In Merlin's Parole, a dreamer comes to a chasm with a raging torrent down below. Seeing no way across, he inquires at the Bridgekeeper’s cabin. The Bridgekeeper, a crone seems willing to help, but only if the Wanderer recounts how he reached her door.

The story he tells moves from the football field to the monastery, to campus peace activism, Woodstock, a printing cooperative, a move from the Midwest to Berkeley and a marriage. The narrative retraces an intellectual journey from belief in a Medieval cosmology through Existentialism and Relativity Theory to a new sense of our responsibility for Reality. The Wanderer recalls questioning received ideas and admitting disallowed possibilities — such as the observable link between individual identity and the Stars. He tells of serendipitous events and personal experiences that spurred him to identify with Merlin, the mythological political advisor with one foot in another world.

As Merlin, he undertakes a first Walk across the United States, which inspires a discovery that Article V of the Constitution provides the means to effect profound change in an orderly and democratic manner.