By Kaya Laterman
The poet Allen Ginsberg, an early devotee who attended some of the first outreach sessions in New York, told The Times in 1966 that the chanting “brings a state of ecstasy.” Swami Prabhupada, known to his followers as Srila Prabhupada, officially founded the Hare Krishna Society that same year. Its first temple was located in a former gift shop at 26 Second Avenue in Manhattan. Early devotees were mostly white Westerners, many of whom were disillusioned with American culture as the Vietnam War bore on.