I suppose that the worst that can be said about writing of this kind is that it consists of 'sermon-stuffe' such as could have been presumably invented--whether consciously or unconsciously--by the automatic writer himself. And the fact that with some of it he tended to disagree, proves no more than the corresponding kind of unexpected argumentation experienced by some dreamers. (Cf. L. P. Jacks, _Hibbert Journal_, July, 1916.) The same kind of explanation may serve for both phenomena, but I do not know what that explanation is. [Footnote 39: The Rev. Stainton Moses (M. A. Oxon) was one of the masters at University College School in London. He wrote automatically, _i.e._ subconsciously, in private notebooks at a regular short time each day for nearly twenty years, and felt that he was in touch with helpful and informing intelligences.] CHAPTER XIII ON THE MANNER OF COMMUNICATION Perhaps the commonest and easiest method of communication is what is called 'automatic writing'--the method by which the above examples were received--i.e. writing performed through the agency of subconscious intelligence; the writer leaving his or her hand at liberty to write whatever comes, without attempting to control it, and without necessarily attending at the time to what is being written. That a novice will usually get nothing, or mere nonsense or scribbling, in this way is obvious: the remarkable thing is that some persons are thus able to get sense, and to tap sources of information outside their normal range. If a rudiment of such power exists, it is possible, though not always desirable, to cultivate it; but care, pertinacity, and intelligence are needed to utilise a faculty of this kind. Unless people are well-balanced and self-critical and wholesomely occupied, they had better leave the subject alone. In most cases of fully-developed automatism known to me the automatist reads what comes, and makes suitable oral replies or comments to the sentences as they appear: so that the whole has then the effect of a straightforward conversation of which one side is spoken and the other written--the speaking side being usually rather silent and reserved, the writing side free and expansive. Naturally not every person has the power of cultivating this simple form of what is technically known as motor automatism, one of the recognised subliminal forms of activity; but probably more people could do it if they tried; though for some people it would be injudicious, and for many others hardly worth while.