Feb. 28, 1970

T.D. Lingo

Adventure Trails Survival School

Laughing Coyote fountain

Mack Hawk, Colorado

My dear friend:

One appreciates your appreciation. And we are following this up by sending you some material which we command you to read. It does not have to be returned, although it may if you wish. We dare not impose on anybody. And least of all at a time when the program is over-crowded.

I am not a psychologist nor neurologist. I wish to go over your notes more carefully when I can
compare them with material lately placed in my hands stemming from the late Count Alfred
Korzybski and from some of his pupils who are dissatisfied with the current trends of what is called “General Semantics.” The GS movement has been rightly or wrongly criticized because it seems to have been narrowed to sentence structure corrections and therein to have departed from the psychologies of the author of “Science and Sanity.”

There have been quite a few movements which seem to have explored this area. Although my main studies have been in depths of Oriental philosophies not yet disclosed to the American public, I also realize research and adventures by various Americans in particular, which are outside my fields of endeavor.

It would be very rude to intrude where one has not the same general background or sense of discovery as one may have in those areas to which one’s life has been dedicated.

I am going to mention the subject “sex” here because you have mentioned it. I have no answers. There are anywhere between 92 and 108 chemical elements, and they seem to display various kinds of polarities, from Oxygen which I call the great whore, to the predominant Silicon which, although the most prevalent of all elements, seems to act like a monk. I therefore disdain me any subjective value judgments. My present conclusions on the transcendental side are that transmutation is wonderful and totally different from repression or even sublimation—a term which is not entirely comprehensible to me. But at the same time there are transcendent values according to our states of consciousness, and in the higher states of consciousness, as I have experienced them to the date— and I mean directly experienced them—no borrowed knowledge, it is possible to utilize sex energies to promote health and vigor and longevity, even by utilizing polar magnetisms which are associated with one’s personal physiological sex. I consider this subject one to be studied along with states of consciousness, psychologies, etc., and very little with popular social moralities or lack of them. And while I close my personal point of view on this point, it has been conditioned by some study, and I mean actual study and not philosophical reference to the mineral, vegetal and animal worlds.

We have been going through a number of basic changes and all the subjects seem quite different, the same personalities seem to be involved in the same general trends. For instance I have been a successful organic gardener. Several of my disciples are involved in what is being called The New Age Food outlet. We have met several persons residing in either Denver or Boulder, and it may be advisable to contact than in person later on. I myself and my secretary Mansur Johnson are scheduled to be at the Lama Foundation in New Mexico during the month of June, plus or minus both ways. Before receiving your letter we had been discussing an actual visit to those cities, etc.

Ever since the Psychedelic Conference here in 1965 there have been discussions of various states of consciousness. I found it very easy to accept all that Timothy Leary claimed, but found that even if true, these in toto represented but a small percentage of human potentialities or even of human actualities.

I am working more or less with Prof. Oliver Reiser of Pittsburgh in this same general field. One of my principles however is that if you expect receptivity and cooperation one most a oneself be receptive and cooperative and not demand this of others. So in planning for the future, both the worlds of thought and action, I am trying to keep under consideration the conclusions of others that may have gone more deeply into certain subject matters than I have.

However, my present program compels me to look at this general subject from the highest and inclusive point of view as I shall soon be meeting leaders from every culture in the world. The program is leaning toward a study of synthesis, integration, and harmonization, by a more open attitude of each towards the points of view of others.

On your last subject, “Beatitude,” I should like some more explanations either now or later, as there is no question that in my present dance techniques experiences in exaltation have been greatly enhanced. While their elders look askance and judge, the youngers participate and enjoy.

Sincerely,

Samuel L. Lewis