DEAD HAND The Science of Automatic Writing in Mid-Victorian London with Robert Dickins At Brompton Cemetery Chapel on Sunday 27th October 2019 at 3:00 pm Why would someone choose to write or draw and then claim not to be the author of those words or images? During the 1850s, an increasing amount of people began to practice what was variously described as writing mediumship, automatic writing, or passive writing. Those writers claimed that the authority of their words belonged not to them, but to the dead. This talk will explore the notion that relinquishing authorship paradoxically imbued the practitioner with new forms of spiritual authority - forms that challenged orthodox hierarchies in the home, the church, and wider society. It was a time when the dead took a role in democratising the power of the living.
Robert Dickins
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