Editing Automatic writing (section)

==Practitioners==

Automatic writing as a spiritual practice was reported by [[Hyppolyte Taine]] in the preface to the third edition of his ''De l'intelligence'', published in 1878.<ref name="Taine" /> Besides "ethereal visions" or "magnetic auras", [[Fernando Pessoa]] claimed to have experienced automatic writing. He said he felt "owned by something else", sometimes feeling a sensation in the right arm he claimed was lifted into the air without his will.<ref name="Pessoa" /> Georgie Hyde-Lees, the wife of [[William Butler Yeats]], also claimed she could write automatically.<ref name="Marjorie" /> [[Sri Aurobindo]] and his follower, The Mother ([[Mirra Alfassa]]), regularly practiced Automatic writing.

Shortly after his 1917 marriage to [[Georgie Hyde-Lees]], the poet [[W. B. Yeats]] came to be heavily influenced by her delving into what they referred to as "the automatic script".<ref name="Yeats"/>

In his 1918 book ''The New Revelation'', [[Arthur Conan Doyle]] wrote that automatic writing occurs either by the writer's subconscious or by external spirits operating through the writer.<ref name="Doyle"/> Doyle and his wife led an automatic writing séance with [[Harry Houdini]] wherein Lady Doyle wrote 15 pages of purported messages from Houdini's mother, although this information was immediately discounted as fraudulent by Houdini.<ref name="Houdini"/>

The essay ''[[The Automatic Message]]'' (1933), first published in the magazine ''[[Minotaure]]'', No. 3-4, (Paris), was one of [[André Breton]]'s significant theoretical works about [[Surrealist automatism|automatism]].  In 1919, Breton and [[Philippe Soupault]] had used what later became the [[Surrealist automatism]] method to compose ''[[Les Champs Magnétiques]]'' (The Magnetic Fields).<ref name="DictionaryOfArt">Chilvers, Ian and Glaves-Smith, John, ''A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art'', second edition (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 45-46. {{ISBN|0199239665}}.</ref> In 1997, "The Magnetic Fields" was also the title of a compilation of surrealist writing of André Breton, Paul Éluard, Philippe Soupault, and others. It included the authorized translation of Breton's [[The Automatic Message]] in English by the poet [[David Gascoyne]], whose ''Man's Life is This Meat'' (1936) (a collection of his own surrealist writings and translations of the French surrealists) and ''Hölderlin's Madness'' (1938) established Gascoyne's reputation as one of a small group of English surrealists. Gascoyne's 1935 ''A Short Survey of Surrealism'' for the 1936 [[London International Surrealist Exhibition]] also expanded the movement to the English-speaking world. The [[Surrealist]] poet [[Robert Desnos]] claimed he was among the most gifted in automatic writing.<ref name="Thacker"/> Surrealist automatists, most notably [[André Masson]], adapted these methods to art-making in which the artist suppresses conscious control over the making process, allowing the unconscious mind to have great sway. Prior to the Surrealists, [[Dada]]ists, such as [[Hans Arp]], made some use of this method through chance operations.<ref>The Surrealists: Revolutionaries in art & writing 1919–1935, Jemma Montagu</ref>

The [[Mediumship|medium]] [[Pierre L. O. A. Keeler]] had an alleged spirit writing communication from [[Abraham Lincoln]] currently exhibited at the Lily Dale Museum.<ref>[https://lilydaleassembly.org/place-to-see-points-of-interest/lily-dale-museum/ Lily Dale Museum]</ref> Despite Lincoln being well-known for his skepticism and Keeler having been known to employ magician's tricks, this is used as one of the many examples of skeptics purportedly endorsing Spiritualism posthumously.<ref name="Nickell4"/> Skeptical investigator [[Joe Nickell]] who conducted a detailed examination of the "spirit" writing, concluded it had no resemblance to Lincoln's handwriting and described the message as "bogus".<ref>[[Joe Nickell|Nickell, Joe]]. (2007). ''Adventures in Paranormal Investigation''. University Press of Kentucky. pp. 42–47. {{ISBN|978-0-8131-2467-4}}.</ref>

There was an apocalyptic cult led by a lapsed [[Scientologist]] named Dorothy Martin. She and her followers were waiting for an alien ship to take them to the nonexistent planet Clarion and save them from a worldwide flood that was to commence at midnight on December 20, 1954. When that did not occur, Martin allegedly got an automatic writing message from God calling the whole thing off.<ref name="Sharp"/><ref name="Jeffrey"/>

===Since 1975===

In 1975, Wendy Hart of [[Maidenhead]] claimed she wrote automatically about Nicholas Moore, a sea captain who died in 1642.<ref name="Rabey"/> Also in 1975, the [[CIA]] attempted to employ [[remote viewing]] through the [[Stargate Project (U.S. Army unit)|Stargate Project]]. In the spring of 1989, Angela Dellafiora, a member of [[Stargate Project (U.S. Army unit)|Stargate Project]]'s remote viewing unit, claimed to be guided by spirits moving her hand in writing responses about the location of a fugitive DEA agent named Charlie Jordan. In reviewing the matter, Joe Nickell states, "[T]he Charlie Jordan case, touted as one of the most successful examples... in the U.S. government's psychic-spying project is not convincing evidence of anything — save perhaps folly. ...[I]t also illustrates the limitations of anecdotal evidence: conflicting versions, selective reporting, and lack of documentation, together with additional manifestations of faulty memory, bias, and other human foibles."<ref name="Nickell3"/>

Conspiracy theorist [[David Icke]] said he first became aware of being "Son of the Godhead" via automatic writing.<ref name="Icke"/> [[Vassula Ryden]] claims to receive and transcribe messages from her guardian angel Daniel, Jesus, Yahweh.<ref name="Curty"/> She has provoked both skepticism and credulity from Catholic laity and clergy, as well as the skeptical community at large.<ref name="Nickell2"/> Alleged cases of automatic writing have included [[Joseph Smith]],<ref name="Apocrypha"/> [[Patience Worth]],<ref name="Karen"/> [[Aleister Crowley]],<ref name="Booklaw"/> [[Jane Roberts]],<ref name="Seth"/> [[Helen Schucman]]<ref name="Miracles"/> and author [[Neale Donald Walsch]].<ref name="Conversations"/><ref name="Lim"/> Crowley, for instance, compiled the ''Collected Works'' over time, which included ''The Book of the Law'' as well as transcripts of his visions of the first two Enochian Aethyrs (planes).<ref>{{Cite book|title=Aleister Crowley: The Biography – Spiritual Revolutionary, Romantic Explorer, Occult Master and Spy|last=Churton|first=Tobias|date=2012|publisher=Watkins Media Limited|isbn=9781780283845|location=London|pages=148}}</ref>