Madness as Religious Experience: The Case of Allen Ginsberg Author(s): Martin Wasserman Reviewed work(s): Source: Journal of Religion and Health, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Summer, 1982), pp. 145-151 Published by: Springer Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27505671 . Accessed: 14/06/2012 10:29
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Journal

of Religion

and Health,

Vol.

21, No.

2, Summer

1982

Madness Experience: Ginsberg

as Religious The Case

of Allen

MARTIN WASSERMAN to be a religious Various writers have considered madness On the basis ABSTRACT: experience. in the area with literature and conversations it is argued that of the psychiatric patients, as a four-stage as a religious can be viewed The four madness process. experience developmental are: 1) The state hurt-and-be-hurt of being, self-induced 2) The stages experience, psychedelic 3) The clarify psychotic how and 4) The confusion-and-dread reaction, reconstruction-with-insight four stages make the poet Allen these up a religious experience, is organized around each of the stages. episode world Ginsberg's view. To so-called

According patient, Wieman's

and a psychiatric who was both a theologian Boisen, is in line with of madness of the process frequently awareness "Man's acute of reUgion: of the realm of and the behavior which results from this awareness/'1 unattained possib?ity as to view this kind of concern it was for Boisen, Therefore, appropriate as opposed to a pathological, of a reUgious, Boisen is characteristic experience. such as James,2 Bateson,8 not alone in this beUef. Other writers Jung,4 Laing,6 to Anton the concern definition

and Grant8 have to support evidence the also offered Bowers,7 Perry,6 can be a reUgious that madness most contention experience. Unfortunately, mental health practitioners have closed their eyes to this insight, because they have failed to perceive the fuU developmental of madness range of the process have simply viewed each point along the way as an end product and, instead, I recreated at a narratives told me by patients pubUcation, to organize of the purposes of this work was One the psychiatric hospital.9 The of madness into distinct information process stages. developmental with combined the data generated from more provided by these narratives, recent with conversations individuals have of who the world experienced as weU as the biographical material found in the aforementioned madness, as a reUgious of madness sources,10 aU now lead me to beUeve that the process as: four distinct I have identified contains experience stages. These stages one: The hurt-and-be-hurt state of being Stage Stage two: The self-induced
Ph.D.,

in itself. In a previous

psychedeUc

experience at the State University of

Martin Wasserman, New York, Adirondack

is Associate College,

Community

Professor of Psychology Glens York. Falls, New

0022-4197/82/1400-0146$02.75

145

?1982

Institutes of Religion and Health

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Journal

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reaction The confusion-and-dread three: Stage world view. four: The reconstruction-with-insight Stage In order to clarify how these four stages make up a religious experience, in the each particular is given information phase concerning descriptive section below. Religious awakening and the stages of madness

individual has become state of being?the hurt-and-be-hurt In stage one?the are no in the social group. There his salvation about finding disillusioned or social on his part regarding relationships positive longer any expectations from others, is alienated The person and, as a result of this participation. a preoccupation the self develops. with estrangement, occurs only when he is hurting now finds that satisfaction The individual aware of In hurting the individual becomes himself. others and hurting others, the individual becomes his personal himself, power over others; and in hurting aware of himself. than anything desires more the individual else is Since what is restricted He of self, he is stopped by nobody. by very few or morid considerations in his dealings with the rest of the world. The practical in this stage can be considered and rude; individual self-centered, uncaring, to follow his indomitable, but above all else he has made up his mind powerful will. who takes stage one as a final product health practitioner For the mental on the road to a religious and not as a developmental the phase awakening, or "borderline" is a "schizoid" verdict will be that the individual personality or eliminated. behavior must be either modified and that his deviant However, I am of the belief that though there are no religious in stage elements present condition for calling forth the next stage. one, it is a necessary One can be an outsider for only so long. An existence to hurt-and dedicated and suffering be-hurt brings with it so much tension that this stage of being cannot the purpose of stage two?the self-induced Thus, easily be sustained. a mode to discontinue of existence that the person psychedelic experience?is not to live with chooses the self-induced any longer. With psychedelic a denial of the estrangement there is finally of felt in the world experience, hurt-and-be-hurt. an awareness

This oneself

because it is possible here stage I have called psychedelic manner. in a heightened, to Bowers: altered According

to experience

The emotional response evoked is singularly are frequently intense. Such experiences felt to be a kind of breakthrough, characterized words and feelings such as "release" by or "new creativity." Individuals to the essence of experience feelings of getting the external world, of others, and of themselves.11 things?of In this new one's
There

very is the

psychic reality, existence. Bowers inner experience of

there claims: revelation is an attempt

to reorient

and

rejuvenate

or creative

clarification....

The

notion

that

some dormant

aspects

of mental

life are being

awakened

are overdetermined

in these

Martin

Wasserman

147

experiences.... re-experienced that something

FeeUngs with long forgotten may of these is at

return and particular contribute Ufe events may to the ultimate

be

All clarity.... new and portentous

ingredients hand.12

sense

seems The self-induced to be the mind's of experience way psychedeUc the wounds in the hurt-and-be-hurt that existed of alienation state of healing as an attempt this stage can be viewed to being. Therefore, by the individual a more meaningful for his existence. estabUsh when mental However, purpose as a final health take the self-induced practitioners psychedeUc experience one of the stages of simply instead to a religious the way product, along as and faulty associations haUucinations, they see delusions, awakening, of "schizophrenia." this type of response to the Unfortunately, in that it can may be counterproductive psychedeUc experience to a positive slow down or even abort what is a prelude of the reorganization as pathological, The act of labeUng, and defining this new psychic personaUty. in stage has created becomes that the individual very reality important symptomatic self-induced confusion-and-dread reaction. a new type of psychic one estabUshes in When reaUty, he is Uke an explorer an unknown to In a sense, he has gone from the world of the ordinary world. to the voyager has the opportunity the world of the extraordinary. Though make profound, about himself, it is only natural that he intuitive discoveries he has just entered. be both confused and frightened by this new territory a certain amount of shame when in turn, engender The confusion and dread, and the human that he is not viewing the individual reaUty recognizes manner. is to dissipate in an expected Whether this shame and situation or progress the whole experience and ultimately dominate become manageable a function react to the individual. If others see of how other people is mainly as part of an ongoing the individual's behavior process which developmental to be a reUgious then the shame that the has the potential awakening, on to stage and he wiU move individual feels in stage three wiU be minimal view. if others, four?the world However, reconstruction-with-insight like mental view the others health particularly practitioners, prestigious as an end in itself and label it "schizophrenic," and if odd behavior individual's this label, there is only a sUght the individual in his state of confusion accepts chance that conditions, the creation on to the next these will move the individual stage. Under about it is quite likely that the individual w?l feel greatly ashamed become of his new psychic maneuver, reaUty and, as a defensive in affect and speech, and restrict his thoughts give up spontaneity three?the

withdrawn, to the most mundane, of the environment. Another aspects nonthreatening maneuver in the face of this shame might to be for the individual defensive at himself in the form of outright and to manifest this anger become angry or toward others. toward himself aggression in stage When reaction three is satisfactorily the confusion-and-dread the individual understands about himself and the resolved, aspects important to him prior to his journey For this world that were hidden through madness. four is caUed the reconstruction-with-insight world view. reason, stage UnUke the individual was preoccupied with hurting himself stage one, where and others, in stage four the individual reaUzes that the more he gives finaUy

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to others, He understands the more human he becomes. that the more himself or someone other than himself, is involved with the more he he something In other words, the reconstruction-with-insight himself. world truly becomes on self-transcendence. view It is in this last stage of the journey is based aware that if he is to find at last becomes that the individual through madness life and not inward against in life, he has to reach outward toward meaning himself. a religious can be considered The process of madness, therefore, experience, which becomes because the direction in stage evident throughout, particularly In stage one, this oneself. four, has been toward a search for meaning beyond was not within realization the realm of possibility, since the individual

believed that meaning

could not and did not extend beyond the limits of his

own body. Ultimately, it is through the process of madness that the individual aware that, unlike a thing that is completely becomes shut up in itself, man to be self-transcendent. has the capability

Allen

Ginsberg's section

experience

I will show how Allen Ginsberg's so-called psychotic episode as a religious as it fits into the four inasmuch experience of the process of madness have that been developmental stages just The information delineated. comes concerning "psychotic" Ginsberg's episode a lecture,14 as well as from several from an interview,13 works.16 biographical viewed Stage Ginsberg Bachelor one?the hurt-and-be-hurt was twenty-two, he was state In of being. from Columbia 1948, when Allen with

In this can be

a graduated University of Arts degree. At the time, Ginsberg wanted to be a writer, but he felt that he lacked the gifts of vision and commitment that were necessary for such a wish. As a result, Ginsberg led a rather forlorn existence, fulfilling

finding it difficult to obtain a job and finding it even harder to establish a with another he went into person. lasting relationship Finally, isolation when the one individual he cared for most, Neal whom sent him an unexpected farewell letter breaking off their supposedly Cassady, close relationship. After this letter, Ginsberg most of his time alone in spent his East Harlem tenement to apartment, feeling sorry for himself. According "I had given up on love."16 He became preoccupied with his personal Ginsberg, and saw the world as a huge Dostoyevskian universe where he would problems be involved in hurting others and hurting himself. As Ginsberg put it, he spent this time of his life "solitary and complaining."17 two?the It was at this juncture Stage self-induced psychedelic experience. that Ginsberg had the self-induced that was to change psychedelic experience the course of his life. One summer afternoon, as he was lying on his bed reading William Blake's the lines of verse unexpectedly poem "Ah Sunflower," sprang to life, animated with new meaning. understood that this Ginsberg suddenly verse was trying to communicate with him, was indeed even speaking about satisfactory, almost total him. Martin

Wasserman

149

what to interpret this voice wanted to say, Ginsberg, attempting as WilUam in disbeUef, the speaker Blake. He recognized recognized and like nothing it was grave and oracular, this voice as Blake's because he it: had ever heard before. As Ginsberg explained Wh?e almost
I. . . heard any a very voice deep that earthen I knew.. grave voice .because in the the room, voice which. was so . . was completely Blake's voice; tender and it

wasn't

But the pecuUar quaUty of the voice was something beautiful.... unforgettable it was like God had a human voice, with all the infinite tenderness because and and mortal gravity of a living creator speaking to his son.18 anciency this voice, Ginsberg felt that he had been reborn into a new hearing and genuine that was more abundant universe than anything he had spiritual ever known before. When to look out the window, he went to him it appeared of the East Harlem that even the bricks and cornices tenement had bu?ding as the essence taken on a new spirituaUty, of intelUgence and the appearing as the Uving blue hand of God. creation of love. The sky was seen by Ginsberg in front of his eyes, that existence He beUeved that God was itself was God. After According And clime, to Ginsberg:

this was the very ancient place that he [Blake] was talking about, the sweet golden I suddenly realized that this existence was it! And that I was born in order to up to aUve this very moment. unto the . .this creator.19 vision or this consciousness, of being aUve myself

experience unto myself,

three?the After had reaction. confusion-and-dread Stage Ginsberg this new psychic he soon began to have doubts about reality, experienced what he had seen and heard was indeed real. Also, if he were whether to consider this experience of a sick, real, should he take it to be the product it in fact a divine message that he had just received from lonely mind; or was

WilUam Blake? So Ginsberg decided to ask other people what they thought about his significant from his professors over who shouted up on him.20 EventuaUy cosmic others he did not gain from But, unfortunately, support his vision?not Ufe concerning from his father, not at Columbia, and particularly not from his psychiatrist, the telephone, "You must be crazy," and immediately hung was vision. in his

as "schizophrenic" labeled and ended up in a he became of his vision and retreated ashamed psychiatric into his own private world, keeping his true thoughts and feeUngs hidden from the hospital staff for extended of time. Only when a young psychiatrist periods to Ginsberg that what had occurred was reaUy not a form of insanity explained but a consequence did he again accept of aUenation the authenticity of his vision. As Ginsberg related it: Ginsberg institution. There He had my diagnosis changed from psychotic . like that. . which gave me a lot of confidence, credentials of not being insane.21

or schizophrenic or something terrible because ever since then I 've had formal

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was world view. When four?the reconstruction-with-insight Ginsberg he decided to reassess what had actually taken from the hospital, he concluded his Blakean that it signified vision, examining place. Carefully was missing in his life. He now believed that his world had been something a manner, and that this narrow world had in too rigid and juvenile structured Stage released and truly human life. According to fulfilled for him to lead a more awareness "I was imagining my own potential from a limited more Ginsberg, of feeling."22 shy tender blossom virginal at last understood of his vision, what his life Because direction Ginsberg must take: he must be a poetic both of and for humanity. Moreover, explorer to die

Ginsberg finally knew that he could fulfill this task if he dedicated himself to the universe that extended the limits of his body, as well beyond investigating as beyond saw it, this the barriers of the four walls of his room. As Ginsberg new poetic toward life had been pointed out to him by the commitment vision. obvious of his Blakean importance spiritual to transmit a message from Blake was that it was possible thing I understood time which could reach the enlightened, that poetry had a definite effect, it through was wasn't just pretty, or just beautiful, as I had understood pretty beauty before?it The something basic to human existence.23

to read the works this insight, of Ginsberg eagerly began gaining and mystics and from both the East the West. He scholars, poets, on travels all over America as well as other parts of the embarked energetically in which different lived and to explore to examine world the ways their people of the human universe. conception Over the years, has never lost sight of his important Blakean Ginsberg vision. Since this peak Viktor Frankl's life, using experience, Ginsberg's has been "characterized for meaning rather than his words, by his search search for himself."24 After the creation of his new psychic reality, Ginsberg's After turned squarely in the direction of self-transcendence, for his poetic an intense had become of the "spirit of the universe."26 purpose investigation In conclusion, case, it can be said that the four looking at Allen Ginsberg's a religious of madness make he because up stages developmental experience, a realization to him previously. obtained of the universe that was denied His to one close friend, was "the defining inner experience of madness, according his adult life."26 Because of his madness, learned that man became Ginsberg man only when he was and went those barriers that beyond self-surpassing and blocked his connections with the human universe. upon infringed occurred when he at last understood that a sad Ginsberg's religious awakening and desolate be overcome existence could ends. self-transcendent by pursuing existence

References
1. 2. Boisen, Press, James, A., The Exploration 1971, p. 51. W., The Varieties of the ?nner World. Philadelphia, New York, University New American of Pennsylvania Library, 1958.

of Religious

Experience.

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3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

A Patient's Narrative: Account G., ed., Perceval's Stanford, of his Psychosis. 1961. Stanford Press, University New York, Vintage 1963. Books, Dreams, Reflections. Jung, CG., Memories, New York, 1967. The Politics R.D., Ballantine, of Experience. Laing, New 1974. J.W., The Far Side Cliffs, Prentice-HaU, Perry, Englewood of Madness. Jersey, The Structure Bowers, M., Retreat Baltimore, from Sanity: of an Emerging Psychosis. 1974. Maryland, Penguin, as Social 1975. Westminster Grant, B., Schizophrenia Press, ?nsight. Philadelphia, a Good Dead Do Not Make Bodies Bathroom Deodorant: Deviant Wasserman, M., Bateson, California, Communications See references Bowers, ?bid, Spring York, pp. Ginsberg, op.cit, 36-37. as Existential Allegories. 1 through 8, above. p. 36. of Poetry VIH" Brooklyn, New York, Mandarin Press, 1978.

"The Art A., 1966, 37, 13-55.

(Interview

with

Thomas

Clark),

Paris

Review,

on Poetry, In Allen Verbatim: Lectures New Consciousness. Politics, _"Eternity." McGraw-Hill, 1974, pp. 15-25. to Declare. In Nothing New York, Widener." More E.P. Holmes, J.C., "The Consciousness New York, Dutton and Company, T.F., Allen 1967, pp. 53-67; Merrill, Twayne Ginsberg. in America. New York, Publishers, 1969; Kramer, J., Allen 1970; Tytell, Ginsberg Vintage, New York, McGraw-Hill, The Lives and Literature J., Naked of the Beat Generation. Angels: 1976. Ginsberg, Kramer, "Eternity," op. cit, p. "The Art cit, op. 122. cit, p. 16. op. cit., pp. 36-37.

16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

Ginsberg, ?bid, p. 37. Kramer, op. ?bid. Ginsberg,

of Poetry

VIII,"

p. 41.

op. cit, p. 22. "Eternity," Art of Poetry _"The VIII," op. cit, pp. 24-25. Simon God. New York, and Frankl, V., The Unconscious "The Art of Poetry VIII." op. cit, p. 37. Ginsberg, Holmes, op. cit, p. 54.

Schuster,

1975,

p. 79.