I Wanda. I Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Wanda!

"I wanda how many times you've been had
And I wanda how many plans have gone bad

I wanda, I wanda--wanda I do."

--Sixto Rodriquez. "I Wanda"
 

At least I think that's how it goes.

Ebay always proves an elusive and confounding beast for collectors and researchers alike. Each day brings a new flood of historical antiquities to pick and preen through. Every so often an item shows up that rewrites previous conclusions or opens up new avenues to explore. Most recently, that item was the Auburn Company's “Syco-Graf” board.

I have a long love affair with the Syco-Graf. Back in my poor college days when I had little other option but to choose between ramen, rent, or talking boards, and regrettably more often than not chose food, warmth, and shelter over rare collectibles, I fell head over heels for the item in a rather ratty, torn-up specimen that appeared at auction in eBay's nascent days. I didn't win it, of course, but I thought the auction picture was unique enough to save for later reference. That little low-res thumbnail became the cornerstone of a new digital talking board photo folder I then made on my desktop. To really date it, consider that the picture culled from that auction was eventually saved to a floppy disk inserted in my A: drive, and was lovingly transferred from computer-to-computer in successive years, changing formats as I went, and where it still lies buried among so many others that have come along since.

1921 Syco-Graf Dial Plate

I first detailed the Syco-Graf on mysteriousplanchette.com on the page dedicated to Grover Haffner's business concerns, but with some new revelations, I want to revisit the device and the penultimate form it may—or may not—have ultimately evolved into: the Wanda Tipping Table.

The real revelation of this recent listing was a previously-undisclosed business name stamped in the yellow-stained oval above the board's missing dial attachment: The Auburn Company, along with “Providence, RI.” Though it seems that information had been shared with me as early as 2010, I had failed to notate it, and so thanks to that “new” little revelation—and to my good friend Bob Murch of williamfuld.com, whose thoroughness is rivaled only by his boyish charm and glare of his shiny bald pate—we now know a lot more about this little business than we once discovered and discarded.

A man by the name of Whitfield J. Hainer of 227 Sackett St. registered “The Auburn Company" as a sole proprietorship manufacturing novelties at the City Hall of Providence, Rhode Island, on March 1, 1920. By that time, Whitfield already had two patents on record: his 1915 "autographic register" mechanical receipt machine and his 1919 caulking device. The business headquarters then differed from that printed on the company's ads, with a given location of 35 West Minister Street. There is a partner listed, which confuses the sole propriety of his endeavors, but the name C.H. Martineau of 147 Elmwood Avenue is also given. According to the 1921-22 Providence House Directory and the board's manufacturer stamp, the duo's company was located at 64 North Main Street, in Room #2.

Another Syco-Graf Specimen: missing dual indicator.

The board itself is a fantastic design, with “inlays” of birch highlighting the various message areas that seem to rather be stamped-and-lightly-stained areas contrasting with darker-stained blank space than actual inlays. In fact, depending on a particular photograph's contrast setting, the workaround stain job seems evident, with darker patches of the red stain deeper in outlying areas that thin to blotchy-ness as you get closer to the black-line segregated yellow-stained areas, perhaps as the worker applied the stain trying to avoid over-applying stain where it wasn't needed.

The Syco-Graf is a classic dial plate board in line with the Electra Company boards of the same era, with a curious new feature never before seen in spirit communication devices: a dual-index.(To be fair, the 1918 Sullivan patent has a two-pointer index, but doesn't work on the same long/short two-level arrangement) With the two-tiered arrangement of the letters on the face, the rotating wheel contains two indicators—a short one that points to the lower tier of numbers, days, times, and messages; and a long index, which points to the upper tier of letters and the Yes and No messages between them.

Syco-Graf Advertisement, Overland Monthly, November 1920

The earliest advertisements on record show up in November of 1920—just in time for the holiday season—and in the pages of both monthly and weekly publications such as The Californian and Overland Monthly, as well as The Independent and Motion Picture Classics. By August of 1921, advertising diminishes and then ceases—as far as we can observe—in Overland Monthly only. Whether or not the heavy spread of advertisements targeted at a California audience is indicative only of the surviving or digitized record, or if they are a clue to eyes cast longingly Westward is unknown, but it is a curious observation that may play into the board's continued evolution in the West that we'll soon discuss, if any.

The Syco-Graf was advertised as a “micro-psychic” machine that “amazingly increases the strength of the feeblest psychic impressions.” It sold for $5.00, or, approximately $60 in current dollars. We haven't seen many pop up over the years, and few with intact indicators. So they're nice and rare.

Kyro Psychic Writer advertisement, The Independent, March 1921

By March of 1921, The Auburn Company was offering a new enticing product: Kyro: The Psychic Writer. It was described as “a modernized and supersensitized planchette.” It was constructed of 3-ply mahogany and “birch inlay” that arouses my suspicions that it was a similarly deceptive contrasting stamp-and-dye-job (like the Syco-Graf) than an actual inlay. It also featured “adjustable bronze fittings” and—if I'm reading this right—“gelo-lithic floats” which may be some sort of insulator like we've observed on the Bang Williams Insulated Planchette. Or the blurry texts says something else (other interpretations are invited). The Kyro sold for .80 cents, or about $10 in modern equivalent currency.

If the surviving digital advertising record is anything to go by, the Syco-Graf didn't make it to the 1921 holiday season. Hainer's partner, in fact, left before the first season was even over, with the incorporation papers noting his departure from the company on December 9, 1920. It seemed the Syco-Graf had suffered the same futile fate as so many talking boards before it, disappearing into the ether before that “Patent Pending” stamp most boards seem to bear bore fruit.

Or did it?

With only pictures of the board's top and no physical specimens to observe, the communicative collecting community had for years tentatively assumed the Syco-Grafs we had seen at auction were simply less refined versions of another enigma we knew of that *did* show up on the patent record: Grover Haffner's patented “tipping table.” After all, the traits just have too much in common to ignore. There's the segmented alphabet sections. The lower arch of letters flanked by the days of the week and the unusual AM and PM markers. And the general layout of the design and the mechanical reliance on that new feature I mentioned: the dual index with the long and short indicators.

The proposed evolution: 1921 Syco-Graf > 1921/23 Haffner Patent Drawing > 1923 Wanda Tipping Table

As historical photographs began to surface of Haffner's tipping table, it was easy to jump to the conclusion that his patent and the boards it spawned were simply refined versions of the Syco-Graf. But there were a few problems with that.

For one, this week's auction showed us for the first time the flipside of the Syco-Graf, and it was surprisingly absent of the legs, base, and pulley mechanism we expected. Rather, it was just a straight dial plate mechanism, casting its role in the evolution of the tipping table into doubt.

Then, of course, we expected—or at least hoped—to see Grover Haffner's name somehow connected to the Auburn Company's incorporation papers, which Murch wasn't able to secure until we had a company name the eBay auction's item revealed as the Auburn Company. But we don't get Haffner—we get Hainer and Martineau instead.

Haffner Patent Drawing Detail: filed November 1921, approved December 1923

At least we have some breathing room. Haffner's patent for his “psychic instrument” is filed on November 26, 1921, so we have some time before the last Syco-Graf advertisements on record and his filing date for his tipping table. (As an interesting side-note, Haffner used the same attorneys: Hazard & Miller, that T.H. White used for his I-D-O PSY-CHO-I-D-E-O-GRAPH board and subsequent "Card Board" patent.) So it could be that Haffner—perhaps acting as the Elijah Bond to Auburn's Charles Kennard—had time to borrow, license, or steal (or, you know, use legitimately, but that's so boring) the design scheme for the Syco-Graf, head West, and set up shop to produce the revised version. Or maybe the design similarities and dual-index operation are all one big happenstance. We really just don't know, but that doesn't make the design similarities any less suspicious.

And, as usual, there were intervening discoveries made that shed new light on the whole theory and propelled the dialogue forward toward new discoveries. Gene Orlando of the museumtalkingboards.com had archived some photographs of the tipping table in use in some unidentified film or performance, complete with a wiry-haired professor and showgirls at play with the device, and we'd assumed we had a refined Syco-Graf on our hands. But another film-related still broke the whole case open: a photograph discovered by Murch, this time of Lon Chaney and Tod Browning on the set of the lost film London After Midnight, playing with a tipping table as well. Fortunately for us, as I sat there staring and wishing, I cocked my head to the side as I scrutinized the photo, and realized I could see the name of the board in this particular frame.

And it wasn't Syco-Graf. It was a board called “Wanda.”

1920s Film Stills: Browning & Chaney on set of London after Midnight, right, with Wanda mark clearly visibile.

This little clue led us to Harry Lang's 1928 article in Photoplay magazine, Exposing the Occult of Hocus-Pocus in Hollywood,which features not only a picture of a perfectly intact specimen of this “Wanda Tipping Table,” but informed us that Haffner's company was by now known as the Wanda Tipping Table Company of Hollywood, California, which is not only a long way from Providence, Rhode Island, but matches Haffner's location given in his patent information, as well as his only appearance in the census record.

And that distance, not to mention the short span between the final appearances of the Syco-Graf and the first hints of the Wanda, casts speculation on the theorized relationship between the East Coast-produced "Syco-Graf" and its supposed West Coast incarnation. But a patent application does not a product make, and it would be some time yet before Wanda would finally be unveiled. The patent would not actually be approved for another two years, on December 4, 1923. But not that a company ever needed a patent to make a product. And we know the wheels were rolling well before the patent's approval, as the unissued stock certificate from the Henry E. Carter Papers in UCLA's collections (issued for 7% of the company) displays with its February, 1923 issue date. It may be that it took that long for the manufacturers to obtain funding and get established.

Before too long, and like any attractive young starlet, the board was suddenly showing up all over Hollywood, in the aforementioned films, at the very least, and the Photoplay Magazine article even says of it “The famous old ouija board, in its heyday, was so popular that 35,000,000 of them were sold! The tipping table is out after the same record.”

The 1928 Photoplay Revelation: The Wanda Tipping Table!

Regardless of the evolutionary link or no, the Wanda Tipping Table is every bit of machine the patent and film stills promised, and is a marvelous good time to toy around with. Ouija collectors finally had their first chance to get their hands on one at the Phenomenology 105 conference in Gettysburg this year, when I brought the sole-known-surviving and only-just-then-restored specimen along for its public debut. And what a task the restoration was (and a topic for another blog post). The “Kennedy Table,” as it has come to be called after the lovely woman who discovered it in her attic some years ago—was missing a base and indicator, but with the missing parts restored, she's back to talking, and has a lot to say. As the film stills demonstrate, tipping the table back and forth draws the pulley to and fro, turning the dual-indicator back and forth to point out messages with similar ideomotor movements we've come to expect from moving planchettes on talking boards. And she was a big hit at the conference!

The Kennedy Wanda: discovered in an East Coast attic.

Oh, and if you're wondering, like so many are when they pose the question: “Why “Wanda?”” Well, Grover Haffner claimed it was the name of his Indian spirit guide.

If Haffner was involved with the Auburn Company in some sort of secondary role (some East Coast census on Grover Haffner would be a particularly choice confirmation), later press makes it keenly obvious that this is not the case with the Wanda Company, as he is listed as key to the device's existence in promotional materials with the board as well as press of the period. The Photoplay article also gives us some indication of the popularity of the devices in Hollywood:

“Perhaps the same reverent attitude of the Valentino group finds an echo in the increasing numbers of those in filmland who have “tipping tables” in their homes. Then again, perhaps not. But at any rate, Dr. Grover C. Haffner, an accomplished osteopath, and the Wanda Tipping Table Company of Hollywood, are finding their fortunes from the tipping table.” Dr. Haffner invented it, and the company is manufacturing and selling it—and they're selling so many of them that it doesn't need a fortune teller to tell that they're reaping a fortune."

"The tipping table is a sort of first cousin to the old ouija. It's faster—it has an indicator that works quickly like a pointer, in stead of the slow old traveling plaque of the old ouija board. The idea is for two people to sit at one with their finger tips pressing lightly on it. They ask it questions, and it's supposed to answer.”

The article continues with its derision:

“Talking about table tipping, there's that good old séance trick of moving heavy tables about. Houdini, who in his lifetime delighted in nothing so much as exposing fake spiritualistic phenomenon, exposed the table-moving trick repeatedly. But it still goes “hot” in Hollywood séances.”

We got some life out of Wanda, and her career wasn't as brief as other actresses who sojourned to Hollywood seeking fame and fortune. We know by 1923 the wheels were rolling toward the company that would manufacture her. We know by 1927 she's showing up on the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio lots, and by 1928 she is well known enough in Hollywood to be derided in the press—the mark of an arrived star if there ever was one! And she keeps going. In 1931, The Wanda Company commissioned a special 8x10 portrait of her—perhaps for use in advertisements—by the “largest and finest photography studio in the Los Angeles area” at the time: "Dick" Whittington Studios, a photograph now in the USC Digital Library.

Wanda Psychic Tipping Table: the 1931 incarnation. Photo courtesy USC Digital Library.

 The photograph reveals some changes to Wanda, as well. Her design has blossomed from the rather utilitarian scheme of previous years into arguably one of the most beautiful talking board designs ever witnessed. An all-seeing eye now surrounds the indicator, “psychic” has been added to her title, and a nice border and cornerwork adds to the appeal of the board. Like any fading Hollywood starlet who has had her time in the limelight, it looks as if Wanda may have had a little work done, because the photograph does raise some questions: if the baseboard and metal supports pictured are part of the board, and not simply a stand used by the photographer to capture her beautiful new makeup, then how has the mechanism changed? If the base and frame pictured is not a stand, Wanda's mechanism has undergone a serious revision. There is no indication of cables or their anchors on the base, which means her index tipping system has been totally reworked in some fashion. That would mean the regrettable discarding of her beautiful fold-out wooden legs, having been replaced by a pair of metal frameworks, but maybe that's the price of progress.

So, in closing, what to make of all this? It is a question I leave to you, dear reader, and invite you to weigh in in the comments section below. Is it happenstance that the Syco-Graf and Wanda share so many design similarities, or does one seem to be a natural evolution and refinement of the other? The collusion evidence is compelling from a design viewpoint: the dual index mechanism, the AM/PM and weekday messages, and the segmented letter sections that for years led us to believe they were family. But there's no evidence to place Grover Haffner in any sort of relationship with the Auburn Company. What do YOU think?

As researchers, we always wish we had all the answers for you, and we try to assemble all the available evidence into the best working theory we can, but, for now, and until more information comes to light, this one sloughs back into the less-than-certain bin.

Mysterious Planchette on Instagram

While the endeavors of regular, informative blog posts can be postponed by the doldrums of shop ownership and the excitement of travels, researching, and collecting, one thing I usually always have a few spare minutes to participate in--typically while in bed early mornings and late nights with iPhone in hand--is to engage in some photo sharing on Instagram. I use the MysteriousPlanchette moniker to post some of visually appealing aspects of my greater studies as I run across them, and the popularity of the posts, admittedly self-indulgent at first, seem to have gained popularity with a wider audience.

http://instagram.com/mysteriousplanchette#

  So, if you are an instagram user, I encourage you to follow mysteriousplanchette there, and I'll continue to strive to post the more eerie, surreal, and bizarre pictures from the history of spirit communication to fill in the gaps when I just can't find enough gaps between the ticking seconds in the day to update this blog. See you there!

The Planchette in Scientology: The Apsel Contributions

Your truant curator is returned from his recent foray into the lecture circuit of the paranormal conference world, having attended as a special guest at Phenomenology 105 in Gettysburg. And what a treat it was! Between the always-appreciated companionship (and ever-enduring patience) of my friend and collaborator Bob Murch and the host of great new friends and acquaintances, I could not have asked for a better weekend. My new pals and I had dinner with Michael Myers himself (that's Tony bottom right) and met some Walking Dead zombie cast members. None other than 30-Odd-Minutes host Jeff Belanger himself escorted me on my very first ghost hunt, and I recorded a whopping 1.5 hour interview with Devon and Angie of Mysterious World TV. Let's hope they are enthusiastic and unsentimental editors. The fruits of those labors should bloom shortly, so stay tuned to...errr...stay tuned.

One of my favorite people is Nicholas Antolick of www.paranormalproducts.com. Nick is not only a master craftsman in wood and brass, but has a passion for his work that I've never seen equaled. His creations are beautiful, which is not surprising given the high level of personal scrutiny he gives each of his planchettes. Admiring them at his dealer table, attendees very quickly found most were for display only, and not for sale, usually for some minor imperceptible flaw or another which Nick simply could not forgive himself. But he's nearly ready to reveal his next wave of product...sooooon. He is knowledgeable with a fantastic eye, and that's what brings him into the fold this morning.

I first met Nick at the October opening soiree for our talking board exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Industry. At that time, he showed me a few treasures he had acquired over the years, via grainy-yet-enticing cell phone pictures. After months of correspondence and friendship, I had not only the opportunity to hold and document the items, but also add two of them to the mysteriousplanchette.com personal collection after some mutually-beneficial horse trading. I can't thank you enough, Nick.

The subject of today's blog is one of these items. Not since discerning the nearly imperceptible "Wanda Tipping Table" logo on an old film still has the bank broken open so completely on an item whose identity was previously so concealed. Back in October, Nick showed me a simple triangular planchette with a slightly shiny finish, with a few words I could just barely make out: "The Planchette by Absel(?) Jacob Rosa (?)." That's what it looked like to me, anyway. Google didn't offer the slightest bit of help. It wasn't until the planchette was in hand that the faded, worn letters of "Absel" turned the "b" upside down into a "p," and the assumed "a" of "Rosa" morphed into the "e" of Rose. That's...ummm...much different.

So, I'm proud to introduce you to a fascinating little automatic writer with a great little history: The Planchette by Jacob & Rose Apsel.

 As far as can be determined, the Apsel planchette was offered for sale exclusively in the pages of one of Scientology's earliest "fan-zines": The Aberree. The Aberree is a funny little newsletter, published 10 times a year from 1954-1964 by Alphia and Agnes Hart. The 'zine was billed as "the non-serious voice of Scientology" and covered a wide range of metaphysical curiosities in a loose, often humorous format, largely absent from the strict totalitarian tenets of the modern church's public facade. Fortunately for us, archivist Kristi Wachter has compiled the total run of the Aberree on her site, providing us not only a fascinating insight into the community voice of Scientology in its earlier days, but also the only existing clues to the creators and creation of the Apsel planchette.    

Perusal of the volumes shows us that Jacob Absel's first appearance within the pages of the Aberree came in 1955, where he reveals he was already a subscriber in a letter to the editor, and reveals himself as a free seeker for his own truths when he writes: "As one who has been fleeced by experts in the Metaphysical field and also in Dianetics, I wish to loudly state that Rev. James W. Welgos is like a breath of pure fresh air. Twice in two months I spent a week at Fairhope, Ala., along with others who came to study and solve problems in living. The phenomenal manner in which he dissolves problems is sweet to witness." By this time, Jacob is nearing 60, and possibly by now in his second marriage, to Rose, herself in her early 40s. Both make frequent appearances in subsequent years and enthusiastic supporters of the newsletter and various metaphysical subjects.

The first revelations of automatic writing and talking board use come a few years later, in a September 1859 Article by B.E. Roessling, a high school teacher of psychology and biology. The article's headline read:

 The article outlines a cursory description of several "electro-magnetic" devices meant to tap into the human body's "mysterious phenomena," including some sort of automatic writer consisting of a stylus and a rotating drum covered in vellum. According to the article, the author is able to have more success with these sorts of homemade devices over writing planchettes, which, she reveals later in the article, others in the community are using to greater success than she, which can only beg the question of possible ties to England's Metaphysical Research Group or Venture Bookshop, who, by this time, are the only purveyors of metaphysical ephemera producing writing planchettes.

But that would soon change, and from within the Scientology community itself. Shortly thereafter, there appears in the pages of the April 1960 edition of Aberree an ad from aforementioned frequent contributor Jacob Apsel, selling, for the first time, a planchette based on some precepts of Scientology.

 The following month, the ad expands into more depth--and more promises of results:

Similar ads continue throughout the early 60s, with Rose signing on as partner as early as November 1962, which may or may not signal their marriage around this time. Whether or not earlier planchettes carried both spouses' names is unknown.

The instructions likely survive with another existing specimen, but until then, we can only surmise at their contents from Frederic Hand's article that almost serves as an expanded review of Apsel's planchette, in the March 1963 edition of the Aberree. Mr. Hand had apparently set up a correspondence with the Apsels in regards to an acquired planchette's use, and the article reveals that the instructions included with the planchettes may have promoted a belief in specific "entities" believed by the Apsels to communicate with users. As Hand puts it: "It's a nice piece of work, but hasn't worked for me quite the expected way. When I tried it out, instead of getting a manuscript of some kind, I got a few painfully-scrawled words, followed by a series of full-scale interviews with a bunch of entities.These entities were very congenial and we had a barrel of fun doing cultural anthropology on each other, exchanging opinions, and having "bull sessions" generally."

Hand takes the communications in stride, even if they are not what was expicitly promised in the planchette's promotional materials. He goes on to write: "As far as I'm concerned, the Apselian entities exist all right, but they're not nearly the sort of beings the Spiritualists describe. And I think I know why. These entities are curious, imaginative, comparatively irresponsible, have a complicated and irrepressible sense of humor, and are as friendly as a wet puppy. If you want metaphysics, predictions, prehistory, theology, or whatever, they'll provide it. Of course, they improvise most of it as they go along, but they're not trying to fool you; they're just trying to be agreeable."

Hand's article is fascinating and humorous for the light touch he gives the subject and his communications, and, fortunately for us, opens up the book on the subjects the missing instructions might have provided. I haven't had a chance to talk to any entities hardwired to my specimen, but I'll let you know if I get the distinctive whiff of wet puppy.

 

As for the planchette itself, it is obviously a handmade affair, and, despite my earlier hopes that it would match up with Bliss's similarly-triangular-shaped planchette of an earlier era, it was obviously made of a more modern linoleum-ply material of some sort--perhaps counter-top material--with glued-on balls for castors, and likely garage-assembled. Claims of "untouched by machinery" in the ads is incredibly dubious, however, given the angled-drilling of the pencil aperture that could only come from a modern drill press. But that's OK. It opened up a whole new train of thought on planchette use in the 1960s that I'm only just beginning to explore, and I hope to have more for you soon, including more information on the Apsels and the sources of their beliefs. Stay clear, true believers, and hope I don't become fair game for the mere mention!

Unveiling the Ouija: MysteriousPlanchette on ParanormalReview

Things have been incredibly busy for your host as he prepares for his upcoming lecture at the Phenomenology 105 conference next week, all in the midst of a crazy SxSW and Spring Break season here in Austin. Lots of news discoveries to share, of course, but in the meantime they must yield to preparations and anticipation of larger events and a visit back to Gettyburg, which I haven't seen since high school.

Last evening your host had the opportunity to sit down with his partner-in-crime and frequent collaborator Robert Murch of www.williamfuld.com as we chatted about our research into the history of talking boards with the delightful hosts--Luci Leibfried and Anthony Agate--of Paranormal Review Radio. Murch and I spent just over an hour discussing where it all started, what's become of it, and where it might be going with a new generation of pop-culture paranormal fans and ghost hunters. Tune in and enjoy!

Listen to internet radio with ParanormalReview on Blog Talk Radio

Mysteries at the Museum

Your esteemed host had the privilege to act as the on-air consultant for talking boards, the history of Pearl Curran, and the ouija board-influenced writings of her spirit guide Patience Worth on last night's episode of Travel Channel's "Mysteries at the Museum." The web version is, as one might expect, a significantly edited version of the original airing, which was over twice as long with a lot more information and screen time.

Of course, check your local listings for Season 3, Episode 12, for the full version!

Planchette Polka: The 'Little Plank' in Popular Music

In the days before phonographs and record sales, the music industry was dominated by sheet music printers. As the popularity of blackface minstrel shows--vaudeville's immediate precursor--rose to the forefront of popular entertainment in America, and pianos, organs, and melodeons became fixtures in the middle-class parlors of the country, so too did the demand for transcripts of the songs and melodies made popular by the traveling theater shows. Stationers and booksellers, in this sense, were the only 'record stores' of their day.

By the time of the First Great Craze of the planchette's popularity, the invention of the phonograph is still 9 years away, and the sheet music business not yet dominated by the music producers of New York's infamous "Tin Pan Alley," which will not rise to supremacy for another two decades. Copyright laws on songs and melody were less strict than in modern terms, and there is a proliferation of sheet music based on popular melodies--with the lyrics changed, of course--that, with the advantage of historical retrospect, track the prevailing zeitgeist of previous ages. 

As such, Spiritualism already had a long history in sheet music. Among many others, it begins, appropriately enough, with the Fox Family-endorsed "The Haunted Ground" in 1851, with the interesting notation that the title was changed "from the original word 'haunted' by the suggestion of the spirit of Mrs. Hemans to 'hallowed'" (it should also be noted that the lyrics were also credited to the disembodied soul of Mrs. Hemans). There was 1851's "Spirit Polka" and its 'spiritual' successor, 1853's "Mysterious Rappings Polka," the you-know-that's-not-actually-a-seance-trumpet-on-the-cover-right? "What the Spirits Did in a Horn" in 1858, and 1863's "Spirit Rappings" (with their rapping/and their tapping/rap-tap-tap/to wake our napping).

*Note there is some dispute on the dating of the last listed item, with one archive listing it as 1853, which seems more appropriate, and the JScholarship archives listing it as 1863. Though we believe the former is likely more accurate than the latter, we'll defer to the dating of the archive from which the image is borrowed.

Assorted Spiritualism-inspired sheet music, 1851-1863, courtesy of https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/

In 1868, the planchette hit American parlors in a way not seen since the popularity of table tipping in the previous decade. Consequently, sheet music publishers rushed to capitalize on the amusement in the same way that booksellers across the country began their mad scramble to produce the items. To date, we have discovered 4 such songs, beginning with Lee & Walker's 1868 Planchette: Song & Chorus with music by Eastburn and lyrics by Elmer Coates.
 

Courtesy https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/

Set in 2/4 time, the song is a quick and snappy turnaround of wordplay and rhyme, with 9 short verses and a catchy chorus that sings "Planchette, planchette, oh! let me see/What luck you have in store for me. Planchette, planchette, thou wonder great/Oh! Quickly tell my fate..."

The first verse recognizes the planchette for what it was at the time: a bonifide sensation, claiming it is "all the rage" and "the talk of youth and age" that is "played from morning until night." Subsequent verses turn their attention to users of various ages and occupations, all consulting planchette for advice in love, law, medicine, and well, love. It begins with a lawyer consulting on a case in the second verse, and the others cover the love affairs of a widow, a physician, a 17 year old girl, a "dandy bach," a spinster, another spinster, and a preacher.  
 

Verse 1: Planchette is all the rage/The wonder of the nation/the talk of youth and age/Of poverty and station/the game is played from morning until night. To see what “fate” the “little plank” will write!

Verse 2: A lawyer wants a point/before he'd go-to pleading; He says “I wish the truth/Ere I am interceding:”/He's told “there'll be no harm and no one hung/If he'll leave court and only hold his tongue”

Verse 3: A widow “in her prime”/Says “trouble don't neglect her”/and wants to know “the time/to hunt a new protector;”/when promptly told most any time will do/She cries “Hurra! Dear Ike, I'm in for you.”

Verse 4: A doctor wants to know/the fate of one he's tending/”When will the fever go”/or “when will he be mending?”/The pencile moves and he is clearly shown/”The man will rise when he is let alone.”

Verse 5: A girl of seventeen/who bears the name of Hannah/would like to know about/the “running off of mamma;”/when told that girls must never leave the right,/she says “then Jo, I'll marry you tonight.”

Verse 6: A dandy bach appears/Al whiskers and potatum/“Oid loike if I/can marry Sallie Tatem.”/When told he “can't” he sinks upon a chair/And says “Aw woman thou art false as fair.”

Verse 7: A lass of forty four/would learn about her lover/She faints upon the floor/when told he likes another/She says ah!me, a terrible mishap/and shales till wig and teeth fall in her lap.

Verse 8: Up comes a number two/who rather long has tarried/and with a much adoo/says she “will I be married?”/When she is told there is another chance/She hires a fiddle and begins to dance.

Verse 9: A preacher very proud/and fond of elevation/Would know “but not too loud”/Of richer congregation;/He's told to try the famous church Saint Paul/and he begins to plan himself a call.

The songs is entertaining and, in the paradox I've often observed with planchettes, as opposed to their latter-day replacements in the Ouija, innocent and non-threatening, with even a preacher depicted as consulting to device for heavenly advice. The characterizations are fun and, one would think, fairly entertaining given the parlor atmosphere of the day, and for which it was intended.

 The second selection is our most lavishly illustrated, but unfortunately only known through its cover, discovered among the photo archives of an Etsy user who had unfortunately long-ago sold the document. Again dating to the first year of the craze in 1868, Planchette Polka by C.Y. Fonda of Cincinati, Ohio, sought to not only capitalize on the planchette craze itself, but ride on the coattails of the dominant manufacturer of the devices: none other that Kirby & Co of Boston. The cover illustration is an accurate depiction of a Kirby planchette, with its distinctive "bitten heart" shape, and the song is not only dedicated to the company, but their address is provided. Whether or not Kirby & Co., themselves stationers and publishers, were partners in this enterprise is unknown. Unfortunately, what the song's lyrics may reveal (if, of course, there were lyrics, given that La Motte is only given a composition credit), is unknown until a existing copy can be relocated.

Advertisement from the Western Rural, April 22-July 15, 1868

There is at least one other song that dates from the era of the First Great Craze: "Planchette Song: Set the Truth Echoes Humming"  published by the J. O. Barrett company of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, with lyrics by J.O. Barrett and music Stephen W. Foster (not to be confused, unfortunately, with Stephen F. Foster, the "father of American music."). Though notated "con allegrezza" ("with joy"), its lyrical content seems almost hymnal, and quite heavy in content compared to the upbeat stylings of the other featured songs and, well, the polka.

Courtesy http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/inharmony/welcome.do

 The lyrics are serious and heavy, more befitting a church hymnal, with verse 1 singing:

"Oh wand of thought/by angel taught/To playful give the fairy story/How birdlike glides dreamy tides/Life's mystic bark to realms of glory"

"The compass drifts/on music rifts/Across the clear immortal river/'Neath summer skies of rainbow dyes/that lofty span the bright forever."


The two successive verses are similarly heady, and only once the chorus breaks into a four-part accompaniment between bass, alto, soprano, and tenor, do we truly get a breakthrough of the song's dreamy subject matter:

"Write, write, canny Planchette!/Set the truth echoes humming/Write, write, canny Planchette/angels coming, coming/angels coming."
 

Courtesy https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/

The final selection again lightens things up in "Planchette: the Celebrated Comic Song," published in 1870 by Oliver Ditson & Co of Boston, with words and music by G.A. Meazie Jr, and, apparently, as popularized by the "Intimitable" Barnabee, the popular Boston-based opera singer. The song seemed to be popular and, on at least one occassion, a financial lifesaver for the singer, for of the song Barnabee wrote in his autobiography:

"When I sang my Planchette song--so named after the little pseudo-psychic machine, a fad of the hours, which was supposed to answer questions--I asked how much the members of the Barnabee Concert Company would be enabled to salt down in the real estate out of the proceeds of that evening's entertainment. The slim house roared with merriment, and made us feel that they heartily appreciated our trick of extracting pleasure out of adversity."

The song is quite entertaining, even today, giving a account of the romantic foibles of a group on a romantic mountain outing. With a chorus that shows that not only do modern pop stars like Taylor Swift and Mumford & Sons resort to annoying-but-catchy nonsense song-words as stand-ins for actual meaningful verse, the song does catch the frontal lobe and hang there for a bit:

"Ka-boo, ka-boo, ka-boo, ka-boo, Ka-boo, ka-boo-zle-bom/Ka-boo, ka-boo, ka-boo, ka-boo, Ka-boo, ka-boo-zle-bom/She loves a foo, a foo, a foo/a foozle, foozle fum/It wrote it out very plainly/She loves a foozle fum."

Ya know?

The first verse sets up the uncomfortable circumstance of the sitters who gather around planchette in the fresh mountain air, and segues into the chorus with a spoken piece directed with a wink and a nod to the audience:


"We were up among the mountains/drinking in the country air
Riding, walking, laughing, talking/with not a sigh of care
We had use up ev'ry method:/plann'd to kill the time, my dear
When lo! There one day came to us Planchette, that toy so queer
They told us it would answer true/such questions as we asked it
O'erjoyed at having something new,/when evening came we tasked it
By lot I was the first to try/ the pow-ers of this wonder
I tried 'till ev'ry finger ached/and wished the thing to-- 

*spoken* Said I in my most pervasive tones: Will planchette be kind enough to inform the company present, when the good time coming may be expected? I assure you we were all very much astonished when Planchette wrote out quite plainly:" *chorus*

There are 3 more verses, each entertaining in their own right. In the second, a cockney English dandy character with the wholly improbable name of Fitz Augustus Romberg draws his "spotless kids off" to confidently work the device, only to stand their motionless for minute after minute, trying the patience of the assembled group until he finally asks about the weather, to which planchette replies with its nonsense "ka-boo, ka-boo, foozle-fum" chorus.

The 3rd and last verses concern a tense love affair between a spinster, Miss Galusha Spriggins and another sitter and her love interest whose-names-just-happens-to-comfortably-rhyme-with-her-own, "Old Squire Wiggins." Among them, however, is "a maiden  with wavy golden hair" who "looked so sweet and pert," on which both men of the table (the squire and the singer) have their eye: the "charming little flirt" and, if her transcribed accent is to be believed, the Russian "Zelia."

As the planchette finally begins to race across the table to the questions posed, in verse 2 by Galusha as she attempts to trap Old Squire Wiggins, first into romance, then into jealously revealing the crush by for whom he is rebuffing her advances. Wiggins takes control at that point, trying to hint to the beautiful Zelia that his affections are reserved for her, only for both to be rebuffed as Zelia herself reveals her true love to be:

"Foozle-fum" 

That's right. She loves foozle-fum. They all do.That, and ka-boo ka-boo. That's all they can get planchette to write. The implication seems to be that the singer himself will be rewarded with the affections of dearest Zelia.

But all he gets is foozle-fum.

Which is better than I've ever done.   

Three-out-of-Two Worlds Ain't Bad!

I don't know how familiar the term “google-fu” is to my audience here, but in the RPG gaming messageboard community, it refers to one's skill to locate obscure or forgotten information via Google. I consider my google-fu somewhat superior. I consider that after years of training, I'm something of a master. I know how to bend search terms in tantric ways, and my use of the Six-Fingers-Quotes-then-No-Quotes Technique is well heeded in such far-off locales as the British Newspaper Archives and Genealogy Bank. But sometimes even masters meet devastating foes, and a clash of google-fu erupts in a fury of flying searches and deadly exchanges of information.

The Two Worlds box that vexed our dating assumptions for so long.

I met my match last night, as a breeze blew through the digital bamboo grove, rustling the leaves silently, telling my ears that I was being silently stalked by a master researcher with ninja-like skills. Several times now have we met in battle, and once again he proved his google-fu superior to mine.

But I am wise in conceding defeat, as this master shares in his victories, so that both may win to battle another day. This researcher is, to date, our blog's sole comment contributor, who goes by the somewhat dubious name of Glenn Rinker. He reveals that when next we battle, they'll be having a sweltering winter heat wave in Miami with temps in the 90s, while the central and Rocky Mountain states are buried in snow. Mind which hotel you're staying in.

Glenn passed on to me an invaluable piece of a puzzle I have been trying to assemble since well before mysteriousplanchette.com's debut. It is a complicated one, and one that stretches across a half-dozen talking board devices to make for a lot of pieces to fit together. The ad that brings it all together is below, from the backmatter of a 1936 pamphlet-published lecture by Harry Boddington delivered to the “Link Association of Spirit Circles” at Wortley Hall, and entitled “The Development of Clairvoyance and the Scientific Formation of Circles.”

This advertisement reveals to us, finally, three items for sale in 1936 that we were previously unable to date. Curiously, I've always called these items (planchette, ball, and board) the “Two Worlds Holy Trinity,” mostly because they were the trio of devices that, as a collector, I most desired. And here we are with all three pictured—a rare treat indeed! Seems I wasn't the only one who put these three at the top of the most-desirable list. 

Two Worlds "Magic Crystal" from http://www.ehbritten.org

The ad solves the puzzle that long plagued mysteriousplanchette.com: when was the Two Worlds planchette sold? Given that we knew the date of its identical twin, the Weyers Bros planchette (a firm established in 1924 and advertising its planchette in 1931, as Marc Demarest recently revealed) and its cousin, outfitted in identical hardware, the H.P. Gibson & Sons “Autoscopograph” also produced around the same time, it should have been easy to jump to this conclusion earlier, no?

From left to right: Two Worlds, H.P. Gibson, & Weyers Bros. Fruit fallen from the same family tree?

Not exactly. 

The cause of this confusion is the existence of the third spectre of the "Holy Trinity:" W.T. Braham's "Telepathic Spirit Communicators," which were later rebranded by Two Worlds as their own products, with one existing example even having a Two Worlds sticker placed over Braham's name in a seeming mark of transition from one to the other. Based on the similar packaging of the crystal and planchette, it was always my assumption—one that turns out to likely be correct if this ad is any indicator, mind you—that Two Worlds entered the world of merchandising whole cloth in a short span, and not piecemeal over the course of decades. This assumption, however, led to a dating discrepancy between the identical planchettes of Weyers Bros and Two Worlds, and you'll still be able to spy my error over at mysteriousplanchette.com if you're quick enough to get there before I update the relevant pages. 

Braham's "Wonderful Spirit Communicator:" later rebranded as Two Worlds, and source of our dating woes"

Though we've got the planchette pegged, the lateral "slide boards" in the same ad will yet give us trouble. Braham was in the game with Two Worlds from the start on its board of directors, and was established at his 392 Stretford address as a watchmaker as early as 1873. This address, of course, matches his earliest draft of the Telepathic Spirit Communicator: the “Wonderful Spirit Communicator,” though we do not yet know when he moved to the 13 Hartington St., Moss Side, Manchester address we find on the "Telepathic" version of his boards. Given that by 1895 he was a rather hirsute of face and bald of pate, it didn't seem too likely an assumption that he was producing his product closer to his prime in the 1900s, rather than the late 1930s. And given that Two Worlds is producing them at this point, it may be that the items were long-before acquired from Braham, with him totally out of the picture, if not aged or dead by 1936. And the 1900 assumption may still be the case, and armed with a patent number from one of his devices (Braham being an enthusiastic patentee) and a plane ticket to the archives in London to dig through back issues of Two Worlds, we'll be able to one day prove it for sure. Until that day, we'll keep connecting the dots, hopefully even discovering if there's any connection with this suspiciously similar device. It may be that the Spirit Communicators have a much longer run than anyone ever expected. 

And, in any case, they couldn't have done worse in England than Elijah Bond with the ouija board. 

Next post, we'll discuss other intriguing snippets from the ad, including the tantalizing "Seance Vibrator" and the "Psychic Research Table." Stay tuned!