking board in place: a wooden board, the printed alphabet, and a planchette that relies on autonomous movements of its users. Why such designs didn't suffer the same flare-up in popularity as planchettes before them, or Ouija afterward, is one of history's mysteries. How Tuttle's Psychograph, with its can't-loose-it dial and concise design--wasn't the king of them all still amazes me, but, then again, maybe that's just the power of marketing.

So, dear readers, we ceremoniously place the "New Indicator" in the pantheon of similar devices, and wait for another to appear.

Want to hear me talk a lot more about this stuff, only in person? I'll be hosting and lecturing at OuijaCon April 22-25, in Baltimore. If you are anywhere along the Eastern Seaboard at that time, I encourage you to attend!

Mysterious Planchette on Paranormal Podcast

I haven't been on the radio in a couple of months, so I'm excited to share my recent sit-down with Jim Harold of the Paranormal Podcast. As you'd expect, we waxed poetic on the finer points of seance artifact collecting and the history of spirit communication devices. I think you'll enjoy tuning in!

Spirit Communication Devices and Ouija – The Paranormal Podcast 368