with his wife Betty. To support his family and finance their transition into the direct economy of living from the land and ocean, de Ropp worked until 1973 as a research scientist at the University of San Francisco. The family put down roots in their rural Sonoma-County locale, working at living simply. They grew fruits, vines, vegetables and wheat, as well as many ornamental plants. de Ropp fished in the ocean and Betty raised chickens. It was also during this time that de Ropp had an encounter with his neighbor, Hunter S. Thompson, that was immortalized in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. In the book, Thompson writes that the name of the "acid guru" was "redacted at insistence of [his] publisher's lawyer," but in the original Rolling Stone article both Robert S. de Ropp and his residence on Sonoma Mountain Road are unredacted. de Ropp wrote most of his books during his Sonoma County years. Among his most influential books (concerning spiritual development) are: The Master Game and Warrior's Way: The Challenging Life Games. The first of these stands as his report on what he had learned from his teachers and from the writings of similar figures, as well as more mainstream psychologists, psychiatrists, and researchers into fields such as religion and the spiritual life. The second is in part a sequential biography, and was written near the end of his life; a significant dimension of its content is his very personal evaluation of the characters and contributions of Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Madame Ouspensky, John G. Bennett (another direct disciple of Gurdjieff), Gerald Heard, Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary, Stephen Gaskin, Alan Watts, Carlos Castaneda, and other figures serving as teachers of those engaged in spiritual quests. He is critical of those he views as false gurus or merely pompous, and attempts a fair-handed assessment of those he deems verbose but limited, whilst yet expressing genuine gratitude for those whose efforts he believes have enriched human life. de Ropp died in 1987, in his mid seventies, in an accident while ocean-kayaking. Publications Sample list of academic papers R. S. de Ropp, The Effect of Preliminary Soaking of the Grain on the Growth and Tropic Responses of the Excised Embryo of Winter Rye Studies in the Vernalisation of Cereals. Annals of Botany 3: 1939 243–252 R. S. de Ropp, Studies in the Physiology of Leaf Growth: III. The Influence of Roots on