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ta ken in placing hi s own sexual n a ture out in th e o pen: p rocl a imin g it,
writing a bo ut it, wo rrying o ver it, and in sistin g on its ri ght to
gra tifi ca ti on , thus keepin g himse lf d ea r of the enerva tin g comp ro–
mises o f cl oset homosexua lit y. Gin sberg's accepta nce o f hi s own
con stituti on as the very conditi on o f hi s life a nd hi s poetry is cert a inl y
one of the sources o f hi s streng th and dura bilit y. Bl a kean th a t h e is, he
has no t let himself be undermined by hi s own repressed des ires.
But Ginsberg's long in volvement with mind -altering drugs is
mo re problema tic. His exa lted tes timoni a ls on beh a lf o f hi s ph armaco–
logical experiments gave sancti on , no t onl y to th e indi scrimina te u se of
drugs in the sixti es , but to their g lorifi ca ti on as the elixir of cosmi c
con sciousness. Though Gin sberg has campa ign ed aga inst h ero in , and
now writes, " Nobody sa ves Ameri ca by sniffing coca ine," hi s bas ic line
on do pe, as on everything else, has been the liberta ri an on e:
laissez
jaire,
and let every man find out fo r himse lf. But ha llucinogeni c drugs
once meant mo re to him than just a no ther degree o f huma n freedom;
they con veni entl y suited hi s roma nce with madness, whi ch , as Kerou ac
shrewdl y saw , served hi s n eed to justify hi s mo th er. Though he
eventuall y outgrew hi s illusion s a bo ut redempti ve in sanit y a nd took
up spiritua l se lf-disciplin e a fter the Indi a n trip in 1962- 63, he had
a lready contributed eno rmo usly and di sas trou sly to the myth of the
madma n as antinomian sa int "who d rove crosscountry seventytwo
hours to find out if I h ad a visio n o r you had a visio n o r h e h ad a vi sion
to find out eternity." Some of those vi sion s. we now know, were tl1e
menta l image o f n euron s bo iling away in th e skull. The dop e revo lu–
tion bl ew minds as the price o f expanding con sc io usness, a nd wheth er
the ben efits were worth the cos ts, whi ch a re still being to ted up in
menta l hospita ls across the country, is la rge ly a ques ti on of how one
came through the experi en ce.
Yet a ll thi s in Ginsberg: the aggress ive homosexua lit y, th e roo t–
lessness, the an archi sm, the celebra ted expediti on s in search o f a better
h a llucinogen, cann o t be seen a p art from wha t is exempl a ry in him , fo r
they are, however ambiguous, his effo rts a t sa lva ti o n . They a re wha t he
h ad to a tta in and then h ad to get beyond . Th e accumul a tin g docu–
menta tion of hi s life is slowl y amounting to the authenti ca ti on of a
saint's life, a hi story o f beatitude wh ose theme. like th at o f a ll sa ints'
lives, is cri sis, conversion , and tri a l. T he famo us Bl a ke vision , o f whi ch
we h ave a h a lf dozen accounts, is like Pa ul' s vision on the road to
Damascus o r Martin Luther's fit in th e choir. a token of el ecti on , and
the torments tha t fo ll ow a re step s in the reali za ti on o f th e mi ss ion . The
mother's madn ess h ad to be suffered a nd purged; th e humili a ting love
f
