Scott Dunn's essay "Automaticity and the Book of Mormon.

" There are numerous examples of people with this same

gift as Joseph had. Probably the example most comparable is that of Patience Worth, aka Pearl Curran.
Here is a snippet from Dunn's essay:
"Perhaps the most compelling evidence in favor of Currans sincerity is the fact that much of her writing was
produced in settings that seem to exclude the possibility of deliberate deception. For example, Walter Franklin Prince,
a professional researcher of psychic phenomena who carefully and skeptically analyzed the case, reported the
following. A poem of 25 lines was demanded, the lines beginning with the letters of the alphabet, except X, in due
order. It was instantly dictated. I asked for a conversation between a lout and a maid at a country fair to be couched in
archaic prose and a poem in modern English on The folly of Atheism first a passage of one and then a passage of
the other, thus alternating to the end. This seemed to me an impossible mental feat. But it was done so rapidly as to
tax the recorder four passages of humorous prose abounding in archaic locutions, alternating with four parts of a
poem in modern English of lofty and spiritual tenor; and when assembled each factor made a perfectly articulated
little piece of literature. In such situations, there was clearly no opportunity for Curran to work out the poetry and
memorize in advance.
Prince compared Patience Worths writings with known works of literature but discovered no indication of plagiarism.
He did, however, find some similarities with poetry from Dorset, a community in the part of England said to be the
home of Patience Worth.
Here are some snippets from a Smithsonian article:
"Speaking through a Ouija board operated by Pearl Lenore Curran, a St. Louis housewife of limited education,
Patience Worth was nothing short of a national phenomenon in the early years of the 20th century. Though her works
are virtually forgotten today, the prestigious Braithwaite anthology listed five of her poems among the nations best
published in 1917, and the New York Times hailed her first novel as a feat of literary composition. Her output was
stunning. In addition to seven books, she produced voluminous poetry, short stories, plays and reams of sparkling
conversationnearly four million words between 1913 and 1937. Some evenings she worked on a novel, a poem and
a play simultaneously, alternating her dictation from one to another without missing a beat. What is extraordinary
about this case is the fluidity, versatility, virtuosity and literary quality of Patiences writings, which are unprecedented
in the history of automatic writing by mediums, says Stephen Braude, a professor of philosophy at the University of
Maryland Baltimore County and a past president of the American Parapsychological Association, who has written
widely on paranormal phenomena.
Those who witnessed the performances, some of them leading scholars, feminists, politicians and writers, believed
theyd seen a miracle. I still confess myself completely baffled by the experience, Otto Heller, dean of the Graduate
School at Washington University in St. Louis, recalled years later.
A long list of psychical sleuths, psychologists and other skeptics tried to debunk Patience and prove that Pearl was a
fraud. No one succeeded. Scholars who examined Patiences work marveled at her deep knowledge of the plants,
customs, clothing and cuisine of several historical epochs, stretching back to the ancients, and at her ability to draw
on this vast knowledge without hesitation. Maybe there was some preparation going on during the day, yet that alone
cannot account for the material Pearl was producing, says Daniel Shea, professor emeritus of English at Washington

University, who has studied the case and believes it can be explained without citing supernatural forces.
The Patience Worth case remains one of the most tantalizing literary mysteries of the last century, a window onto a
vanished era when magic seemed to exist because so many people believed in it. In the decades since Pearl
Currans death, in 1937, no one has explained how she produced Patiences writing. Combing through the voluminous
archives, however, a modern sensibility starts to see clues and patterns that may not have been apparent at a time
when science was just starting to explore the far reaches of the human mind.
One by one, visitors would be called to sit with Pearl, who would let them question Patience or request a poem on a
specific topic. Sometimes, when Patience used a particularly odd word, John Curran would interrupt his note-taking to
look it up in an encyclopedia. Invariably an impulse to write would seize Patience, and she would announce that it was
time to work on one of her novels or plays. Then the pointer would fly around the board and Pearl would call out
words at the rate of 1,500 or so an hour, with never a seconds hesitation [and] never an alteration, noted a social
worker who attended a Patience Worth evening in 1918.
At first Pearl spelled out every letter with the Ouija board, but as time passed, the mere touch of her hand on the
pointer loosed a flood of spoken words. Eventually, she abandoned the board entirely; a feeling of slight pressure in
her head would announce Patiences arrival, and Pearl would begin reciting.
While Pearl recited, she behaved normally, with her eyes open and her senses alert to the faces and noises around
her. Sometimes, she looks over to a guest while writing and asks some question entirely foreign to what she is
spelling out; again answers the telephone or inquires what the message was; exchanges a few words of greeting to
late visitors as they enter and goes on with the work without a moments hesitation, recalled a visitor. Occasionally,
shed even smoke a cigarette.
Pearls archaic language and knowledge of history might have been partly the result of extraordinary memorythat
is, a replaying in her mind of information imprinted there by books she had read or listened to as a girl. It seems
similar to photographic memory surrounded by a context of spiritualism, says Howard Eichenbaum, director of the
Center for Memory and Brain at Boston University. But such a medical abnormality would not explain her stunning
narrative skills or the moments of true art in her writing.
We dont really have an explanation for cases like Pearl Currans, says McGaugh. Its a frontier of neuroscience
thats never really been explored. We just havent had the conceptual tools to think about it.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/patience-worth-author-from-the-greatbeyond-54333749/?page=1
From Public Domain Review:
"The critics who extolled the quality of Worth/Curran had their reasons for doing so, some of which still hold up. It
should be emphasized again, that these are not just short lyric poems that one could see a Ouija-using author writing
in a few minutes. The sheer length of some of her books is astounding in itself, to say nothing of their literary quality.
One need only flip through The Pot upon the Wheel, a verse play whose dialogue sometimes reminds one of the
spiritual urgency of a classical religious text like the Bhagavad-Gita. Or take A Sorry Tale, a more than six hundred

page esoteric account of the life of Christ that at points reaches a prophetic pitch calling to mind the theology of
William Blake."
http://publicdomainreview.org/.../ghostwriter-and-ghost.../

"The writing of 'The Sorry Tale' was to continue for twenty months. Parts of it were dictated almost every session with
the ouija board during that period. At first the segments mostly were brief, perhaps 500 words, sometimes less. Later,
they lengthened to 2,000 and 3,000 words, and eventually a segment of 5,000 words was dictated in one evening,
with the ouija board churning out letters as fast as they could be noted down.

Mrs. Curran was to have many partners in the project. "As in all her work," Yost pointed out, "it mattered not who was
present or who sat at the board with Mrs. Curran. Whether the vis-a-vis was man or woman, old or young, learned or
unlettered, the speed and quality of the production were the same. From start to finish, some 260 persons contributed
in this way to the composition...Each time the story was picked up at the point where the work was stopped at the
previous sitting, without a break in the continuity of the narrative, without the slightest hesitation, and without the
necessity of a reference to the closing words of the last preceding installment. These words were often read for the
benefit of those present, but Patience repeatedly proved that it was not required by her."- "Singer in the Shadows: The
Strange Story of Patience Worth," Irving Litvag, pp 74-75