Automatic writing

A piece of automatic writing produced by trance medium Leonora Piper, claimed to be a message from the spirit of Richard Hodgson

Automatic writing, also called psychography, is a claimed psychic ability which helps a person to write written words without actively writing. By holding a writing instrument and letting purported spirits or deities control their hand, practitioners participate in automatic writing. Practitioners are used as a channel or medium. The tool could be a regular writing instrument or one made specifically for automatic writing, like a planchette or a ouija board.

Automatic writing has been used in religious and spiritual traditions, such as the Enochian language associated with Enochian magic and Fuji in Chinese folk religion It is connected to Spiritualism and the occult in the contemporary era, and prominent practitioners include W. B. Yeats, Arthur Conan Doyle and Neale Donald Walsch. While some recorded occurrences stem from the ideomotor phenomenon, all claims related to automatic writing cannot be falsified.

References

  1. ↑ Lim, Sue (2002-06-18). Good Spirits, Bad Spirits-How to Distinguish Between Them. iUniverse. p. 82. ISBN 978-1-4697-8001-6. Retrieved 2025-11-16.
  2. ↑ Walsch, Neale Donald (1996). Conversations with God: An Uncommon Dialogue, Book 1. Penguin Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-399-14278-9. Retrieved 2025-11-16.
  3. ↑ Burgess, Cheryl A.; Kirsch, Irving; Shane, Howard; Niederauer, Kristen L.; Graham, Steven M.; Bacon, Alyson (1998). "Facilitated Communication as an Ideomotor Response". Psychological Science. 9 (1). [Association for Psychological Science, Sage Publications, Inc.]: 71–74. ISSN 0956-7976. JSTOR 40063250. Retrieved 2025-11-14.
  4. ↑ Shermer, Michael (2002-11-14). The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience: [2 volumes]. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 127-129. ISBN 978-1-57607-653-8. Retrieved 2025-11-14.
  5. ↑ "Michael Shermer The Skeptic Encyclopedia Of Pseudoscience : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive". Internet Archive. 2016-10-23. p. 127-129. Retrieved 2025-11-14.
  6. ↑ Erickson, Milton H.; Hershman, Seymour; Secter, Irving I. (2014-01-14). The Practical Application of Medical and Dental Hypnosis. Routledge. p. 68-69. ISBN 978-1-317-85547-7. Retrieved 2025-11-14.
  7. ↑ Karen Stollznow (2014-01-14). "Bad language: automatic writing: write or wrong?". Skeptic Magazine.