Frequently Asked Questions

This FAQ's Section answers the following questions:

What are Other Methods of Spirit Communications?

  What is a 'Planchette'?

What is 'Direct Voice'?

What is Ectoplasm? 

What are 'Apports?

What is Materialization?

How has education effected spiritualism ?

These are in the main physical methods of giving evidence,  which we call 'phenomena' only because we do not understand or even know the rules that govern them, remembering that the Laws of Physics for the known world, must apply also to the unknown world too! 

Modern mediums tend to think that the reason pioneers of the early days used physical methods rather than mental as today, was due to the needs of the time.

We must remember that not only was there no TV or radio in those days, but the standard of education over the last hundred years has sky rocketed, also bare in mind that reading and writing for the masses was not only patchy, but not seen as necessary to the public in general, so word of mouth was not only the best, but the only method of passing on information, this of course leads to the sensational being the fastest traveler!

On this subject, if we look at the history of the schools and education in this country we notice that the then established Church of England played an essential part by building not only the physical means, the buildings and training the ministers, but also advocating education not just the for the landed gentry, after all we had the Victorian Industrial Revolution without all that sort of thing!

Of course this was after the churches early reformation, and they had come round to the idea that it was a good thing for the bible to be read in anything other than Latin, and later that the invention of the printing press was not the work of the devil ...

Politics aside here r.e. voting in parliament; money and power being a sensitive subject in any era.

But I digress...

The Planchette

The word is translated literally from the French meaning 'little plank'.

 This is a method of communications that the spirit people used in the early days in various forms and has developed into a form that has, strangely caused harm to both the literal for the unwary and the reputation of spiritualism in general. 

The use of the planchette is as an "indicator" or "pointer". Used since the beginning of the spiritualism movement of the middle nineteenth century, planchettes predate the invention of other spirit boards.

This oldest of helpful communication methods is a triangular or heart-shaped wooden board supported by casters, like a skateboard for the hand that can move in any direction, a pencil would be attached to it, which then with the influence of a medium moves to spell out messages, or answer questions. At first it was thought a sensitive person, a medium who has this special ability was needed to give the energy for the movement. 

Later the 'spirit board' was made, in the form of letters placed in a circular way around a table, together also with such simple words as 'yes' and 'no'.

This was simply to assist in a speedier way the spelling out of sentences previously with 'rappings', loud knocks on a wooden surface.

An enterprising person in the Victorian era invented the ouija board, which was found to be just as effective using several persons whose energies may be utilised, and out of this developed a Victorian pastime! 

Unfortunately without a medium to supervise, and most importantly any prayers to protect the participants, this developed into a very dangerous game! Beware of using anything that might open a door into the unknown spheres!

Protection and prayer are covered in the ARTICLES section under PSYCHIC heading.

You can perhaps see, dear reader, how the harm was caused in the literal sense to the unwary, by spirits of a mischievous nature bringing ridicule - and so followed the damage to the reputation of spiritualism in general, by bringing scorn from the eager skeptics!

This is a material which looks like mist but can be to the touch solid in nature, and when formed into a living breathing person it's also warm and life-like.

This substance comes from the mediums body, usually the mouth, who was placed behind a curtain or in a dark 'cupboard' to protect the ectoplasm from natural light, which for reasons unknown was harmful.

Certain mediums specialised in this form of mediumship, and still do, which has become rare these days due surely to the advent of 'mental' meduimship and ease that that form of evidence has progressed. Progression is just as important in the spirit world as in ours, and I think the scientists, on going home, must be just as enthusiastic there as they are here!

It also was very debilitating and so dangerous for the medium, due to the nature of the physical energies used to build the phenomena, which we know so little abort.

The physical collapse is recorded of one medium, when skeptics burst into the room and interrupted the meeting, we can understand why such things were kept very private, not for the secrecy, but the safety.

Direct Voice

This is where the medium's own physical voice box is utilised by the spirit guide to make the sound of their own, and so effectively speaking directly to the gathering.

Other ways less intrusive were also used, for example a trumpet. This was as it sounds, a funnel shaped object made of metal - usually tin - where at one end the spirit would materialise [with ectoplasm again] a synthetic human voice box, in the form of ectoplasm, and project the sound through the trumpet shape. This is when materialisation was much more common, and mediums who had the ability to form ectoplasm were for more numerous than today.

Ectoplasm is also used in the demonstration of 'Levitation' - the moving of objects with unseen limbs made of same.Spirit people made by ectoplasm  in their earthly image, wholly as living moving people, or in part as a portrait might be, in order to be recognised for evidence. 

Telekinesis and Apports

Sometimes misnamed as materialisation.  The appearance / movement of objects, also called 'apports', from a distance.  

For further information see: Articles Section - General Knowledge -  'Reading for All'  "This is Spiritualism" number 15 - for photographs of the above mentioned phenomena.