With his partner David Jackson, Merrill spent more than 20 years transcribing purportedly supernatural communications during séances using a ouija board.

[3] In live readings, Merrill was able to impersonate the narrating voices of (deceased) poet W. H. Auden and late friends Maya Deren and Maria Mitsotáki.

He also claimed to give voice to otherworldly spirits including a first-century Jew named Ephraim, and Mirabell (a ouija board guide).

Merrill and his last partner, actor Peter Hooten, adapted the poem for a live ensemble reading at the Agassiz Theatre at Radcliffe College in 1990, a performance filmed and released as "Voices from Sandover".

Writer Alison Lurie, a longtime friend of Merrill and Jackson, described her feelings about the creative genesis of the poem in her memoir Familiar Spirits (2001).