The Gundella Letters #273

There's a lot to unpack from this simple letter to Gundella from October 13, 1970. As mentioned previously Gundella sold planchettes. Whether they were her own brand or general resale stock isn't clear but they sold and quickly at $3 a piece. Luckily, there's a press photo of a woman named Gloria Ladd plying one of Gundella's planchettes at a workshop in Garden City. It looks very thick and clearly has a hole at the top point of the heart-shaped object for a pencil to be utilized in automatic writing. 

Detroit Free Press, May 2, 1971 (enlarge)

While many use Gundella as the starting point for ghosts and demon hunting in metro Detroit, she dispels many of the current mythos on the subject of ouijas and sprites matter-of-factly. She believed that most so-called spirits were the result of nervous human energy and not demonic entities at all. She did not believe that one could be possessed by evil spirits while investigating the supernatural. Ghosts, the few which actually come back, do so for a specific reason of solving a mystery or helping a loved one, having many things to do in between lives. Mind you, as a religious witch she believed in reincarnation. 

During the Garden City workshop in May of 1971 nary a planchette moved but it didn't prevent Gundella from selling her entire stock. Recall that she preferred to use a Ouija board solo as there was never complete certainty in a partner's motives. The group did, however, get a table to move. Well, shake anyway. No Fox sisters or spirits necessary just the nervous concentrated energy of 12 people around any table was enough to make it waltz if given time. 

There was also a midnight spell and a love potion but those were to be performed at home. The article closed by saying that Gundella was done teaching novice workshops as there were quite enough apprentice witches out in the wild thanks to her tutelage. She would thus be concentrating on the advanced practitioner at her sessions at the War Memorial in Grosse Pointe. One last thing of note was the letter writer's mention of Gundella's talk at the Dearborn Inn on October 11, 1970. No details are given but the writer enjoyed it and gladly mentioned the occurrence.