Letters from a living dead man by David Patterson Hatch
Letters from a living dead man by David Patterson Hatch is a spiritualist epistolary work written in the early 20th century. It presents purported messages from a recently deceased thinker known as “X,” conveyed through a medium, describing the conditions, laws, and experiences of consciousness after death. Expect vivid accounts of astral travel, teachers and helpers, reincarnation, heavens and hells, and the mechanics of cross‑world communication, with recurring figures like a guiding
Teacher and a boy named Lionel. The opening of this work begins with an introduction from the recorder explaining how the letters started through automatic writing in Paris, the surprising news of “X’s” death, her reluctance and later decision to publish, and her insistence that the communications be judged by their substance. The early letters then unfold: “X” asserts his presence, explains the ease and brightness of the transition, asks for discretion, and teaches safeguards against intrusive astral influences and the mental poise needed for writing. He describes movement and perception in the subtle world; the role of will; the “pattern world” of prototypes; a League that helps the newly dead; and meetings with souls, including Lionel, along with glimpses of a “heaven country” and a Christ vision. He reports visiting archives (a Paracelsus treatise), shaping garments by thought, and warns the newly departed not to revisit their corpses; he relates a marital tangle between a man and his two wives, notes individualized hells, and tells of a devoted couple reunited in a home he built for her. The section closes with reflections on finding God (“God is”), the rhythm of rebirth and eternity, a defense of this controlled collaboration (distinguishing it from indiscriminate mediumship), and a final vignette setting off to witness a great imperial funeral. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Read or download for free
For an overview of the different reading options, see our Reading Guide
| Reading Options | Url | Size | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Read now! | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76854.html.images | 377 kB | |||
| EPUB3 (E-readers incl. Send-to-Kindle) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76854.epub3.images | 709 kB | |||
| EPUB (older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76854.epub.images | 706 kB | |||
| EPUB (no images, older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76854.epub.noimages | 309 kB | |||
| Kindle | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76854.kf8.images | 1013 kB | |||
| older Kindles | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76854.kindle.images | 968 kB | |||
| Plain Text UTF-8 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76854.txt.utf-8 | 320 kB | |||
| Download HTML (zip) | https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/76854/pg76854-h.zip | 1.1 MB | |||
| There may be more files related to this item. | |||||
About this eBook
| Author | Hatch, David Patterson (Spirit), 1846-1912 |
|---|---|
| Contributor | Barker, Elsa, 1869-1954 |
| LoC No. | 14008217 |
| Title | Letters from a living dead man |
| Original Publication | New York: E. P. Dutton & co., 1914, copyright 1920. |
| Note | In later books of the series the author states that these spiritualistic messages are from Judge David P. Hatch, of Los Angeles. |
| Credits | Peter Becker, Laura Natal and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | BF: Philosophy, Psychology, Religion: Psychology, Philosophy, Psychoanalysis |
| Subject | Spiritualism |
| Subject | Spirit writings |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 76854 |
| Release Date | Sep 10, 2025 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 203 downloads in the last 30 days. |
| Project Gutenberg eBooks are always free! | |