LITERARY NON-CONFORMISTS

William Burroughs

Wounded Genius of the Beat Generation

Oil painting by Christiaan Tonnis. Image from Creative commons.

My exposure to “the Beat Generation” was half a lifetime ago, but this summer, when I thought to look up the astrology of William Burroughs, I was inspired to put this story together for **Susi Moore** at MuserScribe.

Origin stories fascinate me, and in seeking out the roots of the counter culture of the ‘60s and ‘70s, I discovered William Burroughs in the ‘80s and the outsized influence he has had on so many famous creatives. I think of origin stories as related to the Zodiac sign of Cancer.

The people highlighted in MuserScribe often possess noble character traits, whose long-suffering achievements have benefited humanity in diverse, profound ways. While others are visionary artists who struggle for lifetimes to understand and own the complex nature of their gifts.

Today, I bring you someone from the dark side of the inspirational coin.

William S. Burroughs and Alene Lee in NYC 1953, photo by Allen Ginsberg found on Pinterest.

With the increase in book banning, I am reminded of William S. Burroughs, whose writing originally helped open some of these freedoms of expression that are now being revisited with censorship laws.

Our time in history is actually much worse. We are often denied access to the very materials that would help us grow and learn.

I present here the non-conformist, “Beat Generation” writer, William Seward Burroughs. February 5, 1914 — August 2, 1997, St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A

If you already know of him, little more needs to be said, except perhaps his own origin story. If you have not heard of him, he is a boundary-pushing creative irrigation system that has nurtured a huge number of writers, celebrities, rock stars, songwriters, and poets.

He is considered by some to be among the great writers of the 20th century. Norman Mailer stated Burroughs was the “only American novelist living today who may conceivably be possessed by genius.” I haven’t the qualifications to dispute or concur with this opinion, but I do know his writing has contributed, one way or another, to many of the great innovators of the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s.

He was a strong influence on musicians David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Roger Waters, Patti Smith, Mick Jagger, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Genesis P-Orridge, Frank Zappa, Tom Waits, Sonic Youth, Gary Numan, and Kurt Cobain. Numerous bands have drawn their names from his writing: “The Insect Trust”, “Steely Dan”, and “Soft Machine” among them.

Some noteworthy writers have been influenced by William Burroughs, including Cyberpunk pioneer William Gibson and “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” author Ken Kesey, and many others …myself included, though a little less than noteworthy.

David Bowie and William Burroughs found on Pinterest.

Like a blossoming drop of indigo ink dispersing in a cloud of clear water, what burst into my writer, astrologer mind, was the extent of Aquarian energy he carried in this life, energy expressed in the context of the Twelfth House.

I have started so many astrology projects over the years, some of them crazy ambitious, some as simple as watching movies or biographies while studying the person’s chart.

One of those ongoing projects has been the manifestation of Aquarian energy in certain creative individuals. The musician David Bowie and the brilliant, prophetic science fiction writer Philip K. Dick are other particularly interesting examples of this influence and their contributions to society.

[embed]William Burroughs - Heavy Metal Guru by Spencer Kansa. "Tell him I've been reading him and I believe every word he says." Bob Dylan to Allen Ginsberg on…www.beatdom.com

William, or “Old Bull”, as he was sometimes called, came from an affluent background, went to Harvard to study English, and is the author of several dozen books, most notably “Queer” 1952, “Junkie” in 1953, and “Naked Lunch” 1959.

William Burroughs writing, image from Pinterest.

After graduating from Harvard, his family gave him a $200 monthly allowance, a lofty amount in those days. This gave him the freedom to live wherever he wanted and to pursue writing without the encumbrance of a job.

William Burroughs is known for his friendship with Allan Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and, as a pioneer of the Beat Generation. The three of them met in 1943 while living in New York City. Alene Lee, pictured above with Burroughs in a photo taken by Allan Ginsberg, was Kerouac’s girlfriend. She was a major theme of Kerouac’s novel “The Subterraneans”, and she is central to several of his other works as well. She too is considered a member of the Beat Generation. Alene Lee was typing manuscripts for Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs when she met Kerouac in 1953.

Later, William’s parents sold the rights to the “Burroughs Adding Machine” and the company started by his namesake and grandfather, William S. Burroughs I, before the market crashed in ’29 for an equivalent sum of over 3.5 billion.

I consider Burroughs a kind of muse. But the gentle reader should be aware many of the “Beat Generation” writers lived lives on the margins of conventional society, often outside the law, and would, even today, be considered social pariahs by many.

I bring this article forward today not as an endorsement of lifestyle but because of the experience of seeing his astrology chart.

Since first reading him in the 1980’s I grew into a practicing astrologer, now retired, and found yet more inspiration in the clarity of his astrology.

One important key to understanding William Burroughs is in comprehending what happened to him after accidentally killing his wife. It is here where the wound that never heals is cut into his soul. The writer, living with the guilt of his actions, no matter how accidental and unintended, is forced onto an artistic path to understand what happened in their lives. William Burroughs is much more than a caricature.

Joan Vollmer (February 4, 1923 — September 6, 1951) was an influential participant in the early Beat Generation circle. While a student at Barnard College, she became the roommate of Edie Parker (later married to Jack Kerouac). Their apartment became a gathering place for the Beats during the 1940s, where Vollmer was often at the center of marathon, all-night discussions. In 1946, she began a relationship with William S. Burroughs, later becoming his common-law wife. In 1951, Burroughs killed Vollmer. He claimed, and shortly thereafter denied, that the killing was a drunken attempt at playing William Tell. (Excerpt from Wikipedia)

[embed]Women of the Beat Generation - Medium Read writing from Women of the Beat Generation on Medium. Everything about the Women of the Beat Generation by Larissa…medium.com

I grew up in the optimistic ‘60s and ‘70s, mostly in a small, inconsequential place. I have huge gaps in my cultural understanding. I have tried to self-educate. Even as a small child, I could sense the ‘50s and ‘60s were bonkers, not because of what happened then but because it had to happen at all.

For most people, these decades are significant; our own time now is fuelled by the many divisions brought to consciousness during that period, with the war in Vietnam being a frequently cited point of division.

This is not the only realm which the consciousness within humans exists, but is certainly one dripping with trauma, drama, peril, and prejudice.

Anything binary always seems like jail to me. A force applied to produce a predicable response to authority.

Today, with so many freedoms being “repossessed” by those who think freedom is a library book they can cancel and burn, or a car loan they can recall.

So many ways to look at the world. So many shoulders and stacks of books we stand upon.

Like many creative people, my first task upon hitting puberty was to run, and mostly, to bust open the hardening exoskeleton that society, parents, family, friends, and even I myself had custom-fit to contain the amorphous diaphanous natural fluidity of consciousness. A process that remains in operation to this day.

By any measure, this earth realm seems fraught with conflict. Like some great breathing organism, cultures inhale, exhale, create and destroy, live, flourish, die, and become something else. Progress is glacial, if at all.

Positivity helps, but we can only inhale so much. Positivity, like free will, is often dependent on perspective.

There is occasionally a resurgence of superficial nostalgia for the 1950’s. But honestly, for all but a certain slice of society, the 1950’s was a terrible time, by any measure.

Certain recalcitrant vectors of nonconformity strike even greater contrast in periods such as then and now.

Now that I think of it, Burroughs inspired me in several ways, primarily to attempt to free my mind from preconditioned judgment.

But there is more. Looking up his chart again this month, I found a watershed of clarity.

Some charts are more opaque than others, and of course, it is a difficult thing to describe a life in a handful of symbols. Other charts, like Burroughs’, are so clear they almost knock the reader over.

Image from Astro Gold astrology software.

Now that I think of it, the inconsequential place I grew up actually supplies 650,000 homes with electricity, so I suppose it is consequential.

Something I learned early in these studies is that authors and artists a person feels drawn to often have strong parallels to our own charts. It seems to me we are linked to others in ways that support the idea we are also adding to the file on any particular endeavour, even if only in an energetic form.

The trauma that is sometimes part of an Aquarian experience pushes the structure of our consciousness into new territory. In this current age, I think we are primed to experience this en masse.

William Burroughs image from Pinterest.

© Mike Ketch September 2025: This article is my original work. Medium is granted permission to display it solely on this platform. No part of it may be reproduced, copied, stored, distributed, or used in any form by any other party without my prior written consent, especially not to be used to train AI.

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