Hell, Per a Spirit-Message Therefrom (Alleged): A Study in Graphic-Automatism

To call John Armstrong Chaloner (born Chanler, 1862-1935) an eccentric author is somewhat to understate the case; scion of a wealthy Virginia family and worth some $4 million by the time he hit adulthood, his family in 1897 had him declared insane -in part because Chaloner claimed he had discovered the sixth sense of "X-Faculty," which allowed him visionary insights into the stock market, informed him he could carry hot coals in his bare hands, and suggested he looked like Napoleon Bonaparte, etc. Chaloner escapedand was declared sane by the state of Virginia in 1901, and he took up in his eccentric way the cause of mental health reform on the strength of his prolific output of incendiary verses and polemics, peppered with his trademark catch-phrase "Who's looney now?" This collection of miscellaneous polemics in the guise of supposed spirit visions from Hell is interlarded with press notices of the industrious Chaloner.