In this Aug 1966 letter to Richard Alpert my mother tells him she will look for, and send him, articles about parapsychology and research on the use of psychedelics.  She mentions an article about teen drug use that we had found.  She compliments him on his new book, ‘LSD,’ that he had sent her. She does question a remark he made, apparently in that book, about Russian use of LSD in ESP (Extra Sensory Perception) research. 

She shares with him about the letter from Robert Heinlein that I received, after writing him fan mail.  And how he cautioned me to only become ‘water brothers’ with special people. 

The book Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein is referenced by Ram Dass in a tangential manner in many of the letters he sent us. In 2012, the Library of Congress named it one of 88 “Books that Shaped America”. It introduced the word ‘grok’ into our English lexicon.

Here are a few more expressions directly from that book that show up in these letters from Ram Dass on occasion:

• ‘waiting is’ -very similar to ‘be here now’.
• Thou Art God – the idea that all humanity derives from the same source. 
• ‘grok’ – the deepest possible understanding or apprehension of something.
• May you never thirst – used to wish someone the best.