Buzz
A truly captivating aspect of the creative process is the mysterious source of inspiration. While many artists attribute their works to an elusive muse or the subconscious mind, some go further, claiming their ideas come from beyond the realm of the living. These supernatural influences, rather than conventional explanations, have sparked incredible artistic achievements.
This compilation explores the eerie and transcendent forces that inspired ten extraordinary pieces of art, ranging from avant-garde rock music to groundbreaking poetry of the 20th century. The common thread among these works is the artists' belief that spirits from the afterlife played a role in shaping their creations.
10. The Bedlam in Goliath (The Mars Volta)
The Mars Volta crafted a tale surrounding their fourth album, The Bedlam in Goliath, which may be rooted in truth or purely fictional. Reportedly, during a trip, band member Omar Rodriguez-Lopez came across a Ouija board he named the “Soothsayer” in a Jerusalem curiosity shop. The band began incorporating the board into their post-performance rituals, and soon, they were haunted by a spirit named Goliath. The resulting album, The Bedlam in Goliath, is a reflection of the band's unsettling encounters with this spirit.
While recording the album, the messages from the Ouija board began to take a sinister turn. Not only did the studio experience a flood, but various pieces of equipment also began to malfunction. These ominous occurrences cast a dark shadow over the album’s production. An engineer involved with the project later voiced concerns, fearing the band was attempting to channel something malevolent.
To rid themselves of the negative effects of the Ouija board and the curse it carried, guitarist and songwriter Rodriguez-Lopez shattered the board and buried it in a secluded spot. Additionally, the band embedded 'traps' within the album’s tracks in an attempt to reverse the bad luck they believed the cursed board had brought upon them.
9. The Changing Light at Sandover (James Merrill)
James Merrill crafted one of the most ambitious modern poems, “The Changing Light at Sandover,” which spans an impressive seventeen thousand lines and was co-created with the assistance of a Ouija board. The spirits he communicated with were noted for their witty and aesthetic qualities, often indulging in playful and speculative conversations.
The poem emerged with Merrill acting as the “scribe” while his partner, David Jackson, became the “hand.” The first book of the poem, “The Book of Ephraim,” follows an alphabetical order, while the second volume, “Mirabell: Book of Numbers,” is structured numerically. The third part, “Scripts for the Pageant,” is split into three sections: “Yes,” “&,” and “No.” Merrill’s incorporation of spirit fragments into his poetry blurred the boundary between the real and the imagined.
8. Assorted Poems (Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes)
Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, two acclaimed poets and novelists, were not only celebrated for their literary works but also known for their interest in the paranormal. Using an overturned brandy glass as a planchette and a circle of letters on a table, the couple employed a homemade Ouija board to channel inspiration. Their frequent spirit guide, Pan, spoke on various subjects, such as the poets’ favorite works, potential names for their children, and even which publisher would release Plath’s next book.
While some critics suggest Hughes might have been the one to propose using the Ouija board, both he and Plath actively participated in these sessions with the supposed spirit. In a 1958 journal entry, Plath even described the Ouija experience as more thrilling than watching a film.
These interactions with the presumed spirit sparked numerous poems by Plath, including “Ouija” and “Dialogue over a Ouija Board,” which features a discussion between a couple about channeling and delves into the effects of such practices on real individuals in a real setting. Some scholars have also proposed that the Ouija board allowed Plath to momentarily block out external distractions and focus solely on her inner creative voice.
7. Jap Herron (Emily Grant Hutchings)
Jap Herron is a novel written by Emily Grant Hutchings, a novelist born in 1870. First published in 1917, Hutchings claimed the story was inspired by channeling the spirit of Mark Twain through a Ouija board. Hutchings had exchanged letters with Twain 15 years earlier, and during their correspondence, the alleged spirit of Twain gave her advice, even writing in one letter, “Idiot! Must preserve.”
In 1915, Hutchings and a female friend began receiving messages from Twain while playing with the Ouija board at a spiritualist gathering in St. Louis. Experimenting with occult methods was relatively common at the time. The novel heavily draws from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and includes attempts at humor that, by many accounts, fall short of Twain’s characteristic wit.
Twain’s daughter, Clara Clemens, was particularly outraged by the book and even took legal action against the publishers, Harper and Brothers, who held the exclusive rights to Twain’s works for over a decade. However, the case was never heard in court as Hutchings agreed to cease publication and destroy any copies she could find. As a result, surviving copies of Jap Herron are now extremely rare.
6. The Sorry Tales and Other Works (Pearl Curran)
Pearl Curran, an artist from the early 20th century, is best known for her supposed communication with a 17th-century spirit named Patience Worth. Born in 1883, Curran suffered a nervous breakdown at 13 and left school. In 1933, she and her friend Emily Grant Hutchings began experimenting with a Ouija board and claimed to make contact with Worth. Curran’s home soon became a hub for people eager to witness her interactions with Worth through the Ouija board. Curran would transcribe Worth’s messages, sometimes at a rapid pace of 1,500 words an hour.
Influenced by Worth, Curran wrote several novels, including The Sorry Tale, published in 1917. Set during the time of Christ, the novel centers on one of the thieves crucified alongside Jesus. Worth also allegedly inspired Curran to create poetry, prose, and plays. After the death of her husband, Curran was left to support herself and her children, leading her to travel across the country performing demonstrations with her Ouija board.
While some accepted Curran’s claim of divine inspiration, others questioned whether her own creativity and subconscious mind were responsible for the work instead of the supernatural. Intriguingly, Curran’s writings, inspired by Worth, displayed a profound knowledge of historical facts, raising questions about how she could have possessed such detailed information.
5. The Seth Material (Jane Roberts)
The Seth Material, channeled by Jane Roberts from 1963 to 1984, has had a significant impact on many New Age teachings. In the early 1960s, Roberts and her husband experimented with a Ouija board to explore extrasensory perception. However, they soon began receiving coherent messages from a male spirit known as Seth.
Later, Seth communicated directly through Jane while she was in a trance state. For over two decades, Roberts conducted sessions in which she conveyed Seth’s teachings. From the late 1960s until her death in the 1980s, Roberts hosted small psychic classes and public channeling sessions in her home.
The teachings emphasize that consciousness is the force that shapes matter, and individuals have the power to create their own reality through their beliefs and expectations. Seth also revealed that he had once lived in a lost civilization called Lumania and was later reborn in the mythical city of Atlantis. Additionally, Seth allegedly performed paranormal feats, such as transforming Roberts’s hand into an animal paw and occasionally manifesting as a tall, robed figure.
4. A Vision (William Butler Yeats)
William Butler Yeats, one of Ireland’s most celebrated poets and playwrights, is also remembered for his fascination with the mystical in addition to his literary achievements. Published in 1925, A Vision is a complex work that delves into metaphysics, spirituality, and the supernatural. The book discusses a series of automatic writings and mystical experiences that Yeats and his wife, Georgie Hyde-Lees, encountered.
Using channeling as his method, Yeats believed he had accessed a higher plane of knowledge, transcending conventional human comprehension. A Vision is split into two sections: “Phases of the Moon” and “The Mask,” each offering a unique perspective on the human journey, the historical cycle, and the interaction of opposites in the universe.
3. The Poem of the Man-God (Maria Valtorta)
This five-volume epic about the life of Jesus was written in the 1940s by the Italian author Maria Valtorta. The poem provides additional accounts of Jesus' life that are not found in the Gospels. Valtorta claimed to be the ‘secretary’ of Jesus and Mary, asserting that the work was divinely inspired by Jesus’ life, although the Catholic Church has rejected this assertion. Despite being considered heretical, the poem has attracted a significant readership and was even included in the Index of Forbidden Books until the abolition of the index in the 1960s.
At the age of 32, Valtorta was assaulted and severely beaten by a mugger, an injury from which she never fully recovered. After 1933, she was bedridden. In 1943, Valtorta began receiving dictations on Good Friday and, by 1947, had transcribed 10,000 handwritten pages. These were given to Father Romauld Migliorini, who passed them to another religious leader for binding. Eventually, the texts were brought to Cardinal Augustin Bea, S.J., spiritual director of Pope Pius XII. Despite initial optimism for papal approval, the Holy Office condemned the work in 1949, but it was still published in 1956.
2. A Dweller on Two Planets (Frederick Spencer Oliver)
The 19th-century book A Dweller on Two Planets tells the story of the legendary city of Atlantis. The work was allegedly channeled by Frederick S. Oliver, who claimed to be guided by a spirit named Phylos. Oliver stated that Phylos began imparting spiritual messages to him when he was just 17 years old. These channeled writings consumed much of Oliver’s life, so much so that his parents considered seeking treatment for what they believed to be an early sign of mental instability. In 1884, Oliver began transcribing Phylos’s stories.
Although Oliver completed the book in 1886, A Dweller on Two Planets was first published in 1905 by Oliver’s mother, following his death. The work is split into two parts: the first describes Phylos’s Atlantean lives in 11,160 BC, and the second recounts Phylos’s incarnation during the California gold rush as a man named Walter Pierson.
1. Take Over (Mrs. A)
In a previously unpublished 1970 James Bond novel, the author of Take Over: A James Bond Thriller claimed the book was dictated by the spirit of Ian Fleming, six years after his death. The enigmatic writer, known only as Mrs. A, was said to be the deceased sister of a retired banker living in Hertfordshire, England. Mrs. A. supposedly wrote the novel longhand, guided by the spirit of Ian Fleming. She also asserted that she had written works channeled from the spirits of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells, Edgar Wallace, and George Bernard Shaw.
The first signs of Mr. A’s involvement came in October 1970, when he sent a letter to Peter Fleming, Ian Fleming’s brother, with “unusual” news about the late author. Mr. A. requested a meeting with Fleming’s brother, who, although skeptical, agreed to meet him. Despite his doubts, Peter Fleming decided to read the manuscript, which differed significantly from Ian Fleming’s typical style. The plot is only known to involve a poisonous gas that enables those who use it to take over the world.
Later, Fleming’s brother interrogated Mr. A’s daughter, who failed to recall how many children Fleming’s brother had, nor their names or genders. Despite his doubts and conclusion that Ian Fleming had not authored the work, Peter Fleming remained intrigued by the manuscript and believed the author was trustworthy.
