David Patterson (Spirit) Hatch

Born in Dresden, Maine, in 1846, David Patterson Hatch went on to become a judge in California and later a lawyer in Los Angeles. He lived during a period when many readers were drawn to spiritualism and other attempts to connect science, religion, and the unseen world.

Before his death in 1912, he published works including Some Philosophy of the Hermetics and Scientific Occultism, a Hypothetical Basis of Life. These books show his interest in esoteric ideas and in explaining mysterious subjects through philosophical and quasi-scientific language.

Hatch is especially associated with Letters from a Living Dead Man and War Letters from the Living Dead Man, books issued after his death through the automatic writing of Elsa Barker and presented as communications from his spirit. Whether read as spiritual testimony, period curiosity, or occult literature, they helped keep his name alive for later readers interested in the stranger corners of early 20th-century thought.