upon which so much reliance is placed, as furnishing evidence of “disembodied spirit control,” presents similar difficulties. The recording of forgotten incidents, and predicting possibilities in the future, are not beyond the powers of the innate human spirit--wholly and utterly unaided by spirit agency. Therefore automatic writing--when genuine--does not necessarily furnish evidence of spirit control, not even when the person who writes believes, and honestly believes too, he is so controlled to write. CHAPTER VIII. Spiritualism.--_Continued._ Automatic writing is a phase of phenomenal Spiritualism most difficult to prove. In the majority of cases we are reduced to the awkward position of accepting or rejecting the assertions of the persons who declare that the writing done by them is automatic--that is, written without thought and volition on their part. A close examination of this claim may lead to the conclusion that automatic writing is not impossible. Whether the controlling agent is “the spirit within us,” or a disembodied spirit, or both, is not a matter of much importance, if it is established, the writing is automatic. When messages are written without volition, in the handwriting of deceased persons, signed by their names, such messages must be treated on their merits. I have seen messages written in this way. I have seen messages written, not only automatically, but _direct_. Some were written the reverse way, and could only be read by holding up to the light or to a mirror. The direct writing was done in an exceedingly short time, two or three hundred words in less time than an expert phonographer could write the same by the most expeditious efforts. The evidence in favour of telepathic writing is not very strong, but of _direct_ writing there appears to be abundant proof. Dr. Nichols, in his fascinating work, “Forty Years of American Life,” writes:--“I knew a Methodist sailor in New York, a simple, illiterate, earnest man, who became what is called a test medium. He came to see me in Cincinnati, and one evening we had also as visitors two distinguished lawyers: one of them a brother of Major Anderson, “the hero of Fort Sumter;” the other, a gentleman from Michigan, and one of the ablest lawyers practising in the Supreme Court of the United States. I had brought into the drawing-room a heavy walnut table, and placed it in the centre of the room. The medium sat down on one side of it, and the sharp Michigan lawyer, who was a stranger to us and the medium, on the other. The medium placed his fingers lightly upon the table. It tilted up under them, the two legs nearest him rising several inches. The lawyer examined the table, and tried to give it a similar movement, but without success. There was a force and a consequent movement he could not account for. There was no other person near the table, there was no perceptible muscular movement, and in no way in which it could be applied to produce the effect.