See also, Del Bagno’s “Ecstatic Dance in Pure Land Buddhism”

Del Bagno’s experience of ecstatic dance came from attending the improvisational psychedelic Blues band, Grateful Dead, shows which were gatherings for all kinds of hippies, freaks and those open to Eastern spirituality, who are known as Deadheads.

“In those years, I was a devotee of Guru Rinpoche Padmsambhava, the great Tantric Guru who established Buddhism in Tibet. Wherever Padmasambhava is present he is surrounded by a cloud of Dakinis, female Tantric Deities known for dancing in the sky. In the midst of those Grateful Dead shows I would dance in bliss and do parts of my visualization-meditation practice (sadhana). At times, it was hard to distinguish the Dakinis from the hippie womenfolk twirling and swirling in the crowds around me.”

The Grateful Dead were associated with the Beat Generation poets through their friendship with Neal Cassidy after whom the main character of Jack Kerouac’s “The Dharma Bums” was based. In 1965 through 1967, Cassidy would go on to join in with the writer Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters in holding the Acid Tests, big LSD parties at which the Grateful Dead provided the music.

A small group of Purelanders dancing