The 'Automatic Mirror Writing' of Mrs. Georgia

This Rochester Subway photograph of Main Street was published in The Rochester Herald on October 10, 1908.

After commencing his "investigations into spiritism" (or Spiritualism), Vice-Admiral W. Usborne Moore's embarked on his second of three trips from England to America in December 1908 as chronicled in his metaphysical memoir Glimpses of the Next State (1911).  A statement near the beginning of Chapter V "Return of Thomson Jay Hudson" shows his perspective of a young woman's unique psychic ability. 

The first psychic I sat with for phenomena on my arrival in the United States was Mrs. Georgia, who lives with her mother in Rochester, NY.  She is a young lady in affluent circumstances, accomplished, retiring in disposition, and, at that time, inclined to believe that the strange gift which she had possessed for four years, of automatic mirror-writing, was due to some power within herself and not to outside influences.  She had never written except for her personal friends, and then but rarely.  I carried a letter of introduction from a namesake in the city, Mr. A. W. Moore, who made no allusion to my nationality or profession, but wrote of me as Mr. Moore.

The following is Moore's description of meeting Mrs. Georgia after presenting the letter of introduction.

When Mrs. Georgia came into the room she asked, "Are you related to my friend Mr. Moore?"  I replied, "No."  She then took up a pencil, and, putting some sheets of paper under her right hand, the latter wrote backwards as follows:—

"We can come, but you are wrong in thinking that Mr. Moore is a relative, or that he is any old acquaintance.  He is a man of the sea.  He is a friend of a man who invented the radiopath (sic), and who is also an expert on sanitation . . ."

Several sentences concluded with the statement "I am Hudson."  He recognized the name Hudson to signify an author who had written two books which Moore had read; while "Mrs. Georgia knew nothing of Hudson except that a man of that name had written a book called The Law of Psychic Phenomena [1893], which she had read in a desultory [aimless] manner five years before . . . This first sitting with Mrs. Georgia lasted for over three hours . . . She kindly arranged that I should come again, and the Hudson script ran on for many days in December and February." 

Moore found that "she could write with either hand, when talking or reading, and in the dark; not a word could be deciphered unless the paper was held up to a mirror or laid upon a piece of white 'Bristol board,' face downwards, when it could be read through the back if the paper were sufficiently thin . . . it was done in such a way as to make it highly improbable that she was conscious of a single word until the script was transcribed." 

The automatic writing provided many details about the life of Thomson Jay Hudson that Moore later was able to confirm. 

"I passed away in Detroit, Michigan, 1903."  (Correct.)  "I was in a government position for some years; I was also a newspaper man."  (Correct.)  "Do not worry about this conversation."  (Mrs. Georgia and I were talking nearly all the time, and I had expressed a doubt as to whether it was wise to do so.)  "I come better on the sound of voice.  It was a hard life in a Michigan paper.  I was Jack-of-all-trades.  A lawyer in Ohio."  (Correct)

 
Here are some examples of Moore's conversation with the manifesting intelligence as recorded in his transcripts of the sittings with Mrs. Georgia.  I was surprised to find the currently trendy subjects of "twin souls" and "soul-mates" included in the commentary about life in "the next state."

A.: ". . . The lives are progressive; the instincts we carry there the same as we do in this phase.  You go from one phase to another.  There are twin souls that have been separated centuries finally reunited.  The separation was caused in the first instance by a crime against that love union, one being weaker to yield to the importunities of the beguiling tongue.  Infidelities are punished in this manner.  There are many unfaithful soul-mates, separated, seeking through space and the infinite distance for each other—groping in the dark."
 
 
Q.: ". . . In your books you distinctly state that you do not believe in communication between this state and the next."

A.: "I was on earth then.  Great Heavens, can't a man change his mind as well as a woman?"

Q.: "I should have said that you were more of a sceptic than my friend Dr. Hodgson."

A.: "Progression occurs in change.  I wrote a great many things to fill my books, the same as all people do.  Some I believed, some of it was a filler.  I quote the Bible in my book."

[A.:] ". . . If you call my endeavours to demonstrate my knowledge of the men you know 'frivolous' I don't know how to please you.  I have let in a light on the future; what more do you demand?  I can write all night; my girl is not going to wear out."

Q.: "Thanks for all you have done for us.  What is the spiritual fate of the suicide?"

 

A.: "That is a fate no one would court—groping in the dark to pick up the dropped stitches that fell from the knitting-needles."

The following passage is from an account of a photographic endeavor.  At one point a person's name is indicated with the first letter and dashes

Sunday, December 27, 1908.  With Mrs. Georgia.

Q.: "How can spirits be attracted to a sitter?"

A.: "You take the picture you have with you, put it in your pocket, if you have one; then, Mrs. Georgia, go to your case under the weathered-oak table, present the plate-holders to the distinguished envoy; then take your smaller camera in the room, adjust it, throw the red robe over the camera, and expose it for twelve counts.  Develop alone at the hour of twelve at night.  In two days later the ambassador is to concentrate on the picture at the agreed hour; and, if possible, I will transfer the picture in his pocket on to the plate with him.  This is a very important test.  Then, if I am successful, the spirit will always be with him."

Q.: "That is not quite what I wanted.  I doubt if this is Mr. Hudson."

A.: "Yes—yes it is!  I am."

Q.: "I cannot do that."

A.: "You miss a great test if you do not!  C----- was born two years before me; this will prove what I say, that I am Hudson.  (Correct.)

(Mrs. Georgia wished to see if the camera-case was where the spirit said it was located.  She went to the weathered-oak table, and did not find it.)

"It is under the table, on the floor, not on the shelf."  (I now went to look, and found it, as described by Hudson, on the floor, a little on one side of the edge of the table.  Mrs. Georgia had only searched the shelf.  She said that she had not used the camera since the fall, and that the plate-holders were loaded . . .)

"You must sit for my picture if you wish to . . ."

(Here the reading breaks into a large and unreadable scrawl.  An evilly-disposed spirit came in and wrote.)

"You are both too stupid; good-bye.  I hate you."  (The signature was unintelligible.  Hudson presently returned.)

Hudson: "I went away when you could not oblige me.  I have some right.  I want my picture just to test my power.  I have waited for two years on this girl's step to get" (here follows a crude drawing of a picture).  "I am angry at you both for not assisting me; that is why I write Big, so you can see the way the ether blows."

(I suggested that I had not time to wait for the development of the picture, if taken.  I was going away the next day.)

A.: "You don't have to.  She can mail it . . . You are wasting time.  Get your plate-holder and camera."  (I said I would not remain up until twelve o'clock.)  "Yes; don't sit up!  Call your sub-conscious mind, and the picture will appear on the plate; it is possible to be irritated here."  (I did not believe in the success of the experiment, and I said I should be unable to oblige Mr. Hudson.)

Hudson: "You must, or I shall never come again to you—not in February.  I don't want it only for my own benefit, as it is my desire to investigate my power.  If I come to you, can't you reciprocate?  Life here is carried on in the same working plane.  I want to see if I can . . ."  (I said: "That seems reasonable.")  "Just sit still; don't come . . ."  (This last remark was in answer to one by me saying I was unable to come back at midnight.)  "Just think, if you are awake; or, before you go to sleep, charge your mind with the spirit-picture."  (Mrs. Georgia declared that was too dark a day to get a focus for the picture; her experience had been that interior work required far more light.)  "You mind your affair.  I will attend to my Business.  That's my Business to get the picture."

(To restore harmony we decided to do as Hudson desired.  The camera was set up, and his directions followed to the letter.  It was a very dull day, but focus was obtained by my holding a lighted candle.  Hudson afterwards expressed himself as much satisfied. and we parted amicably, he saying, "It is not a failure."  However, when the plates were developed, two days later, no spirit form was visible.  It was a remarkable print.  With twelve counts—say nine seconds—exposure in a dark room, nothing ought to have appeared at all, whereas two distinct pictures were produced, full of detail.)

There were some unexpected requests made in the automatic mirror writing at times.  After the instruction was given, "Go upstairs and lock the door," Moore wrote that "Mrs. Georgia obeyed."  'Hudson' requested about the publication of the "articles" [transcripts]: "I ask as a favour, if you publish them in book form, that you have them edited.  Diction and rhetorical display is not what I want—the sense of what I have said must be preserved."  About this request, Moore commented:

I may say here that I have not strictly obeyed Hudson's injunction to "edit" his writing through Mrs. Georgia.  I think it is best for the reader to see exactly how the sentences came.  All I have done is to punctuate what he said, and to add a word at wide intervals where otherwise a phrase would have been misunderstood.

During investigations with mediums in other cities, Moore sent messages to 'Thomson Jay Hudson.'  In one instance, Moore explained: "I asked Mrs. Georgia to sit 10 a.m., February 4, and I would get Dr. Hudson to take a message for me.  Purposely, I concealed from her what city I should be in."  In this message Moore asked Hudson to tell Mrs. Georgia "that you think her play [she was working on] would be a success . . ."  In response "Hudson wrote through the hand of Mrs. Georgia":

The Admiral is in a hotel opposite old City building on the fourth floor in a city on a lake.  Day is cold and cloudy, he is rather tired and exhausted; tell him rushing too much, he should restrain well his forces; they overwork him.  I can't just get the thought, so I will say there is an attractive dining-room which is a feature of the hotel; he has had breakfast.  His message is telling me he expects to have splendid results from the Hudson sitting.  He tells me he is convinced of the immortality of the soul.  He is satisfied with the trumpet medium.

He has not found out about the Hudsons; he must speak of "Hudson," that's me, in your address; many people have accepted my hypothesis of the sub-conscious.  I want him to say that he has heard from me.

He must be very quiet, and not over exert himself.

My Girl will sit for him here and in N. Y. for James and Hyslop, in concert.  I shall bring F. W. H. Myers and Dr. Hodgson if I can.

T. J. H.

Two hours after this Hudson came to me at the home of a trumpet medium called "Kaiser," in Detroit, and spoke to me in the direct voice in the dark.  He said he had done his best to impress "the light," but thought he had only partially succeeded.

Now what I wish to point out is that, although my message is not accurately carried [Hudson found no mention of the predicted success of her play], Hudson had transferred my thoughts.  I was just then unwell from too frequent sittings.  I was satisfied with the trumpet medium; I was looking for the Hudsons in Detroit; it was here Hudson had lived for some years, and here he died.  I had not found them.  It is curious that this profound thinker, whose works are the only ones worth a rap in denial of spiritism, was not known in his own city.  At last I found one man who had been a friend of his.  While at Rochester, in February, Hudson told me that he saw me with his friend, and, by way of test, gave me such a very unflattering description of the gentleman, including his weight in pounds avoirdupois (every word of which I believe is true), that I cannot repeat it, as I may lay myself open to an action for libel.

There is one feature in the message worthy of strict attention.  The Hotel Hudson described is not the one I was in at the time—i.e., the "Cadillac"; but it is the one I put up at on my previous visit three weeks before. the "Pontchartrain." . . .

During a February 11, 1909 sitting with Mrs. Georgia, Hudson's response was given to Moore's question "Why did you describe to Mrs. Georgia the Pontchartrain Hotel?" —

A.: "I did not follow you to the Cadillac; I think the hotel was built on the old hotel site of the 'Plankington.'"  (Mr. H. C. Hodges, one of the oldest residents of Detroit, tells me this is not so.  He says the "Plankington" is a hotel in Milwaukee, and that the "Pontchartran" is over the old site of the "Russell" Hotel.)

During this conversation, Moore asked: "What sphere are you in, Mr. Hudson?"  The response in the transcript is "The third."  There were occasions when Moore observed "a different handwriting" with communication from psychical researchers 'Richard Hodgson' and 'Frederick William Henry Myers."  After correct answers to questions that Moore asked about his own life, Moore asked: "How do you find out these things?"

A.: (Handwriting changed to that usually adopted by Hudson): "By the guide that stands near you.  She tells me." . . .

Q.: "Is my guide, you spoke of, here now?"

A.: "Yes, but she can never come through the hand."

Moore's transcripts indicate communication from Iola; however, messages reveal changing conditions for communicators.  Moore offered his perspective

. . . I had inquired how it was that Iola, who was in a high sphere and realm, required the assistance of Hudson, who is in the third sphere and realm, to manifest to me.  The replay was: "She is higher in the spiritual; he in the intellectual."  Hudson also said that he had made a study of the methods of communication with the earth plane, and was better able to come to me.

The following is the beginning of the transcript for February 26, 1909.

(I said to Mrs. Georgia: "I wonder if Iola was with us last night in Plymouth Church?")

A.: "I was at the first part of the lecture.  I could not stay.  I felt the depressive influence of a crowd."

Q.: "Do you understand in future that your name 'Iola' will be substituted for 'X' in future narratives?"

A.: "Yes, I like it much better; X is like an algebra sign standing for some unknown quality or quantity."

Here are some excerpts of the concluding sentiments from Moore about his investigation of Mrs. Georgia and her 'automatic mirror writing.'

. . . I beg to offer her publicly my grateful thanks for her kindness.  She spent many a weary hour over the script out of pure good nature.  What I have copied for this chapter is only about half the writing that came through her hand.  Iola influenced her to write some fifty or sixty pages, which I have not transcribed, about matters of great moment to me, but could not have interested her.

It was all done in full light, except in two experimental cases; she never went into trance, and the writing was generally clear and easy to decipher.  As she had never read any psychic literature, the references that appeared were of special value.

The rapidity and ease with which she accomplished this mirror-writing gave no time for constructive thought.  Moreover, it would have been impossible for her to invent the accurate reminiscences of Iola.

Moore commented about 'Thomson Jay Hudson' and the challenges of gaining spiritual knowledge.

I was grateful to him for giving me the opportunity of becoming his mouthpiece, and of learning first-hand the fact of his continued existence.  I do not profess to understand fully all that he impelled the psychic to write, nor do I claim that he made no mistakes. 

Astronomy rose upon the ashes of the astrology of the Middle Ages; chemistry was evolved out of alchemy.  We know little, even the wisest of our day.  Who can tell when a Darwin may arise to construct a definite belief out of the records of our struggles in the dark labyrinth of modern psychical research?

The chapter ends with an autobiographical letter to Moore from Mrs. Georgia.  Here is the information about herself that Mrs. Georgia provided to Moore in the letter as it appears in the book.

Rochester, N.Y.,

September 16, 1910

My Dear Admiral,

I have much pleasure in giving you a brief account of myself, and answering your questions.

I am not a spiritualist in the accepted sense of the word; neither had I, at the time of meeting you, ever inclined my faith in that direction.  I believe that the knowledge of spiritualistic facts and phenomena does not in any way conflict with the religion I was born and bred in.

My father, Colonel H-----, passed away in April, 1902; his death was sudden and unexpected, as he was in robust health until he suffered a stroke of paralysis.  Our grief was the greater as we were so utterly unprepared for it.

My thoughts were directed towards spiritualism by a dream.  I plainly heard my father’s voice saying to me: "If you take the receiver off the telephone I will talk to you."  The vibrant quality in his voice woke me, and I instantly went to the 'phone, fully expecting to find the dream-promise fulfilled.  Needless to say, there was no message, and my disappointment was keen.  The dream, however, decided me to seek out the only avenue I knew—the spiritualist medium.

Unbelieving, yet hopeful, I attended a lecture.  The speaker, who was a professional psychic, made his way towards me and said: "You have the gift of writing."  (I was dabbling in literary pursuits, and thought little of this.)  "Come to me and I will develop this gift."

The following day I sought out another medium, who told me the same thing; and that night I sat with a friend, who had been brought up in the belief of the spiritualists in a darkened room.  We sat with our faces toward the north, and chanted in unison: "We want our guides, the highest and the best."

In less than an hour my hands trembled and I could not control myself; in a few moments I was in hysterics, and sobbing violently.  My friend, Miss W-----, put a pencil in my hand and soothed my by saying, "It’s all right."  I was, however, in a panic of fear; and when the pencil moved without my directing it I screamed, and refused to sit any longer in the dark.

The lights were then lit.  Though I was still very nervous and hysterical, Miss W----- insisted that I should hold the pencil and not further disturb the conditions.  I yielded to her wishes, and found, when the pencil was in my hand, that it began slowly to move and wrote some sentences in the usual direct manner; then, changing, wrote from right to left in what we thought was a foreign language.  A few weeks later, when I was putting on my hat before the mirror, I saw writing in the glass: the name "Jennie Reutlinger" (a name no one in this house had ever heard of).  Looking round, I saw it was the reflection of one of the papers I had written.  Taking up the sheets, I held them to the glass, and discovered that what I had thought was foreign writing was a long, personal history of a stranger in English, written backwards.  I had kept up the writing each night, expecting that it would return to the "direct" style and that we should get some personal message.  Curious to say, all my early script has not a private sentence in it, but referred to people of whom we had no knowledge whatever; but as the forces grew stronger, the messages became personal, and gave my mother any myself much comfort.

A strange feature of this psychic writing is that I feel great reluctance to write for outsiders.  Until I wrote for you, I had steadfastly refused to do much of it for anyone but my dear mother, who derived great happiness from these messages.  Had it not been for her influence I should never have continued the script, as I always felt a strange personal dread when occupying myself in this way; an uncanny and weird sensation like one feels when walking in a strange and unknown place.  I have never been able to shake this off.

About the fall of 1908, Mr. A. W. Moore, of this city, asked me as a favour if I would consent to write for an English friend of his who was coming to America to investigate spiritualism.  Naturally Mr. Moore wanted to show his countryman some phenomena out of the regular channels.  I therefore agreed to do what I could when the stranger should arrive.

I had never heard of you, and attached very little importance to the above conversation until, in my nightly messages for my mother, there came references to "The man of the sea."  I was at this time writing a drama for the S----- brothers, and on the days when I was too indolent to go on with it, there would come a threat in the evening automatic script, "Unless you work on your play we will humiliate you before the Englishman."  My script was always signed "Leader of the Band."

On the afternoon in December, 1908, when you first called, you sent up a letter from Mr. A. W. Moore.  In it you were introduced as Mr. Moore.  I had an engagement, but, owing to a strong impression early in the afternoon, broke it.  I could not explain why, even to myself, for I had planned it with pleasurable anticipation; as matters turned out it left me free to receive you; and, as I told you at the time, I feel sure that some outside influence was at work to prevent me being absent when you came to the house; all goes to show "there is a destiny which shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we will."  I was as much astonished as you were when the first of our messages were written.

I had no knowledge of the various persons who wrote to you through my hand, nor of those referred to in the script.  I had, indeed, heard of Sir W----- C-----: but I had never heard of his inventions, nor that he was married.  Of Professor L-----, Dr. Funk, Dr. Hodgson, and Mr. Myers I had not heard at all.  I was aware that Mr. James had a chair of some sort at Harvard University, but of nothing else about him; nor did I know anything of Professor James Hyslop, except his name, before February, 1909.

Of Dr. Thomson Jay Hudson, who controlled me during my sittings with you, I knew this only: That some years before I had read, in a desultory manner, a book called The Law of Psychic Phenomena, written by a man called Hudson; the Christian names I did not know.  I recalled the book vaguely as one I had taken up in a course of general reading; it was the only one I had ever read along this line of thought. I never heard of the Widow’s Mite.

Until we met I had not heard of the Society for Psychical Research.  As to Mr. W. T. Stead, I had read some of his political articles in the American (a so-called yellow journal of this country).  I do not remember the subject he wrote on; and I have no recollection of his crusade against social evils.

Up to the time we met, I had not seen or heard of any mediums in Toledo, Detroit, or Chicago.  As a young girl (fourteen years old), in 1889, I once visited Detroit, Michigan, with my parents.  We stopped at the Russell Hotel, which was the best at that time in the city.

You ask if I had any unusual experiences as a child.  When I was seven or eight I saw the face of Christ, so plainly that I never forgot the impression; but my parents thought this vision was nothing but pure imagination.  The first evening on which I wrote automatically I thought I saw the outline of a woman who was a seamstress in our family, and who died just before my father was taken ill.  I was never interested in ghost stories.

I never learned "mirror-writing"; in fact, never saw such a thing in my life before reading "Jennie Reutlinger" in my glass.

I am entirely unconscious of the purport of what is written by my hand, and a strange feature is that I can never recall what it has written.  Yet. If a prophecy made in the course of a script ever comes to pass, I instantly recall that I had been told "in advance."

Intuitively I have strong impressions; if I obey my first thoughts I am usually correct; but if I hesitate or think hard over a venture I am usually on the wrong track.

I have never had such good results as I had when sitting with you, and it is my belief that you were the attracting force, and that my success was due to your guides.

I cannot explain how the writing is done.  I only know it is done independently of my volition.  It seems to me probable that everyone has this power latent.

I now firmly believe in the life after death, and in the eternal life of spirit force.  I think each person has it within them to attract their own relatives and friends.

I am, cordially yours,

-----Georgia