In 1978, Murray experienced a religious vision while watering his potatoes which inspired him to produce a remarkable body of abstract paintings and drawings in the last decade of his life. Seeing an eagle descend from the sun, Murray believed that he had been granted a privileged religious insight, which was to be the inspiration for his work as an artist. When I started, I prayed and prayed. And the Lord sent a vision from the sun. Everything I see is from the sun. He showed me signs and seasons and he tells me. He turned around and gave me a question to ask Him and I asked Him to see me mother. He brought her before me and two brothers... See, Spirit will talk with Spirit. And when I left there [the hospital], the eagle crossed my eye—a Spiritual Eagle. The Eagle can see farther than any bird in the world and that's why I can see things other people can't see. When I see between here and the sun is in a twinkle. It was then that I began to write these letters. Different writing represents different languages and folks. It's the Language of the Holy Spirit, direct from God"  Illiterate, Murray developed his own personal style of seemingly unintelligible asemic writing, which he called "spirit script," that he inscribed onto his drawings and paintings. Murray's writing gave him a power he believed could be used for benediction and protection of himself and others. As a part of the process, Murray kept a bottle of what he called "holy water" on a table by his bedside, which he would raise towards the sky whenever he prayed. Murray believed that if a person with a pure heart read his "writing" while looking through the bottle of holy water, that person would read messages from God. During the last few years of his life, as his reputation as a mystic grew, Murray would receive visitors on his property who requested ritual readings of the holy water. When writing these holy messages, Murray would often hold the bottle of holy water in one hand and write with the other, keeping his hand as limp as possible, and letting the holy spirit guide it. This process of automatic writing was recorded in a documentary directed and produced by Judith McWillie of the University of Georgia toward the end of his life. Although other deeply religious artists wrote in asemic script, such as Joe Light's pseudo-Arabic and James Hampton's Phoenician-like script, Murray was the only artist known to read and decipher his writings through water. Many scholars have written about West African spiritual and religious influences on religious practices of the African American descendants of enslaved peoples in the southeastern United States.