en forthcoming. All that has been done, or that we
can do, is to examine the facts, and to advance an explanatory theory
that is really explanatory and in accord, as nearly as possible, with
accepted theories and teaching.

First, let us consider the movement of the board. There can be little
doubt that the same force which propels the planchette board propels the
ouija board also; and this is still further demonstrated by the fact
that, in many experiments, the planchette board is used as a ouija, and
points to the letters, which are written out on a large piece of paper,
and the pencil point indicates the letter in the same manner as does the
ouija. It certainly appears far easier for the board to point to letters
than to write--and this is most suggestive and interesting when we
consider it. It would seem to indicate that the controlling intelligence
found it easier to convey its thoughts when the letters were before it,
in plain sight--a very suggestive fact, taken in conjunction with
certain mediumistic phenomena.[46] Of course there is the alternative
explanation of this fact--that a straight push-and-pull action is easier
to accomplish than the more detailed and complicated action of forming
words and letters. But that would not make plain to us why it is that no
_attempt_ at writing should be made, very often, until the
letter-pointing system is adopted.

Presuming, then, that the movement or impelling force is the same in
each instance, the question is: What is this force? In the great bulk of
cases there can only be one answer to this question: unconscious
muscular action. Whenever muscular contact is allowed, this may safely
be assumed to be the explanation of the movements of the board--even if
it shows an apparently independent will and movement of its own, and
apparently drags the hands of the sitters with it. I have discussed this
at some length in my _Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism_, pp. 66-72,
and it is unnecessary to go into the question again here. Unconscious
muscular action will account for so much that, even if it were not the
true explanation of the facts, in reality, we should have to assume that
it was.

It will be observed that I have said "in the great bulk of cases." Some
of my readers may object to this limitation, and say that it is the true
and sufficient explanation of _all_ the cases, without exception.
Personally I doubt that fact. There are numerous cases on record when
the boar