THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 



MONTHLY. 



JANUARY, 1904. 



A CASE OF AUTOMATIC DKAWING. 



By Professor WILLIAM JAMES, 



HAEVAKD UNIVERSITY. 



* A UTOMATISMS' have recently been made a frequent topic of 

 -^-*- investigation by psychologists, and although the exact reason 

 why some persons have them and others do not remains as little ex- 

 plained as does the precise character and content which they may 

 affect in a given individual, yet we are now so well acquainted with 

 their variety that we can class them under familiar types. 



The rudiment of all the motor-automatisms seems to be the 

 tendency of our muscles to act out any performance of which we may 

 think. They do so without deliberate intention, and often without 

 awareness on our part, as where one swings a ring by a thread in a 

 glass and finds that it strikes the number of times of which we think; 

 or as when we play the willing game, and, laying our hands on the 

 blindfolded 'percipient,' involuntarily guide him by our checking or 

 encouraging pressure until he lays his hands upon the object which 

 is hid. 



The next higher grade of motor automatism, involving considerable 

 subconscious action of intelligence, is found in the various alphabet- 

 using forms of amateur mediumship, such as table tipping, the * Ouija- 

 board,' and certain other devices for making our muscles leaky and 

 liable to escape from control. 



'Graphic' automatisms, of which planchette-writing is the most 

 popularly known example, is a more widespread accomplishment than 

 ordinary people think. We have no statistics, but I am inclined to 

 suspect that in twenty persons taken at random an automatic writer 

 of some degree can always be found. 



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