Pearl Curran and Patience Worth

Record summary

Pearl Curran became associated with the Ouija-board communications of a purported entity calling herself Patience Worth, beginning in St. Louis in 1913. The resulting writings were presented as evidence of a discarnate personality and attracted psychical researchers, journalists, and literary interest. Critics instead examined unconscious composition, collaboration, literary influence, and the possibility of normal information sources. The case is useful for comparing apparition-related belief with textual production, mediumship, and claims of historical personality continuity. Questions remain about the development of the corpus, the role of sitters, and whether the language was genuinely anomalous.