← Back to Concept Indexvisionary-poetry
A poetic style characterized by spontaneous, unedited outpourings that seek to channel prophetic or ecstatic experiences beyond intellectual mediation.
1 chapter across 1 book
Chapter IV JOURNEY TO THE EAST ...AND POINTS BEYOND: ALLEN GINSBERG AND ALAN WATTS On October 21, 1967, the Pentagon found itself besieged by a motley army of anti-war demonstrators. For the most part, the fifty thousand protestors were made up of activist academics and students, men of letters (among them, Norman Mailer leading his “armies of the night”), New Left and pacificist ideologues, housewives, doctors . . . but also in at- tendance, we are informed (by The East Village Other), were contingents of “witches, warlocks, holymen, seers, proph- ets, mystics, saints, sorcerers, shamans, troubadours, min- strels, bards, roadmen, and madmen”—who were on hand to achieve the “mystic revolution.” The picketing, the sit-down, the speeches, and marches: all that was protest politics as usual. But the central event of the day was a contribution of the “superhumans”: an exorcism of the Pentagon by long- haired warlocks who “cast mighty words of white light against the demon-controlled structure,” in hopes of levitating that grim ziggurat right off the ground.1 They did not succeed—in floating the Pentagon, that is. But they did manage to stamp their generation with a politi- cal style so authentically original that it borders on the bizarre. Is the youthful political activism of the sixties any different from that of the thirties? If the difference shows up anywhere, it reveals itself in the unprecedented penchant for _ the occult, for magic, and for exotic ritual which has become 1 The East Village Other's report appears in the issue of Novem- ber 1-15, 1967, po 3:This chapter examines the 1967 Pentagon anti-war protest, highlighting the unique infusion of mysticism, occultism, and ritualistic elements into the political activism of the 1960s counterculture. It contrasts this with earlier political movements by focusing on figures like Allen Ginsberg, whose poetry and lifestyle embody a shift from traditional ideological protest to a mystical, visionary form of dissent rooted in ecstatic radicalism and spontaneous creative expression. Ginsberg's work and persona symbolize a broader generational move towards mystagogy and a prophetic artistic vocation that transcends conventional political discourse.