David Patterson (Spirit) Hatch

Born in 1846 and dead by 1912, David Patterson Hatch was a lawyer and judge associated with Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. Contemporary library and historical records identify him as Judge David P. Hatch, and his name also appears in connection with the Highland Park house later known as the Smith Estate.

Before the books published in his name as spirit communications, Hatch wrote works of his own, including Scientific Occultism, a Hypothetical Basis of Life (1905). That earlier title helps explain the interests that run through the later volumes: an effort to treat spiritual and metaphysical questions as serious subjects rather than mere fantasy.

He is now remembered mainly for Letters from a Living Dead Man, War Letters from the Living Dead Man, and related books connected with Elsa Barker's automatic writing. Whatever a reader makes of their origin, the books remain striking documents of early twentieth-century spiritualism, mixing reflections on the afterlife with moral, philosophical, and social commentary.