871 A. From Proceedings S.P.R., vol. ix. pp. 124-27, quoted from The Holy Truth, by Hugh Junor Browne, pp. 63-71.

In this [automatic writing] we were unsuccessful, until it came to the turn of my eldest daughter, a girl of eleven years of age, to take the pencil in hand. Immediately on her doing so her hand was influenced to write, causing her to be considerably alarmed. She called out, "Oh, mamma ! I am so frightened, my hand is moving." We all pacified her as much as possible, and on taking up the paper we found her hand had written on it quite legibly, though in rather tremulous characters, quite different from her ordinary writing, the following sentence: "Helen, Grace, Browne, I am come to see you. Your beloved aunt. You will," etc, etc. The remainder of the writing was too faint to decipher. The name written above is that of my second daughter, between five and six years of age, who is called after two of her aunts, my sisters; one of whom, the wife of an officer in the Indian army, passed away many years ago, having died on her passage home from India, and whose spirit we afterwards ascertained influenced the girl's hand to write this message to her little niece and namesake.

We had a number of communications through the same source that evening from different spirit-friends, and since that time, except on two occasions, when she said she felt no influence (a reason for which afterwards was given), whenever my eldest girl sits down for the purpose of communicating with our spirit-friends, her hand is almost immediately influenced to write. Her hand has written as many as forty pages of large notepaper within half-an-hour, which in her ordinary handwriting would take her several hours to copy.

My daughter is quite unaware of what she is writing and describes the sensation of the influence as though electricity were running down her arm from the shoulder. This is what is termed mechanical writing mediumship. She often writes far beyond her own powers of comprehension on subjects of which she has not the least conception, spelling words correctly which she does not understand, and of which, when read over, she inquires the meaning - such words as clairvoyantly, physically, etc. At other times she spells small words incorrectly which in her ordinary writing she would spell correctly. She has written in French, of which language she knows but the rudiments; she has written in Chinese characters, and also in the Kaffir language, of neither of which does she understand a word. She has written in blank verse, which, though it would not stand the scrutiny of a critic, is decidcdly beyond her powers in this line, she being more of a romp than a student.

My daughter has frequently been influenced to write messages to strangers from their spirit-friends, giving them particulars about things of which she could not possibly know anything, and signing correctly the names of their spirit-friends in spirit-life of whom she had never before heard. Her mother and I have thought of a question to put to one of our spirit-friends when she was not present, and calling her into the room have given her a pencil and paper, and she has written a correct reply to the question mentally asked, and signed the name of the spirit-friend of whom we thought. She can write either looking away from or on to the paper. A difference can be seen in the writing from each of our spirit-friends. If I see even the word "yes" written through her, I can generally tell what spirit is influencing the medium's hand. I have seen her write the letters upside down, backwards, left-handed, and in various ways quite impossible for the child to do herself, and sometimes so fast you can hardly see her hand join the letters, and at other times slow; sometimes in a very small hand, at others in bold text-writing.

On one occasion it was written through my daughter's hand that I was to take a bottle of a specific I have for rheumatism to a Mr. Reed, directing me to inquire at a shop in the next street to where he used to live and I would be directed to where he then resided. I had formerly given a man of this name some of this mixture, which had relieved him of the pain, but had not seen or heard of him for months, and I was not aware that he had removed from where he then lived. On calling at his former residence I found he had removed, and on calling as instructed at the shop indicated I was told where Reed then lived. I found him confined to his bed, suffering acutely from rheumatism, and gave him the specific.

I may mention another incident which occurred. One day when out walking with my wife I met a black man whom I had never seen before, but whom I recognised as a Kaffir from large holes made in his ears peculiar to that race. I accosted him in his native tongue, at which he seemed rather surprised, and I gave him my address, telling him to call on me. This he did just as we were sitting down to investigate this subject. I told the servant to show him into the room, and on asking if any of his spirit-friends were present, my daughter's hand wrote out several Kaffir names, which on my reading out to him he recognised, and which evidently caused him great astonishment. On asking if they had any message for him, a sentence was written in the Kaffir language, some of the words of which were beyond my comprehension. On my reading the message out to the Kaffir he understood every word of it except one. This I pronounced in various ways to try to make him comprehend, but all to no purpose, when my daughter's hand was influenced to write, "Click with the mouth." This reminded me of a peculiar click which frequently accompanies the sounding of the letter "T" in the Kaffir language, and on my pronouncing this word he understood the meaning of it at once.