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PLANCHETTE.
observer of facts have been completely vindicated by the events
of the last twenty years.
After her marriage, in her 19th year, to Herr Hauffé, a worthy
man, the seeress, who was of a remarkably delicate organization,
became subject to spasmodic attacks, and would often pass into a
somnambulic state. She at last became so sensitive to magnetic
influences that even the nails in the walls had to be removed.
Articles, the near neighborhood of which to her person was
found injurious, would be taken away by an unseen hand. Such
objects as a silver spoon would be perceptibly conveyed from her
hand to a more convenient distance, and laid on a plate ; not
thrown, for the things would pass slowly through the air as if
borne by invisible agency.
In 1826, Dr. Kerner took charge of Mrs. Hauffé. He soon
found that drugs had no effect upon her. Even the homoeo¬
pathic pharmacopoeia was discarded. The seeress, in her clair¬
voyant state, prescribed for herself better than any physician
could have done.
The rapping phenomena were common in her presence. Ker¬
ner says, “As I had been told by her parents, a year before her
father’s death, that, at the period of her early magnetic state,
she was able to make herself heard by her friends, as they lay
in bed at night, in the same village, but in other houses, by a
knocking,— as is said of the dead,—I asked her, in her som¬
nambulic state, whether she was able to do so now, and at
what distance? She answered, that she would sometime do it;
that to the spirit space was nothing. Sometime after this, as we
were going to bed, — my children and servants being already
asleep, — we heard a knocking, as if in the air, over our heads.
There were six knocks, at intervals of half a minute. It was a
hollow, yet clear sound, soft, but distinct. We were certain
theie was no one near us, nor over us, from whom it could pro¬
ceed; and our house stands by itself. On the following evening,
when she was asleep, when we had mentioned the knocking to
nobody whatever, she asked me whether she should soon
knock to us again; which, as she said it was hurtful to her, I
declined. ”