As soon as I graduated from high school I was off to the biggest college my parents could afford, Colorado University at Boulder, having seen students there who looked a lot like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez.

I'm not even sure there is a clear distinction between "spirits" and "extra-terrestrials". At least I think extra-terrestrials may be able to slip in and out of, around and between dimensions, including the dimension we relate to as ours.

I experienced direct telepathy with other people, and during one such incident, I I received a channelling of cosmic information from some being in another realm. It came directly through a friend who was tripping on acid, and as he began speaking stream-of-consciousness to me and my girlfriend - and both of us were very stoned on grass - his words conveyed cosmic instructions and information we all three knew to be profoundly important and meaningful.

I always meant to convey a message of peace and harmony, and thought I was choosing my songs accordingly.

Even though I was chronologically 21, I was pretty immature and naive for my age, having grown up in a small, isolated ranching town, eighty desolate miles from the nearest city, and back when there was much less cultural homogenisation by way of TV.

When I experienced altered states of consciousness, my whole philosophical structure crumbled, and that terrified me. And what scared me the most was the realisation that death was not the end!

I entered what I can only describe as an alternate universe, and experienced timelessness for myself, first-hand. There was no refuting the immortality of the soul for me ever again after that.