152. The development of the spiritist movement has been unusually rapid; for
although we are separated only by a few years from its primitive manifestations, so
often contemptuously alluded to as "table-turning," we are already enabled to converse
with spirits as easily and rapidly as men converse with each other, and by the very same
means, viz., by speech and by writing. Writing has the special advantage of furnishing
a permanent evidence of the action of occult power; one which we are able to preserve
as we preserve letters received from correspondents in the flesh. As previously
remarked, the first method employed was the use of small baskets and planchettes with
a pencil attached to them; which method of correspondence we will now briefly
describe.
