The Ogden Standard from Ogden, Utah • Page 17

II Iff I i magazine section i THE OGDEM STANDARD 1 I 1 I OGDEN, UTAH, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1915. HH A I 1 1 1 1 I 111 lr Tho oulja board Is coming back tnto favor and has been taken up I quit extensively by society women In New York, Boston, Chicago, St. Louis and various parts of the country. Perhaps tho most remarkable le- Iccnt experiences with it arc those of Mrs, John Curran of St, Louis. Sho has been in communication, she says, with the spirit of Patience Worth, a woman beliovcd to have existed in lhe Colonial days and who not only has sent philosophical axioms that are characteristic of tho Puritans but even has gone to tho extent of sending outlines of plays and essays and has gone extensively Into the dictation of poetry.

More than 300,000 words havo been received from this supposed spirit in ihieo years. Patience Worth talks In a strange English that is archaic and not 1 found in the best authors and yet may have at one time been the tongue of Inhabitants of this country. Long condemned by religious as the direct agency of satan and by i skeptics as the toy of the supcrsti- tlous, the ouija board is being ro-f stored to its own former popularity I through the curiosity of society women. In many parts of the country oo-clety women are devoting their timo to "communicating" with spirits in tho other world. Many sti'ango results of such communications are reported and a ao-t clety woman is unhappy indeed if she hasn't at least one good spirit i in tho world of mystery who is al-B) ways ready to send a message at her control's pleasure.

Ill Even in staid St. Louis where so- lit! cIety women arc supposed to bo very conservative, tho ouija board il has been, restored to favor whilo HA in New York and In various cities of the east it is quite the "rage." In St Louis Mrs. John H. Curran has gotten into touch with one Patience Worth of Spiritland and has transcribed more than 300,000 words thiough the ouija board, all of which will be published at some future date. Patience Worth is believed from her peculiar choice of words and phraseology to be a Colonial dame, who has been wandering about In space for a long time, burning to send her messages back to the mundane sphere yet finding no source of communication until Mrs.

Curran bought a ouija board and commenced taking messages. THROUGH CURIOSITY. The board Avas purchased through curiosity. There is something fascinating about the tales told of tho little board, whether they be- true or false. It is known that a number of people have asked the board to tell them in what land their dead iclativcs liugercd and were shocked considerable- when the naughty Utile hoard spelled out a word starling A ith an and ending with an L.

Many have thought that the words written bv the board were the result of the mental influences oC the person opeiating it. while others have credited it with supernatural powers. In tho use of tho board at the Curran home, Mrs. Curran always is one of two whose "hands are on the board. The latter is arranged on two wheels and has a pencil at the end.

As the vibration of the fingers of tho holders develops the pencil moves over a sheet of paper and prints numerals o'r letters of the alphabet, While Mrs. Curran operates tho board her husband transcribes tho message as sho reads it to him. The "Patience Worth" matter began to be transcribed in June, 1913. Since that time Mrs. Curran has made public as the products of Patience Worth a six-act play entitled "Red Wing." a novel called "Tclka" and numerous verses, essays and bits of philosiphy.

The quaint language of these writings has probably attracted more attention than their literary merit, tho latter being a matter of some discussion. They are in an antique language, not the English of Chaucer, Spenser or any other well- known classic English writer, but possibly more like the common speech of the English people of an early day. It is known to travelers that an antique, almost archaic, form of English still Is spoken in remote communities of England. Theie are districts of England whose inhabitants have great difficulty in understanding or in making themselves understood by the coster-cockney class. Mrs.

Curran, however, says sho has no personal acquaintance with such speech and that she has not gone farther in her study of classic English than other well read persons. The language used' by Patience Worth, she explains, is as strange to her as It is to others. Mrs. Curran recently gave to the Fapyrus Club of St. Louis some of her messages from Patience Worth, one of them being a special messago that Patience had sent the club.

It read: PATIENCE WORTH'S MESSAGE. Good Dames and SIrrahs At the board thou hast sat and cat of earth's grow. Aye, and now do ye cat o' the grow thou knowest not the looting place of. Yea, thou shalt hark unto the woid o' MEN, and jet they do to prate o' DAME. Ayca, and methlnks 'tis a word aspoke' amany, that be not the word that hid 'pon the lung, lest the Dame be offended I Aye, then come thou and ait 'bout the board, and thine cars shall hark tmto the words o' me, and thou shalt sec the cloth o' me the hands o' the loves o' mc did to fashion out for me.

Ayea, I then shall sit me meek, and thread mc up a bobbins full for the next o' put. Ayca, and 'tis frocked that I shall to be, and nay dame shall see! Awoe! Nay, this be a piddlc-put-tlng, good folk! Athin (within) thy heart shall set the me o' me at thy go ahence. And 'tis nhope I be 'tis a loving wampth 'twill find. And so dost thou to smile, 'tis Bweets and love 1 cast thee. And doth thy heart to shut it up, lo, then shall I to knock till thou dost leave me in.

A night o' cheer. A heart o' love! A God's wish o' loving 'pon thy day. Anight! Anight! HOW IT BEGAN. Mrs. Curran told her audience of her first experiences with tho ouija WW board and of the puzzling messages received.

Later sho used the'board together with Mrs Emily Grant Hutchings and began to receive sentences which foimcd maxims and philosophical paragrapbs. Then came the announcement: "Many moons ago I lived. Patience Worth, my namo. If thou shalt live then so shall I. I make my bread by thy hearth" The word "bread." Mrs.

Currau later learned, lefeired to the literary products embodied in the messages. Mrs. Curran said she would not attempt to say whelhcr Patience Worth was a spirit, but spoko of as a beautiful personality, which had come to seem not a mystery but a fellowship. She said the messages came to her in daylight as well as at night and that there is no trance connected with them. "The words come in sort a rhythm," Mrs.

Curran explained, "and I record just what comes whether I understand it or not." Pnticuce has been tested by rnoro than 200 persons and her messages have never varied. A professor from the University of Indiana visltod Mrs. Cunan to investigate her communication with Patience Worth. William Marion' Reedy, editor of the Mirror, and Caspar Yost, editor of a SL Louis newspaper, became acquainted with Patience Worth and both declaic her genuine. Yost has described her as a "spinster of uncertain age; a writer, but a poet by preference.

White the average spirit stalks dismal and wailing lugubriously through the flnito world, Patience comes with a laugh, Yost said. She remarks. ''I be no sorrj' singer," and proves it by many witticisms. EDITOR DESCRIBES HER. Reedy calls Patience's doctrines Pantelstic.

He describes her as follows: "She fs a little woman, dressed In gtaj; with a little bonnet, ribbons coming down and tied under her chin. There are lines in her face, not the rewritten wrinkles of the smiles or her youth, but the results of experience Her eyes are biown liico autumn leaves after a rain. She Is -between 45 and 50 years old, sprightly, dainty, delicate. "Sho has stood beside the stockade helping a good man load a gun, while he defends the settlement against the savage horde of Indians." Reedy said the theory was advanced that she was filled in an Indian massacre and this question was askcu of her. Sho intimated that something of this sort had happened to her and she was asked if she had not been taken captive oy the Indians.

"Nay, something worse," was her reply. speaks an English almost pure and undefiled," Reedy said of her "There is an absence from it of all the derivatives of France and Rome, and sho rarely uses a word of more than two syllables. Her answers are- diredt and almost invariably in parables. She has respect for her interlocutor's intelligence." Reedy said sho is not another Sappho, or George Elliott, or Mrs. Humphrey ward nor a Sara but rather echoes of all of thct poets.

He said theie runs a consistent character through her works and in two years she has not gotten "out of chaiactcr." Sho never has used a modern word or expression and he illustrated the seeming significance of this by pointing out how difficult it would be for a man trained In Irish or negro dialect to make a 30-minute talk without breaking out of the character. "She has nothing lo tell, in my opinion, "Reedy said, "but she commands my admiration and reverence. She tells nothing- that we have not heard from tho old masters and bards." "What of the divinity of Christ?" Kcody at one time asked her through the ouijd board. She answered, "He bought thee of his loving." "What of love?" he asked. "Tho love there is but tho o'er drip of lovo here" came the of tho board.

"Describe tho place where you are?" sho was asked. "Think you "Patience Worth," Mythical Character, Startles Literary World With Her Quaint I English In Essays, Plays and Novels Noted Writers Are Puzzled Over the Output of This Woman Supposed to Have i Lived 300 Years Ago there Is bottom or top; this is a walless country." "Can you do anything you want over there 7" The answer was: "When you put the will you put the limit." "Put" in Patience's vocabulary responds to the modern verb "to do." "Patience may be a second personality of Mrs. Curran," -Reedy sato. "but she teaches a lovo that is greater than we can conceive and that death is the keeper of unknown redemption." LITTLE COLONIAL DAME. Mrs.

Emily Hutchings, who -was one of the first to receive 'with Mrs. Curran the messages from Patlenco Worth, said the first glimmering or the quaint personality of the little Colonial dame came in the maxim: "A busy saw gathereth no rust." One of the sentiments expressed by Patience Worth is: "A blighted bud may hold a sweeter message than the lovllest flower; for God hath kissed her wounded heart and left a promise there." Of the seances, Mrs. Curran says: "I sit with a friend, our hands upon the board, which I havo come to believe is nothing more than a concentrator. There is no trance. Everything is quiet with the exception of Patience Worth.

The only definite part is that while I put my thoughts awhither, as Patience would Bay, and immediately the stories, poems, parables, or whatever her work for the sitting IH may be, is shown to mo in tiny pic- JH lures, beautiful and distinct a3 IH though my eyes saw them. "The characters move and speak and my hands fly over the letters jH much too fast for me to anticipate- even one word. "I cannot account for the langu- jH age. The words seem to be spoken ilH to me. though I cannot 'say 1 hear llH them In the sense that we hear tho iH voice that speaks aloud to us.

The words come sort of a rhythm. I lH am not familiar with old Euglish jH and yet even the conversations -are in this archaic tongue." jH Psychologists recently havetakcn up study of Mrs. Curran and tho Mvstcrlous Patience Worth. Some jM believe that Paticnco Worth is Mrs. jH Curran's sub-conscious self.

Others jH have departed in doubt and without jH expressing an opinion. iH The ouija board has been con- JH demned by various religious bodies, iH but society is taking it up beside il these prohibitions. The Catholic tl church has condemned it as a super- stitlous practice. Other religious bodies havo u- clarcd that the devil is in hc boaid and employs it to send his messages. Whatever the truth may be, so- ciety has gone into the mystery of lH tho board, not so much with the ob- iH jeet of definitely deciding if it really jH is the medium of communication with the other world but society's chief attribute Curiosity..