The Repository of Wonders is providing a 19th-century style planchette (from the French for “little plank”) for interactive use during the exhibition. This writing instrument, used by those who wish to instigate communication with the dead, enjoyed its most significant popularity in America and the UK at the advent of the early 20th-century Spiritualist movement, which focused on contact with those in the afterlife using seances, talking boards, tipping tables, etc. The planchette on display is based on an original model produced in America by Selchow and Righter during the 1860s. It was presented in it’s own dedicated space alongside framed historical references and accompanied by an original musical piece titled Prelude for Planchette, composed by Jackson Keys. Visitors were encouraged to attempt contact with the spirits by lightly manipulating the apparatus as it traced pencil markings on paper. 

Artwork courtesy of The Repository of Wonders. All rights reserved.