All of the reviews here about how much ZP lacks plot, the acting is wooden, the orgy scene makes no sense, etc., all miss the main point.
Let's be honest. This is a movie made in the heady times of late 1960s and early 1970s Los Angeles. It is a movie meant to be watched while your are H-I-G-H out of your mind on some psychedelic substance.
Find some kind bud and smoke up, or get a mild hit of acid. Seriously, these straight and sober reviews of ZP miss the point. You can't get anything out of this movie in a straight frame of mind.
Until you've watched this movie on the big screen (which I am lucky to have done three times in the 1990s when ZP was quite rare) tripping out, you have no idea what this movie is all about.
If you insist on watching it not intoxicated, you can at least appreciate the ending when the crap blows up to the soundtrack of Pink Floyd's wonderful re-working of "Careful With That Axe, Eugene," "Come in Number 51, Your Time Is Up."