Automatic Writing and Speaking

An Encyclopaedia of Occultism (1920)

Writing executed or speech uttered without the agent's volition, and sometimes without his knowledge. The term is used by psychical researchers and applied particularly to the trance phenomena of the séance-room. By spiritualists, writing or speaking produced under these conditions, are said to be performed "under control "-that is, under the controlling agency of the spirits of the dead-and are therefore not judged to be truly "automatic." The general consensus of opinion, however, ascribes such performances to the subconscious activity of the agent. Automatic writing and speaking necessarily imply some deviation from the normal in the subject, though such abnormality need not be pronounced, but may vary from a slight disturbance of the nerve-centres occasioned by excitement or fatigue to hystero-epilepsy or actual insanity. When the phenomena are produced during a state of trance or somnambulism the agent may be entirely unconscious of his actions. On the other hand the automatic writing may be executed while the agent is in a condition scarcely varying from the normal and quite capable of observing the phenomena in a critical spirit, though perhaps ignorant of a word in advance of what he is actually writing. Between these states of full consciousness or complete unconsciousness there are many intermediate stages. The secondary personality, displayed in the writings or utterances, may gain only a partial ascendancy over the primary, as may happen in dreams or in the hypnotic trance. As a rule automatic speech and writings display nothing more than a revivifying of faded mental imagery, thoughts and conjectures and impressions which never came to birth in the upper consciousness. But at times there appears an extraordinary exaltation of memory, or even of the intellectual faculties. Cases are on record where lost articles have been recovered by means of automatic writing. Foreign languages which have been forgotten, or with which the subject has small acquaintance, are spoken or written fluently. Hélène Smith, the subject of Professor Flournoy, even went so far as to invent a new language, purporting to be that of the Martians, but in reality showing a marked resemblance to French-the mother-tongue of the medium. Automatic writing and speaking have been produced in considerable quantities, mainly in connection with spiritualistic circles, though it existed long before the advent of spiritualism in the speaking with tongues" of the early ecstatics. These unintelligible outpourings are still to be met with, but are no longer a marked feature of automatic utterance. But, though the matter and style may on occasion transcend the capabilities of the agent in his normal state, the great body of automatic productions does not show an erudition or literary excellence beyond the scope of the natural resources of the automist. The style is involved, obscure, inflated, yet possessing a super- Avicenna ficial smoothness and a suggestion of flowing periods and musical cadences. The ideas are often shallow and incoherent, and all but lost in a multitude of words. The best known of automatic writings are the Spirit Teachings of the Rev. Stanton Moses, the works of A. J. Davis, J. Murray Spear, and Charles Linton, and, perhaps most important of all, the Trance Utterances of Mrs. Piper, these last offering no inconsiderable evidence for telepathy. A good deal of poetry has been produced automatically, notably by the Rev. T. L. Harris. Among those who are known to have produced automatic writings are Goethe, Victor Hugo, Victorien Sardou, and other eminent men of letters. (For the hypothesis of spirit control, see article Spiritualism .)