Burroughs, William S. – (1919–1997) American writer and performer whose correspondence with Allen Ginsberg about ayahuasca or yagĂ© was published as The YagĂ© Letters in 1963. This was 12 years after he traveled in South America to find a cure for his morphine addiction, possibly inspired by his accidental killing of his commonlaw wife and fellow addict Joan Vollmer. Burroughs’s description of the effects of yagĂ©, including the sensation of flight and journeying to a “place where the unknown past and the emergent future meet in a vibrating soundless hum,” have influenced many later Westerners, especially psychonauts or Cyberian shamans.
SOURCE:
Historical Dictionary of Shamanism by Graham Harvey and Robert J. Wallis 2007