Pearl Curran and the Patience Worth Ouija communications

Record summary

Pearl Curran reported receiving extensive Ouija-board communications from a purported spirit named Patience Worth beginning in 1913. The sessions produced poems, novels, religious material and archaic-sounding language, attracting attention from psychical researchers and literary commentators. The case matters for comparing automatic writing, mediumship, authorship and linguistic performance. Uncertainty concerns whether the material reflected subconscious composition, collaboration, cryptomnesia, fraud, or an external communicator; claims about Patience Worth’s historical identity remain disputed rather than established.