Of Mirror writing

Details: Category: Essays and reviews Essays and reviews; Published: 03 February 2015 03 February 2015

Mirror writing means writing in the opposite direction using so-called normal writing. The name mirror writing simply implies that the text is a mirror reflection of normal writing and that reading it with a mirror, it looks like normal writing.

Dictionaries describe mirror writing as sometimes used in writing code or cipher, but we urge everyone form their own opinion after this study. Today, the most obvious place to find mirror writing is in the front panel of an ambulance, where the text ‘ambulance’ is often in mirror writing. This helps all the other cars in the traffic to identify the ambulance from the rear-view mirror.

Mirror writing in Science

It is a commonplace for pre-school children to sometimes use mirror writing. For some reason, scientists have related this skill to mental disorders. There are instances where a left-handed child writes words by mirror writing, and also those, where a right-handed child writes mirror writing with a left hand before deciding which hand to use in general. In some cases the children with the skill to mirror write were identified as more artistic than others and having creative skills above the average.

Anna Salleh from ABC News in Science summarizes an Australian research on mirror writing in her article Mirror writing: my genes made me do it.

“The ability to write backwards in the form of mirror writing is probably inherited and the trait is likely associated with atypical language organisation in the brain", Dr Iain Mathewson suggests. Mathewson was also interested in exploring the neural pathways involved in mirror writing. He found that there were more left-handed mirror writers than right-handed ones. And as many left-handed people have atypical language centres, Mathewson hypothesised that the gene associated with mirror writing was also responsible for the way the brain was developed for language skills. "I'm sure these people have language centres on both sides of the brain with interconnections between them," he says. "In most people the language centre is on the left side of the brain, which also controls motor activities on the right side of the body.”

As Salleh’s article demonstrates, some researchers assume mirror writing to be inherited and an effect of some rare construction inside the brain. This is, of course, supported by the fact that half of the parents, whose children were able to mirror write, had this same skill.

The Japanese group of experts (The Department of Neurosurgery of the Japanese Hokkaido University) concluded that mirror writing is an effect of brain damage or some other neurological disease such as Parkinson’s disease. However, they did point out that there are some cases, where the so-called normal children had learned the skill of mirror writing by accident.

Leonardo da Vinci – the famous mirror writer

The great deal of Leonardo da Vinci’s sketches and diary pages include mirror writing. There are naturally a host of theories why Leonardo used mirror writing. Some claim that Leonardo wanted to hide his texts and studies and used mirror writing as cipher. This claim is absurd, because it is obvious that anyone can easily read mirror writing even without a mirror.

If mirror writing was used as a cipher by Leonardo, it must have been the worst effort ever. Other theories have suggested that Leonardo did not want to smudge his hand while writing from left to right. The pure fact is still, however, that no-one has been able to explain why Leonardo used mirror writing.

The consciousness of creativity awakens

On one typical night at home, I was in my thoughts alone – just me, the floor, a glass table, A3 paper sheets and three colouring pens. I wondered how people really use their hands from a scientific point of view. I wondered how the brain works and how it all really happens inside of us. How the brain and hands are connected to each other. And what is the real message that travels from the hand to the brain and vice versa. Then I thought about some of the left-handed people I knew.

Why do some people use their left hand while some use the other? I remembered a sentence from the temple of Apollon in Delfoi – "Nothing in excess”. Is this true in all cases, as the principle of Correspondence teaches us? Do we need to attain balance in also the use of our hands, as we should with everything in Cosmos?

When we start school at the age of 5-7, there is a choice to be made. The human ego makes us choose the hand we will mainly use from then on. People teach or even force us to choose one hand or the other. They teach us that all people are either left- or right-handed. What would happen if we were not forced to choose one hand, but rather remained ambidextrous, maintaining a natural balance with our hands?

What would happen to our brain, our thoughts and behaviour? And above all, what would be the consequence of the ability to use both hands equally? The gravity of that question would prove to me personally in the next few weeks.

I started to write my name with my left hand, first tens of times, then hundreds of times. Soon I let it go and just started to write whatever came to mind. I did this for few days and few hours total, and my left hand was beginning to get used to writing again. The last time I wrote with my left hand was over 20 years ago. Soon my mind traveled to Leonardo and mirror writing again. I wondered why Leonardo used mirror writing in his drafts and sketches. It could not have been a code since almost anyone could read it.

I began to write mirror writing, inspired by Leonardo, and first only with my right hand. It did not seem like a natural way to work. When I wrote the first words in mirror writing with my left hand, it felt completely natural. Soon I noticed that I could write as quickly as with my right hand, but of course the lines and the whole text were jumping a bit. Next was a huge surprise to come.

Using two pens simultaneously with both hands and started to write – normal writing with my right hand and mirror writing with my left hand, simultaneously. At that second I realised that one we realise that anyone can really do this. A person can write with both his/her hands at the same time! When I realised this, the ability to do so was in me immediately. I did not have to learn it or study it. I learned probably unconsciously the mystery of the mirror writing, which was transferred immediately over to the practical level. At the same time, I was personally experiencing something much stranger. While practicing mirror writing like this, one might find it interesting to keep a journal of possible changes and developments in personal behaviour. In fact, it seems that balancing oneself through this simple exercise will result in the rise in creativity and new skills.

The next revelation about me may sound strange, but I recommend it to everyone. I sometimes keep a diary of my behaviour to identify my thoughts and reactions in different, unexpected and unknown situations. I follow the power of autosuggestion and hypnosis practices on the level of behavior. All of a sudden I noticed that my text contained new, artistic features. When I was practicing the use of my left hand, I had written lyrics for a few songs, learned how to play the African drum, and produced new text for my books. I realized that the power which came with practicing my left hand. Maybe it activated some kind of a new brain wave, but it sure did have an effect in my life. Maybe this method of balancing the Brain is much recommended to study a lot more, its effects are remarkable.

Practical experiment

I have worked with 10 people concerning mirror writing skills. They represented both genders and their age varied from 10 to over 50 years. They come from a different backgrounds and not any of them had a skill of mirror writing before the experiment.

My hypothesis was that I could teach anyone the skill of mirror writing in a few minutes, and once this skill is learned, it would be permanent, such as the ability to ride a bike.

Every test person proved my hypothesis. Each of them learned how to mirror written and has been able to mirror write ever since. This practical experiment is contradictory to all other scientific results concerning mirror writing. It seems that mirror writing is a natural symmetric ability for our brains. It would truly be interesting to motivate researchers to study the influence of mirror writing skills on creativity and other mental abilities.

Conclusion: Brain in balance

So what do I think about Leonardo, mirror writing and creativity? Leonardo was apparently left-handed, while I am right-handed, but I still write mirror writing with my left hand only. According to the researchers, he wrote in mirror writing with his left hand like I did. It is natural to do so.

As I said earlier, I would encourage people to find out if they understand mirror writing when they calm down and take a better look at it. Actually, so far, all the people I have asked have has told me that they understand it clearly without using a mirror. I think this is a very important point for considering if Leonardo used mirror writing to conceal information. If the majority of people can read mirror writing without mirrors, my opinion is that it is clearly not an encryption code.

I urge everyone to grab two pens in both hands and to try this mirror writing. If it seems difficult at first, but close your eyes, and just draw in the air with your fingers. You will soon notice how it comes naturally, one hand is simply mirroring the other hand. And do not try to write small letters at the beginning. The bigger the letters are, the easier it is to mirror write.

My own experience is that I can teach anyone the ability to mirror write. I have already taught it to a few people and each of them has understood how it works, and how the hands and the brain work together in balance. This skill is just as easy to learn as the skill to drive a bicycle. Of course, skills must be developed and maintained so that effects can be seen in reality.

Have fun with developing your creativity, and if you want to share some experiences, feel free to contact me in the House of Truth. Do not force your children to choose only one hand, but let them grow wiser and more creative than you.¹

¹Notice: in my later study I have reached a conclusion that this ”choosing the hand” situation is remarkably same than the situation, where a child is choosing his/her mother tongue. Meaning that: when a child grows in the Multi-language family, he/she does not learn the basics of any spoken language as well as in the family, which uses only one main language. It is highly recommended to have a decent foundation of one’s mother tongue, thus it will help also to learn any other languages in the future as well. Using the terms of neurology: i) the lesser consciousness appears in the child’s mind at the age of 0-72 months, when emotion, reason, creativity and memory develop, and ii) the greater consciousness appears in the child’s mind at the age of 72-216 months, when the rest and more complex consciousness develops. After the 72 months the child leaves behind the Oneness and thus begins to develop into individual, a person. It is then when also the hand is chosen. It seems that this decision is a must to make, but only for a while, when also the other hand can be trained into use. Only then the more comprehensive balance can be achieved.

References:

Angelillo, VG. et al: Persistent left unilateral mirror writing: A neuropsychological case study. In Brain and Language 2010 Sep 114(3): 157-63.

Gottfried, JA. et al:Acquired mirror writing and reading: evidence for reflected graphemic representations. In Neuropsychologia 2003, 41(1), 96-107.

Mathewson, I: Mirror writing ability is genetic and probably transmitted as a sex-linked dominant trait: it is hypothesised that mirror writers have bilateral language centres with a callosal interconnection. In Medical Hypotheses 2004, 62(5), 733-739.

Schott, G D: Mirror writing: neurological reflections on an unusual phenomenon. In Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry 2007 January; 78(1): 5–13.

Tashiro, K. et al: Etiology of Mirror Writing in Japanese. In Arch Neurol. 2005;62(5):834-835.

Tashiro, K. et al: The aetiology of mirror writing: a new hypothesis. In Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry 1987;50:1572-1578.

Vasari, G: Lives of the most eminent painters, sculptors and architects. Published in English in 1908. Torrentino (1550), Giunti (1568).