LOFTON: But I am interested in this question of your possible madness. It's not a gratuitous question. There is a history of madness in your family.
GINSBERG: Very much so.
LOFTON: Your mom died in 1956 in a mental institution. Before that. in 1949, when you were twenty-three. you spent eight months in the Columbia Psychiatric Institute. What was this psychiatric disability and why did you spend just eight months in this institute?
GINSBERG: Well, I had a sort of visionary experience in which I heard William Blake's voice. It was probably an auditory hallucination, but it was a very rich experience.
LOFTON: This happened while you were masturbating, right?
GINSBERG: Yes, but after.
LOFTON: I want to ask you about this psychiatric disability.