whizzing by within inches of me. I freaked, but there was nothing to do except trust my instincts and keep going forward.
I found the perfect speed to be 371/2 miles an hour. Faster than that, and the road blurred; slower, and the wheel wavered. I came upon stoplights like a diver coming upon a sunken galleon, foggily, as from a great distance. Interestingly, although my mind was lost in some lotus land of indescribable fantasy, my physical reflexes remained perfect, and I brought the car to rest in front of my house with the delicacy of a ship landing on the moon.
For weeks afterward I floated on the high I received that day, digesting it, reliving it, weeping at the sheer beauty of it, tortured because I knew such a time could never be repeated, could never be accurately described. It was one of those moments that make one realize the poignancy of the haiku which goes, “‘How exquisite,’ I say, but with each thing I see, spring passes.”
Yet, that was not the heaviest of things which happened during the Haight sojourn. I had yet to come into contact with Frontiers of Science.
Since I was used to the New York brand of scene, with its rapid-fire punch and localized geography, it took some time before I could see the pattern of places and events which Rod Confers had put together. He was a physicist who claimed to have been taken up by a flying saucer one night and given a mission to turn on the world. It was part of the sublime naïveté of the man that when he told the story, it was impossible not to believe him. He held Wednesday and Thursday night gatherings, usually in the Grace Memorial Church and at the College of Marin. His basic trip was the formation of a kind of humanistic religion based on scientific principles, and he rented a huge run-down country club a few hundred miles north of San Francisco, where he began to put together one of the most outlandish communes on the Coast.
In the beginning, he attracted only true believers. These were people who fell into his scene the way I had dropped into Scientology. The essential difference was that Rod had no power trip going, nor any plans for world domination. Also, no money lined his pockets. In the beginning, one heard him talk, was moved, and simply turned over all one’s belongings to the Foundation. They took money, clothes, car, etc., and in return you were given a room, fed, and allowed to become one of the family.
The notion of “family” is a very important one on the Coast. One belongs or one doesn’t, and as in any family, there are no identification cards or passwords. You are known simply by your own face. This is why, when people went up to Harbinger Springs — the name of the place where Frontiers had its home — and asked if they could join, they were given a very elaborate runaround. If one felt he were part of the family, he just stayed, and then let the others decide on whether he could remain or not. As with so much else in California, a tacit agreement went a long way, and anyone who tried to be too explicit about things was vastly suspect.
The scene at Harbinger rapidly became one of dope and spirituality. The notion was that if a group of people could get it together and raise huge positive vibes, they would form a center from which salvation would flow. They did some dabbling in orgone meters, and were quite orthodox about diet. They also had some of the most beautiful hot spring baths in the area, and on any given afternoon there would be a small group of people sitting in the healing waters, gently stoned and smiling at one another.
Before long, they began to attract the attention of the straight world. They started to interest IBM executives and mathematicians and scientists from all parts of the country. The appeal was easy to understand. These were brilliant and sensitive men who had all their lives been channeled into the one arena society opened to them, and while they found its money and prestige and opportunity to use
I found the perfect speed to be 371/2 miles an hour. Faster than that, and the road blurred; slower, and the wheel wavered. I came upon stoplights like a diver coming upon a sunken galleon, foggily, as from a great distance. Interestingly, although my mind was lost in some lotus land of indescribable fantasy, my physical reflexes remained perfect, and I brought the car to rest in front of my house with the delicacy of a ship landing on the moon.
For weeks afterward I floated on the high I received that day, digesting it, reliving it, weeping at the sheer beauty of it, tortured because I knew such a time could never be repeated, could never be accurately described. It was one of those moments that make one realize the poignancy of the haiku which goes, “‘How exquisite,’ I say, but with each thing I see, spring passes.”
Yet, that was not the heaviest of things which happened during the Haight sojourn. I had yet to come into contact with Frontiers of Science.
Since I was used to the New York brand of scene, with its rapid-fire punch and localized geography, it took some time before I could see the pattern of places and events which Rod Confers had put together. He was a physicist who claimed to have been taken up by a flying saucer one night and given a mission to turn on the world. It was part of the sublime naïveté of the man that when he told the story, it was impossible not to believe him. He held Wednesday and Thursday night gatherings, usually in the Grace Memorial Church and at the College of Marin. His basic trip was the formation of a kind of humanistic religion based on scientific principles, and he rented a huge run-down country club a few hundred miles north of San Francisco, where he began to put together one of the most outlandish communes on the Coast.
In the beginning, he attracted only true believers. These were people who fell into his scene the way I had dropped into Scientology. The essential difference was that Rod had no power trip going, nor any plans for world domination. Also, no money lined his pockets. In the beginning, one heard him talk, was moved, and simply turned over all one’s belongings to the Foundation. They took money, clothes, car, etc., and in return you were given a room, fed, and allowed to become one of the family.
The notion of “family” is a very important one on the Coast. One belongs or one doesn’t, and as in any family, there are no identification cards or passwords. You are known simply by your own face. This is why, when people went up to Harbinger Springs — the name of the place where Frontiers had its home — and asked if they could join, they were given a very elaborate runaround. If one felt he were part of the family, he just stayed, and then let the others decide on whether he could remain or not. As with so much else in California, a tacit agreement went a long way, and anyone who tried to be too explicit about things was vastly suspect.
The scene at Harbinger rapidly became one of dope and spirituality. The notion was that if a group of people could get it together and raise huge positive vibes, they would form a center from which salvation would flow. They did some dabbling in orgone meters, and were quite orthodox about diet. They also had some of the most beautiful hot spring baths in the area, and on any given afternoon there would be a small group of people sitting in the healing waters, gently stoned and smiling at one another.
Before long, they began to attract the attention of the straight world. They started to interest IBM executives and mathematicians and scientists from all parts of the country. The appeal was easy to understand. These were brilliant and sensitive men who had all their lives been channeled into the one arena society opened to them, and while they found its money and prestige and opportunity to use
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