History of Automatic Writing
One of the most common forms of channeling information from the Soul Side is a personal “automatic writing” session. This concept will be new to many readers, while it is actually a common practice with a long history. Automatic writing derived over time from the concept of “free association writing” used in psychoanalysis as first developed by Sigmund Freud. Yet its roots date back to the early “stream of consciousness” concept found in early Buddhist scriptures (specifically, in the Digha Nikaya; reference Steven Collins,
Selfless Persons: Imagery and Thought in Theravada Buddhism,
Cambridge University Press, 1982).
In 1890, the psychologist and philosopher William James published his Principles of Truth. James’ description of the mind-world connection described in terms of the “stream of consciousness” had a direct and significant impact on the development and expansion of “stream of consciousness writing.” This is commonly associated with the modernist movement in literature in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Stream of consciousness writing guides the reader to visualize or perceive a character’s point of view through the written equivalent of the character’s thought processes. Examples of stream of consciousness writing include Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina
(1873), William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury
(1929), and Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer’s July’s People
(1981). Read More…