Interview with Allen Ginsberg by Paul Carroll, in Chicago, 1968. Published in Playboy, April 1969. Complete text available in Allen Ginsberg: spontaneous mind – Selected Interviews, 1958-1996,, edited by David Carter.

AG: … Progress requires abolition of race ego, national ego, boundaries; it requires planet-citizen consciousness.

Although a minority is aware what that next step is, what about the majority who are plunged in darkness, flood, apocalypse and destruction? How to redeem these ‘ignorant armies’ who clash by night from their own bad karma? Violent confrontation? Violence begets violence. Revolutionary violence begets fascist tyranny. So, though noble impetuosity of confrontation by some New Leftists may seem appropriate to a situation in which long-haired angels are surrounded by pigs. The problem remains: how to cast the Devil from the hearts of swine?

Playboy: We’ll bite. How do you?

AG: Since we’re in an apocalyptic situation, old historical dialectics no longer apply. I prophesy that the only way to reverse the apocalypse is white magic, because the apocalypse itself is incarnate black magic. What would be the effect of total sacramental harmonious shamanistic ritual prayer magic massively performed in the American or Russian political theater?

Playboy: We’re beginning to feel like a straight man. What would be the effect?

AG: Exorcism. We need a million children saints adept at high unhexings, technological vaudeville, rhythmic behaviors, hypnotic acrobatics, street trapeze artistries, naked circus vibrations–magic politics to exorcise the police state. Is there a kind of poetry and theater sublime enough to change the national will and to open up consciousness in the populace? If the direction of the will can be changed and consciousness widened, then we may be able to solve the practical problems outlined: ecological reconstruction and the achievement of clear ecstasy as a social condition. And once that is achieved, people could relax and start looking for the highest, perfect wisdom.