Patience Worth.

[Allen]

Patience Worth was an American poetess and and critically acclaimed author in the early twentieth century. The collaborations with her ghost writer, Pearl Curran, began sometime around July 1912. Over the next 25 years the two women composed several volumes of poetry, short stories, plays, and novels. Most of these works were hailed by critics all over the country as true literary works of art. The New York Times hailed her first novel as a “feat of literary composition." There was one glaring problem with Patience Worth and her literary contributions. She was dead. Her ghost writer, Pearl Curran, was truly writing for a ghost. Patience claimed to have been killed by Indians in Nantucket in the seventeenth century.


Patience Worth was a spirit contacted via the Ouija board by a housewife from St. Louis, Missouri named Pearl Curran in 1912. Patience claimed to have been originally born in England and to have emigrated to Nantucket Island in the late 1600's. It was there she was killed during an Indian raid. According to Pearl, the restless ghost of Patience had searched for three centuries to find a suitable earthbound companion to help her fulfill her literary ambitions. After the word of Patience and her true identity became known Pearl Curran became a celebrity almost overnight. People flocked to be present during Ouija board sessions to see first hand the communications between Patience and Pearl. The poet Edgar Lee Masters was among one of these eager guests. “There is no doubt...she is producing remarkable literature,” the author of Spoon River Anthology told a reporter, though “how she does it I cannot say." It was thought by some that the spirit of Patience Worth was nothing more than a hoax perpetrated by a bored house wife. But delving into the history of Pearl Curran satisfied many that she did not posses the educational back ground to have perpetrated such a hoax. How did an uneducated house wife channel such brilliant works of literature? Many of the novels and works of poetry are still available today, though Patience seems to have been long forgotten in today's day and age. But the questions still linger. Was it a hoax? Or something more?

The Weaver
There is a busy spider weaving webs,
Hanging my understanding with
Impenetrable mysteries—
Intricately woven.
Threatening all men, is
This busy weaver in its labor
Befogging man's reassuring.
There is a busy spider which threads the day,
Trailing its silver from wisdom to wisdom,
Enwrapping one with the other—
Until Wisdom is lost!
Oh, there is a busy spider—
Called Doubt!

---Patience Worth

[NancyDrew]

Thank you for posting this; I find it fascinating.

I have been interested in the occult all my life, even though I am a Christian. (NOT Catholic.) I read Tarot cards, study numerology, and enjoy trying to read people's palms. But I never, ever fool around with a Ouija boards.

I realize this may sound childish, but they truly frighten me. Amongst psychics, they are shunned by many. People who die suddenly, or violently, are said to sometimes be "earth-bound" spirits...their actions can be malevolent---they either do not know they are dead, or, for some reason, do not ascend spiritually. Murder victims are especially assigned to this class. For reasons I do not understand, Ouija boards are said to be a method of communication with earth bound spirits. When I was in high school, a friend of mine got together in with some other kids and they contacted someone who had died in the 1700's..they were able to gather an enormous amount of information from this spirit...which they took to a history teacher, who declared that the facts they discovered were true, and that they had no way of knowing them (this was before the internet, although I suppose it's possible someone was going to the library and looking all the stuff up...but I knew all the kids involved, and none of them were too bright.)

I haven't ever talked about my psychic interests on here because I keep it fairly private. But I believe that Patience Worth indeed might have been channeled through the Ouija board.

A book I highly recommend is "Many Lives, Many Masters" by Dr. Brian L. Weiss. He was a psychotherapist who hypnotized a certain patient of his and then recorded the sessions. They are remarkable to read.

In my house, we suspect a poltergeist. There have been many strange occurrences, starting in October 31, 2004, when I bought it (yup Halloween night!). It's an old house (built from 1927-29) and ALL knotty pine (even the very high ceilings are knotty pine, with open beams showing) and I know that wood creaks and groans, but we've had far more than that happen:

1. On December 24, 2004, I had my first experience...I was vacuuming in the living room and suddenly saw a full body apparition...it was a man, tall, thin, wearing a heavy dark wool uniform, with big copper buttons on it. He strode confidentially through my living room, right through a wall, and disappeared. I was totally freaked out, and actually thought I had hallucinated.

I found out a month later than my home was first built by one of the first state police officers to be killed on the job in my state.

2. The water turns on and off. This happens in the bathroom ALL the time. It could be pressure building up in the pipes, I guess...

3. Objects move around. I keep a mud room, off the kitchen, and there are a series of big thick nails pounded into the wall...from this I hang various things like the dog's leash, and a couple of years ago, a big bunch of eucalyptus, hung upside down. One day I found the eucalyptus sprigs scattered all over the floor of the LIVING ROOM. I was the only one home at the time.

4. One more story: the most recent one. I attended a health fair and they gave out, for free, glucose monitoring kits. Those little contraptions that you stick a strip in, after you've pricked your finger and squeezed blood on it. It was in a zippered case, and quite small. I kept it in a bathroom cabinet that my husband had built into our bathroom wall.

One day I couldn't find it. I searched the house, even took every single item out of the cabinet (its' really large and deep) and then put them back. My husband helped me...we were baffled.

The next day, I'm up getting getting coffee, and my husband came in the kitchen and say "Ha Ha, you got me!" I asked him what he was talking about. "The glucose kit...you got me." he replied. I told him I had no idea what he was talking about. He got a strange look on his face, and showed me the inside of the cabinet. There, where a day earlier I had neatly rearranged all the items, was the little zippered bag, splashed onto the middle of the all the extra bottles of shampoo, powders, lotions, etc. Everything was spilled onto its' side....as if the bag had just been dropped from mid-air.

The last time I visited the Borden house I felt very weird. When I was in the sitting room, where Andrew was killed, I saw strange shadows on the walls...but they looked like the figures of small children.

So, to circle back...I wonder how many folks have tried to contact either Andrew or Abby thru a Ouija board? It would be an interesting, but to me, scary, prospect. That person would have to have NO prior knowledge of the case (and how could we ensure that?) so that we could verify the information coming from the board was genuine, and not just that person's subtle manipulations.

[Allen]

Thank you for posting this; I find it fascinating.

I have been interested in the occult all my life, even though I am a Christian. (NOT Catholic.) I read Tarot cards, study numerology, and enjoy trying to read people's palms. But I never, ever fool around with a Ouija boards.

I realize this may sound childish, but they truly frighten me. Amongst psychics, they are shunned by many. People who die suddenly, or violently, are said to sometimes be "earth-bound" spirits...their actions can be malevolent---they either do not know they are dead, or, for some reason, do not ascend spiritually. Murder victims are especially assigned to this class. For reasons I do not understand, Ouija boards are said to be a method of communication with earth bound spirits. When I was in high school, a friend of mine got together in with some other kids and they contacted someone who had died in the 1700's..they were able to gather an enormous amount of information from this spirit...which they took to a history teacher, who declared that the facts they discovered were true, and that they had no way of knowing them (this was before the internet, although I suppose it's possible someone was going to the library and looking all the stuff up...but I knew all the kids involved, and none of them were too bright.)

I haven't ever talked about my psychic interests on here because I keep it fairly private. But I believe that Patience Worth indeed might have been channeled through the Ouija board.

A book I highly recommend is "Many Lives, Many Masters" by Dr. Brian L. Weiss. He was a psychotherapist who hypnotized a certain patient of his and then recorded the sessions. They are remarkable to read.

In my house, we suspect a poltergeist. There have been many strange occurrences, starting in October 31, 2004, when I bought it (yup Halloween night!). It's an old house (built from 1927-29) and ALL knotty pine (even the very high ceilings are knotty pine, with open beams showing) and I know that wood creaks and groans, but we've had far more than that happen:

1. On December 24, 2004, I had my first experience...I was vacuuming in the living room and suddenly saw a full body apparition...it was a man, tall, thin, wearing a heavy dark wool uniform, with big copper buttons on it. He strode confidentially through my living room, right through a wall, and disappeared. I was totally freaked out, and actually thought I had hallucinated.

I found out a month later than my home was first built by one of the first state police officers to be killed on the job in my state.

2. The water turns on and off. This happens in the bathroom ALL the time. It could be pressure building up in the pipes, I guess...

3. Objects move around. I keep a mud room, off the kitchen, and there are a series of big thick nails pounded into the wall...from this I hang various things like the dog's leash, and a couple of years ago, a big bunch of eucalyptus, hung upside down. One day I found the eucalyptus sprigs scattered all over the floor of the LIVING ROOM. I was the only one home at the time.

4. One more story: the most recent one. I attended a health fair and they gave out, for free, glucose monitoring kits. Those little contraptions that you stick a strip in, after you've pricked your finger and squeezed blood on it. It was in a zippered case, and quite small. I kept it in a bathroom cabinet that my husband had built into our bathroom wall.

One day I couldn't find it. I searched the house, even took every single item out of the cabinet (its' really large and deep) and then put them back. My husband helped me...we were baffled.

The next day, I'm up getting getting coffee, and my husband came in the kitchen and say "Ha Ha, you got me!" I asked him what he was talking about. "The glucose kit...you got me." he replied. I told him I had no idea what he was talking about. He got a strange look on his face, and showed me the inside of the cabinet. There, where a day earlier I had neatly rearranged all the items, was the little zippered bag, splashed onto the middle of the all the extra bottles of shampoo, powders, lotions, etc. Everything was spilled onto its' side....as if the bag had just been dropped from mid-air.

The last time I visited the Borden house I felt very weird. When I was in the sitting room, where Andrew was killed, I saw strange shadows on the walls...but they looked like the figures of small children.

So, to circle back...I wonder how many folks have tried to contact either Andrew or Abby thru a Ouija board? It would be an interesting, but to me, scary, prospect. That person would have to have NO prior knowledge of the case (and how could we ensure that?) so that we could verify the information coming from the board was genuine, and not just that person's subtle manipulations.

I don't think that sounds childish at all. I'm not very fond of them myself. We owned a Parker Brothers board for a very short period of time many years ago. I threw it out because I didn't want it in my house. I've also dabbled in reading Tarot cards. I've never tried the palm reading or numerology. But I found the Tarot cards fascinating. Astrology is something I had a passing interest in as well. I've also studied many of the religions. Because I don't believe doesn't mean I don't find it interesting. I've studied just about every religion. Even Wicca. And still believe in none.

I have admitted to being an atheist in that I don't believe in the traditional God. But I do, however, believe something could exist after death. I have to admit that I do believe we could be reincarnated. I'm on the fence about whether we are just put in the ground and that's it. I've also done some amateur ghost hunting over the years to see if I could satisfy myself on this matter. I have had some results in my search. Some results came while I was not searching for anything but a nice photograph. But the results could also be chalked up to some kind of coincidence so I can't say I've found anything conclusive. We've had things happen in different houses we've lived in over the years. One instance involves my very skeptical son who was at home by himself taking a bath one day while he still lived at home. He swears he heard someone walking up and down the steps to the second floor. Several times. I took a video camera to the Borden house on my first visit to take footage of the entire house. While in the basement I asked Mrs. Borden if she was there. I told her I felt very sorry for what had happened to her. I asked if she was there would she give me a sign. I did this while I was down there by myself because I was embarrassed for anyone to hear me talking to a ghost. When I viewed the tape all of my footage of the basement was missing. All I had was me going down the stairs and me coming back up the stairs. Nothing in between. When I was about 19 I took a photograph of the snow from my grandmother's back porch. It was the first snow we had gotten and I wanted to capture it. It was the middle of the day I'd say about 2 o'clock. When I got the photo's back there was a mist in the middle of one of my photographs and it appeared very dark. Like I'd taken it in the evening. The rest of the images were fine. The image is on the negative so it's not photo shopped. Which many people do try to say.

The poltergeist activity in your house is fascinating. I think I might be afraid to be alone in your house. Although the activity you describe sounds harmless. It almost sounds like it's just trying to get your attention. Did you renovate the house? They say that making renovations to a property could stir things up. Many say whatever is there doesn't like you doing things to what it still considers it's property. The story about your friends in High School is absolutely fascinating as well. I'd love to know what some of the information was that they received. Thank you for posting that as well I enjoyed it very much. I would be interested to hear if there have been any more happenings in your home. I can share my photograph that I mentioned before. It was taken with a 35 mm camera.

[Allen]

I hope if anyone else has similar stories you might share them. I'd be very interested to hear them. I am also glad you enjoyed my little presentation on Patience. I hope it gets everyone's curiosity peaked to learn a little more.

[NancyDrew]

Hi Allen:

I love that photograph! I don't understand photography at all, so I don't know what that could be in the picture...if it is some sort of artifact or not.

I absolutely believe in life after death. If you're interested in reincarnation, you must read the book I mentioned (Many Lives, Many Masters)....it is all about the subject.

I talked on your thread "Why Did Emma Leave" about the death of my cousin on September 21 of this year. She was my closest friend in the whole world, soul mates, until 4 years ago, when her drinking took over her life completely and she retreated away from everyone. Well, let me tell you what happened right after she died.

We had a "pact"...we had discussed it before..that if one of us died young, we would try and contact the other one (I have made similar pacts with my husband and daughter..yeah, I know, I'm a bit weird.). On the day of her death, I was talking out loud to her, basically shaking my fist at the sky and saying "Bonnie, are you out there???" Instantly, the lights in my dining room went out. I mean BURNED OUT. My husband saw it, and I asked him if he thought it meant something . He said maybe not..the bulbs were old, etc.

Okay, onto incident #2 (there are 3 total; the last one is the most convincing...it gives me goosebumps). The next night, I'm laying in bed, flipping through the tv channels, and again, talking to my dead friend. "I want another sign...c'mon, just like you promised to me. Do something so that I will know you still exist in some form." Just then I happened to land on AMC which was airing "Pulp Fiction' the movie. I have never cared for this flick, but it was one of my cousin's favorites, so I decided to watch it for a bit. The scene was one in which Harvey Keitel is sitting on a bed and geting a phone message. The camera pans away from his back and zooms onto a notepad, on which it shows him writing, very slowly "BONNIE."

I sat straight up in bed and stared. Couldn't believe it. But again, my husband (and this time, my daughter) were dubious. Her name was ALWAYS a part of the movie...maybe that is one of the reasons she liked it, it was a coincidence, etc.

Okay...last one. I went into a prayer, thanked her for the 2 signs, but told her I had to have something more solid, more definite. I could sense that i was pushing the envelope, but at this point, she had only been dead 3 days, and I still couldn't make it through the day without crying.

I had just gotten a new puppy, "Stella" (yup, after "Streetcare Named Desire"..I'm a huge Tennessee Williams fan) I was sitting on our porch with my daughter, and Stella was on her brand new run, playing in the front yard. Now let me describe the street I live on...even though I'm in a rural area, for some reason, cars speed down my road (maybe its because there are NEVER any police around here.) And there are no sidewalks...it's a country road lined with woods and the occasional house. I almost never see people walking down the street.

Except on this day.

Two young boys, one very short and one very tall, were walking down the road. They spotted Stella (who weighed only 3 lbs, jet black, and so cute it is almost criminal) romping in the yard and called out to me "Can we come pet the puppy?" I said "Yes, of course, come on over."

They were adorable boys...I asked their names. The short one said his name was Jacob, and the tall one said his name was Terrence. For some reason, my attention was drawn to the latter one. "Hmmm...Terrence is a very cool name. Is your nickname Terry?" I asked him. "No." he replied. Then he volunteered "My middle name is Lee." I sat there dumbfounded. "So your nickname is Lee?" I asked him. "No, it isn't." he replied, very, very calmly. I could feel my daughter staring at him. "Why did you just tell me your middle name was Lee?" I countered.

He stared at me for what seemed like too long. "I don't know, Ma'am." he replied. Then he said to his buddy "We have go now." And then left.

Bonnie's middle name was Lee.

Thoughts?

[Allen]

Those are definitely interesting. The last one is definitely curious. I'm not quick to dismiss people contacting us even if it's through a series of what seem like coincidental happenings. Again thank you for sharing that story Nancydrew. I will check into getting a copy of that book you recommended. I did read the book about the little boy who they claim was reincarnated from the WWII fighter pilot who was shot down. There was another little boy who remembered being an actor in Hollywood. I'm always skeptical of stories such as this but I never put them out of the realm of possibility. The little boy claimed to be an actor from the 1930's and described the movies he was in and the people he knew. While looking through a book of old movie stills he pointed out a man he identified as himself. But what makes the story interesting is he didn't claim to be anyone really famous. It took a good deal of searching for his parents to discover the identity of a bit part player who was barely known. The little boy actually met this mans aged daughter. Another story I read was an underground room that had been used during the time of the underground railroad that nobody even knew existed being discovered because a woman remembered from a past life where it was located. These stories fascinate me. Actually any type of mystery totally fascinates me. Disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle, such as that of flight 19. Amelia Earhart. The Lindbergh case. I devour books on subjects like the sunken WWII German U-boat that was found off the coast of New Jersey. It was ultimately identified but that never lessened my interest. I'm a sucker for unexplained mysteries of nature. Unsolved murder cases such as the Cleveland Torso Murders or the ax murders in Villisca. I guess that's why I'm here. I like things that keep you thinking.