Patience Worth
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Patience Worth was the pseudonym used by Pearl Lenore Curran (February 15, 1883–1937) who was the author of several novels, poetry and prose which she claimed was delivered to her through channelling a spirit.
Curran was born Pearl Lenore Pollard in Mound City, Illinois. The family moved to Texas when she was eight months old and she started school when she was six. She was an average but uninterested student, eventually dropping out in her first high school year, later stating she had a nervous breakdown due to the strenuous academics. She later returned to classes at St. Ignatius Catholic school.
Curran was a normal girl and was sensitive about her looks, considering herself to be ugly. She admitted to having little imagination and few ambitions, except to be an actress. She had a short attention span and read very little during her formative years.
Her family moved to St. Louis when she was 14. She made a last attempt at attending school but was discouraged when placed in a lower grade based on her academic skills. However, she took music lessons and training in piano and voice and aspired to be a prima donna. About that time the family moved again, to Palmer, Missouri. As Curran's musical talents blossomed, she was sent to Kanakee, Illinois for voice training, before moving to Chicago for tuition from J.C. Cooper. She worked at the McKinley Music Company addressing envelopes for $6 a week, then the Thompson Music Company selling music. From the age of 18 to 24 she worked at assorted jobs in Chicago during winter months, and during the summer she taught music at home in Missouri.
[edit] Marriage
Pearl married John Howard Curran when she was 24. Though by no means wealthy, they lived a leisurely lifestyle which gave her free time for movie going or playing cards with her husband or neighbors. The Currans did not own books, were not well educated or well travelled, and the first seven years of their middle class marriage were uneventful.
On July 8, 1913, a neighbour showed Curran a Ouija Board and convinced her to place her hands on it despite believing they were silly, boring and pointless. The Ouija board spelled out gibberish but Curran later claimed she slowly began to get a message: "Many moons ago I lived. Again I come. Patience Worth my name. If thou shalt live, so shall I."
Curran had never been interested in the occult, but when prompted by her friend to ask the entity questions, Curran said that she was surprised when her questions began to get intelligent answers, and she wondered if the communications were merely coincidental.
Curran reputedly researched the name Patience Worth and found a woman of that name had lived in Dorsetshire, England in either 1649 or 1694. Later, Curran claimed that Patience told her through the Ouija board that she had moved from England and was murdered by Indians. "From England across the sea. Could I but hold your ear for the lessons I could teach!"
In 1916, in a book with a foreword written by Caspar Yost, editor of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Henry Holt and Company publicized Curran's claims that she had contacted the long dead Patience Worth.
Curran claimed she began to anticipate what the Ouija board was going to spell and by 1919 the pointer would just move aimlessly about the board and she instead claims to have begun hearing a voice in her head which dictated more novels. Eventually, the supposed spirit could speak directly through Curran using her vocal chords. However, she and her husband didn't consider this possession.
Curran went on to churn out novels (e.g. The Sorry Tale, a Book of the Christ), short stories, and much tepid poetry, supposedly composed by Patience Worth who communicated them through the Ouija board messages to Curran.
The Patience Worth affair coincided with a revival of spiritualism in the U.S. and Britain, capturing the interest of a population wanting to believe that a middle-aged housewife could talk to a long dead Puritan woman. The skeptics had a field day, particularly when they noted that Patience was somehow able to write a novel about the Victorian age, which came some 200 years after she had lived. Anyway, the produced literature was considered to be first rate, for example by the distinguished and influential literary critic Willian Marion Reedy.
Many people said that because of her poor education, Curran herself could not be composing the works. The writer of a book entitled The Mystery of Patience Worth claimed that the language used in the Patience Worth historical novels was 90 percent Anglo-Saxon and 10 percent old French. No words were in use later than the 17th century. The author who wrote this was Caspar Yost, the same man who was first to publicly introduce Curran as a mystic.
Curran and Patience had something of a falling out as the years went on, and after 1922, Patience started talking less and less, and then making sarcastic comments about the intelligence of her host. Communication had pretty much ceased by the time of Pearl Curran's death. By then, public interest in Patience Worth had faded into near obscurity.
The story and writings of Pearl Curran/Patience Worth are little known outside of occult circles today. Some people involved in Christian spiritual warfare site this story as an example of the dangers of using a Ouija board and suggest that the spirit contacted was actually a demon posing as a deceased human.
Most of the writing is out of print, except for a few print on demand publishers who specialize in public domain works. There is a book called Singer in the Shadows written in the 1970s and reprinted by Back-In-Print publishers, that looks at Patience Worth uncritically.
In his book Immortal Remains. The Evidence of Life after Death Stephen E. Braude examines the case of Patience Worth and concludes that Pearl Curran was probably a highly gifted child whose talent for writing was smothered by her mother, who wanted to force Pearl into a singing career. In the alter ego of Patience Worth her subconscious could revive that talent. Patience also had a sharp tongue and was highly suspicious and critical of organized religion and formal education. She also was contemptuous of the various forms of academic and religious posturing. Braude argues that these were in fact personality traits of Pearl that she couldn't let out at that time.
[edit] Bibliography
- Braude, Stephen E. (2003). Immortal Remains. The Evidence of Life after Death. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 0-7425-1472-2.
