196 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The messages are often elaborate, and surprise the writer quite as 

 much as they do the bystanders by their content. The upper con- 

 sciousness seems sometimes to cooperate in a faint way, sometimes 

 merely to permit, and sometimes to be entirely ignorant of what the 

 hand is doing. Occasionally the subject grows abstracted, and may 

 go into a sort of reverie or trance if the writing or drawing is pro- 

 longed. Sometimes, but apparently in a minority of cases, the hand 

 becomes insensible to pricking and pinching. Of the matters set 

 down and their peculiarities I will say nothing here, these words of 

 mine being merely introductory to a case of automatic drawing which 

 may be interesting to the general reader from its lack of complication 

 and its oddity. 



The subject, C. H. P., married, fifty years old, made his living as 

 a bookkeeper until the autumn of 1901, when he fractured his spine in 

 an elevator accident. Since the accident he has been incapable of 

 carrying on his former occupation. 



For several years previous to the accident, automatic hand-move- 

 ments, twitchings, etc., had occurred, but having no familiarity with 

 automatic phenomena Mr. P. thought they were mere 'nervousness,' 

 and discouraged them. He thinks that 'drawing' would have come 

 earlier had he understood the premonitory symptoms and taken a 

 pencil into his hand. 



The hand movements grew more marked a few months after the 

 elevator accident, but the subject sees no definite reason for ascribing 

 to the accident any part in their production. 



They were converted into definite movements of drawing by an 

 exhibition which he witnessed in Februar}'-, 1903. The account which 

 follows is in Mr. P. 's own words. 



A friend who was interested in hypnotism introduced me to a man who 

 had some power as a hypnotist, and this man gave for our amusement a sample 

 of automatic drawing, a man's face in dotted outline, no shading or detail. 



A*"' 



The movement of his hand reminded me of the way my own hand frequently 

 acted, so the next day I sat down to a table with a pencil and paper, and 

 tracings were directly made; but it was some days before I made an object that 

 could be recognized, and I have never made dotted outlines like the man who 



