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.
.

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.
.

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.