Patience Worth

[Emower]

Has anyone read about Patience Worth? I am a little ways into American Apocrypha and I am in the chapter about automatic writing. Here is a link to a sunstone article about it from the same author:
https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/pdf/050-16-26.pdf

Basically Patience Worth was a person(?) who dictated material through a (real) woman named Pearl Curran. The description of things that have been dictated, written, and said are extraordinary! Her poems won awards, she dictated some novels, plays, including the Sorry Tale, a novel that was about Christ and won Patience an outstanding author award in 1918 which was judged by the literary arts of New York. It got a great review from the New York Times. There was a great deal of effort put into determining if Pearl had the ability to produce these works and it turned out that there was a lot of anglo-saxon wording used, and so many period specific and factual details that Pearl had no knowledge of that people took her kind of serious.

For a while Pearl was using a Ouija board, but after a while she gained enough experience that she just began to dictate without any tools. She was never in a trance while she did this, and she was able to dictate up to 6000 words in a sitting at close to 110 words per minute. People said that she had a hard time just writing a letter for herself on her own. Some journalist recorded that he was impressed that she was able to leave a dictation, and come back to picking up where she left off without hesitation and without a need to refer to the previous material. There was also no motive for fraud, in fact in cost Pearl and her family money in terms of publications, and social capital in the fact that people thought she was involved in occult dealings. She could have just put her name to the works if she wanted money. Then there was Professor Walter Prince who gave Pearl a series of tests. These tests involved asking her to dictate and write things immediately and under pressure. The material requested was apparently beyond Pearls normal capabilities, both educationally, life experience wise, and technically. Prince was impressed. He was apprently far more impressed with Patience Worth's materials then he was the Book of Mormon. He analysed both.

Fascinating stuff.

[deacon blues]

Yeah. Her story has given me some perspective on Joseph Smith translating the BOM. Your OP is fascinating.

[Hagoth]

I'm surprised that Pearl Curran's name doesn't come up more often because she is such a great analog to Joseph Smith, even in her method. She started with a Ouija board but later abandoned it as unnecessary, just as Joseph did with his seer stones. Personally, I think Joseph might have believed at least part of his story. I think he produced some of his material through a subconscious magic writing technique, which he honed through years of scrying and treasure hunting. He knew he didn't actually have gold plates, but maybe he believed that they existed and that he could tap into them, and he may have been surprised and impressed at the stuff that came out of his own mouth with little effort. Later he stopped revealing ancient scripture but found his method convenient for delivering the words of God that generally worked in Joseph's favor. That is probably when many people started thinking of him as a fallen prophet (although the bank scandal and land grabs didn't help).

Another interesting person is Helena Blavatsky, who produced a number of scripture-like books in the late 19th century that she claimed were dictated to her by supernatural beings.

[Mad Jax]

I think of all American new age mystics this one was the one who convinced the most people:

https://www.edgarcayce.org/edgar-cayce/his-life/

I'd like to see James Randi have a turn with a lot of these claims and see what he says. For all of them I mean, not just Cayce.

[Emower]

I'm surprised that Pearl Curran's name doesn't come up more often because she is such a great analog to Joseph Smith, even in her method. She started with a Ouija board but later abandoned it as unnecessary, just as Joseph did with his seer stones. Personally, I think Joseph might have believed at least part of his story. I think he produced some of his material through a subconscious magic writing technique, which he honed through years of scrying and treasure hunting. He knew he didn't actually have gold plates, but maybe he believed that they existed and that he could tap into them, and he may have been surprised and impressed at the stuff that came out of his own mouth with little effort. Later he stopped revealing ancient scripture but found his method convenient for delivering the words of God that generally worked in Joseph's favor. That is probably when many people started thinking of him as a fallen prophet (although the bank scandal and land grabs didn't help).

Another interesting person is Helena Blavatsky, who produced a number of scripture-like books in the late 19th century that she claimed were dictated to her by supernatural beings.

After reading a little more about automatic writing I am a little more convinced that Joseph believed he was receiving knowledge from God. It doesn't all fit neatly into the automatic writing box, but there are a lot of parallels. I too am surprised that I had never heard about Pearl Curran. I have been skulking around anti Mormon material for a while now and her story is hard to square with traditional views of Joseph smith and the translation.

I think of all American new age mystics this one was the one who convinced the most people:

https://www.edgarcayce.org/edgar-cayce/his-life/

I'd like to see James Randi have a turn with a lot of these claims and see what he says. For all of them I mean, not just Cayce.

This guy sounds super interesting. Who is James Randi?

[Mad Jax]

Randi is a skilled stage magician who turned his talents to discrediting claims of psychic and supernatural power. I think the most famous charlatan he busted was Peter Popoff and his BS faith healing claims, but he is also pretty well known for exposing Uri Geller on live TV (Tonight Show back in Carson's days).

There's no way he can "set up" some of these characters but I'd like to hear some of what he has to say about them and how they may have operated.

[Hagoth]

Back in the '80s a TBM friend of mine was a huge fan of James Randi. He was reading one of Randi's books (I believe it was called Flim Flam) about debunking phony psychics and insisted that I read it too, so I picked up a copy. I came to a part where Randi mentioned the Book of Abraham and pointed out the obvious problems. I called my friend, who by now had read that part too. He had completely changed his mind about Randi and was no longer interested in following his career. I think our paths began to diverged at that point. Today he is an institute teacher and I am a nonbeliever. Thank you Mr. Randi.

[didyoumythme]

Wow I need to spend some time learning about these people! I have never heard of them. Also, I recommend searching YouTube for Derren Brown. He is an illusionist that has done a lot of work exposing the tricks of faith healers, physics, cold reading, etc. He has some really fascinating stuff.