I just reread Stan Grof’s book, LSD Psychotherapy. It was worth the rereading, especially for the information that Grof could share from his vast experience with the medicine. When I finished the book though, I was left with a feeling that Grof wasn’t speaking for me. I have been thinking about this ever since.

One thing that he kept going on about was how the LSD used in his therapeutic sessions was the pure stuff, straight from Sandoz. He would then talk about the horrors of street acid, about how impure it was and how it was often laced with substances such as strychnine. I never found this to be true for me. Perhaps I have always attracted only the pure stuff to myself.

He also often commented about those of us who have experimented with LSD in our own fashion, rather than following his way. True, his way was rather safe and was healing. It worked. But it didn’t justify his belief that those of us who experimented on our own were likely to become lost and never find our way to ourselves.

These differences started me thinking about my own use of LSD. How was it different than Grof’s? Grof is a healer. He uses LSD in the context of healing others. He uses LSD to facilitate his own healing efforts. He is the guide and the healing force behind LSD’s rather neutral effects. He’s awesome at what he does too. I respect him greatly for that.

However, he doesn’t really seem to appreciate that LSD has other important uses besides that of facilitating healing. I don’t use it for healing, excepting the healing that always goes on whenever I take it. I was a healer once. I can appreciate what can be done with LSD. But I have always wanted to take the LSD myself, not guide someone else.
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I dreamt once years ago of being in a garage in Berkeley and seeing some old drugstore signs still visible, painted on the floor. I realized that there had been an older city beneath the present one that I was then aware of. I decided in my dream that I wanted to explore this old city. I realized too that this was metaphor, that the old city I wanted to explore was the older and deeper layers of consciousness, ones that were especially needed in these dark times. I became an archeologist of the soul. And I have been exploring this Old City using LSD for over 50 years now

Ever since then, I have used LSD primarily to explore those deeper levels of consciousness. I have become similar to those early Introspectionists of the late 1800s and early 1900s. They would look within to their own consciousness to seek answers to their psychological questions. I am like them, of their lineage. However, with LSD I have the aid of an incredible tool, one that lets me delve much deeper than they were able, to the very bottom of reality.
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Usually I trip alone, in the woods if I can. I turn off my mind. I empty myself so I can take in reality as it is. I have heard trees talk. I have heard the stars sing. I have talked with Water Ouzel. I once had a rock offer to guide me, when I was lost and unable to find my way down from a high cliff. I took up the rock’s offer and was led down from that dangerous cliff to my camp below.

Another time, I was in the mountains and the beautiful landscape about me disappeared. All I saw was a greyness surrounding me. When I asked the universe to let me see the beauty again – after all I had driven 1500 miles to see it – the mountain beauty returned. But ever since then I have known that the greyness is there too, existing whenever we aren’t busy creating the world that we choose to see around us.

Whenever I am tripping, magic happens, constantly. Over the years, I have come to understand that it is always happening around me. However, unless I am on acid, I’m usually not fast enough to catch it. On acid though, I am telepathic. I am particularly good at sending thoughts and feelings. I often know what is coming next. I see the deeper connections between people. People are attracted by my energy when I am tripping. I understand the true workings of the universe. I live in the Tao.

In my favorite Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, they are romping together through the woods and fields. Calvin says, “Hobbes, do you think our morality is defined by our actions, or by what’s in our hearts?”

Hobbes replies, “Our actions show what’s in our hearts.”

Calvin gets very upset by this and screams back, “I resent that!”
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Most of us don’t want to see the connection between our actions and our hearts, yet cartoonist Bill Watterson is right on. Most of us are like Calvin. We like to think that our actions come from somewhere outside of ourselves.

None of us want to be judged by our acts. We all feel that we’re inherently good. We all feel that when we have done wrong, it was the devil or society or our own unconsciousness that made us do so. We all want to pretend that we’re the heroes in the story of our life, not that other shadowy character lurking within each of us, who is all too human and fallible.

And like Calvin, when we hear the unwanted truth, we scream back, “I resent that,” as if we could drown out the truth with the loudness and vehemence of our reply. However, when we ignore the truth from our Hobbes side, we end up further and further away from our true selves, from reality itself.

We have to accept that we are best reflected in our actions, and that we do act from our hearts. We have to accept this in order to go on honestly with our lives, in order to grow from our actions that have affected others and, most of all, ourselves.

Most of us, however, are quite far from the truth of ourselves. We want only quiet and false agreement from our deeper and wiser Hobbes selves. For most of us, that may well be all we’ll ever get – at least until we die and finally wake up, realizing only then all the lost possibilities of our lives and all the hurts that we have left behind. Each of us does have the capability to be a fully realized human being – yet only a few of us even make the attempt.

When I was younger, I was what you might have called schizophrenic. I heard voices, and I was always frightened. Later, working on my head, both alone and in psychotherapy, I healed myself in the only way that truly works – by becoming a shaman, by entering into my so-called craziness rather than avoiding it.
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Julian Silverman in the American Anthropologist, 1967, wrote that “significant differences between acute schizophrenics and shamans are not found in the sequence of underlying psychological events that define their abnormal experiences. One major difference is emphasized – a difference in the degree of cultural acceptance of a unique resolution of a basic life crisis. In primitive cultures in which such a unique life crisis resolution is tolerated, the abnormal experience (shamanism) is typically beneficial to the individual, cognitively and affectively; he is regarded as one with expanded consciousness. In a culture that does not provide referential guides for comprehending this kind of crisis experience, the individual (schizophrenic) typically undergoes an intensification of his suffering over and above his original anxieties.”
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So, a schizophrenic is a being born with the potential to be a shaman. A shaman is a person who is at home in both the inner and the outer worlds, a spiritual source. All that needed for a schizophrenic to become a shaman is the support of his or her culture.

Acceptance by our present culture, of this sort of “unique life crisis resolution,” would allow each person who is a potential shaman the chance to achieve this expanded consciousness. Many have this potential. Yet, today, in our culture, a schizophrenic is not likely to receive any support or understanding. He or she is more likely to be locked up or given drugs.

This is a reflection of how the collective consciousness of our society is overly left-brained and rational and has repressed its other side, has called it schizophrenia. Rather than being open to this other form of consciousness, our culture has locked it out of our common consciousness and has locked it up whenever it has manifested in an individual.

Such a strategy is shortsighted and leads to mediocrity and cultural stagnation. The folks running our world remind me of King Herod, killing all this newborn potential for higher consciousness, just because they feel threatened.

Airplanes have always fascinated me. I grew up during WWII and was really into them then. I watched all the war movies and all the newsreels. I knew every military airplane our pilots flew and many of the enemy’s too.
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This was one of the reasons I joined the Air Force later in my life, during the Korean War. I also didn’t want to be a foot soldier in Korea. So, instead of being drafted into the army for two years, I enlisted for four so I could be in the Air Force.

As an enlisted man, I went through the standard basic training program, where they put us through something very much like brainwashing, intentionally trying to break our ties to our old lives. They wanted us to see the Air Force as our new family.

However, part way through my basic training, something happened that changed my time in the service. I got very sick, exhausted mostly from the lack of sleep and the bad food. Because of this, I was taken out of my training group and was able to hang out on the base for awhile as an almost unnoticed individual.

During this time, I saw a notice, offering tests for Aviation Cadet Training. I easily passed the tests and was accepted for training to be a flying officer. They even let me go home for thirty days before reporting to the officer-training base in San Antonio, Texas.

They tried to teach me to be an officer there. They told me and the others that we were the elite of our nation, that we were special, that we were all officers and gentlemen. I knew it was all bullshit, but most of the other young guys bought it.

A year later, finished with my officer training, I was stationed in California, near Sacramento, training to be a flight engineer on a B36 bomber. By then, I was going crazy. I didn’t like being bossed around all the time, and I was seriously thinking of deserting. Instead of deserting, I began to drink heavily. But I did finish my training, in spite of being drunk or hung over most of the time.

I was on my way to report to my new assignment in New Mexico when I heard on the radio that a B36 had just crashed. It had been caught in a tornado and had gone into a flat spin. Everyone on the crew died.

When I got to the base, I was told that if I had arrived a week earlier I would have been on that crew. I was glad I had missed it. From the start then, I was aware of the dangers facing me. Fortunately though, the worst I ever had to experience, as a flight engineer was carburetor ice. We were flying at forty thousand feet, when all six of our engines lost power and we dropped like a rock – until we finally managed to restart them at twenty thousand feet and continue on with our mission. That was sort of scary.
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The B36 was a giant of an airplane, with a crew of thirteen – three pilots, two engineers, three navigator-bombardier types, two radiomen, and three gunners. During flight I would sometimes have to use the little sliding cart that went through the long tunnel between the front and the back of the airplane, through the bomb bays. I would also have to crawl out inside the wings several times on almost every flight to check for electrical problems or fuel leaks.

Sometimes we carried hydrogen bombs. That was really scary.

Once we were stationed in Guam for three months as part of a SAC (Strategic Air Command) mission. We even flew to Japan once while we were there. I remember when our assignment in Guam ended. Our commander decided we would fly back to the states nonstop. It would be quite a haul. He told the other engineer and me to overload the airplane with fuel so we’d have plenty for the trip. He promised he’d get us off the ground.

He did too, although he used up the entire runway. Once in the air, we flew nonstop for over twenty-seven hours without refueling. We took turns sleeping in the bunks whenever we could. It was a wonderful feeling when we finally came to the mainland.

Over time my eyesight worsened, and the Air Force finally grounded me. I was bummed out at the time, although now I thank God. Otherwise I might have stayed in the Air Force. I might even have become a Colonel or General by now.

While finishing my tour of duty, I worked as a refueling officer. I supervised the refueling of all the B36’s in our particular squadron. Mostly I just let the enlisted men do what they already knew how to do. But sometimes I would forget on purpose that I was an officer and do some of the work. I remember towing one of those giant planes, driving the huge tug myself. That was fun.
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Nowadays, my heart still quickens whenever I drive by the airport and see the planes taking off or landing. I still have a love affair with airplanes; but being somewhat contrary, I have decided I’ll never fly in one again. Now, whenever I want to fly, I do LSD instead – and I get much higher too.

In my recent note, “Being an Intellectual,” I wrote about Julian Jaynes and his notion of the bicameral brain. In his book, Jaynes postulates that the two hemispheres of our brains operate independently of one another and with different functions and capacities.

In particular, he locates the gods in our right hemispheres, those so-called higher beings that Jaynes says we project out upon reality, in the form of visions or voices. For him, these gods, both ancient and current, are just these visions and voices created by our right hemispheres, created so that they can talk to us in our left hemispheres and direct the course of our lives.

I’ve been thinking about Jaynes and his notion ever since I wrote about him. I have continued to reflect upon his notion and its ramifications. In fact, the thought just came to me that my right hemisphere (and probably everyone else’s) has a greater relationship with all the many levels of reality than does my left. It may not house the gods but it can see through time and at a distance. It doesn’t need words. It speaks primarily in images. It is the source of our dreams and our visions. It is the source of all that we now call magical or spiritual.

This higher consciousness that is located in our right hemispheres is a result of them being wired, so to speak, wired to be closer to and more connected to the larger consciousness of the Tao. In particular, the consciousness in our right hemispheres is identical with that larger part of ourselves that will continue to exist after the deaths of our bodies.

For most of us though, when we think of ourselves, of who we are, we think of our left hemispheres, teeming with all our thoughts and feelings that consume so much of our time and energy. Most of us identify with our left hemispheres and all that goes on within them. In fact, most of us still think that all of consciousness is limited to what goes on in our left hemispheres.

However, every once in a while a dream will come through, a hunch will catch our attention, a small still voice might be heard, all asking us to listen and perhaps to try a new way, a new path with heart. Even today, identified with and stuck in our left hemispheres as we are, we can still hear if we listen.

The right hemisphere is definitely the place to visit– at least for those of us who would have a Great Spirit to talk with – the place where we will always find a spiritually enlightening conversation. This place is where we will find the Master within us. This is where we will learn to live past our limited personal identities.

When I call these short essays, “Notes from the Edge,” I mean that they are messages back from the leading edge of consciousness, back to those who are more comfortable perhaps running with the pack.
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In German, my surname Marks (or Marx, as in Karl) originally referred to those folks who lived at the edge, at the boundary markers of their town or city, of their culture really.

And even before we humans had begun to settle in our towns and cities – when we were still wild and wandering tribes of folks, always on the move – those of us who would later come to be called Marks were probably the scouts, those of us who liked to stay ahead of the rest of the tribe, always looking outwards and always letting the rest of the folks know what was coming next. Those scouts, or edge walkers, were probably just us folks who were most comfortable with newness and change.
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Ken Kesey once told a story about Tim Leary, who was definitely an edge walker, certainly one of the most far out we’ll ever see. Kesey told the story this way:

We’re all on a fast moving train. Some of us know that there’s a sharp bend in the tracks up ahead. We also know that the train is going too fast to stay on the tracks when it goes around the bend. But none of us know how to slow down or stop the train. All we can do is to wander through the cars, preparing folks for what is coming. Tim, however, has gone on ahead of us. He’s already at the bend in the tracks, trying to straighten them out before the train and the rest of us get there.
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There is collective movement to the human race. It is not on the physical plane. It is spiritual in nature. And there’s a leading edge to this spiritual movement, made up of those of us who are most comfortable with change and most eager for whatever chance for growth that Spirit might be offering next. We’re not leaders. We’re more like old Tim Leary, just ordinary folks with maybe a taste for the strange and a desire to help the human race along.

When I was growing up, folks like myself were called avant-garde, but that always seemed too foreign and fancy for my taste. And besides, I haven’t even begun to exhaust my native tongue. I’d rather just say that we’re the citizens of Edge City, living always at the edge of the edge.

In my previous post, “Being an Intellectual,” I praised that side of myself. However, it turns out that my life has actually been all about body. Before I entered the woods for the first time, it’s true, I was an out-of-the-body intellectual. I was always reading or studying, and usually sitting at my ease in a chair or at my desk. I seldom if ever exercised and was probably on my way to an early heart attack.

In my early thirties though, something happened. I began to backpack. I also began doing acid. Doing acid in the woods helped me to accept and to facilitate this change in my life. Ever since then, I have remained an intellectual, but I have also been able to enjoy my strength and prowess as a body. And today, I am still very strong and healthy and horny for someone my age.

I’ve been going into the woods now for more than fifty years. I have hiked and backpacked often in the High Sierras of California and in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. I have also backpacked in Montana, Wyoming, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, as well as into the various Rainbow Gatherings in such states as Vermont, Michigan, and Minnesota.
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Back in the late fifties, when this all started, I backpacked several times with my first wife. The first time she and I went, I lost my wedding ring. I didn’t know it then, but I was actually choosing the mountains over my relationship with her. However, it took her cheating on me a few times and then leaving me for her Jungian Analyst for me to do something about it.
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Several years later, after she and I were finally divorced, some friends of mine from UCLA wanted to go backpacking and do acid with me and my partner. Thinking about where to go, I remembered the first place that I had gone to – Dinky Creek in the High Sierras.

Dinky Creek is on the west slope of the Sierras, near Shaver Lake, between Fresno and Kings Canyon National Park. It’s beautiful – lots of rock, lots of trees and lots of water. Another creek, Cow Creek, comes down and joins up with Dinky Creek, and that is where we ended up, right at their juncture.

We had a magical trip together while we were camping there. We all did acid and wandered around barefoot in the woods all day. We realized that everything we did in the woods, even the chores like gathering firewood and cooking was fun, lots of fun! That first day, we all became bodies, bodies with minds. And ever since then, whenever I go backpacking and do acid, I become body. I wander around, exploring in wonder. I climb rocks and trees. I dive into the icy cold creeks. I lie out under the stars at night.

That first trip at Dinky began an incredible spiritual odyssey that I am still on today. After that first trip, I continued to return to Dinky, either alone or with others, doing acid and exploring consciousness. It became my spiritual home.
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In the early seventies, I had a major transformative experience while tripping there alone on peyote. I overcame my fear then and finally became who I truly was. I became Wanderer, an acid adventurer, living on the edge of reality.
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Although I now live in Colorado, I still wander in the woods. I still explore consciousness. And I still use acid to do so. I love spending a day or a week or more alone in the woods doing acid. I have tripped at home, in the city, but I have found that tripping alone in the woods is the best way to become high and conscious.

I still do a lot of day hiking in the foothills near Boulder or up in the higher mountains. I like to hike with the whole family, with Aspen and Callahan and the other boys, although Jake, with his muscular dystrophy, and Zane, with his four-year-old legs, can’t go for very long hikes. Callahan can. He’s great. He keeps up with me easily. I’m grooming them all though, hoping that when I can no longer carry a heavy backpack, they can all help out.

I haven’t backpacked in years, not since Aspen and I started having kids. But Callahan and I are going backpacking together this coming summer. And if I have my way, we will also all go out to California this summer to visit Jonathan and his family – and, of course, to visit my old camp at Dinky Creek.