However many psychical researchers believe that most of the information conveyed through automatic writing comes from the depths of the writer's subconscious mind or perhaps from ESP.

Often it is an art that manifests itself spontaneously.  A person, perhaps intending to write a letter, a list or even a story or poem, suddenly finds the pen moving over the paper writing words in an unfamiliar handwriting containing a message or anecdote.  It may be that of a deceased relative, and if there are any samples of the deceased relation's hand they are often remarkably similar.  It may be an unknown hand, perhaps an identifiable figure from the past  or an unnamed source.  Whether the source is a spirit or a memory from the well of the Collective Unconscious is perhaps a matter of interpretation, but the source of the knowledge often assumes a definite identity.

Should this occur, you should accept it as a natural mode of communication and allow the writing to manifest itself when it feels right and try not to force it.  People who engage in automatic writing frequently experience a tingling sensation in the arms or hands immediately before a message is received.

Automatic writing tends to flow faster then conscious writing.  Words may be joined together and perhaps be spelled unusually.  The actual letters tend to be larger than the receiver's ordinary writing and be formed in a different way.  Some automatic writers find that they are endowed with the most beautiful copper-plate writing, but only during the process of the automatic transmission.  Automatic writing can also be in mirror script or written left to right, even on occasions starting at the bottom right corner and ending at the top left.  It may be in verse or contain complicated biblical quotations or even Latin.  Once again, this may not indicate spirit communication but knowledge we have absorbed without realising it at an earlier period in our lives or that we have accessed from the unconscious wisdom of our forefathers.

Sometimes there are messages, seemingly from more highly evolved discarnate beings who may communicate about the state of the world and the need for conservation and peace.  You should not worry about the nature or source of the communication.  Accept what is useful or fascinating and discard what is not.  You may even start a career as a novelist.  Automatic writers do not seem to suffer from writer's block!

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Beginning Automatic Writing

Even if you have never experienced a spontaneous flow of words, you can use automatic writing both for accessing unfamiliar information and for divination.  Some people find automatic writing easier when they have first developed their natural abilities through scrying and divination; for others it is a good introductory method of allowing the unconscious mind to express itself.

To practise automatic writing:

• Find a good pen or pencil, a notepad and a quiet place at a table.  Sit there and let your hand move as it will.  You may like to ask your hand if it has any messages to transmit to you.
• Hold your pen loosely in whichever hand you normally write with, and let your mind roam completely freely, with images filtering through and floating away.
• If nothing happens after a few minutes, visualise a column of light made up of golden letters, forming and re-forming words.
• Count down from 20 to 1 and let the light flow down your arm and into your fingers and the pen.  See the golden letters on the page.
• Wait until you feel your pen tremble and let it move.  At first it may scribble and then make patterns and then words.  Do not try to read or analyse the words or you will logically decide what should come next and lose the spontaneity.
• When you feel you are losing concentration stop. 
• Try to practice at the same time every night - at first for no more than 5 minutes and eventually building up to 10 or 15.
• At the end of each session, lay down your pen and see the column of light gradually feeling and yourself in a dark, peaceful place.
• Keep the same pen and pad or book of paper for writing and do not use them for other purposes.
• Read what you have written.  It may seem to relate to you or to another life or person, perhaps a past life, perhaps a persona that is deep in you.  Keep it in your Book of Shadows and you may find a story unfolding.
• Do something mundane or physical so that you do not go to bed immediately afterwards with the words buzzing round.  It is important, with any formal psychic work, to have a clear demarcation between this and the rest of your life.
• Finally, remember not to get too involved in automatic writing.  If it occupies your thoughts to the exclusion of other aspects of your life, cut down or even stop for a while.  Because it is quite a direct psychic method, it can create a personality of the sender.  It is especially important not to use automatic writing if you are feeling distressed or angry as you can dredge up memories or feelings that can be hard to handle.  

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Using Automatic Writing for Divination:

• Write down a question to which you need an answer, using an ordinary pen.  
• Pick up your special pen and write down whatever comes into your head, however unlikely or irrelevant it may seem.  You may feel the special trembling but, if not, go ahead anyway.  It may be a few words, a few lines or a page or more.
• When you feel the impetus fade, put down the pen.
• Do not read the answer but, with your everyday pen, write a second question that will come spontaneously.  It may be unexpected but later you will find that it was pertinent.
• Pick up your automatic writing pen and let the second answer form.
• Continue with each question and answer without reading the answers, until you have five or six answers or feel that you have exhausted all the possibilities.
• Read all the answers through one after the other.  They may take the form of a dialogue with yourself or they may be highly symbolic, in which case you can use the basic symbol system to begin to unravel them.  The answers may even form a story, in which case consider how the characters and their actions relate to possible future choices of your own.  Sometimes the symbols appear as pictures, or you may find yourself drawing a figure either in distinctive dress or someone you know.  You may also develop a gift for drawing people you see around someone to whom you are giving a reading.  These may be deceased relatives of the sitter or friend who have returned from beyond the grave to wish him or her well.