Leary, Timothy

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Timothy Leary

Born October 22, 1920
Springfield, Massachusetts

Died May 31, 1996
Beverly Hills, California

Psychologist, philosopher, teacher,
writer, lecturer, LSD advocate

Timothy Leary, a psychologist and former Harvard University professor, was one of the most controversial figures on the American countercultural or anti-authoritarian scene during the 1960s. He led experimentation with hallucinogenic, or mind-altering, drugs. He advocated the use of such drugs as consciousness-raising tools—a way to open people's minds to new ways of viewing reality. Leary urged a new generation of Americans to "turn on, tune in, [and] drop out," in a 1966 interview in Playboy magazine.

"I want to get back in. I think I belong in American society. I think that a society that imprisons its philosophers is playing with very bad magic. You can't imprison ideas."

—Timothy Leary, speaking while confined in Folsom Prison.

A rebellious soul

Timothy Leary was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, on October 22, 1920. Between 1938 and 1943 he attended Holy Cross College, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and the University of Alabama. During Leary's college years, his rebellious spirit was stirred as he realized that he was being taught to follow rules and orders blindly rather than to ask questions and think for himself. In 1944 he married Marianne Busch and they eventually had two children. Marianne died in 1955 and Leary went on to marry (and divorce) several more times.

After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II (1939–45), Leary earned a PhD in psychology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1950. He taught there through 1955 and then became director of psychological research at the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Oakland, California. He accepted a teaching position at Harvard University in 1959.

"Magic" mushrooms

Leary had long been interested in the workings of the mind, the evolution of consciousness, and the manner in which the mind and body interact. In 1960, while traveling through Mexico, he began eating mushrooms containing psilocybin, a hallucinogenic substance. Such substances cause hallucinations or mental images that are not connected to reality. Traditionally, these "magic" or "sacred" mushrooms had been consumed by Mexicans during religious rituals. Leary noted in his autobiography, Flashbacks, that while under the influence of the mushrooms he "gave way to delight" as he came to realize that "this world—so manifestly real—was actually a tiny stage set constructed by the mind." He referred to his initial consumption of the mushrooms as "the deepest religious experience of [his] life."

Upon his return to Harvard, Leary began the Harvard Psilocybin Project. He researched and assembled data on the effect of the psilocybin mushroom on humans. Working with Richard Alpert (1931–; later known as Baba Ram Dass), a Harvard colleague, Leary experimented on graduate students, inmates at a state prison, divinity students, friends, and acquaintances. Among those who ate the mushrooms were such noted writers as Aldous Huxley (1894–1963), Arthur Koestler (1905–1983), Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997), Robert Lowell (1917–1977), Jack Kerouac (1922–1967), and William S. Burroughs (1914–1997).

LSD experiments

In 1962 Leary took his first dose of lysergic acid diethylamide, more commonly known as LSD and nicknamed "Acid." LSD is a synthetically produced hallucinogenic drug that was discovered in 1938 by Dr. Albert Hoffman, a Swiss researcher. LSD was a powerful drug, far stronger than psilocybin. Leary described his initial LSD use, also called a "trip," as "something different. It was the most shattering experience of my life," as quoted on the Timothy Leary Web site. He became fascinated with the drug and began conducting experiments in which he recorded the manner in which it altered human consciousness and behavior. As he explored the drug and its effects, Leary came to believe that the use of LSD resulted in a heightened spirituality and sense of oneness with the world. He also concluded that it could be beneficial as a potential cure for alcoholism and a range of psychological disorders, including schizophrenia.

Leary's support of LSD and experimentation with students was controversial. In particular, the parents of many of his subjects were disturbed to learn that their offspring were taking drugs. Such parents had sent their children to Harvard to earn degrees and become the future leaders of America. Parents were concerned that their children were perhaps even getting involved in a subculture that embraced meditation and practiced Eastern religions.

In 1963, a nervous Harvard administration fired the professor-researcher. Leary and Alpert (who also lost his job at the university) then established the International Foundation for Internal Freedom. Based in Mexico, the foundation was a research organization that Leary and Alpert planned to use to further experiment with LSD and other psychedelic, mind-altering drugs. Almost immediately, the foundation was shut down by the Mexican government. Next, the pair founded the Castalia Institute in Millbrook, New York. Here, Leary and Alpert took the drugs themselves and supervised their use among friends and celebrities. Leary believed in taking the drug in a controlled setting to minimize the chance of having a "bad trip." During such episodes, the hallucinations are terrifying and cause dangerous actions. Leary claimed that LSD allowed the individual user to become conscious of knowledge and spiritual awareness that was contained in the brain by way of cellular energy. He became convinced that the drug was a key component in the ongoing development of human intelligence.

Arrest and appeal

In 1965 Leary traveled to India and converted to the Hindu religion. This gave an increased sense of spirituality to his beliefs about psychedelic drugs. That same year, his daughter was arrested for possession of marijuana while crossing the border from Mexico to Texas. Leary accepted responsibility for her situation and was found guilty of marijuana possession. He was sentenced to thirty years in jail. He appealed the verdict, arguing that the Marijuana Tax Act, one of the laws that supposedly had been broken, was unconstitutional. The case eventually went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 1969 ruled that the act was unconstitutional. The court noted that individuals neglecting to pay tax on marijuana brought into the United States would be incriminating themselves by admitting that they possessed the illegal substance.

During this period, Leary also appeared and spoke at rallies protesting the Vietnam War (1954–75). He joined in the recording of "Give Peace a Chance" with singer John Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono. He established the League of Spiritual Discovery, which advocated the use of LSD. He wrote two books, both published in 1968. In the Politics of Ecstasy, he explained his belief that the use of psychedelic drugs made spiritual awareness possible. High Priest described his experiences while on hallucinogens. He frequently gave lectures and coordinated staged multimedia programs in which he preached about the benefits of psychedelic drugs.

"Turn on, tune in, drop out"

By this time, Leary had become the unofficial national spokesperson for LSD and the psychedelic movement. This movement involved young people who saw drug use as a means of announcing their rejection of mainstream American culture. He urged people to "turn on, tune in, drop out," which became one of the catchphrases of the psychedelic era. The saying was being repeated among those young Americans who were questioning their parents' standards and way of life. Even though Leary was old enough to be their father, many young people admired him. They liked his openness, his fascination with consciousness-expanding drugs, and his passion and zest for life.

As more and more young people experimented with LSD—untold thousands tried the drug—the attention surrounding Leary greatly increased. In particular, older, conservative Americans viewed him as nothing less than a menace to society. Accounts of "bad trips" among LSD users, including some that led to severe injury and death, only added to the controversy.

In 1970, Leary was again convicted of possessing marijuana, which two years earlier had been found by police in a borrowed automobile he was driving. This time his sentence was ten years behind bars, to be served consecutively with a second ten-year sentence connected to the earlier Texas arrest. Leary was imprisoned in a minimum-security prison in San Luis Obispo, California, and he immediately began planning his escape. He fled by climbing to a rooftop and up a telephone pole, crawling on a cable that went across the prison yard and on a barbed wire fence, and then jumping onto a roadway.

Fugitive

Once a guru of the counterculture, Leary now was a fugitive, an escaped criminal, from justice. He escaped first to Algeria and then to Switzerland and Afghanistan. In 1973 he was re-arrested in Afghanistan by U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents. He was sent back to prison in California and released three years later. His early discharge reportedly came about after he agreed to offer the authorities information on political radicals he had met and with whom he had conferred while overseas.

"LSD President"

During the mid-1960s, Timothy Leary was at the height of his fame as the guru of psychedelic drugs. He offered a series of predictions about the impact LSD and other hallucinogens would have on mainstream American society.

Leary claimed in a widely quoted Playboy interview that newly developed psychedelic drugs were "really going to revolutionize our concepts of ourselves and education." In this regard, hallucinogens would be commonly used as educational tools in all public and private schools. These drugs would instruct children to be more in touch with their sense organs. In fact, any individual of any age who was concerned with intellectual pursuits would regularly consume LSD, or "drop acid." In 1967, Leary predicted that, within fifteen years, Americans would elect an "LSD President" and there would be a "pot-smoking Supreme Court."

Of course, none of these prophesies came true.

After his release from prison, Leary became fascinated by a range of subjects, including cyber-culture, computers,virtual reality, and space colonization, along with the workings of the human mind and body. He spent his last years exploring these topics as well as lecturing and writing essays. He replaced "turn on, tune in, drop out" with a new adage: "Just say know," a take-off on First Lady Nancy Reagan's "Just say no" anti-drug campaign, according to Flashbacks. For Leary, gaining complete knowledge was always preferable to simple rejection of something an authority figure says is dangerous.

Upon learning in the early 1990s that he had contracted prostate cancer and was terminally ill, Leary decided to document his death. He claimed that he eagerly looked forward to his passing and viewed it as "the ultimate trip." He died peacefully at his California home on May 31, 1996, surrounded by friends. Video cameras recorded his death, and his final words were reported to be, "Why not? Why not? Why not?," according to a New York Times obituary.

To some, Leary was a public nuisance, a corruptor of youth. In fact, in the early 1970s President Richard Nixon (1913–1994; served 1969–74) had once called him "the most dangerous man in America," according to the New York Times. To his fellow drug users, he was a visionary who saw the potential of the human mind. Both hated and loved, Leary was a symbol of the more decadent experimentalism of the 1960s.