5i6 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



would have been as promptly forthcoming. This automatic pro- 

 duction of mysterious characters is not uncommon. Prof. James, 

 of Harvard, has examined many cases, but neither he nor any 

 one else has ever, so far as I know, found any that could be 

 deciphered. 



Thus, the intelligibility of B 's script is fully accounted 



for ; but its automatic character remains more or less of a puzzle. 

 I am inclined to regard it as due to the spontaneous " running " 

 of some parts of the nervous mechanism which have nothing to 

 do with consciousness. Precisely what parts we can not say, but 

 if we suppose that consciousness accompanies cortical processes 

 only, we may also suppose that they are to be found in the re- 

 enforcing and co-ordinating mechanism of the great basal ganglia. 

 If so, this case might be regarded as strictly automatic — i. e., as 

 due to mechanical causes only.* 



I do not believe that all cases of automatic writing can be ex- 

 plained in this way ; but I am convinced that experimenters do 

 not take sufficient pains to eliminate the action of the subject's 

 consciousness. They seem to think that where the sense of vol- 

 untary effort is lacking the subject's consciousness can not inter- 

 fere. 



For the first carefully observed and reported case of automatic 

 speech we are indebted to Prof. James, of Harvard. His paper, 

 together with an account written by the subject, will shortly ap- 

 pear in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. 

 I have not yet seen it, but he has kindly allowed me to make an 

 independent study of the case for myself and to make use of it in 

 this connection. The subject, whom I shall call Mr. Le Baron, 

 is an Englishman thirty-eight years of age, is a man of educa- 

 tion, has written a novel, a volume of poems, and a treatise on 

 metaphysics, and is a reporter for a daily paper. In the summer 

 of 1894 he fell in with a group of persons interested in occultism, 

 and his association with them appears to have brought to the 

 surface tendencies to automatism which had already manifested 

 themselves sporadically. Of this association he thus speaks: 

 " Before and almost immediately preceding this ' speaking with 

 tongues ' my nature had undergone a most remarkable emotional 

 upheaval, which terminated in a mild form of ecstasy. Credulity 

 and expectation are twin brothers, and my credulity was first 

 aroused by the earnest narration of divers ' spiritualistic ' experi- 

 ences by a cultured lady of beautiful character, fine presence, and 

 the noblest of philanthropic intuitions. A number of persons 

 associated with this lady in her work secretly believed themselves 



* Some further details about this case can be found in my paper, The Experimental 



Induction of Automatic Processes, in the Psychological Review, July, 1805. 



M 



