Automatic Writing Psychic Tool or Fallacy?

For over a hundred years automatic writing has been known as a tool in which a psychic or seer could connect with the spiritual world. It is believed that this is done by creating an altered state of consciousness and allowing a spirit guide to speak through you via a pen or pencil and piece of paper. A spirit guide is usually defined as non-physical souls or spirits who support our growth by helping us complete our life tasks. People who believe in spirit guides believe they become guides to others when they have passed on and reached a higher plane of existence. It is said that with a little practice and a lot of patience anyone should be able to reach the state of consciousness needed to allow a spirit guide through. Many believe that automatic writing can be an invaluable tool in aiding oneself on their spiritual journey. Others believe that automatic writing is nothing more than a parlor trick designed to fool the gullible and the unaware.

Many psychics or mediums claim that through automatic writing, they have been able to produce messages from those that have passed on. These messages are generally contributed to famous people such as deceased authors and music composers. As mentioned earlier, pens were common tools but many mediums used blackboards and typewriters to keep up with the rapid amount of material produced.

One of the most famous examples of spirit dictation was the strange case of Pearl Curran, a St. Louis housewife who supposedly channeled a spirit named Patience Worth. Mrs. Curran and the spirit of Ms. Worth worked in partnership for years and turned out many full-length novels and thousands of poems. What makes this case ever the more striking is the fact that the material contributed to her was material that the uneducated Mrs. Curran could have known nothing about, much less reproduced stylistically.