Before and After Para-Science #1
and b4 u say anything i’ve got #2 lined up so :b
“Q: … The more the better. We are glad to meet all our friends. What can we do for you?
“A: Attend. Obey the spirits.
“Q: We will do all we can, if you will tell us what to do.
“A: Boil your heads!
“Q: Go away, George, we don’t want you.
“A. Get off the line, silly.
“Q: Pongo, can’t you send him away?
“[Here the pencil drew the sketch of an ugly face]
“Q: Is that your portrait?
“A: That’s me. G.W. Haha!
“[The pencil zigzagged violently and drove the board right to the edge of the table…]”
I’ve never been to a seance or even used a ouija board, but I bet Dorothy L. Sayers had, the busy heyday of ‘Is Anyone There?’ being the decades between the two World Wars. This exchange is from Strong Poison (1930), and the entire point is that the ‘medium’ is a fake but the other (living) party is a believing spiritualist of some experience (but no mediumistic talent). In fact the fake medium is a Miss Marplish chum of Lord Peter Wimsey’s, who is i. an elderly spinster ii. a very proper Xtian iii. a “militant rationalist” (quote). With the most honorable intent, she is pushing the planchette herself to spell out the replies, so as to persuade the believing spiritualist (a nurse) into opening a safe, to help clear a woman falsely accused or murder. Thus all the spirits are her own invention – but of course they have to convince the nurse: ie must stay within the standard protocols of mediumistic exchange. When I reread this book earlier in the week, the immediate thing this dialogue reminded me of was ILx: ie suggesting that (fake) mediums found it useful to establish that exchanges w.the beyond would routinely encounter TROLLS and TROLLING (ie GW) and therefore wd need a ‘spirit guide’ (ie Pongo) or MODERATOR!!