skepticism and credulity from Catholic laity and clergy, as well as the skeptical community at large. Alleged cases of automatic writing have included Joseph Smith, Patience Worth, Aleister Crowley, Jane Roberts, Helen Schucman and author Neale Donald Walsch. Crowley, for instance, compiled the Collected Works over time, which included The Book of the Law as well as transcripts of his visions of the first two Enochian Aethyrs (planes). Scientific analysis and skepticism Scientists and skeptics consider automatic writing to be the result of the ideomotor effect. According to skeptical investigator Joe Nickell, "automatic writing is produced while one is in a dissociated state. It is a form of motor automatism, or unconscious muscular activity." Neurologist Terence Hines has written "automatic writing is an example of a milder form of dissociative state". In 1900, Swiss psychologist Theodore Flournoy studied the case of the French medium Helene Smith, particularly her handwriting during seances. He concluded that the automatic writing phenomenon was an effect of autosuggestion produced by autohypnotization, leading to the emergence of a secondary self. Paranormal researcher Ben Radford writes in his 2017 book Investigating Ghosts that there is no real way to know if the writing is coming from "outside their bodies," you "must take their word for it. Because the source of the information is at issue and the medium cannot be validated, we must turn to the content of the material." Various psychic mediums have claimed to channel famous dead people, such as Susan Lander, who claimed that Betsy Ross contacted her to say, "I am gay and I fly the flag of pride and liberty for all of us." According to Radford, historians say that there is "no credible historical evidence that Ross ... either made or had a hand in designing the American flag." Without some kind of validation, "anyone can claim to communicate with the spirit of anyone." Radford argues that "Automatic writing should logically hinder, not help spirit communication," given spelling and grammar are more difficult than direct speech. Scientific studies In an 1890 paper on hypnotism Morton Prince claims, "automatic writing is not a purely unconscious reflex act, but, the product of conscious individuality," and further claims that the hand that is writing is under the control of a separate hypnotic personality during trances. Physician Charles Arthur Mercier in the British Medical Journal (1894) criticized the spiritualist interpretation of automatic writing, concluding, "there