Within the peak of the spiritualism motion of séances, mediums and desk turning, computerized writing was a preferred method to talk with the useless. However what sort of writing and messages did the observe go away us with?
Think about sitting alone in a dimly lit room, pen in hand, paper in entrance of you, when instantly—your hand jerks ahead, scribbling furiously as if another person is holding the pen. You sit there, equal components fascinated and mildly horrified, as cryptic messages, unusual symbols, or perhaps just a few very messy handwriting pours onto the web page you don’t have any management over. Is it a deep connection to the spirit world… or did your unconscious simply have means an excessive amount of caffeine?
That is the essential premise of computerized writing—a ghostly communication methodology that’s half séance, half psychological thriller, and 100% unsettling.
What Precisely Is Computerized Writing?
Computerized writing, also called psychography, is the act of writing with out aware thought, letting an unseen pressure (be it your unconscious thoughts or one thing slightly extra… otherworldly) take the wheel. The thought? Spirits, guides, and even greater consciousnesses use your hand as their private typewriter to ship messages from past.
It’s not solely to come back in touch with ghosts that computerized writing is used, and is a technique utilized by writers to faucet into their subconsciousness and let the phrases movement on the paper as an alternative. This was significantly common with French surrealists and was for some time a preferred remedy type in Freudian psychology. Not like brainstorming or journaling, you’re not supposed to consider what you’re writing. As a substitute, you let the pen movement, giving the spirit world a direct hotline to your pocket book.
When speaking about computerized writing inside spiritualism, we frequently discuss mediums letting themselves be used for spirit to speak by means of. Some declare that they go right into a type of altered state, some not even remembering what occurred and what they wrote down, because it got here from the afterlife, not their very own thoughts. The handwriting usually appears to be like completely different, even the language might be international.
Learn Extra: Books Written by Ghosts and Channeled Texts
Computerized writing has been a staple inside the spiritualist neighborhood for hundreds of years now, usually mixed in a séance as a method to contact the useless, very similar to Desk Turning, Ectoplasma, Spirit Drawing and different technique of communications.
A Transient (and Barely Haunted) Historical past
Computerized writing isn’t some New Age development—it’s been round for hundreds of years, quietly creeping by means of religious practices and philosophical circles in all cultures, occasions and locations on earth with a written language.
Among the extra well-known traditions of computerized writing consists of:
Historical China:
Spirit writing, often called Fu Ji (扶乩), was practiced as early as 1100 AD, utilizing a suspended stylus to speak with deities and ancestors. It was thought-about so highly effective that it was ultimately banned throughout sure dynasties—as a result of nothing says “this works” fairly like outlawing it.
Learn Extra: China’s Mystical Writing: Fu Ji (扶乩) – When Spirits Choose Up the Pen
The custom of Fu Ji unfold into Taoist lore as effectively and thru this, the kung fu system is even credited to a sage from past, given to the residing by means of writing.
Enochian Magic:
Within the west computerized writing has an extended custom lengthy earlier than the New Age takeover as effectively. One of many earlier examples we will discover is thru Enochian magic that supposedly gave steerage by means of the Enochian language, or the language of angels because it was believed to be.
Right here it was significantly John Dee and Edward Kelley in Renaissance England who practiced the artwork and was advising Queen Elisabeth I, giving this alleged religious messaging actual life penalties.
Victorian Period:
The nineteenth century in Europe and USA noticed the golden age of spiritualism, the place computerized writing made its grand comeback for the favored plenty as a way to make the communication faster than desk turning and rapping might. Mediums at candlelit séances would go into trances, letting their arms scrawl out letters from the useless whereas wide-eyed onlookers gasped (and generally fainted for dramatic impact).
Literary heavyweights received in on the motion too. Surrealist writers and artists, like André Breton, used computerized writing as a inventive device, believing it bypassed the aware thoughts to faucet into pure thought. Maybe his most well-known phrase produced by computerized writing is his e book Soluble Fish.
Then there was Pearl Curran, who within the early 1900s supposedly contacted a Seventeenth-century spirit named Persistence Price, whom she met by means of a session with a Ouija Board. Collectively they allegedly wrote a number of novels, hundreds of poems and different writings collectively. Many individuals assume that this case is without doubt one of the finest examples that computerized writing is actual, largely as a result of they didn’t assume {that a} housewife would have the ability to write all of this by herself. Proof of a ghost or only a contact of misogyny?
From this period, maybe Hélène Smith, who used the pseudonym of Catherine Elise Muller who was essentially the most well-known medium utilizing computerized writing. She was born round 1863 in Geneva, Switzerland and held many séances. She claimed to have been a Hindu princess in addition to Marie Antoinette in her earlier lives.
Not solely did she produce computerized writing in Arabic, but additionally in one thing that she stated had been the languages of Mars and Uranus translated into French. Though a wild declare to make, and it definitely wasn’t with out controversies, she truly had a good bit of help from believers in her extraterrestrial language.
Trendy Psychology
Though the act of computerized writing nonetheless lingers within the corners of non secular perception, New Age spiritualism and for these believing within the paranormal, we largely discuss computerized writing from a scientific and psychological viewpoint right now. Documented examples are thought-about to be the results of the ideomotor phenomenon and a milder type of dissociative state.
How It (Allegedly) Works
The method is of computerized writing is an easy idea—at the least on paper:
Set the temper: Dim lights, candles, perhaps slightly incense. Spirits love ambiance.
Seize your instruments: A pocket book, a pen, and an open thoughts.
Get within the zone: Many practitioners meditate or use gentle hypnosis to clear their minds.
Let it movement: Calm down your hand, maintain the pen loosely, and wait. The idea is {that a} spirit will “information” your hand, bypassing your aware mind.
Decode the chaos: When you snap out of it, you would possibly discover something from coherent sentences to frantic scribbles that appear like your cat ran throughout the paper.
For believers, computerized writing is a religious device—a direct line to the afterlife or greater planes of existence. Many assume that the facility comes from themselves as mediums and if it doesn’t work for some, they merely doesn’t have the facility and sensitivity for it.
For skeptics, it’s a textbook instance of the ideomotor impact (the identical involuntary motion concept behind Ouija boards and desk tipping).
Learn Extra: Try The Darkish Origins of the Ouija Board: A Mysterious Historical past of Spirit Communication and Desk Turning: When Spirits Spill the Tea By way of Furnishings for extra info of the historical past behind this.
Primarily, your unconscious thoughts is doing the work, however since you’re not conscious of it, it appears like an exterior pressure.
Well-known Writers and the Artwork of Computerized Writing
Many well-known folks have over time been concerned in computerized writing, both doing it themselves or their ghosts have stated to have been channeled by means of different mediums. Charles Dickens unfinished work of The Thriller of Edwin Drood was supposedly completed written by means of the hand of the itinerant printer T.P James, now remembered because the Brattleboro hoax.
One other well-known author who received concerned within the supernatural computerized writing was W.B Yeats who married Georgie Hyde-Lees, a lady who claimed she might channel spirits by means of computerized writing. This influenced him significantly and his writing after they married.
Learn Extra: Renvyle Home and a go to from Yeats
Additionally the author Arthur Conan Doyle and his spouse explored computerized writing. As soon as they even held a séance with Harry Houdini the place Woman Doyle wrote 15 pages price of communication with a spirit she claimed was Houdini’s mom. Houdini himself noticed all of it as a hoax.
When Issues Acquired… Darkish
After all, no paranormal observe comes and not using a little side-eye from the darkish aspect. Some warning that computerized writing could be a gateway for less-than-friendly spirits. In spite of everything, in case you’re leaving the door open, who is aware of what’s going to stroll (or scribble) by means of it? There are tales of individuals contacting malevolent entities or receiving unsettling, cryptic messages that appear straight out of a horror movie.
After which there’s the well-known case of Aleister Crowley—sure, that Aleister Crowley—who claimed to have channeled the textual content The E-book of the Regulation by means of computerized writing, dictated by an otherworldly being named Aiwass. He was additionally very impressed by Enochian Magic. Let’s simply say it didn’t precisely assist his already spooky popularity.
Exposing the Hoaxes
Within the trendy period, from Victorian occasions as much as right now, there have been folks devoted to exposing charlatans and frauds, making an attempt to move off their methods as true communication with ghosts. Among the extra well-known paranormal investigators was Harry Worth who received concerned in lots of common mediums and ghost tales. One among them was for instance the notorious haunted Borley Rectory the place a housewife was making an attempt to cowl up an extramarital affair and make it appear like ghosts had been haunting her home.
Learn Extra: The Mysterious Story of Borley Rectory – Was it Actually Haunted?
Science largely dismisses computerized writing as a psychological phenomenon. The ideomotor impact explains how delicate, unconscious muscle actions can create the phantasm that an exterior pressure is at work. Plus, the human mind is absolutely good at discovering patterns in randomness. These looping scribbles? Your mind’s dying to learn them as a message.
However for spiritualists and believers, computerized writing isn’t about proof—it’s about connection. Whether or not it’s a voice from past, the collective unconscious, or just a method to faucet into deeper layers of your individual psyche, the outcomes usually really feel actual to those that expertise it.
A Pen, Some Paper, and Possibly a Ghost?
Computerized writing sits at that curious crossroads the place psychology and the paranormal shake arms—after which perhaps slap one another. Is it a portal to the spirit world? A glimpse into the unconscious thoughts? Or only a very dramatic method to doodle?
Both means, the following time your hand randomly scribbles one thing whenever you’re zoned out in a gathering… Possibly it’s not simply boredom. Possibly, simply perhaps, it’s somebody—or one thing—making an attempt to say whats up.
Or perhaps you simply really want one other cup of espresso.
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References:
Computerized writing – New World Encyclopedia
