…unproven’.6West (2000, 254). Becoming a Medium Following the Davis affair, Soal visited the medium Hester Dowden, who helped clients develop ‘automatic’ writing. Holding her hand over his, both poised over a Ouija board, messages were recorded ostensibly from Oscar Wilde. The two went on to produce scripts from ‘Oscar Wilde’…
…study of xenoglossy, Bozzano42Bozzano (1932). classified cases as those in which languages were expressed via speaking or auditory perceptions, automatic writing, direct voice and direct writing. Another study focused on non-recurrent physical manifestations for which there was no apparent explanation, such as pictures that fell, clocks that stopped, bells that…
…Boston, known at the time by the pseudonym Mrs Chenoweth. Soule had not known Funk and although she was aware that he had written The Widow’s Mite, had not read it.19Hyslop (1919), 282-83. The first messages from Funk came in automatic writing through Soule on 2 October 1912, six months…
…mental state. And if the latter, it could manifest either as an image, a vague change of mood or feeling, a more precise and sudden disruption of the mental flow, an impulse to do something (for instance ‘I should telephone so and so’), or perhaps even as automatic or semi-automatic…
…a medium and automatist, Travers Smith attempted automatic writing, and produced scripts purporting to come from the deceased playwright Oscar Wilde6Travers Smith (1923).. In her analysis she considered the possibility of cryptomnesia, the unconscious memory of details read in books and elsewhere, but found convincing the ‘the reconstruction of personality’…
…part.’36Morselli (1908), vol. 1, 321-22. The projected force was thought to be stronger when the medium was less conscious. This was because trance could inhibit the higher brain centers, allowing for the lower centers to be involved with the force automatically. Morselli believed that consciousness interfered with automatic processes, taking…
…between body position and out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, comparing Brazilian Spiritist mediumship and dissociative identity disorder, testing a professional medium, and other anomalous phenomena.13Cardeña (n.d.). Research planned by Cardeña as of this writing includes using functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare brain activity of a subject performing automatic writing and…
…psychical research: Personismus (‘personism’, pertaining to phenomena appearing as if caused by discarnate spirits involving no supernormal information or effect, merely stemming from a medium’s or percipient’s intra-personal unconscious dramatization, as, for example, in most instances of automatic writing); Animismus (‘animism’, describing phenomena appearing as if caused by discarnate spirits,…
…joined the SPR in 1890 and later served as council member, secretary, treasurer and president. He helped create a research endowment fund and assisted in reorganising the American Society for Psychical Research. His major writings focused especially on Rosalie Thompson’s mental mediumship, trance controls and automatic writing. Life and Career…
