Psychic ‘writer’ helps people connect with the dead
‘In automatic writing, spirits take control of the medium’s hand.’
Cawas Pesi Chothia, 42, says he has a direct connection with the world of the spirits, who use him as a medium to communicate with this world through “automatic writing”. Automatic writing, or psychography, is a form of involuntary writing, where other-worldly beings are believed to take control of the medium’s hand and write down whatever they want to say. Chothia says automatic writing is the safest way to communicate with the next world because of “protective links”. “The person doing automatic writing generally gets messages in his mind, after which there is an involuntary movement of the hand. Some believe that the spirit takes control of the medium’s hand.”
Chothia, a former team leader with J.P. Morgan, quit his job in 2011 after his mother’s death, sold his flat in Andheri and invested the money in a pension fund before taking to automatic writing. “I was gifted with this art when my mother passed away in May 2011. It became difficult at some point to manage a job in a multinational (company) with an ill mother. I quit after her death, and when she got in touch with me, I realised this was what I wanted to do,” he says.
He read up several books on the subject, starting with Laws of the Spirit World by Khorshed Bhavnagri and Sounds of Silence by Nan Umrigar, and eventually found a teacher in the well-known automatic writer and psychic Kashmira Elavia.
“Conversing with my parents through automatic writing enhanced my skills further. Soon I was helping everyone I knew. I now teach this art full time,” he says.
Ask him to give a scientific explanation to what he practises, and he says, “It is my faith, my belief and my love for my parents that I don’t look for any scientific explanations. Some may call me a fraud; some may say that I have a mental problem, or that I am superstitious. But I have got the closure I needed.”
Chothia claims his clients are mostly educated professionals: doctors, engineers, software geeks and businessmen who study and practise automatic writing. It takes a minimum of six months to learn the art, he says.
Rashi Mehta (name changed on request), a banker, wanted to get in touch with her father, who died when she was a teenager. She was moved by the results. “My father advised me to stay put in my career although I did not enjoy it. He said I should focus on my family,” she said. She decided to learn the art so that she could converse with him more frequently.
Dr Rajendra Barve, a renowned psychiatrist, says there has been no scientific study yet to explain automatic writing.