I took my first acid trip in the fall of 1968. It changed my life. Since then, I have done it regularly, sometimes quite often. I have always used it to raise my consciousness and to heal my relationships with other people and the universe. I have always liked it best for talking with God.

I began tripping while still a graduate student at UCLA. In my first year of clinical practice, while also training to be a Jungian analyst, the Jungians found out about my use of acid and asked me to choose between it and their training. I chose acid then because it didn’t ask me to choose. Instead it merely asked me to continue using my Jungian analytic awareness, as I had done earlier with my dreams, but now to help me stay conscious on my medicine wanderings, both inner and outer.

Although I still earned my Ph.D., I soon gave up being a psychotherapist. Instead I dropped out, and moved to Berkeley, where I lived in a house with other high folks whenever I wasn’t wandering in the high mountains or on the back roads of America.

I did act out my inner life, just as the Jungians had thought I would, but I did so with awareness and style. My life itself took on symbolic meaning, and I entered into another, more magical reality – one in which whatever happened was a symbolic message from God, guiding me upon my path. I soon began backpacking in the high mountains, often alone, doing high dose acid and learning who I really was and why I was here. The most important thing I learned was that there was nothing to fear.

I have lived a much different life than I would have had I chosen to give up acid and continue on with my Jungian training. Instead of becoming a Jungian analyst, I have become a Taoist wanderer, living simply and close to the land. Forced by the Jungians to choose, I chose the freedom to be myself and to follow my own path through life. I have never regretted my choice.