Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-04-21
PSYCHIC POSSESSION
By H. Addington Bruce

a UTOMATIC writing, as means of get
u ting into touch with the world of dis
n carnate spirits, is growing steadily in
popularity to judge from published reports
and the discussions one hears in circles inter
ested in psychical research. And undoubtedly
the strongest evidence of personality survival
yet obtained has come through certain auto
matte writer's.
But to say this is not to say that automatic
writing has provided absolutely decisive proof
of survival Still less is 1t to say that all auto
matte writing is in itself indicative of posses
sion of the writer by some spirit control"
There are people who believe just this.
Among automatists themselves the prevailing
tendency is to believe it. Yet nothing is so
certain as that the writing they produce is in
the main directly derived from their own
minds.
This even when it dramatically purports to
come from some outside intelligence. The
true situation would seem to be about as fol-
lows:
When a person writes automatically there
is, as a prerequisite to such writing, an altera-
tion or dissertation of the mental state such
as occurs in sleep. This permits the emer-
gence into consciousness of desires, Ideas,
long-forgotten memory-images, etc, ord1nar1>
ly hidden in the minds subconsc1ous depths.
In sleep these emerge as dreams. In auto
matte writing they emerge as words. And IN
both sleep and automatic writing their emer-
gence usually is in the form or a V1Vld' IRA
matte story itself
It merely goes to show that the alteration,
the dissertation of personality, IS more extern
sive in automatic writing than in sleep, so
that not only is there less ability to recognize
the actual source, but the dramatiz1ng trend
of the dream process comes more freely INTO
play
Evidence bearing out this view of auto
matte writing is available from many lnvestl-
gators 1t is to be found, for example, IN an
article contributed by DR.. A. N. Muhl, OF
Washington, D. c., to a recent issue OF the
Journal of Abnormal Psychology.
In this article DR.. Null details the results
of experiments with two automatic writer's.
Each seemingly was controlled" by sue
cession of discarnate spirits, yet analysis
showed that the revelations" made by these
were but dramatic PRESCRIPTIONS of, so to
speak subconscious aspects OF the auEomat-
lists own personalities.
Even more impressive is Loves Dickinson s
report made some years ago to the Society
for Psvchical Research, concerning an auto
matte writer of his acquaintance, purportlng
to be "controlled" by the spirit of an English
woman. a certain Blanche Poynings lady of
Richard lis court.
The esprit described in detail the GUS
toms, manners and personages of the period,
mentioning incidents not to be found in any
history Later, however, everything auto
maticalIy written was found to be contained
in q novel having a Blanche Polynings as one
of it's fictitious characters.
The novel had been read by the au+omat1st
when little girl. Consciously she had COM
n1eteIv forgotten it's contents. Subconsclous-
w. il was evident, she had remembered even
the phrases used by it's author.
It would be rash to insist that all auto
matte writings may similarly be attributed to