Elsa Barker (1869–1954) was an American

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while other ...

, short-story writer and

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

. She became best known for ''Letters from a Living Dead Man'' (1914), ''War Letters from the Living Dead Man'' (1915), and ''Last Letters From the Living Dead Man'' (1919), books containing what she said were messages from a dead man produced through

automatic writing Automatic writing, also called psychography, is a claimed psychic ability allowing a person to produce written words without consciously writing. Practitioners engage in automatic writing by holding a writing instrument and allowing alleged sp ...

Biography

Barker was born in 1869 in

Leicester, Vermont Leicester ( ) is a town in Addison County, Vermont, United States. The population was 990 at the 2020 census. Geography Leicester is located along the southern border of Addison County at the western edge of the Green Mountains. It is bordered b ...

to Albert G. and Louise Marie Barker, both of whom died while she was young. Her earliest work was as a

shorthand Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed and brevity of writing as compared to Cursive, longhand, a more common method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Gr ...

reporter, teacher, and newspaper writer. She was an editor of the Consolidated Encyclopedia Library in 1901, was a lecturer for the New York Board of Education in 1904-1905, and was on the editorial staff of ''Hamptons'' magazine in 1909-1910. She also authored a "labor play", ''The Scab'', produced in New York and Boston in 1904-1906. Her first novel, ''The Son of Mary Bethel'', was published in 1909. Barker's father had been interested in the

occult The occult () is a category of esoteric or supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of organized religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving a 'hidden' or 'secret' agency, such as magic and mysti ...

and she shared this interest, becoming a member of the

Theosophical Society The Theosophical Society is the organizational body of Theosophy, an esoteric new religious movement. It was founded in New York City, U.S.A. in 1875. Among its founders were Helena Blavatsky, a Russian mystic and the principal thinker of the ...

. She also was initiated into the

Rosicrucian Rosicrucianism () is a spirituality, spiritual and cultural movement that arose in early modern Europe in the early 17th century after the publication of several texts announcing to the world a new Western esotericism, esoteric order. Rosicruc ...

Order of

Alpha et Omega The Alpha et Omega was an occult order, initially named the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, co-founded in London, England by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers in 1888. The Alpha et Omega was one of four daughter organisations into which the ...

. Barker lived in Europe from 1910 to 1914, first in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

and then in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. She was in London at the outbreak of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. In 1912, while in Paris, she felt compelled to write a passage, although she said she did not know where the words came from. She said she was "strongly impelled to take up a pencil and write." She signed the passage "X", which at first meant nothing to her. She was told that "X" was the nickname of a

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

judge called David P. Hatch and then discovered that Hatch had died before she "received" the message. In 1914 she published a book of these messages called ''Letters from a Living Dead Man''. She said that the passages were genuine messages from the dead man and Hatch's son also believed that the communications were from his father. She published two more volumes of Hatch's messages — ''War Letters from the Living Dead Man'' (1915), and ''Last Letters From the Living Dead Man'' (1919). Around the time of the publication of ''War Letters from the Living Dead Man'' in 1915, Barker developed an interest in

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: and is a set of theories and techniques of research to discover unconscious mind, unconscious processes and their influence on conscious mind, conscious thought, emotion and behaviour. Based on The Inte ...

. By 1919 she was studying 14 hours a day. From 1928 to 1930 she lived on the

French Riviera The French Riviera, known in French as the (; , ; ), is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France. There is no official boundary, but it is considered to be the coastal area of the Alpes-Maritimes department, extending fr ...

. Barker died August 31, 1954.

Selected works

*''The Son of Mary Bethel'' (1909)
''The Frozen Grail & Other Poems''
(1910) *''Stories from the New Testament for Children'' (1911) *''The Book of Love'' (1912)
''Letters from a Living Dead Man''
(1914, 1920)
''War Letters from the Living Dead Man''
(1915) *''Songs of a Vagrom Angel'' (1916)
''Last Letters From the Living Dead Man''
(1919) *''Fielding Sargent'' (1922) *''The Cobra Candlestick'' (1928) *''The C.I.D. of Dexter Drake'' (1929) *''The Redman Cave Murder'' (1930)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barker, Elsa 1869 births 1954 deaths American spiritual mediums American Theosophists American women novelists Novelists from Vermont American women short story writers People from Leicester, Vermont 20th-century American novelists 20th-century American women writers American women poets 20th-century American poets 20th-century American short story writers