Automatic Writing

Automatic writing describes words produced while the writer reports reduced conscious control over the act. Nineteenth-century Spiritualists treated it as a possible channel for spirit communication; later psychologists investigated related forms of automatism as products of attention, expectation, dissociation, and ideomotor action. The label describes an interpretation of an experience, not proof that a spirit authored the text.

The practice became prominent in Spiritualist circles during the late nineteenth century and also interested early psychical researchers. Surrealist writers later adopted automatic writing as a deliberate creative method, separating artistic spontaneity from supernatural claims.

Fiction often turns automatic writing into a perfectly legible warning or prophecy. Historical accounts are more varied: marks may be fragmentary, ambiguous, or shaped by the writer’s vocabulary and expectations.

• Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Automatic Writing,” reference entry.
• William James, The Principles of Psychology, 1890, discussion of automatic action and divided consciousness.