goal is "Retiring from the world, living in a
mountain hut, practising special meditation
exercises, half the day and composing epics as the
sun sets"(Myrsiades, 2002). Not only does
Ginsberg tend towards a similar scenic plateaus as
the shamanic but his embracing of Buddhism and
its tantric exercises are what he means by "special
exercises". His is the gestalt of the shamanic.
What's more, the special ecstasy of the shamanic
can be seen in Ginsberg's Blake-lit vision to the
poem "Ah sunflower”. Here he induces a trace like
fervour of imaginative religiosity to a Blake poem
“hearing Blake’s voice” speak directly to him. The
poem itself idealizes the pastoral (e.g. vs the
urban) “sweet golden clime” and longs for
something other, something which may be
interpreted as shamanic or of holding shamanic
elements. Ginsberg and his shamanic “Blake-
visions” seem to align with the overall primitivism
of the beat generation (e.g. Gary Snyder, McClure
etc.) though Ginsberg seems to go a step further.
He tells us, speaking of his Blake-lit vision “my
body suddenly felt light, it was a sudden
awakening into a totally deeper real universe than
id been existing in” (Myrsiades, 2002).
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