Editing Automatic writing (section)

{{Short description|Claimed psychic ability}}
{{Distinguish|Free writing}}
{{other uses}}
{{use dmy dates|date=June 2023}}
[[Image:Leonora Piper automatic writing.png|thumb|A piece of automatic writing produced by trance medium [[Leonora Piper]], claimed to be a message from the spirit of [[Richard Hodgson (parapsychologist)|Richard Hodgson]]|upright=1.35]]
'''Automatic writing''', also called '''psychography''', is a claimed [[List of psychic abilities|psychic ability]] allowing a person to produce written words without consciously writing. Practitioners engage in automatic writing by holding a writing instrument and allowing alleged spirits to manipulate the practitioner's hand. The instrument may be a standard writing instrument, or it may be one specially designed for automatic writing, such as a [[planchette]] or a [[ouija]] board. 

Religious and spiritual traditions have incorporated automatic writing, including [[Fuji (planchette writing)|Fuji]] in [[Chinese folk religion]] and the [[Enochian]] language associated with [[Enochian magic]]. In the modern era, it is associated with [[Spiritualism (beliefs)|Spiritualism]] and the [[occult]], with notable practitioners including [[W. B. Yeats]] and [[Arthur Conan Doyle]]. There is no evidence supporting the existence of automatic writing, and claims associated with it are [[Unfalsifiability|unfalsifiable]]. Documented examples are considered to be the result of the [[ideomotor phenomenon]].<ref name="Burgess"/><ref name="Heap"/><ref name="Erickson"/><ref name="Karen"/>