Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 64.djvu/204

200 I ought to add that the style of design which my hand draws is strange to me. I have never observed anything like them anywhere. Neither do I know of any influence, suggestive or otherwise, that could have given me this power, with the exception (as I have stated) of having seen a man make a slight exhibition of automatic drawing, but this exhibition was long after I had noticed movements of my own hand. However, that exhibition gave me the idea of taking a pencil into my hand to try for results.

One point I might state clearly. While drawing, my eyes are fastened intently on the point of the pencil in contact with the paper, following the course of the pencil as if they were fascinated by it.

Of automatic writing I have done little. Occasionally the name of a near relative will appear, sometimes with figures attached. Sometimes an incoherent sentence will be commenced, but not finished. The name and figures usually appear either on a face or under or over it. Occasionally a word or

line is written in (as I suppose) some ancient language, under or close to a drawing. I have never been able to discover what language this is. Perhaps it is, like the drawings, imperfect.

I had never been interested in hypnotism or kindred subjects before, nor ever attended any meetings or exhibitions in these lines, having always had a disbelief in anything of the kind.

P. S. Three months having elapsed since writing the above, I have but little to add in explanation. Pictures are still produced by the same mysterious power. The artistic appearance is better and the human form is more in evidence. I still think the drawings come from involuntary suggestion, that is, suggestion from the inner mind. Perhaps it would be better to call it impulse rather than suggestion.