This article is about the memoir. For the being in folklore, see Familiar.
Familiar Spirits is a memoir published in 2000 by American writer Alison Lurie.[1] In it, she recounts a friendship with a poet James Merrill and his life partner David Jackson which began in the 1950s.[2]
Merrill and Jackson were both wealthy, well-educated men, who lived an openly gay life decades before that was common.The two men spent many years gathering Ouija board messages during séances, a fact of which Lurie was made aware of early on, and about which she never lost her early skepticism. For Merrill, the poetic result was a 560-page apocalyptic epic called The Changing Light at Sandover (1982), which is in a large measure transcribed from supernatural voices. In Familiar Spirits, Lurie attempts to provide several rational and mundane explanations for Merrill and Jackson's epiphanies and revelations.
folklore of the medieval and early modern periods, familiars (strictly familiarspirits, as "familiar" also meant just "close friend" or companion, and...
FamiliarSpirits is a memoir published in 2000 by American writer Alison Lurie. In it, she recounts a friendship with a poet James Merrill and his life...
historical perspective he wanted. Miller originally called the play Those FamiliarSpirits before renaming it as The Crucible. The word "crucible" is defined...
and wiser. According to folklore, the kitsune-foxes (or perhaps the "fox spirits") can bewitch people, just like the tanuki they have the ability to shapeshift...
a dog, a wolf, a bear, a deer or a rooster, accompanied by their familiarspirits, black cats, serpents and other black creatures. This was the origin...
tradition" of a belief in familiarspirits. Such an idea was supported by Wilby, who compared the accounts of familiarspirits in Britain with anthropological...
Olympian spirits (or Olympic spirits, Olympick spirits) refers to seven spirits mentioned in several Renaissance and post-Renaissance books of ritual magic/ceremonial...
diviner, a sorcerer, one who casts spells, or one who consults ghosts or familiarspirits, or one who inquires of the dead. The forms of divination mentioned...
Cunning Folk and FamiliarSpirits: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic is a study of the beliefs regarding witchcraft...
or an enchanter, or a witch, 11or a charmer, or a consulter with familiarspirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. 12For all who do these things are an...
pseudoscientific practice of mediating communication between familiarspirits or spirits of the dead and living human beings. Practitioners are known...
Icep Kanasaw, Sakizaya goddess of fire Alaz, god of fire Od Iyesi, familiarspirits who protect fires Ut, Siberian goddess of the hearth Vut-Ami, Chuvash...
Anthology (Yale 1951), xxvii, xxxviii, xlii, 9 Falconer, Joshua (2019). "Familiarspirits in the Qurʾān: retracing the origins of the jinn". Henoch. 41 (2):...
witch's milk was believed to be a source of nourishment for witches' familiarspirits. Lactation failure Galactagogue Mammoplasia Hypothalamic–pituitary–prolactin...
woman with a bad reputation, who was accused by her neighbours of having a familiar and of having injured or caused harm to other people's livestock by use...
hero, or a devious villain. In Asian folklore, foxes are depicted as familiarspirits possessing magic powers. Similar to in Western folklore, foxes are...
suspect had been shaved of all body hair. It was believed that the witch's familiar, an animal such as a cat or dog, would drink the witch's blood from the...
they had entered into communion with familiarspirits that had assisted them with their schemes. The mother's familiar was a cat named Rutterkin. The women...
her feelings about the creative genesis of the poem in her memoir FamiliarSpirits (2001). "Poetry". Past winners & finalists by category. The Pulitzer...
Jacksonville Theological Seminary. Daniels' book Breaking the Power of FamiliarSpirits is now a class textbook at JTS. Daniels has expressed thankfulness...
quoted Alison Lurie's writing of her experience with the Ouija board in FamiliarSpirits: A Memoir of James Merrill and David Jackson as: a game that got badly...
make use of spirits and demons for either benign or evil purposes. Although Western writings often compare this to the familiarspirits of English witchcraft...
hidden things if they are not kept by evil spirits, and sometimes gives good familiars, but sometimes those familiars deceive the conjurer. He should not be...
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