Any reader familiar with Eliade’s “Archaic
Techniques of Ecstasy” would be able to interpret
this as a “shamanic flight” like the one seen in
John Boorman’s film “The emerald forest”. He
then believes that he reawakened in a new realm
“a new Jerusalem”, "a new Eden". Unlike the
other beat writers we see a transformation beyond
the mere primitive, we see east Harlem transform
into a phantasmagoric utopia. This experience is
thoroughly shamanic.
This is further perpetuated when he tells us he
then gazes out the window into the sky to see not
the sky itself but "the ancient sky" and to have
heard the voice of "the ancient of days, a creator
figure". Here Ginsberg is in the presence of a
shamanic spirit deity. The poet Blake had a
similar experience envisioning the sky as a
shamanic dwelling "The sky is an immortal tent
built by the sons of Los". This, although predating
Ginsberg's sentiment resonates through it.
Ginsberg’s Blakean mysticism led him through
these ecstatic states which begat what he believed
to be "True poetry", this was true healing in the
shamanic sense. Ginsberg's dictum "first thought,
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