McDermott, Tenille (2025) Ghostwriting in the Machine: Conversations with the Paranormal and the Digital. Griffith Review Online, 10 Dec 2025.

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Abstract

[Extract] IN 1919, IN a railway carriage travelling through California, Georgie Hyde-Lees began to talk in her sleep. Her husband, William Butler Yeats, carefully and dutifully wrote down the words she spoke. The couple had spent the last two years experimenting with automatic writing, but the verbal channelling of voices as Hyde-Lees drowsed was a new and exciting development. Their practice would continue for many years, culminating in a book that proposed a system of history, philosophy and psychology built around moon phases and intersecting gyres. This system, the couple believed, was transmitted to them by an external, supernatural force – a series of unknown ‘communicators’ – whose messages were frequently accompanied by odd whistlings, sudden flashes of light or mysterious smells. Yeats’ A Vision was published in 1925, with a second edition in 1937. His subsequent poetry is deeply influenced and informed by the imagery and symbolism of this automatic writing.

Item ID:	89859
Item Type:	Article (Creative Work)
Keywords:	automatic writing, large language models, artificial intelligence, victorian spiritualism, william butler yeats
Copyright Information:	© the author 2025.
Date Deposited:	15 Dec 2025 07:39
FoR Codes:	36 CREATIVE ARTS AND WRITING > 3602 Creative and professional writing > 360201 Creative writing (incl. scriptwriting) @ 100%
SEO Codes:	13 CULTURE AND SOCIETY > 1302 Communication > 130203 Literature @ 100%
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