AUTOMATIC AND PLANCHETTE WRITING,
upon which so much reliance is placed, as furnishing evidence of “disembodied spirit control,” presents similar difficulties. The recording of forgotten incidents, and predicting possibilities in the future, are not beyond the powers of the innate human spirit—wholly and utterly unaided by spirit agency. Therefore automatic writing—when genuine—does not necessarily furnish evidence of spirit control, not even when the person who writes believes, and honestly believes too, he is so controlled to write.
CHAPTER VIII.
Spiritualism.—Continued.
Automatic writing is a phase of phenomenal Spiritualism most difficult to prove. In the majority of cases we are reduced to the awkward position of accepting or rejecting the assertions of the persons who declare that the writing done by them is automatic—that is, written without thought and volition on their part. A close examination of this claim may lead to the conclusion that automatic writing is not impossible. Whether the controlling agent is “the spirit within us,” or a disembodied spirit, or both, is not a matter of much importance, if it is established, the writing is automatic. When messages are written without volition, in the handwriting of deceased persons, signed by their names, such messages must be treated on their merits. I have seen messages written in this way. I have seen messages written, not only automatically, but direct. Some were written the reverse way, and could only be read by holding up to the light or to a mirror. The direct writing was done in an exceedingly short time, two or three hundred words in less time than an expert phonographer could write the same by the most expeditious efforts. The evidence in favour of telepathic writing is not very strong, but of direct writing there appears to be abundant proof.
Dr. Nichols, in his fascinating work, “Forty Years of American Life,” writes:—“I knew a Methodist sailor in New York, a simple, illiterate, earnest man, who became what is called a test medium. He came to see me in Cincinnati, and one evening we had also as visitors two distinguished lawyers: one of them a brother of Major Anderson, “the hero of Fort Sumter;” the other, a gentleman from Michigan, and one of the ablest lawyers practising in the Supreme Court of the United States. I had brought into the drawing-room a heavy walnut table, and placed it in the centre of the room. The medium sat down on one side of it, and the sharp Michigan lawyer, who was a stranger to us and the medium, on the other. The medium placed his fingers lightly upon the table. It tilted up under them, the two legs nearest him rising several inches. The lawyer examined the table, and tried to give it a similar movement, but without success. There was a force and a consequent movement he could not account for. There was no other person near the table, there was no perceptible muscular movement, and in no way in which it could be applied to produce the effect.
“When there was no doubt on this point, the lawyer, at the suggestion of the medium, wrote with careful secrecy on five bits of paper—rolling each up like a pea as he wrote—the names of five deceased persons whom he had known. Then he rolled them about until he felt sure that no one could tell one pellet from the other. Then, pointing to them successively, the tipping table selected one, which the gentleman, without opening, put in his waistcoat pocket, and threw the rest into the fire.
“The next step was to write the ages of these five persons at their death, on as many bits of paper, which were folded with the same care. One of these was selected, and again, without being opened, deposited in the lawyer’s pocket, which now contained a name and a number indicating age.
“With the same precautions the lawyer then wrote, in the same way, on bits of paper, the places where these persons died, the diseases of which they died, and the dates of their decease, going through the same process with each. He had then in his pocket five little balls of paper, each selected by a movement of the table, for which no one could account.
“At this moment the hand of the medium seized a pencil, and with singular rapidity dashed off a few lines, addressed to the lawyer as from a near relative, and signed with a name which the medium very certainly had never heard.
“The lawyer, very much astonished, took from his pocket the five paper balls, unrolled them, spread them before him on the table, and read the same name as the one on the written message, with the person’s age, the place and time of death, and the disease of which he died. They all corresponded with each other and the message. No person had approached the table, and neither lawyer nor medium had moved. It was in my own house, under a full gas light, and, so far as I could see, or can see now, no deception was possible.
“The written communication, which purported to come from a deceased relative of the gentleman only expressed, in affectionate terms, happiness at being able to give him this evidence of immortality.”
This incident is introduced here in illustration of one out of many phases of mediumship known to spiritualists. We see here both psychic and physical powers-exercised, not generally recognised as possible. A massive table moved without physical leverage or exertion, and “thoughts read,” which formed the basis of the message. Trickery and collusion in this instance are absolutely out of the question. The only questions which remain to answer are: “Did this medium possess in himself the powers referred to? or did he possess them in consequence of being controlled by a disembodied spirit, as claimed by the message?” Although the message in itself did not contain evidence of any other source of information than that emanating from the lawyer’s own mind, we are forced to the conclusion that either the medium or the spirit controlling the medium had power to read his mind, and of exerting what Professor Crookes and Sergeant Cox would call Psychic Force to move the table, and indicate what pellets to select. We have here evidence of an intelligence capable of exercising an unknown force and of reading thoughts—that intelligence claimed to be a human spirit.