Automatic Writing, An Alternate Method Of Spirit Communication
If You Don't Hear Or See Spirits, Try This Method

By Bob Olson

After a year of studying psychics and psychic mediums, I heard about a spirit communication technique called “Automatic Writing.” This is a process of shutting your conscious mind off to allow your unconscious mind to take over your writing, allowing your spirit-guides to write (communicate) through you. Some think of automatic writing as “channeled” writing where your body (in this case, your hands and fingers) is controlled by spirits. Others think of it more as a means of communication, not allowing spirit to control your body but allowing you to stop the noisy chatter of your conscious thoughts in order to hear what the spirits are saying, or possibly what your higher self has to tell you.

For those of us who will probably never become psychic mediums ourselves, automatic writing is a tool we can use to communicate with spirits on our own. It is a tool that allows people like me and you to communicate with our deceased loved-ones and spirit-guides without the need for a psychic medium. When you really think about it, that’s pretty cool. Not only will it save us a lot of money on reading fees, it gives us better access to the guidance and ongoing relationships we all have access to with those spirits who love and guide us.

I decided to give automatic writing a try to see what results I might have. I understood what psychic mediums do to raise their energy and connect with spirit, so I knew the basic process—basically it is meditation, clearing the mind and raising your energy. And I knew it was unlikely that I would ever share the gift that Vicki, John, Rita and the others have as psychic mediums. As a writer, my typing skills were such that my fingers typed words as fast as I could think them. It seemed like an interesting experiment to type my thoughts before I had a chance to think about what I was writing. I wasn’t confident that I would be able to do this automatic writing thing, but I knew there was no harm in trying.

I meditated first to get into a relaxed state of mind. I’m not all that great at meditation, but I found it is helpful to use headphones and some type of relaxing music to shut off any outside distractions and slow my brainwaves. I’m one of those people who often falls asleep while meditating. If snoring were a sign of deep meditation, monks and yogis would be at my door asking to learn my secret methods.

Once relaxed, I placed my fingers over my keyboard. I’ve found that I usually have to ask a question in order to get started; I think that helps amateurs like me. Then I rapidly typed whatever answer popped into my head. Most times I was aware of what I was writing, but didn’t have time to edit anything consciously because I was typing so fast. Other times I felt like my typing was slowing down and my conscious mind might be controlling the process, so I stopped and relaxed my mind again before proceeding.

I did this for a few weeks before I read what I had written. I was a bit shocked at the results. The words really didn’t sound like me. First of all, what was written was too wisdom-ish. I’m no guru and I don’t write like the great philosophers, yet this stuff was full of wisdom and written with a hint of philosophical flair. Here is an example of one of my automatic writings. Now that you are used to my writing style, you will notice that the words being written are dissimilar to the way I normally write:

Okay, I don’t know about you, but I think that stuff is a little heavy. I prefer a lighter approach. The interesting part is that I was the person who wrote it. The truth is that I’m still slightly skeptical that I have the ability for automatic writing. I’ll be the first person to view my automatic writing with a cynical eye. In fact, that’s exactly what I did one day while Melissa and I were over Vicki’s house having some friendly conversation and laughs.

“That’s great that you’ve learned to do this,” Vicki said about my automatic writing.

“Yeah, but he doesn’t fully believe in it,” said Melissa.

“What do you mean he doesn’t believe in it?” Vicki barked. “He’s doing it!” Vicki likes that fact that I still question my new discoveries of the paranormal, but she gets impatient with the depth of my skepticism. I always need a ton of evidence before I will begin to accept certain concepts.

Melissa looked at me with one of those, “Well, explain yourself Mr. Skeptical” looks.

“I’ll admit that my automatic writing doesn’t sound like anything I would write. But I usually know what I’m typing, so it’s hard for me to believe that it isn’t simply my own thoughts,” I told Vicki.

“Well, I know for sure that it’s not your own thoughts, because I know who is coming through—he’s right here now,” said Vicki.

Melissa and I looked at each other with curious expressions. We knew this was going to be interesting.

“Okay, who is it?” I challenged.

“It’s your Uncle Donald,” said Vicki.

Just when I think I’ve got Vicki in a spot where I can prove her wrong, she has to come out with something solid. I actually did have an Uncle Donald, my father’s older brother, who had passed a year before my father. I call him Uncle Duck, but psychic mediums often get the formal names before they get nicknames. Still, I wasn’t going to let this one pass without a fight. If Uncle Duck was really helping me with my automatic writing, Vicki was going to have to prove it. I needed to know he was really there.

I knew that Vicki had no knowledge about my Uncle Duck. I knew that I never mentioned him to her. And there was something very personal and distinct about Uncle Duck that she could never have known—he had a tattoo on the top of each foot. So I decided to test Vicki to see if she could tell me about these tattoos as evidence that Uncle Duck was really in the room.

“Let’s see,” I began. “If you can prove to me that Uncle Duck is really here, then I’ll believe he is communicating with me through my automatic writing. I’m thinking of something that is very unique about him that would prove to me he’s with us now—if you can tell me what that is.”

“Oh boy,” said Melissa to Vicki, “it’s not enough that you tell him about his uncle being here, now he has to push it to the limits by testing you.”

“In my defense,” I protested, “I’m making this easy on her. I’m not asking for a lot. There is one thing Vicki can tell me about Uncle Duck that will prove to me without a doubt that he is here right now. If she gets it, I’ll take her word for it that he’s the one coming through in my automatic writing. Why else would he be here during this conversation? That’s fair, isn’t it?”

“Fair enough,” said Vicki, “I’ll see what he tells me.” I gave Melissa one of those, “Nah, nah, na-nah, nah” looks with a shameless smile. Melissa rolled her eyes.

There was a moment of silence while Vicki waited for Uncle Duck to tell her the information I needed. “He’s showing me that he loved fishing,” said Vicki. That was true. Anyone who knew my uncle also knew he was a serious fishing enthusiast. But that wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted the tattoos on his feet! So I told Vicki she was right about the fishing, but that I was looking for something else.

“All right, he tells me that he was in the military,” said Vicki. Again, good call. Uncle Duck was on the U.S.S. Enterprise in the Navy during World War II. In fact, he was a war hero who saved the lives of many men during a fire on that aircraft carrier. He also had a lot of military memorabilia from that war around his house. Plus, it was while he was in the Navy that he got the tattoos on his feet. If you knew Uncle Duck, you knew he was in the military; but that wasn’t the proof I wanted, so I told Vicki, “Good call, kid, but not what I’m looking for.” She took a deep breath, sighed, and looked to Uncle Duck for something more.

“I got it,” she said with a smile on her face, “he had a tattoo. That’s what you’re looking for, isn’t it?” said Vicki with certainty that she had got it.

“Not bad, not bad. That is what I wanted. But if you can get that, I need to know where the tattoo was on his body,” I told Vicki.

Melissa hit me gently as if to say, “Shame on you.”

“Hey,” I said, “I just want to be sure Uncle Duck is here. If she gets this, I’m convinced.”

Vicki sat in silence for a minute. She was sort of lounging on two stools, her body sat on one stool with her feet resting on another like a human bridge. Suddenly, a big smile filled her face and she began wiggling her toes.

“What?” I asked.

“The tattoos where on his feet,” she said, knowing she had hit the mark.

“Oh my God, I can’t believe you got it,” Melissa said.

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I was looking for. I can’t believe it,” I said. I was slightly impressed, yet slightly disappointed that I couldn’t stump her. Now it was going to be more difficult to question what was happening with my automatic writing.

I should mention that spirits usually don’t like to be tested like this. They want people to learn “trust.” Uncle Duck must have really wanted to help me get over my skepticism to put up with me on this one. In fact, several spirits have been very patient with my tests during my research for this book. For this, I am very grateful. My point, however, is that it doesn’t hurt to test spirits, but we need to know that some spirits won’t play the game if trust is the lesson we need to learn.

Automatic writing is an easy form of spirit communication, and many people believe that anyone can do it. Well-known authors like Ruth Montgomery and her mentor, Arthur Ford, have written volumes of books using the gift of automatic writing. Ruth is a lot better at it than me. Nonetheless, I know that half my problem lies within my degree of trust that I’m really doing it. I still continue to have a tiny bit of doubt even after the whole Uncle Duck experience. After all, the only thing Vicki really proved was that Uncle Duck was in the room that day. It is not that I think Vicki isn’t telling the truth. It’s just a gigantic leap for me to connect the dots between Uncle Duck being present that day and the legitimacy of my automatic writing. Still, if my automatic writing really is legit, and it is not just my own mind writing these things, than I have no doubt that it is Uncle Duck coming through. As I mentioned, why else would he have been there during that conversation? He has never spoken at any of my readings.

I have gone through long periods of time without practicing automatic writing, which isn’t advised. From what I’ve learned, the more you do it the better you get at it. For some people, their hands and fingers actually begin moving themselves without any conscious effort—at least that’s what I hear. There are people who actually claim they can have a conversation with a person sitting next to them while their hands type something totally unrelated to that conversation, automatically. Others claim to write something consciously with one hand while the other hand subconsciously writes something different. To me, this type of automatic writing is more like channeled writing, where the spirit basically uses your body to do the writing himself.

Perhaps practice can lead someone from the type of automatic writing that I do (more like mental communication) to this channeled style of automatic writing (where your fingers just move on their own). Personally, however, I believe that the difference between the two styles is related to the degree of ability with which one is born, just as some will play Chopin on the piano and some will struggle with nursery rhymes. I expect I’ll always be at the nursery rhyme level with my automatic writing. But never say never; perhaps I’ll have better news in my next book.

If you want to give automatic writing a try, it’s as easy as writing a letter to yourself. Start by getting yourself into a relaxed state of mind. Take several deep breaths; tighten and then loosen all your muscles—from head to toe—one area at a time; and listen to some soothing music, perhaps classical or new age music (best if done with headphones).

When you feel yourself in a relaxed state, put your fingers to the keyboard (if you like to type) or pen to paper (if you prefer this method), and simply write the very first words that come into your mind. As I mentioned, it is usually best for beginners to start with a specific question in mind. Actually write the question onto the paper and then write the first words that pop into your mind as the answer. The trick is to write whatever immediately comes into your head without really thinking about it consciously.

Write as fast as the words come to you so that you don’t have time to intellectualize what you’re writing. Don’t worry about spelling or grammar; this is not going to be graded. Just write the answers to the questions that you asked, and you can read them later (and edit the spelling later, too, if you must).

When you stop writing because nothing more is coming to you, or someone interrupts you, read what you have written. You may be surprised to recognize that the piece you have written will sound nothing like your own writing. Friends and family members may notice this before you do if they are used to reading what you write.

Try to do your automatic writing around the same time every day. Begin doing it for ten or fifteen minutes per session at the most. Soon, both your spirit-guides and your own mind will be trained to anticipate this particular time of day for this communication, and you will find yourself being able to fall right into the relaxed state of mind and into your automatic writing without delay. As you improve, you can continue your automatic writing sessions for longer periods of time.

Do not be discouraged the first few times you try this. It may feel awkward at the beginning, but you will slowly grow accustomed to it. You may also need to learn how to "trust" that what you are writing is actually coming from your spirit-guides and not from your own mind. Chances are, however, the voice you hear will be your own. Don’t expect to hear someone else’s voice. Imagine that you are writing down a conversation you are having in your head with your higher self. With practice, you will notice that the words you write have a greater wisdom about them than the way you normally speak or write. You will notice that the pattern of speech within the writing is different than your own. And you will eventually learn—as you grow to trust the automatic writing—that the information given to you is beyond any knowledge and experience you previously had before reading it. With practice and consistency, you will gain the wisdom of the spirit-world at your fingertips. Good luck and good writing!
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BOB OLSON is a former private investigator and skeptic who began using his investigation skills to research psychics, psychic mediums and the afterlife in 1999. This research led him to establish www. OfSpirit.com Magazine (2000), www.AfterlifeTV.com (2011), www. BestPsychicMediums.com (2001) and www. BestPsychicDirectory.com (2007), three of the most trusted and influential sources for understanding and locating trustworthy psychics and psychic mediums.

Today Bob Olson has tested hundreds of psychics and psychic mediums around the world and has become a leading authority on the subject with TV, movie and documentary producers, journalists, book publishers, event promoters, as well as law enforcement agencies and private investigators. Bob’s achievements in psychic and psychic medium investigation and testing has further allowed him to evaluate and isolate the key components that set apart the best psychic medium readings from the mediocre—leading him to create his famous (although secret) 15-point test.