Automatic writing became such a massive fad in the early twentieth century that a housewife named Pearl Curran famously wrote several critically acclaimed novels supposedly dictated by a ghost named Patience Worth.

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Automatic writing became such a massive fad in the early twentieth century that a housewife named Pearl Curran famously wrote several critically acclaimed novels supposedly dictated by a ghost named Patience Worth. Curran had no literary background, but claimed a seventeenth-century English spirit was using her Ouija board to compose beautiful poetry and complex historical fiction from beyond the grave. The ghost became a legitimate literary celebrity, receiving rave reviews from national newspapers and even winning a literary award, completely overshadowing actual living authors who were trying to get published. Skeptics pointed out that Patience Worth's historical details were completely inaccurate and her old English dialect sounded suspiciously like a modern American guessing what old English sounded like. Regardless of whether it was genuine spiritual channeling or just an elaborate subconscious coping mechanism, a fake ghost managed to have a much better writing career than most of us!