Free Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg by Jack Kerouac

together last week. I once saw clearly beyond my life, and saw I had to go there. You may be annoyed at my repetitive use of words like “literal” and “actually” or “actuality” etc. but for lack of a vocabulary—and for lack of the immediate presence of what I was talking about I have been trying to express myself about a miracle.
    I have been at it now for months trying intellectually to define, to describe, to show the existence of that something else that we know—something that we can know if we are able to shoulder the responsibility of destroying our present lives, but it is by its nature so far beneath or above existence as I normally know it that it is of no use except to invoke (as in a few conversations) the vague sensation of something dreamlike and white, arden-esque, ghostly about us—and that sense of fairy tale is the nearest in our conscious minds that we can approach. Once I give up this attempt I will be nearer to the ultimate realization that I strive for, for this is vain and defensive against the awful sensation of knowledge. If I did not have faith in the mechanical procedure of psychoanalysis as a way of making me face myself and god I would no longer wait here in the city for a vision, but I would have despaired of life here and left—on an actual pilgrimage, as of old—across the land, would throw myself on the mercy of the elements and die out of this life of vanity and fear, give up completely, and wander, without home, until a home were everywhere. It may seem anachronistic for me to combine such ambitions spiritually with psychoanalysis that will change everything—towards that goal. But that is my own life and choice, and I can’t presume to prescribe any medicine but suffering to anybody else—suffering to exhaustion, and exhaustion of suffering. Nothing that I know matters. Do you remember Spengler’s description of the magician idea of god?—on p. 235 23 —“as body and soul he belongs to himself alone, but something else, something alien and higher, dwells in him, making him with all his glimpses and convictions just a member of a consensus which, as the emanation of God, excludes error, but excludes also all possibility of the self asserting ego . . . the impossibility of a thinking, believing, and knowing ego . . . the idea of individual wills is simply meaningless, for ‘will’ and ‘thought’ in man are not prime, but already the effects of deity upon him.” I have more self asserting ego after all than anyone—a more vicious ego than you—a more “slopping” ego? and who but I would realize the ultimate of fantasy-nature of my ego? of all ego, all individual mind, personality? With all my demonic individualism, it is you who defend the ego and refuse to give your self up when it comes to that last battle for the inner heart. But that is the crucial battle—there is no inner heart but one with god, which is the same substance as everything else; no power of inwardness and secrecy has any meaning or force but as it is an expression of pride and fear of the one nation, the one spirit, the one emotion—the one unthinkable. Is it not so? But what I am talking about is veritable apocalypse (not merely mysticism) and so there is no use in my beating my meat so. Dies Irae! Someday when I enter another world I will find all this talk to have been an attempt to deceive others as to the true nature of the apocalypse. But let there be terror in your heart for that day, as well. We will all be judged.
    I may be in NY Wednesday. If so I will stop by the New School. Here, meanwhile, is a key to my apt.
    Your fellow creature,
    Allen
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    Jack Kerouac [Ozone Park, New York] to
Allen Ginsberg [n.p., New York, New York?]
    September 9, 1948
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    Allen ami:
    Yes, want to see you, but why don’t you simply come to my house at Ozone Monday—if not afternoon, evening or late