Automatic writing

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Automatic writing is the process, or product, of writing material that does not come from the conscious thoughts of the writer. People who believe in "automatic writing" say that the writer's hand forms the message, with the person being unaware of what will be written. In some cases, it is done by people in a trance state. Other times the writer is aware (not in a trance) of their surroundings but not of the actions of their writing hand.

While advocates of automatic writing believe that their experiences are genuine, the Encyclopedia Britannica article on spiritualism notes that "...one by one, the mediums were discovered to be engaged in fraud, sometimes employing the techniques of stage magicians in their attempts to convince people of their clairvoyant powers." The article also notes that "the exposure of widespread fraud within the spiritualist movement severely damaged its reputation and pushed it to the fringes of society in the United States."^[1]

[edit] History

In the late 1800s, William Stainton Moses, a priest and teacher, experimented with automatic writing. His beliefs were orthodox Christian, but he said that the messages from his automatic writing took a more undogmatic view, to which he converted over time. He believed the message originated from higher spirits. John B. Newbrough was a New York dentist who said that he wrote the book Oahspe through the process of automatic writing on the newly invented typewriter in 1882.

Rosemary Brown was an English housewife who said that she automatically composed music. She could play the piano, though not very well. She felt that great composers were writing through her. Elsa Barker in 1914 published a collection of letters that she said that she had produced by automatic writing. She said the letters came from the deceased Judge David Patterson Hatch. Her book was reprinted in 2004 as Letters From The Afterlife: A Guide to the Other Side.

George (Georgie) Hyde-Lees, the wife of William Butler Yeats, said that she could write automatically. In 1975 Wendy Hart of Maidenhead said that she automatically wrote about Nicholas Moore, a sea captain who died in 1642. Her husband did research on Moore, and he said that this person had resided at St Columb Major in Cornwall during the Civil war.^[2]

[edit] Use

Automatic writing is used in Spiritualism, Spiritism and the New Age movement as a form of channeling. Hélène Smith, an early 20th-century psychic, said that she did automatic writing that was the attempt of Martians to communicate with Earth. She said she could translate their Martian language into French. The Brazilian medium Chico Xavier wrote over 400 books written.

Automatic writing is used as a tool in Freudian psychology and in related "self-knowledge" studies. Some psychologists argue that we can gain insight into the mind of a person who is doing automatic writing through their subconscious word choices. It was used by Pierre Janet in France, and later by Morton Prince and Anita Mühl in the United States.

André Breton pioneered the use of automatic writing within the Surrealist movement, penning the book Soluble Fish. The ideas of Hélène Smith, the so-called "Muse of Automatic Writing", also influenced the Surrealist movement (in the Surrealist deck of cards, Smith is the "Genius of Knowledge").

Automatic writing became a part of the Surrealists' repertoire of games, and it soon developed into a number of other Surrealist games and tools that greatly influenced the movement, such as automatic drawing, automatic palimpsest, and a variety of marker-word games. (See Surrealist automatism.) John Frusciante dedicated an entire musical album to the process of automatic writing, said that "music is just there and we, as musicians, are sucked into its swirling energy". [1]

Free writing later gained popularity with writers and poets, both as a means of stimulating creative thought and as a technique for overcoming writer's block. Nergal of the Blackened Death Metal band Behemoth says that he wrote the song "Libertheme" from The Apostasy through automatic writing.

It was recently publicised in series 2 episode 3 of Derren Brown's "Trick or Treat", in which he got Doctor Who star David Tennant to use automatic writing to predict a newspaper story three days in advance.

[edit] Criticism

Skeptics such as James Randi note that there is little evidence distinguishing automatic writing claimed to be of supernatural origins from a parlor game that is little more than sparks of creativity in the minds of the participants. The Encyclopedia Britannica article on spiritualism notes that "...one by one, the mediums were discovered to be engaged in fraud, sometimes employing the techniques of stage magicians in their attempts to convince people of their clairvoyant powers." The article also notes that "the exposure of widespread fraud within the spiritualist movement severely damaged its reputation and pushed it to the fringes of society in the United States."^[3]

Skeptics assert that there is no evidence that there is anything more than the subconscious of those performing the writing influencing their actions and that there is no solid evidence that any messages are coming from anywhere other than the minds of the person holding the pencil. This is referred to as the ideomotor effect. A 1998 article in Psychological Science ^[4] described a series of experiments designed to determine people who believed in the ideomotor effect could be shown that it was not true. The paper indicated that "our attempt to introduce doubt about the validity of automatic writing did not succeed." The paper noted that "including information about the controversy surrounding facilitated communication did not affect self-efficacy ratings, nor did it affect the number of responses that were produced. In this sense, illusory facilitation appears to be a very robust phenomenon, not unlike illusory correlation, which is not reversed by warning participants about the phenomenon."

As there is no scientific evidence regarding the use of automatic writing in psychotherapy, its usage to release repressed memories is suspect as well. While unconscious ideas are expressed in automatic writing, skeptics question the likelihood that they are any more profound than the writer's conscious thoughts. Skeptics argue that there is no evidence that the "true self" lies in the unconscious any more than there is for it to lie in normal consciousness.

Psychology professor Théodore Flournoy investigated the claim by 19th century medium, Hélène Smith (Catherine Müller) that she did automatic writing to convey messages from Mars in Martian language. Flournoy concluded that her "Martian" language has a strong resemblance to Ms. Smith's native language of French. Flournoy concluded 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 term cryptomnesia to describe this phenomenon. ^[5]"Skeptics consider automatic writing to be little more than a parlor game, although sometimes useful for self-discovery and for getting started on a writing project." ^[6]

[edit] Psychography

In Spiritism, Spiritualism and similar religions, psychography is a technique for "channeling" written messages from what is believed to be a disembodied spirit. The usual approach to psychography is to relate it to a special ability, innate or developed, called medianimity, which not everyone possesses at a useful degree.

Allan Kardec's Mediums' Book, one of the works comprised in the Spiritist Codification, is a treatise on psychography. Kardec recognises two basic types of psychography. Indirect psychography depends on a material device, like an Ouija board, operated by one or more persons. This type is cumbersome and not useful for large communications, frequently producing gibberish. Direct psychography is the most conventional type, in which a person, the medium, writes under the alleged influence of the spirit. It is called "direct" because the relationship between the medium(s) and the spirit is not by means of any mechanical device. This type depends on medianimity alone and is subdivided into five subtypes, depending on how the spirit's message is committed to paper.

With mechanical psychography, the spirit takes control of the medium's arm and writes independently from his awareness (the medium may pass the time paying attention to something else while his arm writes autonomously). Considered to be the most reliable and extraordinary type. Communications thus obtained are thought to be completely free from the interference of the medium's conscience. With semi-mechanical psychography, the medium writes keeps relative control of his limb, but still feels a foreign influence on its movement. Unlike mechanical psychography, the medium knows all that is being written and can stop to rest or to turn the page whenever he sees fit. Reliability is almost as high as in mechanical psychography. Chico Xavier was this type of medium.

With intuitive psychography, the spirit communicates with the inner self of the medium (subconscious), resulting in him writing what is on his mind, though it is something different from what the medium would normally think. Sentences come formed, but the medium can amend them with richer vocabulary or a better syntax before writing them down. This is the most common type, but is less reliable and is usually marred by the interference of the medium's conscience. With inspirational psychography, the medium receives vague notions in his mind, which he will write in his own words. This type of psychography is very difficult to tell apart from the regular thinking process, especially in people with a literary talent (a careless analysis would have most writers fall into this category).

Even considering the authorship as really belonging to a spirit, psychography does not guarantee the literary merit of the works produce, which can range from good to atrocious depending on many circumstances. Mediums who produce good works are likely to keep a high tone throughout their lives.

[edit] Books attributed to automatic writing

• The Spirits' Book contains large sections obtained by psychography.^{[citation needed]}
• A Vision is based on the automatic writings of William Butler Yeats's wife George.^{[citation needed]}
• Oahspe: A New Bible^{[citation needed]}

[edit] See also

• Asemic writing
• Cryptomnesia
• The Book on Mediums
• VALIS
• Patience Worth

[edit] References

1. ^ spiritualism (religion) :: History - Britannica Online Encyclopedia
2. ^ Ivan Rabey's Book of St Columb (1979)
3. ^ spiritualism (religion) :: History - Britannica Online Encyclopedia
4. ^ Psychological Science, Vol. 9, NO. 1, January 1998
5. ^ Randi, James. An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural (N.Y.: St. Martin's Press, 1995, page 22).
6. ^ automatic writing

• Carroll, Robert Todd. "Automatic writing". The Skeptic's Dictionary. 2003. ISBN 0-471-27242-6
• Randi, James. "Automatic writing". An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural. 1995. ISBN 0-312-15119-5
• Meditation Oneness. Subtitled "How to Link with Angels." Is now being called The Medium's Bible, ISBN 978-09554590-0-9. A very comprehensive book about all aspects of Spiritualism and how it is done. Written by DRT Keeghan.
• Beyond the Horizon by Grace Rosher. 1961. Published for the church's Fellowship for Psychical Study by James Clarke & Co. Ltd. ISBN 0-227-67412-X
• Swan on a Black Sea by Geraldine Cummins printed by Redwood Press, Trowbridge & London ISBN 0-710-01243-8
• A Search for the Truth by Ruth Montgomery published by Random House ISBN 978-0-449-21085-7

[edit] External links

• A Brazilian site with several free PDFe-books in English, including Kardec's works and Leon Dénis.