The Trouble with Automatic Writing: Occult Psychology Pt. 1

If you are new to the Band, occult imagery posts are shorter looks at the background and patterns in occult images. For more posts on occult symbolism, click here. For an introduction to the Band and the Dismantling Postmodernism series, click the featured post to the right or check out the archive.

Other links: The Band on Gab; The Band on Oneway

Let's think about the mind. The ancients certainly did. They were struck by a human paradox: that we have material bodies made of matter and an immaterial consciousness that can't be directly seen. The technical term for this is dualism, although that can be used to describe a divide between mind & body or soul & body, depending on the context.  

We Are the Clay

The basic dualist formula - body and soul. But this is the most basic distinction. The ancients saw human nature as more complicated. 










Thinking of humans as a fusion of body and soul raises the issue of what we can call consciousness or intellect/intelligence. The ability to think is clearly a result of material processes - it has no connection or access to the world of the spirit - but is immaterial and not found elsewhere in matter. This led to the development of a three-part concept of human nature with the mind or intellect as a bridge between soul and body. This diagram oversimplifies the discussion in ancient philosophy, but it works for our purposes as a general structure. 

William Blake, The Soul Hovering Over the Body Reluctantly Parting with Life, from The Grave, a Poem by Robert Blair, 1813, engraving, intaglio print, Portland Art Museum

The various ancient theories of mind fall into the general pattern of bridge between the material body and the soul or spirit.







This also lined up with how the ancients saw the universe because they had to conceptualize a way for the infinite to interact with the material world.

Some pre-modern versions of ancient cosmological principles ( click for Rosicrucian; hermetic) A lot of occult symbolism involves the intermediate zone between ultimate reality however understood - the infinite, God, the One, etc. - and the material world. The details depend on the particular occult group, but these are the higher planes where occult knowledge and spirit entities are slotted in.   

Ignore the noise and consider the pattern.

The three-part structure. World Soul is a Neoplatonic term, but is just used here to refer to the active presence of the infinite 

in the finite world. 

The universe and the human were seen as having this same structure, with an active but intangible middleman between the purely spiritual and purely material. This is the idea behind the microcosm, or the alignment of the cosmic and human. 

Esoteric traditions like Freemasonry and hermeticism pretend to understand the links between the human and higher levels of reality - the "World Soul" zone in our simplified pattern - although they like to mix and match sources. This crosses over into the occult when their focus turns to the spiritual entities believed to inhabit these immaterial spaces. 

Automatic writing is one example of these occult practices. This involves "opening oneself to, or channeling, an outside entity then writing while under the influence. This is essentially possession, though the occultist seeks the experience out. 

Séance with floating guitar and spirit hand writing messages, from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, April 2, 1887

There are different forms of automatism, with writing the most common. It peaked in the 19th century with the Spiritualist Movement. The article where this picture came from is an excellent overview. 

W. T. Stead, What Life in the Spirit World Really Is, E. W. Cole, 1913, Melbourne 

John Nevil Maskelyne, Modern Spiritualism: A Short Account of its Rise and Progress, with Some Exposures of So-Called Spirit Media, Frederick Warne and Company, 1876, London

It's not well known how widespread  Spiritualism was. This needs more attention, given the Satanic themes in our current culture.

G.W. Cottrell Ad for Boston Planchettes, 1860s

The planchette was a device that was claimed to facilite automatic writing. The hand rested on the panel and moved the pen at the end. Planchettes were common into the 20th century, when they were replaced by the Ouija board as the pop occult tool of choice.  


















Automatic writing, like other forms of channeling is classified as a form of mediumship. This is defined as "the practice of certain people—known as mediums—to purportedly mediate communication between spirits of the dead and living human beings". Click for a selection of these practices. The official narrative is that Automatic Writing, like other forms of mediumship were "debunked". This meant that their claims could not be proven empirically, and so were dismissed from "serious" consideration. 

Harvey Metcalfe photographs of a 1928 séance at fradulent medium Helen Duncan's house. Note the obviously fake props standing in for "ectoplasm".

Spiritualism collapsed as a popular belief because all the sensational cases turned out to be frauds. Slight of hand, hidden accomplices, double-exposed photos, hypnotic suggestion - the full repertoire of huckster tactics. 

But look at false equivalence:

The reality is that Spiritualism was just one outbreak of a occult tendency that's been around pretty much forever. The form may belong to a particular time, but the pattern is a historical constant. First we'll look back, then look ahead.  


Looking Back

Automatic writing is also classified as a form of Divination. This definition from one site is as good as any: an "attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic, standardized process or ritual. Used in various forms throughout history, diviners ascertain their interpretations of how a querent should proceed by reading signs, events, or omens, or through alleged contact with a supernatural agency". To summarize, automatic writing belongs to a much larger pattern of occult behavior. This means that we have to look more broadly to understand its significance. 

The word divination comes from the same root as the divine, because it originated in the ancient practice of asking the gods for answers. The ancients spent a lot of time in the World Soul zone, because they believed that things in higher planes effected things on earth. Here too we can see the esoteric/occult distinction, although it is not discussed in these terms. 

Map of the Constellations by Johanne Gabriele Doppelmayr, 1730

Astrologers, augurs, and philosophers are more "esoteric" in that they seek structures of knowledge.

Heinrich Leutemann, The Oracle of Delphi Entranced

Oracles and prophets are more "occult" because they commune with supernatural beings directly. 













Ancient oracles were essentially automatic "writers" in that they were taken over completely by a spiritual entity and delivered involuntary messages that required "expert" interpretation.

The power is in being the expert

From a Christian perspective, it's all Satanic delusion, because the correct spiritual path, the actual divine, unfolds across all levels of reality. This obviously oversimplifies the theology of the Trinity, but think of the way this limited human representation of God aligns with our levels of reality/human nature:

Gustave Doré, The Triumph Of Christianity Over Paganism, 1868, oil on canvas, 118 x 79 cm, Art Gallery of Hamilton, Canada 

The early Christians didn't claim the pagan gods didn't exist, they reclassified them as demonic forces. They accepted that oracles were possessed by something, but recognized that the possessor wasn't benevolent. 

















As a general pattern, divine messages do not take possession of the recipient and compel involuntary action. Free will is central to Christian faith - God commands, angels council, but the faithful consciously choose to obey. There are many Biblical instances where God's express wishes are disobeyed. The difference between them becomes clear:

  
The closest Christian phenomenon would be mysticism, or communication from God. But the sort of possession associated with automatic writing is different from mystical experience.

Lucas Cranach, Ezekiel’s vision, 1534, colored woodcut illustration for the Luther Bible

Visionaries see or hear miraculous things, but remain conscious. 

Gianlorenzo Bernini, The Ecstasy of St. Teresa, circa 1650, S. Maria della Vittoria, Rome

In ecstasy, the God touches the soul directly. This is closer to grabbing a live wire than being possessed, in that conscious awareness is blown out by the overwhelming experience of the infinite on a finite mind. Suffice it to day that messages from the beyond aren't being penned. 















Oracularism, Possession, and Automatic Writing express the opposite pattern. In all of these, the spirit enters you. The only real difference between them is the opinion on the supernatural entities that take over and compel action...


Looking forward 

Automatic writing didn't end with the Spiritualism "craze" any more than it started with it. Even the term craze, usually accompanied with a theatrical picture, works to make the phenomenon limited safely to the past. But the "debunking" didn't end anything - it just moved the same old pattern to a new place.

1920s OUIJA Board Automatic Writing Booklet

The Ouija board was a device patented in 1891 that simplified the automatic writer's planchette into a standard form. 

You can see the stylized planchette in this ad.

Ouija, Kennard Novelty Company, 1891


This is the original design patented in 1891.

Most of you have heard of Ouija boards, but not many people realize how long and consistently this "toy" has been pushed. The link has an impressive number of historical Ouija boards.

Magic Marvel, The Wonder Answer Board, Lee Industries, 1940's

A colorful knock-off that avoids the trademarked name. The backside is a "Master Play Board" for chess, checkers, solitaire, letter writing, and Gin Rummy. 

So that's where it goes - it becomes a fun game for the whole family!

Ouija The Mystifying Oracle, late 1930s- early 1940s
From the back of the box: "Weird and mysterious. Surpasses, in its unique results, mind reading, clairvoyance and second sight. It furnishes never failing amusement and recreation for the entire family. As explainable as Hindu magic - more intense and absorbingly interesting than a mystery story." "We like to use it to unleash the hounds of hell... but that's just us."

They do hide in plain sight...

Ouiji The Mystical Talking Board, Copp Clark Publishing Company, 1950's 

Something safer for the Eisenhower era?

Ouija Mystifying Oracle, William Fuld Talking Board Set, Parker Brothers 1972 and the 1992 version
Parker Brothers acquired the rights to Ouija in 1966 and promoted it as one of their board games like Sorry! or Monopoly.

Glow in the Dark Ouija Board Game, Parker Brothers, 1998
At some point, the decision was made to push the game to young people more aggressively. Hasbro bought Parker Brothers in 1991, and after 1998, folded the brand into Hasbro Gaming. The new ownership corresponds with renewed efforts to market the "game". The 1992 version above is a reboot of the stale 1970's formula, while glow-in-the-dark is the sign of this promotional focus. This would be one of the last Ouija boards under the Parker name but Hasbro was just getting started.  
Ask what perspective might find this to be desirable. 

Ouija, The Mystifying Oracle, Hasbro, 2013
How about this "fun, old-timey “update” of a classic board game that has been entertaining families for over a hundred years". Apparently, it’s "a bargain at about $20".

Hasbro's perverse pink Ouija Board, complete with smiling sun and moon. Consider how the occult is pushed on children. 

This is not a coincidence. 

It's not actually funny. Consider the history of automatic writing. Normalizing this in a kid-friendly way is obscene, regardless of your personal beliefs. 

Thought that sun and moon looked familiar. Here they are in less cutesy form.

The Stranger Things ouija board, Hasbro
You may not have to consider. Just look at Hollywood. The only surprise was that it took so long.

This version is based on another overt Hollywood perversion of Christian faith, only you get to play along!

The premise is that the spirit of the dead contact the living through Christmas lights that function like a Ouija board.

The Christian faith that rejects Ouija as Satanic is perverted into a vehicle for it!

How does divination become a game for over a century!?!? 

To answer this, we have to remember that the occult was dismissed as "superstition" after the enlightenment, despite many Enlightenment figures being practitioners of esoteric, if not occult, traditions. 

By this reckoning, the supernatural isn't real, so what harm could there be in teaching children to enjoy the occult. But why is keeping this thing in the market such a priority? Do you know anyone who enjoys a good game of Ouija? Has Ouija ever been part of your social life? Have you ever been invited to a Wednesday night Ouija match? Think how unpopular this is as a pass-time in real life, then ask, why has it been continually pushed for over a century? This isn't a normal market-driven pattern. 


Of course, subversive toys aren't the only place automatic writing turned up after it was supposedly debunked out of reasonable society - it's just an easy one to show. In the next post, we will look at a much more serious occult pattern around mediumship, one that doesn't wave it away as a game, but treats it as a life-changing tool. 

That would be psychology... 

Seeing the Pattern - Progress and Vanity

If you are new to the Band, this post is an introduction and overview of the point of this blog. Older posts are in the archive on the right.

Other links: The Band on Gab; The Band on Oneway


This post was going to start a look into into American exceptionalism and fake nationhood with a graphical summary of the intellectual vacuity of Progress!, but that grew larger than planned. The representations do make it very clear that the Postmodern and occult themes that occupy the Band are just manifestations of the same fundamental deception. So the post turned into a good opportunity to sum up some basic realities and show the historical depth of the wizardry. 

The dream of arcane knowledge is an attractive one and the basis of many fantasy novels. Nothing wrong with some escapism. The problem is when it crosses into real life.













In the last post we looked at some unpleasant patterns around World War I. In one way, the Marxists were right - the War drowned the credibility of the "old order" in a sea of blood. They just completely falsified what the nature of that order was. What we have seen over and over is the belief that "Progress!" is a metaphysical condition - that history has a telos, or or overarching movement towards some ideal state. The deception - the inversion - happens when you pretend that something taken on faith - Progress! - is knowable in the same way that objective, empirical observations are. 

Oleg Shuplyak, Illusion

This is the pretense that opinions and circumstances are really universals, absolutes, and/or metaphysical truths commonly referred to as "Rationalism". The tragic irony is that actual empirical progress - the industrial prosperity that followed the Scientific Revolution - funded the grand illusion that some sort of moral metaphysical progress was unfolding. But the problem with fake things is that they are fake. Collective delusion and untapped resources can fend off the reckoning for a long time, but eventually they collide with reality. 












Before taking an historical look at the American version of the nation-state, it is important to understand just how logically absurd and persistent - Progress! - the idea that the the human efforts can continually "improve" the human condition - really is. Sometimes graphical presentations can make relationships clearer. We can even give the standard narrative a handicap by accepting the conventional historical periods at face value. But look at the periods in these broad terms: the unacknowledged object of fake faith, the familiar pattern thread, and the historical legacy:

Samson Gabriel, The Blind Leading the Blind, 2019, oil on canvas

You can see the transformation of knowledge in the art of the period:

Aquinas was the most imposing theological mind of the Middle Ages and one of the greatest thinkers in history. In both paintings, he sits in a position of honor with a book symbolizing his achievements. But lets look more closely:

The Gozzoli is closer to the Medieval idea that Philosophy was the "Handmaiden of Theology", the highest field of knowledge. This makes sense, since absolutes were correctly recognized as belonging epistemologically to faith, meaning that theology is where man confronts fundamental questions of being and morality. 

Philosophy was where the absolute truths that are beyond the clear comprehension of finite human beings - we see through the glass darkly - could be addressed. This is clearly symbolized here by the image of God (the Son) shining the light of truth onto Thomas.














Albert Henrichs put it like this in an old article called "Philosophy, the Handmaiden of Theology". The article is very detailed, but is informative if you are interested in Early Christian philology.

Now look at the Lippi. Only 20 years separate them, but this painting has gone all in on the classical humanist themes associated with the Renaissance. Thomas now sits above his defeated foes in a heavily decorated classical structure. But look at his inspiration:

















Put them side by side:

The symbol of the divine has been replaced by a book with the opening lines of Thomas' Summa Contra Gentiles, (begun circa 1259). The text is a quote from Proverbs - in modern type: "Veritatem meditabitur guttur meum, et labia mea detestabuntur impium. Prov. 8-7."and in English: "“My mouth shall meditate truth, and my lips shall hate impiety”. Click for a translation of the Contra Gentiles. It may be a more accessible introduction to Aquinas than his more famous Summa Theologica.


Set aside the quality of Thomas' arguments. What is the basis of his authority?

The Enlightenment turns Renaissance potential into totalitarian fact:

The Industrial Revolution pitches the idealism for pure, material greed:

Marxist/communist/socialist "thought" was a perverse offshoot of the Industrial Revolution that rejected metaphysics and empiricism. The trick was pretending that the material world has metaphysical properties. The problem is that it doesn't, but with enough repression and slaughter, reality can be deferred for some time. Progress here is more socio-mystical than anything - towards an ill-defined utopia just across that sea of blood.

Over and over, the metaphysical progress fails to deliver - whether it be humanism, rationalism, materialism, or totalitarianism - but until recently, technological improvements could maintain an illusion of forward movement. What can seem hard to understand is how such obviously flawed notions were so compelling. Simplifying the terms makes this clearer:

The reference is to vanity in the deeper Biblical sense rather than as a reference to personal trifles, although they are related. The Book of Ecclesiastes is the most sustained meditation on the subject in the Bible - a series of superficially different scenarios expressing the same underlying pattern of misplaced attachment to ephemeral things.  This picture captures the problem:

Antonio de Pereda, Allegory of Vanity, 1632-36, oil on canvas, Kunsthistorisches Museum

On the right: all glories of the world. On the left: where we all end up. 

Ecclesiastes is a reminder that nothing we value lasts...

...because our stories all have the same conclusion.















Ecclesiastes shows the temporal aspect of vanity that can be easy to overlook when thinking of individual solipsists or hedonists: prioritizing of things that vanish in time over things that are of lasting meaning. If you are religious, lasting meaning refers to spiritual matters, but even materialists can distinguish between things that promote the long-term health of posterity and eating the seed corn. 

Thomas Cole, The Return, 1837, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art
Pieter Boel, Large Vanitas Still-Life, 1663, oil on canvas, Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille
Audrey Flack, Marilyn (Vanitas), 1977, oil over acrylic on canvas, University of Arizona Museum of Art

The optimal course logically is to prioritize things of lasting significance over fleeting pleasure
Vanity inverts that by prioritizing fleeting pleasure over lasting significance


And once it is recognized that that vanity has a temporal dimension, a familiar pattern leaps out. Consider this comparative epistemology graphic from an earlier post:

This graphic represents the epistemological compatibility between Christianity and empirical knowledge, and the incompatibility of Postmodernism with either. The former two recognize that we have limited apprehension of the objective world around us and place absolutes outside empirical verification in the realm of faith. Postmodernism is a Satanic inversion that treats subjective feelings like articles of faith.












Let's simplify this three-tier structure for the sake of discussion:

The great thing about reality is that it is consistent. Changing the frame of reference has no bearing on truthful relationships. To say other is Postmodern talk. 

Speaking of Postmodernism, Ecclesiastes has something to say about this as well:

The vanity of Ecclesiastes is the same error as the solipsism of Postmodernism. 

That sounds familiar...

It's all connected.


The empirical reality is that without motivating purpose, this world devolves into a continual churn of soon-forgotten dopamine hits until the basic mechanisms of societal maintenance collapse. Christians know this, but if the Postmodern era is any indication, secular "values have failed utterly to replicate religious commitment. The modern West fetishizes the fleeting, the stylish, the hip. Aging vampires and lotus eaters cling to youth with increasing desperation rather than face the existential horror of old age after a life of empty pleasure seeking. Healthy, reality-facing societies warned against the wages of this banality...

Bernardo Strozzi, Vanitas (The Old Courtesan), circa 1637, 135 x 109 cm, oil on canvas, Pushkin Museum, Moscow

Simply Ageless ad campaign from Cover Girl (link from Vanity Fair - more on them in a moment).

"Simply Ageless"...

This gets clearer when you consider the Cover Girl motto:

Reality is an illusion.

Do what thou wilt.









We live in Vanity Fair. 


The idea of Vanity Fair as a place first appeared in John Bunyan's A Pilgrim's Progress (click for link), an allegory of Christian life that was wildly popular in less debauched times. It describes the path of virtue as a fantastical journey along a perilous road to the Celestial City. The dangers are the same vanities of this world that are condemned in Ecclesiastes and are degrading the West today, and Vanity Fair is a marketplace of fleeting pleasure and a trap for those who lose sight of the longer journey. .

John Bunyan,  A Plan of the Road From the City of Destruction to the Celestial City, Adapted to The Pilgrim's Progress, 1821, Cornell University Library

  
In and of itself, Vanity Fair is a fine metaphor, although not so rhetorically exceptional to merit a deeper look. That's what makes its afterlife interesting.

Prospectus for William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair serial, January 1847

English author Thackery took the name Vanity Fair for his wildly popular novel satirizing the meaningless rituals and social tribulations in and around elite society. 

The continuity of the theme from Ecclesiastes through Bunyan makes sense from this perspective...

VIntage postcard.

It is hard to imagine something much less meaningful that the byzantine social banalities of a brick-sized Victorian novel.












The subsequent Vainty Fairs reveal familiar patterns. Rather than puncturing the pretensions of the social elite, it opened a voyeuristic window into their meaningless lives. It turned out that lots of people would like to live in Vanity Fair, Celestial City notwithstanding. 

The recurrence of the title in the publishing world is odd. According to Infogalactic:

 

"Vanity Fair has been the title of at least five magazines, including an 1859–63 American publication, an 1868–1914 British publication, an unrelated 1902–04 New York magazine, and a 1913–36 American publication edited by Condé Nast, which was revived in 1983."

Why is Bunyan's allegory such an attractive choice for magazine titles? On the surface, there is little reason for this. The Band wrote an occult post on Satanic red shoes because of a discrepency between a phenomenon and the explanations given for it. 

Maybe there's a pattern...

The first of these was a commentary on current events featuring some accomplished writers and cartoonists. It's John Bull! Those countries are such characters... 

Carlo Pellegrini, Sir George Biddell Airy, chromolithograph from Vanity Fair, 1875, Wellcome Library, London

The second was consistent with Thackery's brand of social satire, but there is something voueuristic about this long-running attention for "celebrities", even if it is gentle caricature of the New York Review of Books variety. 

The third was a short-lived pioneer of the "men's magazine", but represents an inverted attitude towards vanity. Here, fleeting pleasures aren't satirized, they're aspirational. 

This magazine is weirdly prescient in it's fixation on "bifurcated girls" or women wearing pants. The Band hasn't considered it enough to comment beyond noting that there is a deeper history to the rhetorical inversion around sex that obsesses the left. 

Libertinism, social inversions...

... ads for venerial disease treatments in "Vanity Fair" Magazine June 6 1903

"Late bloomer" is one term.

The final versions are essentially the same magazine - fetishistic celebrations of fashion and popular culture. 

The first version was merged into Vogue in 1936 and revived in 1993. Fashion might be the perfect expression of vanity - a purely aesthetic add-on to a practical item that is designed to be obsolete in a season but is all-consuming in the moment. 





There is a pattern:

Truthful patterns are consistent.  See?..