Talk:Patience Worth

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]

Please rate the article and, if you wish, leave comments here regarding your assessment or the strengths and weaknesses of the article.

The article states that Christians engaging in "spiritual warfare" cite Patience Worth as an example of the dangers of using Ouija boards. This makes no sense at all. How is Worth an example of danger? What's so dangerous about literary acclaim? I am eliminating this ridiculous statement until somebody can explain it or at least cite a source. Minaker 10:24, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

This has got to be a copyvio from somewhere, but I just can't find where. Also, the writing style sounds more like a newspaper article than an encyclopedia article.


Nope, it's written completely by me, Tom Stewart, a freelance article writer and columnist. My style is not a bloodless 'encyclopedic' style, as most articles originally written for encyclopedias were written by the leading lit lights of the day, in their own styles. I'm just returning to that tradition.

But this is supposed to be an enclycopaedic entry, unbiased and void of opinion. It is supposed to be fact and information, therefore this article does need a re-write.

I have started the task of rewriting the article based on numerous text and web resources. There was a lot more information on Pearl Curran out there than I had in the book with an account of her life I own. My research has helped me write an account of Pearl's early days. I have left what Tom wrote the way it is for now until I am able to incorporate his information into a more organized encyclopaedic format. It is a lot more work than I expected. I added two pictures of Pearl to the article also. --Starladustangel 19:23, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

I have now made the seach parameter "Pearl Curran" redirect to this page. --Starladustangel 01:38, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

This entry is written in a manner that is completely inappropriate for what is supposed to be an objective article. Mr. Stewart's professional writing experience aside, his personal disdain for the "bloodless 'encyclopedic' style" of objectivity, and obvious preference for mis-using Wikipedia as a sounding board for his own views, is at the expense of a detailed history of the Patience Worth/Pearl Curran phenomenon (even if one does accept it as a hoax) and therefore clearly antithetical to the purpose and spirit of Wikipedia. I propose that this article be re-written, extensively and immediately.


Removed the following because we don't have an article on this band:

Oh, and there’s the rock band named after Patience Worth. But that’s another article.

I have been studying the Patience Worth/Pearl Curran phenomen for several years now and I have not seen anything to suggest that Patience Worth and Pearl Curran ever had a "falling out" and that communications decreased after 1922. Dr. Walter Franklin Princes' in depth study of Patience Worth took the case up to 1927 during which time Pearl and Patience were as conversant as ever. Patience continued to communicate with Pearl up through November 1937 a few weeks before Pearl's death. Mrs. Curran did have a falling out with Emily Grant Hutchings, her friend with whom she contacted Patience Worth initially. After the falling out Mrs. Hutchings attempted to contact Patience Worth but the effort was not as fruitful as Patience's work with Pearl. Subsequently, Mrs. Hutchings claimed that she had contacted Mark Twain and wrote a novel called Jap Herron, purportedly channelled by Mark Twain.

As to Patience being sarcastic about Pearl, I have never seen in any of the communications from Patience that she used sarcasm with anyone. To the contrary, she chided people sometimes as she chided Pearl, but there is nothing in the writings that even came close to scarcasm, especially directed to Pearl. She was pithy sometimes and pointed in her communications with those who did not allow her the respect she gave them. But she was never unkind to the point of sarcasm. Patience regarded Pearl as her "harp", as her "lute" and their relationship was loving, to the extent that Pearl Curran adopted an infant girl as a daughter for Patience Worth, a child which Patience had longed to have but never could.

Personally, I think that "Singer in the Shadows" is an excellent overview of the Patience Worth case. It may be "uncritical" but the book was not meant to be a critical expose of Pearl and Patience. It was meant to be a factual account of what ocurred during the relation between Pearl Curran and Patience Worth. There is an updated version of the book which I would recommend to anyone wanting a readable overview of the case. Dr. Walter Franklin Princes's book is the best analysis of the case up to 1927.

1/18/06: I want to add one thing to my above comments. I don't believe that Pearl Curran "researched" anything and found that Patience Worth actually lived in Dorsetshire England. This information was deduced from comments Patience had said and psychic discernments given by Pearl Curran. The location of Dorsetshire England was surmised by those close to the case during it's unraveling, namely, Casper S. Yost, the Currans and other intimates of the Currans. In fact, a major stumbling block in validating this enigmatic case is that, to my knowledge, no one has been able to document that anyone by the name of Patience Worth had ever lived in Dorsetshire England nor has her name been found on any passenger logs of ships sailing to the United States during the latter part of the 1600s. Actually, it is not unusual that the names of women were not included on ships logs, nor would it have been unusual that servants' names (as Patience Worth may have been) would not be included. Documentation of persons, especially peasant women, living in rural England 300-400 years ago is also unlikely to be found.

A major "find" in this case, of course, would be documentation of someone by the name of Patience Worth, her father John Worth or her mother Anne having actually lived in Dorsetshire during the 1600's. The fact that these documents have not been found or do not exist however, does not invalidate the possibility that Patience Worth was a real person living in England during the latter half of the 1600s.

For examples of the poems of Patience Worth and other information about the case, one might want to visit patienceworth.org. - Amos Oliver Doyle.

[edit] I agree with the responder to this atrocious entry on Curran

If one would like to call something a hoax, this misleading article on Curran is a good start. The author does not even provide the simplest analysis of any of Patience Worth's actual written work. Talk about something smacking of the "flat earth" syndrome of thought, not only are several facts just plain wrong in this article, also viciously misleading is the weak and unsupported idea that Curran was a "gifted child" with a "hidden talent for writing". Total bunk, baloney - prejudicial.

The author claims Patience Worth was critical of "organized religion" and yet a well known book by Patience Worth was on the life of Jesus Christ called "The Sorry Tale". Let me say this: Patience Worth's writings if anything are among the most spiritual/religious writings available coming out of a planchette.To also claim, as this author claims, that Patience Worth was contemptuous of academic posturing - might have a grain of truth - perhaps the type of academic posturing so apparent in this incompetent article on Patience.

One would like to challenge the author himself to write in 60 seconds a poem that has a vocabulary taken no later than the 17th century, has the profundity of so many poems written by Worth, and equal in intellectual and high literary quality. I surmise this author would most likely be incapable of such a feat little alone getting facts straight.

John Amenta Santa Cruz, California December 27, 2006


Comment: 3/28/07

This article about Pearl Curran and Patience Worth continues to be disturbing to me. While it is accurate in some parts other parts appear to me to be pure fabrication. I appreciate John Amenta's comments but he too is not accurate regarding Patience Worth's view or "organized religions". The key word here is "organized". One can find in much of her poetry, e.g., "Gloria" a rather contemptuous view of the way religion, i.e., Christianity, was practiced. This rather long poem is one of her best in which the last two lines are; "While thy dimming tapers die, and the carved saints stand mute before thy suppliants, what, should His holy step be heard naked upon the stones, with the pattering of sheep beside?"

Prior to this she depicts "mighty walls and towering spires" "emblazoned scripts depicting fanciful reaction of ancient times" "smoking alters upon which yellow candles flare burning the sacred air, to send aloft a pungent scent of mouldering decay, blackening with slow sure touch the placid faces of the saints, who with stony visages gaze adown the aisles, unseeing man's exultant joy or his despair." She continues "For this did saints ope up their veins? Did martyrs writhe? And did holy writs by their tedious array enslave the humble sanctity of men? Or did men, to do their will, write with unalterable tracery law, that ran new within the fluid pressed in fervid troth to God? While blood in lapping waves washed thy very doors, did Mary stand dumb, hearkening to some litany mumbled in a limped tongue, and priest send incense up, or light a taper in thy pit-like dark? Oh, everlasting God! I am dismayed, that thy very stones did not gape and fall apart; that every scarlet line within thy illumined records did not spurt in anguish and, bleeding, wipe the "law" from off the page." Wow! such powerful writing. A "must read" to understand the religious philosophy of Patience Worth.

I didn't mean to quote so much of this poem, but I think that it clearly shows Patience's disdain for "organized" religion. This is in strong contrast to the spirituality of Patience and her belief in God seen in many, if not most of her poems. The best ones are too long to quote here but perhaps this short one chosen at random, although not her best, will suffice. "What is God? If I were with one word to swing HIM, that word would shatter into less than the atoms of the mists that cling the mountain tops. If I should speak HIM in a song, the song would slay me! And going forth, man would become deaf when he listed. If I should announce HIM with a quill and fluid, lo, the script would be nothing less than eternity to hold the word I would write."

I also would like to comment on the reference to Stephen Braude and Mia Grandolfi. Dr. Braude does spend a chapter discussing his opinion about the Patience Worth case. He is of course a very erudite, learned man and I respect his views however, I would encourage those with real interest in this case to read all of the Patience Worth material for herself or himself either before or after reading Braude's chapter. After all, so much time has elapsed since this case was prominent and Pearl Curran and her compatriots have been dead for more than 65 years, that any current review of this case boils down to opinion. Dr. Braude is welcome to his opinion but I think he is too committed to an easily accepted scientific view that Pearl Curran MUST be a case of dissociation. How could he not? He has his universtiy position to maintain. I don't think that this case is so easily explainable and neither did Dr. Walter Franklin Prince, who studied the case and interviewed Pearl Curran and those who knew her in 1926-27. He also had sessions in which he spoke directly to Patience Worth, albeit through Pearl Curran. A better reference would be Dr. Prince's book "The Case of Patience Worth" originally published in 1927 and reissued in 1964. Copies are available through the internet bookstores.

Dr Braude recommended that I review the thesis by Mia Grandolfi which I did. What a disappointment! She had a golden opportunity to consider the language of Patience, How it varied from work to work and in her conversation and to produce something scientific by documenting language usage of the 17th century. Unfortunately she chose to take the easy way of filling in the blanks for a thesis and focus on Pearl's own short story about a young woman who feigns another personality, Rosa Alvaro, so that she could have an exciting exotic life with a new boyfriend. Ms. Grandolfi uses this paltry story by Pearl as some kind of proof that Pearl contrived the whole thing. Of course her thesis is her OPINION! Nothing about it is scientific. The thesis is bogus! How it passed the university review team, I 'll never know.

Of course Pearl, when she wrote something under her own name would write about things she knew. By the time she wrote the story which Ms Grandolfi contends explains away the whole Patience Worth enigma,(When more learned men could not) Pearl was saturated with her current life, communicating with the Patience Worth personality and challenged by many scientists contending that she was a multiple personality or that she was a case of dissociation or that she was quite plainly a fake. Pearl had more than enough material and suggestions from others to write an entertaining story about a woman who DOES fake another personality.

I have no respect for a university who lets a thesis like the one by Ms. Grandolfi suffice for an advanced degree. - Amos Oliver Doyle, www.patienceworth.org

3/29/07 Where is the reference of fact that Pearl Curran ever wanted to be an actress? When questioned in 1926 by Walter Franklin Prince, Mrs. Curran stated that "I had in my teens the desire to be successful as a singer. Mostly to lift myself out of a hopeless future---not so much for fame itself." In her brief autobiographical sketch, Mrs. Curan stated that she wanted "to be a prima-donna and loveress!" but she said this perhaps more in jest than in any seriousness. There is ample evidence that she studied for many years to play the piano and to sing.

Where is the reference of fact that Patience Worth "could speak directly through Curran using her vocal cords"? Mrs. Curran stated that she had pictorial visions over which she heard the voice of Patience Worth "either interpreting or giving me that part she wishes to use as story." At no time in the accounts given by Curran did she ever suggest that Patience Worth spoke directly using her (Curran's) vocal cords. Eventually Pearl Curran abandoned the use of the OuiJa board or used it simply as a way to focus and clear her mind. Pearl did not need the board to communicate with Patience and later on she just repeated the words she heard in her mind from Patience or typed them on a typewriter. - Amos Doyle


NOTHING BETTER TO DO?

May 2, 2008

Really Tom, your additions of "supposed" and "ever" do not add substantively to this article. It is not questionable that communications did occur between Patience Worth and Pearl Curran. What has been questioned by some is just who or what was Patience Worth. There is no question that communications did occur and that they occurred over a period of almost 25 years. The communications were not "supposed".

It is true that no good record of Patience Worth having lived in England in the latter part of the 1600s has been found to date. But really now, is it necessary to insert the word "ever" been found? In my research I have found that perhaps Dorset was not the shire in which Patience Worth had lived. The adjacent shire, "Devon" was more likely to have been the home of Patience Worth. She said " 'twere a wing" "There be a twist." If one looks at a map of England (not the United Kingdom) one can easily imagine a twisted wing at the bottom of England extending out into the sea where both Dorset and Devon are located. She said there be a deer---fallow. Deer of course contains the first two letters of Devon and fallow contains the "f" which was in the earlier spelling of Devon. Fallow also means "reddish" and Devon is currently known for its cattle of a "reddish" color. Devon had more people with the surname "Worth" living there than in any other area in England at that time. The "House of Worth" was there. And, based on Pearl's discernment of Patience leaving her home in England for America, Devon is the more likely candidate since the Port of Plymouth is in Devon which was a major port of departure to the new world during the 1600s and the estuary into the interior of the Devon countryside would more likely be able to be used by a large three-masted ship as described by Pearl Curran in the discernment than any "river" in Dorset. Remember, Patience Worth never said that she was from Dorset England, all she ever said was that "England be the stem 'pon which I bloomed." It was Casper Yost, the Currans and others who deduced that Patience was from Dorset. There are records of Worth families living in Devon during the 1600s and there are records of several people with the name Patience Worth living in New England during the end of the 1600s and during the early 1700s but none of them is thought to be the Patience Worth of Pearl Curran. Patience was a common virtue name of the Puritans during that time. One needs to remember that Patience Worth was purported to be unmarried and with no decendants. She held no title to property. There are no census records of that period in which to look for her name and women were routinely not included on the ships' rosters unless they were married. Whether or not records of her existence have "ever" been found is a non issue.

I think you should delete your additions. - Amos Doyle —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.220.223.22 (talk) 20:58, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

ONE MORE POINT:

May 2, 2008

I don't think that it is completely clear that Patience Worth was born in 1649. The Patience Worth record states that when asked the date of Patience' birth the planchett on the ouiji board circled around and finally pointed to 1 6 4 9, and then hesitated and spelled out 1 6 9 4 as if correcting the previous date. It could very well be that Patience Worth was born in 1694 or therabouts which would keep her in the same time period but would require searches for her existence well into the 1700s with her arrival in America (based upon Pearl Curran's discernment of her departure to America at 30 years of age) at around 1724. - Amos Oliver Doyle —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.220.223.22 (talk) 21:15, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Category change

Categories have been changed in accordance with the recent Arbitration on the paranormal, specifically 6a) Adequate framing, and Cultural artefacts. Martinphi (Talk Ψ Contribs) 21:07, 3 August 2007 (UTC)