811 A. The following is a typical case of automatic drawing, recorded at a time when the subject of automatism was almost unknown, not only to the educated layman but also to psychologists and physiologists. I quote the account from Spirit Drawings: a Personal Narrative, by W. M. Wilkinson. Second edition (1864), pp. 9-11.

In August, 1856, a heavy and sudden affliction came upon us, in the removal of a dear boy - our second son - into the spiritual world. He had passed about eleven years in this world of ours, and was taken from us in the midst of the rudest health, to commence his spirit-life under the loving care of his Heavenly Father.

Some weeks afterwards his brother, then about twelve years old, went on a short visit to Reading, and whilst there, amused himself as boys of his age are used to do. One morning he had a piece of paper before him, and a pencil in his hand, with which he was about to draw some child's picture; when gradually he found his hand filling with some feeling before unknown to him, and then it began to move involuntarily upon the paper, and to form letters, words, and sentences. The feeling he described as of a pleasing kind, entirely new to him, and as if some power was within him apart from his own mind, and making use of his hand. The handwriting was different to his own, and the subject-matter of the writing was unknown to him till he read it with curiosity as it was being written.

On frequent occasions, whilst on this visit, his hand was similarly moved in writing; and afterwards he went to stay with some other friends in Buckinghamshire, with whom he did not make a trial of this new power; but on his return home, after some weeks' absence, we, for about two months, watched, with deep emotion, the movement of his hand in writing; for sometimes, when he wished to write, his hand moved in drawing small flowers, such as exist not here; and sometimes, when he expected to draw a flower, the hand moved into writing. The movement was, in general, most rapid, and unlike his own mode of writing or drawing; and he had no idea of what was being produced, until it was in process of being done. Often, in the middle of writing a sentence, a flower or diagram would be drawn, and then suddenly the hand would go off in writing again.

I have not mentioned the nature, or subject-matter of the words thus written; nor is it in this place necessary to do so, further than this, that they purported to be chiefly communications from his brother, our dear departed child, and were all of a religious character, speaking of his own happy state, and of the means by which similar happiness is alone to be attained by those who remained here to fight out their longer battle of life.

A few weeks later the boy's mother, who had never learnt to draw, found that she possessed the same faculty, and by devoting about an hour a day to the practice, produced a large series of drawings of flowers, geometrical forms, and various objects which her family regarded as symbolical. They often obtained also automatic writing purporting to come from the dead child and to explain the meaning of the drawings. The latter developed into architectural sketches and landscapes, and Mrs. Wilkinson gradually began to paint, as well as draw, automatically. Mr. Wilkinson also developed the faculty of automatic writing and drawing.