Over some 24 years, from 1913 until 1937, an author by the name of Patience Worth produced approximately four million words, including seven books, some short stories, several plays, thousands of poems, and countless epigrams and aphorisms. She would be acclaimed a literary genius – her works compared with Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Spenser. She was called a wit, a poet, a dramatist, and a philosopher. “The unusual distinction about this Patience Worth is her exceptional and consistent intelligence,” a New York Evening Sun review read. “She shows in all her messages every sign of a vigorous, keen mentality.”
If one relies on Wikipedia as a valid reference, Patience Worth was nothing more than a pen name or “fictional creation” of author Pearl Curran, a St. Louis, Missouri housewife. Many parapsychologists have more or less concluded that “Patience” was a “secondary personality” buried within Curran’s subconscious. The big question with that explanation is how all the wisdom and knowledge coming from Curran got into her subconscious in the first place? She had no more than an eighth-grade education and hadn’t traveled beyond Chicago. A third theory was that Patience was who she claimed to be, the spirit, or consciousness, of a 17th Century woman who migrated from Dorsetshire, England to America and was killed by American Indians at age 44 or 45. A fourth explanation that of Patience being some form of artificial intelligence, seems highly unlikely since, as AI itself explained, “the technology required to create an artificial intelligence sophisticated enough to create the complex and varied works attributed to Patience Worth did not exist during Curran’s lifetime.” (See my blog of April 24, 2023 for more about the AI aspect).
Patience Worth began communicating on the Ouija board operated by Curran, Emily Hutchings, and Mary Pollard in 1913 as their husbands played pinochle in the next room. “Many moons ago I lived,” the communication began. “Again I come, Patience Worth my name.” The three women pressed for more information, but Patience did not seem to want to talk about herself. Rather, she wanted to provide wisdom. Some research turned up two women with the name Patience Worth living in New England around the time Patience claimed to live in the United States, but there was no way to link either of them to the communicating intelligence.
When Pollard jokingly commented about Patience’s reluctance to talk about herself, Patience responded: “Wilt thou but stay thy tung! On rock-ribbed shores beat wisdom’s waves. Why speak for me? My tung was loosed when thine was yet to be.” And when Pollard said something to the effect that Patience was unfriendly, Patience replied: “Too much sweet may spoil the shortbread.”
At a later sitting, Pollard commented that the world is crying for proofs of immortality, to which Patience communicated: “To prove a fact, needst thou a book of words, when e’en the sparrow’s chirp telleth thee more? A tale unfolded by the Bishop’s drudge may hold the meat for thousands, while dust and web are strong on his Eminence. The road to higher plains leadeth not along the steeple. Drop ye a coin and expect the gods to smile. Chant ye a creed and wordy prayer, reeking with juice squeezed from thy smug fat store of self-love, expecting favor from the God who but enjoys the show…”
It soon became clear that Curran was the medium, as the other two women were not necessary for Patience to communicate. Until then, Curran had no interest in mediumship. However, once her gift was recognized, she moved from the Ouija board to automatic writing, and then to clairaudient dictation. In one test of her ability by researcher Dr. Walter Franklin Prince, Curran dictated a poem while she was writing a letter to a friend. In another test, she dictated four different stories, going from one to the other, the breaks between the stories fitting so closely that one character in one story seemed to reply to the character in another story. Subjects would be given to her by researchers and she would reply without hesitation. A few examples:
On death: “Cheap pence paid for eternity and yet man whines!”
On life: “Life is a gaysome trickster. Yea, life poureth about the atoms o’ man wines of cunning, and equally is he filled up of Him. Thereby is man given freely and his lighting unto life leaveth him for his choosing. Aye, and the giving be wry-fallen atimes, for flesh to tarry long and dance with life, fearing the greater thing athin it.”
On philosophy: “Philosophy is a bony nag and her gait is woeful. He who rides must spur her well with his ain imagination.”
On Consciousness: “Wisdom is conscious experience. Folly is the disregard of experience. Consciousness is the receptivity of man to God; is the compliment of God unto His creation.”
On laughter: “Me thinks that of all the gifts from Thy prolific hand, laughter, next to love, is dearest.”
On learning: “Wisdom scratcheth the itch of the lout, while learning searchest for the flea.”
On fear: “The undergarment of every armor. Man moutheth over words, and hangeth his wisdom with garments of words. Man knoweth certainties which even God doubteth.”
On the press: “The gab wench of the day!”
On the women of her day: “Chattels; beasties, verily. Ye should have seen me mither’s thumb – flat with the twistin’ o’ flax, and me in buskins, alookin’ at the castle, and dreaming dreams!”
Of her book, Hope Trueblood, a reviewer for Lady’s Pictorial of London offered: “[This book] will stand as a landmark of fiction by a new writer, who will take a prominent place among great writers.” A New York Tribune review of Hope Trueblood called it a work “approximating absolute genius.” A Chicago Mail reviewer referred to the author as a “master word builder.”
The Greatest Story of Christ
Patience’s most celebrated work, The Sorry Tale, a 644-page, 325,000 word novel about the last days of Jesus, was released in June 1917. As journalist Casper Yost, who was present when much of the book was dictated, explained, the story was begun without any previous knowledge on the part of Pearl Curran of the time and conditions of Palestine beyond what is revealed in the New Testament. Yet, the story goes far beyond what might be gleaned from the New Testament. “In one evening, 5,000 words were dictated, covering the account of the crucifixion,” Yost reported.
In its review of the book, The National wondered how the mysterious story-teller became familiar with the scent and sound and color and innumerable properties of Oriental market places and wildernesses, of Roman palaces, and halls of justice. The New York Globe stated that it exceeded Ben Hur and Quo Vadis as “a quaint realistic narrative.” The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch opined that no other book gives one so clear a view of customs, manners, and character of the peoples of the time and place.
Professor Roland Greene Usher, dean of history at Washington University, called The Sorry Tale “the greatest story of Christ penned since the Gospels were finished.” He pointed out that the book was written in seventeenth-century English with no anachronisms.
W. T. Allison, professor of English literature at the University of Manitoba, observed that Patience Worth dictated words found only in Melton’s time and some of them had no meaning until researched in dialectic dictionaries and old books. Allison, who closely observed Curran, reported that in one evening 15 poems were produced in an hour and 15 minutes, an average of five minutes for each poem. “All were poured out with a speed that Tennyson or Browning could never have hoped to equal, and some of the 15 lyrics are so good that either of those great poets might be proud to have written them,” Allison offered. He went on to say that Patience Worth “must be regarded as the outstanding phenomenon of our age, and I cannot help thinking of all time.”
When she was asked by a journalist sitting with Mrs. Curran if she was part of Curran’s subconscious, Patience immediately lashed out at the suggestion. “She be but she and I be me,” Patience asserted, apparently in an angry tone. Perhaps the truth of the matter can be found in that simple statement. If Patience was lying, what was her game? What was gained by pretending to be the spirit of a long-deceased woman? “…we have here a manifestation of subconscious phenomena but in such unusual form that if differs from the ordinary types….it has been able to reach out beyond the ordinary boundaries of knowledge and come in touch with the springs of some cosmic consciousness that gives deeper insight than any which comes through the ordinary channels of knowledge,” researcher Prince wrote.
Group Soul
A fifth explanation, one rarely heard, is that Patience was an “energy essence personality,” also called a “group soul,” which apparently involves a number of advanced souls speaking as one spirit. As discussed in my 2020 book, No One Really Dies, renowned British chemist William Crookes was conducting an experiment on June 28, 1871 at his London home when medium Daniel D. Home went into a trance state and a voice began speaking through him. When one of the guests asked who was speaking, the reply came, “It is not one spirit in particular. It is a general influence. It requires two or three spirits to get complete control over Dan. The conditions are not very good tonight.”
Also, during the 1870s, a band of 49 spirits called the Imperator group communicated through the mediumship of William Stainton Moses, an Anglican priest. “In many cases the messages given you are not the product of any one mind, bur are the collective influence of a number,” Imperator, the chief of the band, explained, commenting that his name and those of the other 48 in his group were convenient symbols and that in many instances the impression of their united thought was being communicated through Moses.
“This idea—sometimes called a ‘collective intelligence,’ ‘oversoul,’ or ‘energy essence personality’— suggests that what appears to be a single communicating personality may actually represent a coordinated consciousness composed of multiple discarnate minds, or even an aspect of a larger spiritual intelligence that transcends individuality,” AI says about the Group Soul, mentioning both Imperator and Seth as examples of it while agreeing with me that Patience Worth may very well have been such an energy essence personality.
Further supporting the Group Soul concept is the story of Silver Birch, the guide for British trance medium Maurice Barbanell during much of the 1900s. The communicating entity said that he was using Silver Birch’s astral body and stressed that his identity in the earth life made no difference as no one would be able to prove it one way or the other anyway. He asked to be judged solely on what he had to say. He added that his knowledge comes from the infinite source and streams through countless beings, “each charged with particular tasks to ensure that as much of its purity and pristine beauty should be preserved. There is a great host of beings, ranging from what you might call the masters. They are beyond such descriptions.”
In effect, Patience Worth may very well have been, like Silver Birch, an astral body with mediumistic powers being used by “countless beings” to provide wisdom. Of course, all that is far too much for mainstream science to consider or grasp and is just one of five theories, although it is the one that seemingly makes the most sense to the open-minded investigator.
Michael Tymn is the author of The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After We Die, Resurrecting Leonora Piper: How Science Discovered the Afterlife, Dead Men Talking: Afterlife Communication from World War I. and No One Really Dies: 25 Reasons to Believe in an Afterlife. His latest book Consciousness Beyond Death: New and Old Light on Near-Death Experiences is published by White Crow books.
Next blog post: November 17
I’m not so sure. She was so quick with her responses in real time showing intellect and passion. More like an individual personality. Let me know if that book gets published please.
Mike
It’s always nice to see more on Pearl Curran / Patience Worth
I seem to remember Amos (the Patience Worth expert) saying she never claimed to have come from Dorset and more likely came from Devon. If you search, you find the surname “Worth” was first recorded in Devon in the 13th century and later in Devon and Dorset.
Apparently, Stephen Braude decided although survival was an option it was “safer” to classify her as a secondary personality. In his book “Immortal Remains,” he reasoned that if she had really existed in England “it seems extremely unlikely that Patience would have exhibited those abilities without someone documenting them and without Patience leaving a legacy of compositions for posterity.”
Given that in the 17th century, according to “Encyclopaedia Britannica,” there were around 100 titles published in the UK annually, it seems highly unlikely that a young woman living in rural Devon would have had access to many books, let alone left a “legacy of compositions for posterity.”
Coincidently, Pearl went to school in Fort Worth, named after General William J. Worth, whose ancestors also came from England.
Jon, I don’t recall Pearl having gone to a school named after General William J. Worth. Interesting. I don’t know why Braude would have assumed she had to have all those abilities when she was supposedly alive in the 17th Century. Is that to suggest that she couldn’t have learned anything over the next 300 years? However, the Group Soul makes sense to me.
Mike,
She went to a school in Fort Worth. My understanding is Fort Worth is named after a general named Worth.
In “The Case of Patience Worth” Curran writes, “All I remember about history in school is that the teacher talked a little. Oh, in a school in Fort Worth, where I attended a short time, we had a little in a State history, about Alamo, etc. I don’t remember reading any book on history before Patience Worth; came….”
I’ve have no opinion about the group soul thing but I don’t see why, as you say, after 300 years, she couldn’t dictate historical literature.
I should have included that Cora Scott Richmond, who gave spontaneous lectures of an hour or more on numerous subjects given to her by various researchers is said to have been controlled by a council of 12 advanced spirits. There is a chapter about Cora in my book, “No One Really Dies.”
I did not know that, and I read the book! 🙂
Michael I agree. As above, so below. Our physical bodies are composed of coordinated individual cells, which coalesce into tissues, then organs, then a entire individual, then societies and so on. We know our brains are composed of coordinated networks of nuclei.
I see no reason to suppose that this is not reflected in the greater reality we assume to exist.
I suspect at we individuals are merely facets of a greater consciousness that we might term our true soul or oversoul and that this all stacks up in to higher order conscious entities.
So how does a higher order conscious entity talk to a lower order one? I guess it uses a simplified language the owner order entity can understand.
Analogous to how a biologist will use ion channel modifiers to communicate with cells in a Petri dish.
The famous publisher and author Henry Holt had this to say about Patience Worth:
“It has of course been suggested that [Pear Curran] plays the Patience Worth trick for the sake of notoriety, but how utterly unsupposable it is that a woman capable of composing work of which some specimens are declared by competent critics to be very close to masterpieces, should, loving notoriety, try to throw upon another intelligence the credit of her work, and smother it under a language which nobody uses, and that it requires some effort to understand.”
Good point.
Concerning Cora Scott, from “No One Really Dies”:
“From the very first, it was announced through Cora’s own lips (while in a trance state) that there was a band of spirit controls of those whose mutual attractions and sympathy had drawn them together in this work of controlling and guiding [Cora],” Barrett explained. “This band, acting together under her guides who had charge of her work, would carry forward the message of truth which the spirit world had for humanity, through her organism.” ……. there were 12 spirits, each with different gifts or areas of knowledge who would speak as required on scientific, philosophical historical, political, or other topics chosen by a committee or by members of the audience. At times, members of the band had to combine to address certain themes or to answer questions by the audience. (Barrett, 2010)
Whoever, or whatever, Patience was shows us how little we know about survival of consciousness but it is a fabulous case.
I understand the only book Patience Worth ever wrote in modern prose was Hope Trueblood. It is the only Worth book I have read since I don’t relish trying to digest the ‘Olde’ English which characterises nearly all her work. I noted Michael’s blog includes a New York Tribune reference to Hope Trueblood as “approximating absolute genius”. I’m afraid I couldn’t recognise this, found it tedious and was pleased to put the book down. Maybe I’m a peasant, but I have reservations about Cora’s public lectures too.
Keith,
I agree with you. I don’t have a copy of ‘Hope Trueblood,’ but I do have a copy of ‘The Sorry Tale.’ I’ve attempted to read it or parts of it a dozen times over the years, including yesterday, and I gave up after two or three pages. On the other hand, I don’t care for Shakespeare, Chaucer, or Spenser. I don’t understand the fascination Myers had for Crabbe, or that of Hodgson for Wordsworth. I can’t think of any author, past or present, whose works I have treasured. I fail to appreciate the music of today, especially what is called rap or hip-hop, whatever that noise is. I don’t get any of it, but I am content in being intellectually challenged in that regard.
Keith,
We’re all “peasants” in the sense that we each have limited bandwidth and ability to resonate with the “music of the spheres”. For some, the wisdom of Silver Birch is the bees knees, for others the elaborate metaphysical system of Seth is what really turns their crank. Some have a broad palette, and others a narrower sphere of interest.
While I do not share your “reservations about Cora’s public lectures”, I can fully understand why transcribed discourses given to long dead audiences might curb your enthusiasm. Cora’s guides spoke in many cities in Britain and America, dueling with skeptics and preaching to the Spiritualist choir, so she had her fair share of hits and misses. Despite this, stenographers dutifully recorded her discourses and they were widely distributed in various Spiritualist publications as well as a number of books.
Independent of our 21st century opinion and historical amnesia, it is clear that her contemporaries regarded her as one of the pillars of the Spiritualist movement. Feel free to share your specific reservations any time here or at my blog about Cora Richmond.
Hi – don’t forget about Betty White (Stewart Edward White’s wife) who was a medium for a spirit group called “the invisibles”.
Thanks for the reminder, Sheila. The Invisibles were one of the best. There was also Kardec’s “Spirit of Truth.”
Sheila,
A new book about the White’s is coming soon … https://whitecrowbooks.com/book/the-unobstructed-way-a-true-account-of-the-exploration-of-life-after-death/
As to the question “Was Patience Worth a group soul?” my answer is “aren’t we all facets of a group soul?” In particular, the mechanics of communicating across the gulf that demarcates the eternal infinite from the spacetime continuum where we currently reside, would seem to be a group effort, akin to making a movie or performing a symphonic concert. The persona of Patience Worth was the public face for a production that may have been intended specifically as a spectacle to demonstrate the likelihood that Patience Worth was an autonomous being separate from Pearl Curran.
The literary worth of Patience’s “four million words” is incidental to the fact that a being was communicating in an archaic dialect that her medium could not possibly have mastered. For our friend who went by the pen name Amos Oliver Doyle, Patience Worth was his white crow that served as a singular proof of survival.
Cora Richmond has been mentioned in a few of the comments, and there are parallels to Patience Worth in the ability of both to compose a poem on the spot from a topic suggested by the audience, or in the case of Cora also an entire lecture based on a prompt from the congregation. These feats of spontaneous verbal combustion are, admittedly, partially a gimmick to impress and baffle the skeptical mind, but they also serve to demonstrate that an uncommon order of thought is at play.
I’ve created a comparison of Longfellow’s masterful poem Footsteps of Angels to a take on the same theme by Cora Richmond’s poetic muse. Of course, if Longfellow isn’t to your liking, then you probably won’t think much of Cora’s effort either.
Thanks, David. I enjoyed the poems. As for the group souls, it seems that when wisdom is communicated, we usually have a group, but if it is simply a matter or relating personal communication, e.g., Raymond Lodge, it is more likely an individual.
I think of communications from a group soul as being somewhat akin to a research paper with multiple authors, each with a specialized understanding of the topic in question. Another metaphor is between choral music and solo vocal music and, of course, an oratorio will have a mix of soloists, choir, and instrumentalists.
Often (and perhaps always) there is an intermediary on both sides of the veil facilitating the conversation between the incarnate and discarnate parties. As I write to you now there is a host of “invisibles” behind the scenes facilitating this conversation; our local internet providers, the domain registrars, the hosting service for whitecrowbooks.com, etc. And, of course, the development of the physical network of the internet was the product of countless engineers, entrepreneurs, scientists, and so on. This network of connection via internet protocols is, I believe, analogous to the “spiritual fiber” which has been woven over time to facilitate the ongoing communion that we have today with the spiritual realm.
We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to a mighty host that over the ages have created material and spiritual technologies to make possible the transmission of thought from mind to mind.
Michael and Jon,
I miss the worthy contributions made by Amos but from my knowledge the back story for Patience was sketchy. The book Singer in the Shadows (Irving Livtag) was the main source (page 142) where Patience dictated her story (August 1916). Remember Morton Prince had tried to question Patience earlier (1915) on as to her background.
I suspect Amos is itching to get his voice heard again.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce, I’m no Patience expert but I think you mean Walter Franklin Prince who wrote “The Case Of Patience Worth”?
Michael and Jon,
Thanks and I also thought it was our old friend but no. Morton Prince was a Boston psychiatrist. The reference comes from page 21 from https://archive.org/details/patienceofpearls00shea/page/20/mode/2up
I didn’t know if someone had the book which was mentioned.
The origins of Patience are interesting as she was vague in answers. Reminds me of a few controls. The feeling was that there was a Quaker woman storyline of the person ending up on the wrong end of an Indian arrow which then became part of her story.
Where’s Amos when you need him? At least I didn’t mention The Artist formally known as Prince. I will leave that to another time.
Thanks
Bruce
The group soul idea is interesting. It might explain why Patience Worth’s communications used vocabulary from various parts of England and from various eras. It might also explain her reticence in providing background information on herself. Her personality was very consistent, perhaps reflecting a dominant personality in the group or an agreed-upon persona.
Dear all,
In the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research v. 10 1916 page 192 there is a discussion on the origin story for Patience.
“There is a book called “To have and to Hold” which has a single reference to a lady named Patience Worth as having come out from England. Mrs Curran had seen the book after messages had come through. This is confirmed by Mrs Hutchings.”
Thanks
Bruce
Michael,
In the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research v. 10 1916 page 192 there is a discussion on the origin story for Patience.
“There is a book called “To have and to Hold” which has a single reference to a lady named Patience Worth as having come out from England. Mrs Curran had seen the book after messages had come through. This is confirmed by Mrs Hutchings.”
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce, I’m not sure what is being implied — that Pearl Curran heard of Patience Worth before Patience identified herself? I vaguely recall reading that Mrs. Hutchings was somewhat upset that Pearl Curran was getting all the credit for Patience Worth and her part in it was being ignored. If what I am inferring from your comment is that Pearl read the name somewhere before Patience identified herself, one has to wonder if Hutchings made up that story. It still doesn’t explain Pearl’s mediumistic ability.
Michael,
I put in the view from the American Society. The origin story for Patience is a bit vague which may mean that the spirit has used a name residing in the memory of Pearl. Most spirits don’t like to identify who they were for many reasons. They regard the physical as being a poorer reflection of the greater self. As Silver Birch mentioned that it is all about the message.
I deal with spirits who sometimes identify themselves. when they do they address any negative press that was given. A long time ago I said that we should not judge a sentence by the nature of the full stop. I would express that we should not look about the circumstances of their death but more the circumstances of their life.
To sum up Pearl’s mediumistic ability is top shelf. No dispute.
I would use your “degrees of belief” measure with Patience. I like tidy origin stories.
Thanks
Bruce