Note 24 — Chapter IV · AUTOMATIC SPEAKING AND WRITING

The extent to which automatists sometimes draw on the contents of their own subconsciousness is strikingly illustrated by a case investigated by Mr. Lowes Dickinson, wherein the medium, an estimable young lady of his acquaintance, was seemingly “controlled” by the “spirit” of a noblewoman of the Middle Ages, who described the customs, manners, and personages of the country in which she claimed to have lived, in such minute detail and with such accuracy that it seemed certain this was one case at all events in which survival had been proved. Ultimately it was discovered that every fact given by the alleged spirit was contained in a little known historical novel which the medium had read, but read only once, when a very small girl. So far as conscious recollection went she had forgotten all about this book, but subconsciously she had evidently retained a marvelously exact memory of it.