Browse Items (21 total)

James Merrill and David Jackson at Ouija board in Stonington. The photo was taken by Harry Pemberton, who took a roll of the mediums in action.

James Merrill and David Jackson's second séance (and the first that Merrill transcribed and preserved), in which they reached the spirit of "Kabel Barnes," a colonial farmer.

James Merrill letter to Tony Parigory discussing typing the Ouija transcripts to make a prose memoir. Merrill also mentions his problem of losing the novel manuscripts.

James Merrill reads from his piece "The Changing Light at Sandover," a poem based on his and David Jackson's experiences with their Ouija board seances, at the first James Merrill Symposium. He is accompanied here by Peter Hooten voicing the…

James Merrill's notes on a possible title for the Ouija trilogy, eventually titled "The Changing Light at Sandover."

A Ouija séance transcript regarding Wallace Stevens in the afterlife. This serves as one example of Merrill and Jackson frequently communicating with recently-deceased writers and friends, and also of the topics of literary vocation and sexual…

A Ouija séance transcript of the recently-deceased Tony Harwood describing the experience of his death.

During the March 29 and April 26, 1976 séances, higher powers (over Ephraim) began revealing the cosmology that Merrill would document in Mirabell: Books of Number and Scripts for the Pageant. It was during this time period, after finishing…

During the March 8, 1986 séance James Merrill gets relationship advice from Ephraim concerning Peter Hooten, with mention of the fight that led to Merrill pushing Hooten into the pool.

During the October 8 and 10, 1979 séances, Merrill finds out about and communicates with the recently deceased Elizabeth Bishop, an esteemed poet who influenced his own work and a close friend.