4.Drawings

Sometimes my hand is moved to draw instead of to write. The impulse in such cases is quite equally distinct. I never know what I am going to draw till the picture is half finished. My hand begins at odd, unexpected places; for instance, with shading in a corner, or at the ear of a profile; and approaches the principal lines in a way which no artist would choose. There is no rubbing out or alteration of what is once done, but if whatever moves my hand does not like the picture, it suddenly scrawls it all over and begins again on another piece of paper. Sometimes twenty or thirty pieces of paper have been spoilt in this way, even when the picture was all but finished; so that if I think that a picture is pretty I sometimes beg some one to take it away from under my hand for fear it should be scrawled on. I have no natural gift for drawing, and have only received a few lessons as a child. I could not even copy some of these automatic drawings. I have never of myself painted in oils, but sometimes I am moved to paint automatically in water-colour or oils.

I put out a number of oil colours in a row, and my brush goes to them automatically and dabs one wet colour on. the top of another, making a picture which is odd enough, but much less muddled than might be supposed; in fact, artists have said that it was curious that a distinct picture could be produced in that way. When I paint thus there is no drawing or outline, only the brush-work. These drawings and pictures have a certain boldness and strangeness about them, but they are certainly not like the work of a regular artist.

5. Connection Of Written With Other Messages

The writing sometimes explains or completes other phenomena, as, for instance, figures seen, or sentences begun by raps. Sometimes, on the other hand, raps will come when I wish to have writing. But the writing will hardly ever explain or in any way allude to what really most needs explanation, namely, the crystal-visions. The guides who write seem to know nothing about these visions.

6. Subject Of The Writing

The great mass of the writing consists of teachings as to religion and philosophy. This is what my guides seem to wish to give, and it is strange that it should be so, as my own thoughts have not been much directed to such matters.

Another large part of the writing consists in a kind of fantastic description of the way in which a world was made. The name given with these writings is Gelalius. I suppose that this is a kind of romance. It is very different from anything that I should myself ever write or dream of, nor am I at all fond of reading romances of that kind. The writing professes to be copied from a book open at that particular chapter, and sometimes a passage will be continued weeks or months after the first part of it was written, as if the book had chanced to be open again at that same place.

Some of the messages, however, deal with earthly matters. Some give general advice, some give medical advice, and some show a knowledge of things in the past or present which I do not possess. Some of these messages have been curiously right; some have been partly right, but confused or interrupted; and some have been wrong altogether. The sense of time seems confused, so that it is hard to say whether the incidents are meant to have happened long ago, or lately, or to be still in the future. Many of the messages we have not tested, as they were about things which did not interest us. Often, for instance, there would be messages about events in the newspapers which I had not thought or cared about.

As to what I have called "general advice," I think that this has always been good when it related to the conduct of the automatic writing itself. I should be told, I mean, when to write and when not to write, and what people's presence was desirable, and so forth. The advice is often quite different from what we wish; - forbidding us to ask people whom we had desired to ask. There has been one very curious case where we were repeatedly told [by a deceased relative of his] to "send for" a gentleman whom I will call Mr. C. D., of whom we knew nothing, except that we had seen his name in the papers in quite a different connection. It so chanced that a friend of ours knew Mr. C. D. and brought him to see us, but for some years there seemed to be no particular result. Lately, however, Mr. C. D.'s presence has very greatly helped the phenomena; and the advice given so long ago has turned out important in a way which we could not possibly have foreseen.

On matters not connected with these phenomena I should always carefully read what the writing told me, but I should not go by it unless it seemed sensible. It does not always advise either what I wish or what I think wise; but generally it is wiser than I.

7. Medical Advice

Medical Advice has often been given by a control calling himself "Semirus," and this has been often successful; which is strange, since I am quite ignorant of medicine, and often do not know the names either of diseases or of drugs mentioned. Of course I cannot be quite sure that I have never read the words, but certainly when I have written them I have often not known what they meant.

At other times the facts relating to the illness have been quite outside my knowledge. One friend has given an instance of this kind [printed later]; but I have not liked to ask others, as what Semirus says is generally meant for the questioner alone.

8. Thought-Transference

The writing occasionally, but not often, tells me of thoughts in the minds of persons present. One day a lady handed me a letter, in a handwriting which I did not know. I held the letter in one hand, and the other hand wrote, "Bright metal and brown earth." The letter was from a gentleman whom I had never seen, and who committed suicide by throwing himself on the rails in front of a railway engine. I think that this message came from thought-transference, as I do not find that merely holding letters in my hand tells me anything about their writers unless some one is there who knows the content; and even then I so seldom succeed that I do not care to try experiments of this kind.

[Lady Brooke (the Ranee of Sarawak), who was present at the time, has given me a written confirmation of this (quite recent) incident, for which I have not pressed the owner of the letter, on account of the painful nature of the circumstance. F. W. H. M].