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Summary

Book 0

A room from the James Merrill House in Stonington, CT

The narrative opens with a description of "Household decoration[s]" for James Merrill's residency in Sonington, CT. David Jackson (Merrill's life partner) hauls an "immense Victorian mirror," their parlor is outfitted with a "7 x 10 Chinese carpet" patterned with "blue-eyed bats"; their friend ("Hubbell") designs a wallpaper for them to match the bats in the Chinese carpet.

Then David Jackson's parents, "Matt and Mary" visit Merrill and their son in Athens, the latter of whom being days away from death. Since their friends, Chester Kallman and Maria Mitsotáki, have died in "the previous year," James Merrill and David Jackson return to the Ouija board they used in part 1, The Book of Ephraim. Maria commends "DJ's old parents, now [that] the end is near." Sure enough, Mary dies in the hospital, after which James Merrill and David Jackson make contact with the latter's parents via Ouija board. According to the theology outlined in the first part of The Changing Light at Sandover, Matt will be reborn on Earth for "2 MORE LIVES."

After some time, Ephraim, their Familiar spirit, alerts Merrill that he has been chosen by "MEN B4 MANKIND" for an "ARTISTIC BREAKTHROUGH"; his task will be to write "POEMS OF SCIENCE."

The section closes as Merrill and Jackson make plans to visit Avebury ("both a holy and a homely site") and Stonehenge.

Book 1

The "MEN B4 MANKIND" (mentioned in Section 0 of Mirabell and Section U of The Book of Ephraim) reveal themselves to be "THE SONS OF CAIN" and have the physical form of a bat. Paradoxically, they are also fallen angels who caused the appearance of black holes. Maria Mitsotáki and Ephraim interrupt to speak to "JM" and "DJ" (characters are often referred to by their initials); Maria voices encouragement; Ephraim voices fear and disdain, a feeling shared by "DJ".

The bats describe two gods which govern the universe: "BIOLOGY & CHAOS." God Biology is referred to as "God B."

Avebury, imagined by Merrill to be one of the anchor sites for "MEN B4 MANKIND"

Within the theology communicated, the atom is linked with adam and DNA is linked with the serpent who appears in the Abrahamic creation myth. These chiropteran tutors also tell of three Edens, each located in Peking, Jerusalem, and Avebury.

James complains about their veiled and nonspecific language, causing the bats to fly off.

David Kalstone, a friend of Merrill's, comes to visit; at the Ouija board, the bats are silent. Instead, Kalstone is introduced to his heavenly representative, Luca Spionari, a sixteen-year-old "LISSOME...STRIPLING" from Milan.

The next day, the bats return to tell of fourteen anchor sites which they left when they abandoned Earth (Avebury is one of these sites). They also describe the Egyptian pyramids as exact prisms of light reproduced in stone; the poem which James Merrill is creating will be a similar prism of light, but textual instead of physical.

The section closes as Ephraim reappears to assure protection from these bats, should they seek to cause harm. Among those defending is Ephraim and many of Merrill's deceased friends: Maya Deren, Hans Lodeizen, Marius Bewley, W. H. Auden, and Chester Kallman. W.H. Auden and Maria Mitsotáki will provide Merrill with routine commentary on lessons given by the bat-like Sons of Cain as Mirabell progresses.

Book 2

The section opens as the bat who has been speaking reveals he has a number: "741," though he ranks among "A FIGURATIVELY NUMBERLESS HOST" and is not always the creature with whom Merrill and Jackson converse. For instance, they had earlier spoken to 40076, but he abandoned them because of their rudeness.

Merrill uses part of this section to define important words in the theology which these fallen angels are slowly sketching for him: "Jew" is described as a "density in man par excellence" (not to be confused with the ethnicity); "soul" is the 12% of man which is not "Chemistry, Environment, / Et al."; the "Research Lab" (or "R/Lab") is a "precinct of intense / Activity" and contains an array of mathematical formulae directed by 741's superiors and where there is "No raw material / Other than souls ranging in quality". Souls of the absolute highest quality belong to a select five, repurposed over the ages. These five "PURSUE THEIR LEADERSHIP / UNDER VARIOUS GUISES"--such as space research. Merrill's job as "SCRIBE" will be "TO HELP SPEED ACCEPTANCE OF THE 5'S WORK".

741 goes on to discuss the population explosion in recent years: he says that the R/Lab needs five million souls each day for placement in new-born humans, but because there is only a finite number of souls, his superiors have needed to resort to "THE SOULS OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS MOST RECENTLY THE RAT." Such change is concerning, but equally concerning is the knowledge that the R/Lab technicians used to see 100 years ahead, but lately, increasing human smog has limited their visibility to thirty years into the future.

Book 3

741 introduces another type of soul, one separate from the animal and human souls already described: plant (or vegetable) souls. Whereas animal densities might add a certain "JOIE DE VIVRE", these plant densities endow its bearer with a "BENIGN LACK OF DESTRUCTIVE RIVALRY". Unfortunately, a slow and unknown process is weakening the vegetable world, so the R/Lab has begun to experimentally manufacture these plant densities via cloning. Maria, who was heavily interested in gardening during her life, is destined to join this world of plants.

But something stranger is afoot. 741, heretofore known to be unfeeling like the rest of his vampiric acquaintances, admits that he has come to love Merrill and Jackson--admits that he is filled with "IS IT MANNERS?" This emotional development is matched by a formal one: 741 transforms into a peacock within the "realm of no appearances".

The five of them (Mitsotáki, Auden, Merrill, Jackson, and 741) are now pictured as a unified group--equal in number to the holy '5' discussed earlier. With this, the notion of "V WORK" is cryptically inaugurated; 741 describes it as "WORK GUIDED BY A HIGHER COLLABORATION". The five elite souls (mentioned in section 2.5) are symbolically connected to the five pilgrims, the five vertices on a pyramid, and the four elements (with "nature" serving as a fifth).

Book 4

741 says that the first animals on Earth were "WINGLESS CREATURES...CRAWLING & SERPENTINE." Though these creatures were hairless, they resembled the mythic centaur and invented 741's race to carry "THEIR WORD ABOVE THE TREES: SIGNALS...HOVERING OVER CLEAR LAND AREAS WHERE THEY CD FEED."

Eventually 741 and his race decided to kill the immortals via atomic blast to prevent the more evolved from tormenting the weak. The bats left Atlantis, rarely returning to make vital repairs to their anchor sites. This neglect leads God B to erase traces of 741's kin and to destroy the last centaurs (who by this point have evolved into Dinosaurs).

W.H. Auden and Maria Mitsotáki encourage James Merrill and David Jackson to make contact with 40076 (mentioned at the beginning of Section 2); 741 is temporarily demoted because his listeners doubted him but prophesies laurels for Merrill's poem and saying that he will write another long poem after this one. 741 says that Akhnaton was the first of "the 5" to be cloned for repurposing in future generations; he also describes the commencement of a "NO ACCIDENT" clause which will be elucidated later.

The section closes as Maria Mitsotáki and James Merrill learn that atomic energies have affected their soul densities; Maria's because of the radiation therapy she underwent for breast cancer. James' because of the mushroom cloud from Hiroshima.

Book 5

Book 5 clarifies many previously touched-upon topics: Human soul densities can be destroyed by gamma rays; "God B is history is Earth"; the 'day of the scribe' is at hand. Merrill, as scribe, will create a work that will prevent destruction, though when he and Jackson ask how this can be when so few people read books, 741 returns with a customary reply about the unimportance of the masses.

741 tells Merrill and Jackson that religion falls into his "no-accident clause" by keeping starved sub-populations from dropping atomic bombs to get food. Another "no-accident" is the apparition of plagues, which (in Merrill's mythology) do not happen accidentally, but are caused by 741 and his ilk in order to thin populations and maintain rurality. James begins to apply this "no-accident" clause to his own life history.

The section closes on the hopeful suggestion that "THREE DECADES HENCE," there will still be "GREEN ATLANTAN FIELDS." 741 assures that Biology will win out over Chaos.

Book 6

The section opens on Merrill visiting David Jackson in Boston; Jackson is not in Stonington with Merrill because he has just undergone surgery on his back, but "all's well." "DJ" remembers the sensation of climbing a ladder (Jacob has an identical dream in Genesis 28).

Book 6 also shows Merrill and Jackson coming to the horrifying conclusion that Maria Mitsotáki (who underwent radiation therapy for breast cancer) is appearing in these séances because she, like 741, has no soul left--"she's no longer human!" Radiation's interaction with the soul has already been alluded to but Merrill and Jackson do not recognize the full extent until now: radiation slowly stripped Maria's soul, reducing her "TO ESSENCES" and joining her Template:Smallcaps"TO INFINITY". The process of these lessons enact a similar stripping process on James and David, the light of radiation being substituted with the light of knowledge. Through this 'stripping,' GOD B is either changing man into his agent of preparing a new species, though which one is not exactly clear.

Auden and 741 also instruct JM and DJ on different colors (red, yellow, blue, green) and their exact symbolism within this ever-expanding mythology. In the midst of all these never-ending lessons, DJ feels depressed and shut-off from life. JM famously returns by saying that

Art--
The tale that all but shapes itself--survives
By feeding on its personages' lives.
The stripping process, sort of. What to say?
Our lives led to this. It's the price we pay."

The section closes as Merrill and Jackson are told that major literary works such as The Waste Land, The Divine Comedy, and works by Arthur Rimbaud were all written with the invisible guiding hand of 741 and the legion of bats. These literary masterpieces are part of the "V-WORK" mentioned in Book 3; Merrill's poem will be a completion for the "V-WORK" started by his deceased friend, Hans Lodeizen.