Automatic writing, also calledpsychography, is a claimedpsychic ability allowing a person to produce written words without consciously writing. Practitioners engage in automatic writing by holding a writing instrument and allowing alleged spirits to manipulate the practitioner's hand. The instrument may be a standard writing instrument, or it may be one specially designed for automatic writing, such as aplanchette or aouija board.
Religious and spiritual traditions have incorporated automatic writing, includingFuji inChinese folk religion and theEnochian language associated withEnochian magic. In the modern era, it is associated withSpiritualism and theoccult, with notable practitioners includingW. B. Yeats andArthur Conan Doyle. Claims associated with automatic writing areunfalsifiable, while some documented examples result from theideomotor phenomenon.[1][2][3][4]
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Spirit writing, later calledFuji (扶乩/扶箕), has a long tradition in China, where messages from various deities and spirits were received by mediums since theSong dynasty. In the 19th century, messages received through spirit writing led to the foundation of severalChinese salvationist religions.[5] The spread of Chinese cultural techniques, such as printing and painting, introduced the influence of "spirit writing", practised by Japanese ZenŌbaku monks, who were said to communicate with an ancientTaoist sage credited with creating thekung fu system.[6]
13th-century Spanish Kabbalists engaged in automatic writing, which may have been the method that produced theZohar.[7]Joseph Karo (1488-1575)'sangelic mentor communicated via automatic writing on at least one occasion, dictating laws ofKiddush levana.[8]
Another early Western example of the practice is the 16th-centuryEnochian language, allegedly dictated toJohn Dee andEdward Kelley by Enochian angels and integral to the practice ofEnochian magic.[9] The language is said to be extremely detailed and complex in its grammar and rules.[10] Dee also claimed that the Enochian instruction included information regarding theelixir of life in the ruins ofGlastonbury Abbey.[10] Some scholars understand descriptions ofJoseph Smith's process writing theBook of Mormon as a case of automatic writing.[11]
ParapsychologistWilliam Fletcher Barrett wrote that "automatic messages may take place either by the writer passively holding a pencil on a sheet of paper, or by theplanchette, or by a 'ouija board'."[12] InSpiritualism, spirits are claimed to take control of the hand of amedium to write messages, letters, and even entire books.[13] Automatic writing can happen in a trance or waking state.[14] Somepsychical researchers such asThomson Jay Hudson have claimed that no spirits are involved in automatic writing and thesubconscious mind is the explanation.[15]
Paranormal investigatorHarry Price exposed the supposed automatic writing in theBorley Rectory as the wall-scrawling of a housewife attempting to hide an extramarital affair.[4]
A prominent alleged example of automatic writing is the Brattleboro hoax. WhenCharles Dickens died in 1870, he leftThe Mystery of Edwin Drood unfinished. According to the itinerant printerT. P. James, this angered Dickens' spirit so much that he channelled the rest of the novel through James's hand. This is supposed to have begun on Christmas Eve 1872 and continued in tri-weekly sessions until completion.[16]
Automatic writing as a spiritual practice was reported byHyppolyte Taine in the preface to the third edition of hisDe l'intelligence, published in 1878.[17] Besides "ethereal visions" or "magnetic auras",Fernando Pessoa claimed to have experienced automatic writing. He said he felt "owned by something else", sometimes feeling a sensation in the right arm he claimed was lifted into the air without his will.[18] Georgie Hyde-Lees, the wife ofWilliam Butler Yeats, also claimed she could write automatically.[19]Sri Aurobindo and his follower, The Mother (Mirra Alfassa), regularly practiced Automatic writing.[citation needed]
Catalan medium and artistJosefa Tolrà wrote poems and "transcribed" messages that she included in her drawings, which she ascribed to something or someone "guiding her hand".[20][21]
Shortly after his 1917 marriage toGeorgie Hyde-Lees, the poetW. B. Yeats came to be heavily influenced by her delving into what they referred to as "the automatic script".[22]
In his 1918 bookThe New Revelation,Arthur Conan Doyle wrote that automatic writing occurs either by the writer's subconscious or by external spirits operating through the writer.[23] Doyle and his wife led an automatic writing séance withHarry Houdini wherein Lady Doyle wrote 15 pages of purported messages from Houdini's mother, although this information was immediately discounted as fraudulent by Houdini.[24]
The essayThe Automatic Message (1933), first published in the magazineMinotaure, No. 3-4, (Paris), was one ofAndré Breton's significant theoretical works aboutautomatism. In 1919, Breton andPhilippe Soupault had used what later became theSurrealist automatism method to composeLes Champs Magnétiques (The Magnetic Fields).[25] In 1997, "The Magnetic Fields" was also the title of a compilation of surrealist writing of André Breton, Paul Éluard, Philippe Soupault, and others. It included the authorized translation of Breton'sThe Automatic Message in English by the poetDavid Gascoyne, whoseMan's Life is This Meat (1936) (a collection of his own surrealist writings and translations of the French surrealists) andHölderlin's Madness (1938) established Gascoyne's reputation as one of a small group of English surrealists. Gascoyne's 1935A Short Survey of Surrealism for the 1936London International Surrealist Exhibition also expanded the movement to the English-speaking world. TheSurrealist poetRobert Desnos claimed he was among the most gifted in automatic writing.[26] Surrealist automatists, most notablyAndré Masson, adapted these methods to art-making in which the artist suppresses conscious control over the making process, allowing the unconscious mind to have great sway. Prior to the Surrealists,Dadaists, such asHans Arp, made some use of this method through chance operations.[27]
ThemediumPierre L. O. A. Keeler had an alleged spirit writing communication fromAbraham Lincoln currently exhibited at the Lily Dale Museum.[28] Despite Lincoln being well-known for his skepticism and Keeler having been known to employ magician's tricks, this is used as one of the many examples of skeptics purportedly endorsing Spiritualism posthumously.[29] Skeptical investigatorJoe Nickell who conducted a detailed examination of the "spirit" writing, concluded it had no resemblance to Lincoln's handwriting and described the message as "bogus".[30]
There was an apocalyptic cult led by a lapsedScientologist named Dorothy Martin. She and her followers were waiting for an alien ship to take them to the nonexistent planet Clarion and save them from a worldwide flood that was to commence at midnight on 20 December 1954. When that did not occur, Martin allegedly got an automatic writing message from God calling the whole thing off.[31][32]
In 1975, Wendy Hart ofMaidenhead claimed she wrote automatically about Nicholas Moore, a sea captain who died in 1642.[33] Also in 1975, theCIA attempted to employremote viewing through theStargate Project. In the spring of 1989, Angela Dellafiora, a member ofStargate Project's remote viewing unit, claimed to be guided by spirits moving her hand in writing responses about the location of a fugitive DEA agent named Charlie Jordan. In reviewing the matter, Joe Nickell states, "[T]he Charlie Jordan case, touted as one of the most successful examples... in the U.S. government's psychic-spying project is not convincing evidence of anything — save perhaps folly. ...[I]t also illustrates the limitations of anecdotal evidence: conflicting versions, selective reporting, and lack of documentation, together with additional manifestations of faulty memory, bias, and other human foibles."[34]
Conspiracy theoristDavid Icke said he first became aware of being "Son of the Godhead" via automatic writing.[35]Vassula Ryden claims to receive and transcribe messages from her guardian angel Daniel, Jesus, Yahweh.[36] She has provoked both skepticism and credulity from Catholic laity and clergy, as well as the skeptical community at large.[37] Alleged cases of automatic writing have includedJoseph Smith,[38]Patience Worth,[4]Aleister Crowley,[39]Jane Roberts,[40]Helen Schucman[41] and authorNeale Donald Walsch.[42][43] Crowley, for instance, compiled theCollected Works over time, which includedThe Book of the Law as well as transcripts of his visions of the first two Enochian Aethyrs (planes).[44]
Scientists and skeptics consider automatic writing to be the result of theideomotor effect.[1][2][3][4]
According to skeptical investigatorJoe Nickell, "automatic writing is produced while one is in a dissociated state. It is a form of motor automatism, or unconscious muscular activity."[45] NeurologistTerence Hines has written "automatic writing is an example of a milder form ofdissociative state".[46] In 1900, Swiss psychologistTheodore Flournoy studied the case of the French mediumHelene Smith, particularly her handwriting during seances.[13] He concluded that the automatic writing phenomenon was an effect of autosuggestion produced by autohypnotization, leading to the emergence of a secondary self.[13]
Paranormal researcherBen Radford writes in his 2017 bookInvestigating Ghosts that there is no real way to know if the writing is coming from "outside their bodies," you "must take their word for it. Because the source of the information is at issue and the medium cannot be validated, we must turn to the content of the material." Various psychic mediums have claimed to channel famous dead people. For example, Susan Lander claimed thatBetsy Ross contacted her to say, "I am gay and I fly the flag of pride and liberty for all of us." According to Radford, historians say that there is "no credible historical evidence that Ross ... either made or had a hand in designing the American flag." Without some kind of validation, "anyone can claim to communicate with the spirit of anyone." Radford argues that "Automatic writing should logically hinder, not help spirit communication," given that spelling and grammar are more difficult than direct speech.[47]
In an 1890 paper on hypnotism,Morton Prince claims, "automatic writing is not a purely unconscious reflex act, but, the product of conscious individuality," and further claims that the hand that is writing is under the control of a separate hypnotic personality during trances.[48][49] PhysicianCharles Arthur Mercier, in theBritish Medical Journal (1894), criticized the spiritualist interpretation of automatic writing, concluding, "there is no need nor room for the agency of spirits, and the invocation of such agency is the sign of a mind not merely unscientific, but uninformed."[50]
Psychology professorThéodore Flournoy investigated the claim by nineteenth-century mediumHélène Smith (Catherine Müller) that she did automatic writing to convey messages fromMars in Martian language. Flournoy concluded that her "Martian" language had a strong resemblance to Ms. Smith's native language of French and that her automatic writing was "romances of the subliminal imagination, derived largely from forgotten sources (for example, books read as a child)." He invented the termcryptomnesia to describe this phenomenon.[51]
In 1927, psychiatristHarold Dearden wrote that automatic writing is a psychological method of "tapping" the unconscious mind and that there is nothing mysterious about it.[52]
In 1986, A.B. Joseph investigated two female patients who were found to exhibitictalhypergraphia.[53]
Automatic writing behavior was discovered by Dilek Evyapan and Emre Kumral in three patients withright hemispheric damage.[54]
A 2012 study of tenpsychographers usingsingle photon emission computed tomography showed differences in brain activity and writing complexity during alleged trance states vs. normal state writing.[55]
Automatic writing is touted by mediumBonnie Page in aSentinel and Enterprise article as a method of accessingclaircognizance abilities.[56]
Automatic writing is featured prominently in a 1961 episode ofPerry Mason,The Case of the Meddling Medium, and is also depicted in the 1980 filmThe Changeling and the 1999 filmThe Sixth Sense. In the 2008 filmIndiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull automatic writing is referenced as a method of supernatural communication used by the character Harold "Ox" Oxley.
Portions ofVan Morrison's albumAstral Weeks supposedly are inspired by dreams, reveries, and automatic writing.[57]
Czech directorJan Švankmajer claims he concocted the screenplay for his hybrid filmInsect (Hmyz) in a fit of automatic writing.[58]
William S. Burroughs has described his bookNaked Lunch as "automatic writing gone horribly wrong" and believed he found his subconscious taken over by a hostile entity.[59][60]
In an interview inGQ,David Byrne indicated an interest in automatic writing due to the influence ofBrian Eno.[61]
