Ans.—No, inasmuch as all surroundings are themselves magnets or the mediums of conveyance.
Ques.—Can the approach of storms be foretold by the amount of electricity in the air?
Ans.—Storms are the disturbance of the equilibrium, and therefore can be foretold when the atmospherical balance is understood.
Ques.—Can you give information not in the minds of the operators?
Ans.—Planchette is a tool, and does nothing of herself.
Ques.—A tool in the hands of whom?
Ans.—Of those who work her.[4]
Now if these various answers came from the minds of the "workers," we were asking questions which we ourselves were answering, we will say, unawares, out of the depths of our consciousness. As a seeker after truth, therefore, I became as much involved as the dreamer spoken of by Jeremy Taylor in one of his sermons. A man who implicitly believed in dreams, he relates—in effect—dreamed one night that all dreams were false. "If," reasoned he on awakening, "dreams are indeed false, then is this one false; therefore they are true. But if, as I have always supposed, they are true, then is this dream true; therefore they must be false."
Planchette's oracular sayings became famous among the passengers who thronged the room to hear its predictions and to ask questions. The trip to which I refer was made in the early part of November, 1868, while the Presidential election was in progress, and there was naturally great curiosity on the part of the passengers to know how their several States had voted.