Automatic Writing & The Spirits of the 1950s: A Forgotten Practice Returns
There’s something strange about the way a pen can move when you stop trying to control it.
It starts with a tremor — a soft pull, like someone else is testing the weight of your hand. The night I first noticed it, I was sitting before my brass writing lamp, the one with the dented shade and spiderweb crack near the base. The light hummed quietly, gold and patient. I’d been trying to write a letter to you — but the words that appeared weren’t entirely my own.
“She lingers in the ink, waiting to be remembered.”
I didn’t know what it meant at the time. But later, when I started researching the lamp’s history — and the strange disappearance of the schoolteacher who once owned it — I discovered something peculiar: automatic writing, (from moon Flower Manor Letter Series)
The Forgotten Language of the Spirits
Automatic writing isn’t new. It’s been whispered about for over a century — a favorite pastime of mediums, mystics, and lonely souls who missed their dead. It first appeared in the late 1800s during the Spiritualist movement, when séances filled drawing rooms and people believed their loved ones could speak through a flicker of flame or the creak of a planchette.
But after the wars, when the world was quieter and grief had soaked into every household, it found new life.
The 1950s were supposed to be about modern kitchens and optimism, but beneath all that Formica and floral wallpaper, there were still empty chairs at the table. So people turned to their pens. They dimmed the lights, held their breath, and waited for something—someone—to move through them.
Writers like Pearl Curran claimed to channel an entire spirit named Patience Worth, who spoke in old-fashioned verse and wrote novels through her. Others, like Irish medium Geraldine Cummins, said their hands carried voices from the beyond. The idea wasn’t always about ghosts — some thought it was the subconscious breaking free, creativity unfiltered by doubt.
The Ritual of the Lamp
The process itself was simple, but strangely intimate.
You’d light a candle or, if you were lucky enough, turn on your writing lamp — the soft hum and glow seemed to help. You’d relax your arm, take a deep breath, and let the pen rest gently between your fingers. Then, without planning or expectation, you’d begin.
Some described feeling a rush of warmth or a tingle in the wrist. Others said it felt like slipping into a dream while awake — a private current pulling them forward.
When I tried it that night, I remember the light flickering once… twice… and then my hand began to move. Not wildly — just enough to make me feel I wasn’t entirely alone.
A Revival for a Restless Age
And now, somehow, automatic writing has returned — not in dusty parlors, but across TikTok, YouTube, and modern journaling circles. People call it “intuitive writing” or “channeled journaling.” They say it’s a way to connect with inner guidance, ancestors, or whatever they believe lingers just beyond the veil.
It makes sense, really. We live in a noisy world — digital, crowded, and hungry for meaning. So we turn back to something quiet. A pen. A page. A question we’re afraid to say out loud.
Even skeptics admit there’s something soothing about it. The rhythm of handwriting slows the mind. The act of surrendering, even playfully, lets buried thoughts rise. Whether you believe in spirits or psychology, automatic writing offers the same promise: that you can listen to what usually goes unheard.
Between Ink and Imagination
Of course, not every story ends in comfort. Some who practiced it too often claimed the voices grew stronger — or stranger. A few stopped when the words began to rhyme in languages they didn’t know.
Maybe that’s why we’re drawn to it. There’s beauty in not knowing where the words come from.
“Light flickers, words crawl — the hand is only borrowed.”
That line appeared in my notebook one night without warning. I like to think it was a message from Miss Ada Penwell, the vanished schoolteacher. Or perhaps, just my own imagination stretching its legs.
Either way, I’ve learned that mystery doesn’t need to be solved to be sacred. Sometimes it’s enough to let it write itself.
Try It Yourself (If You Dare)
If you’re curious, here’s how to begin:
Find a quiet space — no phone, no music, no interruptions.
Light a candle or small lamp.
Place your pen lightly on the page.
Ask a question — to the universe, to memory, to yourself.
Don’t think. Just write.
Later, when you read the words, you may find echoes of something familiar — or something that feels older than you can explain.
Maybe the spirits never left us at all. Maybe they’ve just been waiting for someone to listen through ink and light again.
If you’d like to read the full story of the haunted writing lamp that inspired this post, you can find it in Letter Four of the Moon Flower Manor series — available now through The Silver Lantern.
Until then, keep your lamps burning low and your pen uncapped.
You never know who might be writing back.