Timothy Leary was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. He was educated at the Universities of Alabama, Berkeley. From the spring of 1960 he taught at Harvard.
In 1957 he created the psychodiagnostic method "test interpersonal relationships Leary", which is still used by US intelligence agencies.
Your notoriety Leary received for research on the effects of psychedelics on the psyche and nervous system person. His research was in full swing when psychedelics (especially LSD) were outlawed. The experiments had to be stopped, but Leary was not going to give up psychedelics and sacrificed his professional career and reputation as an academic scientist for the sake of research.
This scandalous fame of Leary led to the suppression of his merits in those areas of psychology that later became associated with completely different names. Thus, his name should rightfully be on a par with the names of Rogers, Bach, Perls, Berne and other pioneers of group therapy. Basics of the theory communication games were also originally developed by Leary, but this theory gained fame in the modification of Eric Burne.
Innovative ideas of self-actualization and personal growth permeating early work Leary, coincide in time of publication with the innovations of recognized leaders humanistic psychology- Maslow, Rogers, Charlotte Buhler, among which Leary should be included. This is probably due to the fact that Leary only outlined many promising trends, and then, without any Freudian torment, “grinned”, watching how others pick them up and develop them.
Leary gained immense popularity at the height of the hippie movement. Over time, the press began to call him the "LSD Guru." Leary actively promoted psychedelics, lectured and wrote a number of books dedicated to expanding the boundaries of human consciousness.
Since 1965 Leary problems with the law began - he was repeatedly arrested on charges of possession of drugs, until in 1969 the US Supreme Court found Dr. Timothy Leary not guilty in the marijuana tax case. On the day he pleaded not guilty, Leary announced his participation in the election for governor of California, thereby challenging Ronald Reagan. Leary's campaign slogan was "Come together, join the party". My famous song"Come Together" was written specifically for Leary by John Lennon, based on his campaign slogan.
In 1970, Leary was arrested on charges of possession and use of drugs, sentenced to a total of 38 years in prison. In determining the place of detention, Leary had to go through various psychological tests on aptitude, many of which were compiled by himself, including the Leary test, so he easily created the image of a person the best way suitable for horticultural work. Thanks to this, he was placed in a soft regime prison and began to be sent to clean up and improve the territories, which he took advantage of when he escaped in September 1970.
The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, at the origins of which stood Leary, paid the radical left organization Weathermen to transport Leary and his wife from the United States to Algeria, where he was taken under their wing by the leaders of the Black Panthers, who were hiding there, led by Eldridge Cleaver. However, Leary then stated that Cleaver attempted to take him and his wife hostage.
In 1970, Leary and his wife moved to Switzerland, but, not having received asylum there, Timothy was forced to flee to Afghanistan. There, right at the airport, Leary was arrested by employees of the US Federal Narcotics Bureau, returned to the United States and put back in prison (1972), from where he left only in 1976 - already legally.
The media of that time and some authors of articles about Timothy Leary linked his early release with cooperation with the FBI and testifying against their friends who organized the escape. In fact, according to an open letter from friends of Timothy Leary, Leary never hid the fact of talking to FBI agents (which he wrote about in his autobiography) and did no real harm to anyone. He warned the friends who arranged the escape in advance about his cooperation. In the end, he testified only against those who had been underground for a long time, or whose guilt was impossible to prove. This did not suit the special services and he was left in custody. His subsequent release was linked to the fall of Nixon, the Watergate scandal involving FBI abuse of power when working with radical groups, and the change of California governor from Ronald Reagan to Jerry Brown.
In the 1980s, Leary became interested in computers and even created a number of software products. In the eighty-ninth year, as a consultant, he took part in the thriller Electroshock.
Shortly after death, his head was severed from his body and immediately frozen. 7 grams of Leary's ashes were sent on April 21, 1997 to the Earth's orbit by the Pegasus rocket, where they stayed for 6 years until they burned up in the atmosphere.
Leary's biographers say that in his bright and eventful life he managed to contain thousands of lives, to appear in many guises. Leary’s phrase, expressed in an interview with The Realist magazine, became famous: “Everyone gets such Timothy Leary what he deserves."
Leary's views were shared by the English writer, who was also a supporter of the "expansion of consciousness" theory. Creativity Leary influenced the formation of the views of many famous people, among them Robert Wilson and Robert Thurman. The well-known American prog rock band Tool uses a recording of Leary's speech beginning with the words "Think for yourself, question authorities..." at live performances before performing the song "Third Eye".
Died Timothy Leary May 31, 1996 from prostate cancer. The process of dying was recorded on video at the request of the dying. The last phrase that Leary said before his death was "why not?".
The life of outstanding people cannot be separated from the life of their generation. If you compare them to fish, the gene pool is the body of water in which they swim. General sensitivity generation prevails in them over individual, distinctive features.Landon Y. Jones
As I look back at my fruitful, ever-changing and incredible interesting life, then I understand that I have never changed my basic beliefs. Exploration of the territory of the mind, evolution and innovation - this is what I persistently and openly pursued, seeing in this an antidote to final and irrevocable maturity.Timothy Leary
Timothy Leary was born October 22, 1920 in Springfield, Massachusetts. His parents, Irish Catholics Timothy Leary Sr. and Abigail Ferris, came from very different backgrounds. From Abigail's perspective, the family was "traditional, family values and suspicious of everything that brought joy, seemed frivolous and newfangled. Their home was dominated by an atmosphere of “distrust of men and sexuality. I can't remember a single moment of great fun." On my father's side, the family, in contrast, was "wacky, hot, brash, and very different from my mother's family." They were “city dwellers, cultured, secular, sophisticated, wealthy egocentrics who did not hide their love of life, entertainment and sex. The main thing for them was the personality of a person, and the more outrageous, the better.
Timothy's father, nicknamed "Tote", despised those who worked for the system. He was a dentist, but he practiced dentistry occasionally, more like a kind of gentleman's hobby. Little Tim and his mother Abigail often spent their nights listening to a drunken Tote reciting Shakespeare, Keats, Poe and Coldridge. "Tote gave me a Celtic taste for intoxicating poetry, bardic passion and oratory."
AT school years Tim's favorite place was his grandfather's office with a huge library. Upon learning that little Tim reads eight to ten books a week, the grandfather gave his grandson great advice: “Never do what others do. Look for your own way… Be one of a kind!” These words sunk deep into Tim's soul.
After graduation, he was accepted to the University of Alabama, where he decided to major in psychology. The head of the department let him know that he was looking for smart students. “For the first time in my life, I heard someone talking about intellectual abilities as a positive and desirable quality. Up until this point, my mind had always given me a lot of trouble. I'm used to hearing that only conformity is considered a virtue."
After some time, Tim was expelled from the university for spending the night in the women's hostel. And this despite the fact that he was a straight A student.
Some time later, Tim entered the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, where he began to conduct important research in the field of psychotherapy. “Psychology has always fascinated me. I was lucky enough to be born at a time when psychology was gaining popularity in the United States. It seemed to be the most important science worth studying. That was the time of Freud, Jung and many talented European psychologists who dealt with the problems human mind. Freud may have gotten a little carried away with his anal-oral theory - you can have fun reading some of his writings - but he was right in many ways. In essence, he said that all people are different from each other, and this difference is determined by the events that took place in their lives, and not at all by their religion or nationality. By the way, I was trained as a Freudian psychoanalyst. As for Freud's concept of the "oedipal complex", I think that's just an extravagant way of stating the fact that your mother and your father have some influence on you. This is an ordinary performance, seasoned with ancient Greek mythology.
When conducting my first experiments in psychology, I imagined myself to be a physicist. I wanted to study the nature of human movement. All I did was compare one person's movement with another person's movement. I'm talking about interaction and action. You know, when a person gets into a group therapy session, he ends up in a clinic. The secretary makes an appointment, and then the patient sees a social worker in front of him. First, a psychologist tests it, then a doctor evaluates it. We received from each of these professionals an assessment of the patient's behavior based on interpersonal perceptions. Do you know what amazed and amused us? It turned out that patients were much better at diagnosing the condition of specialists, and not vice versa. For example, a patient would say to a psychologist, "Do you know that you have an anal-neurotic personality?" - and, as a rule, it turned out to be right.
Through extensive research, Leary's group found that one-third of patients who received psychotherapy began to feel better, one-third felt worse, and the last third of patients did not change at all. They came to the conclusion that psychotherapy does not really work.
Deeply depressed, Tim, realizing that "his profession is ineffective in practice," leaves his post at Berkeley and moves to Europe, where he lives on a small research grant. In Europe, Tim is visited by an old Berkeley colleague, Frank Barron. Frank tells Tim about his trip to Mexico where he ate ritual mushrooms and experienced mystical experience. Barron believed that these mushrooms were capable of transforming the psyche. At first, this news did not make much impression on Tim, and he ironically warned Barron that he was in danger of losing his reputation as a serious scientist.
In the spring of 1960, Tim begins teaching at Harvard. That summer, he spends his holidays in the Mexican city of Cuernavaca. An anthropologist at the University of Mexico City, who frequented the villa where Tim was staying, suggested that he try "sacred mushrooms." Leary decided to experiment, hoping that mushrooms could promote psychological transformation. His hopes were justified. “I indulged in the rapturous delight that mystics have experienced for centuries when they peer behind the curtain and discover that this world - so real in its manifestation - is really just a tiny decoration, constructed by the mind ... The mystics returned from there, rapturously and incoherently muttering about higher levels perceptions where you see realities that are hundreds of times more beautiful and meaningful than the soothing familiar scenarios of normal life ... I suddenly opened simple truth: everything we consider to be reality is nothing but a social fabrication."
Tim is so overwhelmed by the "mushroom experience" that he begs the Harvard administration to allow him to conduct research into the effects of psilocybin and asks to be allowed to place an order with the Swiss firm Sandoz Pharmaceutical for the supply of psilocybin, the synthesized equivalent of the psychoactive substance "magic mushrooms". He intuitively feels that mushrooms can become a tool for reprogramming the brain. He believes that when using mushrooms under the guidance of an experienced mentor, a person is freed from painful ideas about himself and from stupefying social archetypes, the character and behavior of a person is transformed. Leary and Barron developed a research project that was called the "Harvard Psychedelic Drug Research Program".
Strictly speaking, Leary was not the first psychologist or the first modern philosopher to explore the potential of psychedelics (mind-altering hallucinogenic drugs). Aldous Huxley's The Gates of Perception and Heaven and Hell had already been published, and other experts were doing research on the subject. Among them were the philosopher Gerald Hurd and the psychiatrist Oscar Janiger (who consulted in his Los Angeles office for such eminent patients as Gary Grant and Anais Nin). They developed various methods psychedelic therapy and achieved significant results in the treatment of neuroses and alcoholism. It is well known that the CIA and the US Army chemical forces conducted secret research the action of strong hallucinogens in order to deprive the combat capability of external and internal enemies and destruction of their psyche.
But there are three particular factors that characterize Leary's activity in this direction. First, he widely used general scheme experiment of the theory of transactional analysis: therapists did not give drugs to patients, and then did not sit next to them and did not observe their reactions, but entered the narcotic state with the patients. Secondly, Leary developed the concept of "setting and choosing the environment": if you set up a person who was about to take a drug in a certain way and surrounded him with affectionate attention, you increased the likelihood that psychological condition the person improved markedly. The final component that distinguished Leary's work from that of all other psychedelic drug researchers was Leary's personality itself. He was a fiery innovator and explorer, and although his inner fire sometimes made his life hell, in the end it was the fire of glory that befell Leary in modern history.
Having immersed himself in the world of psychedelic drugs, he realized that they could be used in therapeutic psychiatry as a new chemical agent for changing the brain, and began to investigate the effect of hallucinogenic drugs on the human nervous system. Like a true researcher, he scrupulously designs and sets up laboratory experiments. Unfortunately, at this time official medicine declared LSD a dangerous new drug. In a fit of righteous rage, the authorities classified LSD as an illegal heroin-type drug. Leary's experiments were quickly curtailed, considering the nature of his research to be too ambiguous.
The first experiments that Leary conducts with Barron involve Harvard graduates. Almost all graduates took part in the experiments with such zeal that it caused discontent among the rest of the faculty. Most of them had nothing to oppose to the new paradigm, and therefore they did not show much interest in these experiments. “The differences between those who sought to explore new territories of the brain and those who did not take risks and question the old values were the first signs of a deep cultural conflict that was to flare up in the next decade."
When some positive results have been obtained that confirm the correctness of the direction he has chosen, and experience gained conducting "psychedelic sessions", the scale of experiments expanded and went beyond the walls of the university. Next level: psychedelic treatment of prison inmates. Tim was allowed to give psilocybin to specially selected prisoners in state prison Concord. Research group became at the same time a support group for the inhabitants of the prison when they were released. In 90 per cent of cases, the work of this group has helped former prisoners to refrain from committing new crimes.
Experiments were also carried out on a group of students of theology. The purpose of the research was to test whether the chemical alteration of consciousness could produce more intense mystical experiences. The results confirmed this assumption. The students who took psilocybin experienced real spiritual experiences, while the students who took the placebo experienced nothing. The results seemed amazing, but Tim never got highly appreciated that his work deserved. The idea of people being able to communicate directly with God irritated the religious institutions of the country extremely. “We are faced with a Judeo-Christian commitment to one God, one religion, one reality, which has made Europe and America suffer for centuries from the first days of its foundation. Drugs that open consciousness to multiple realities inevitably lead to the formation of polytheistic views of the universe. The chapter is finished. Experiments are completed.
At Harvard, Tim meets Aldous Huxley and Allen Ginsberg, and they popularize psilocybin with such famous intellectuals as William Burroughs, Thelonious Monk, and Jack Kerouac. Huxley believed that drugs should only be used in bohemian artistic circles. Tim, along with Ginsberg, quite in the spirit of his professional convictions, believed that anyone could use psychedelics, and even believed that they would bring much more benefit to ordinary people. Barron returns to Berkeley around this time, and Tim begins to work closely with Associate Professor Richard Alpert.
At this time, enters the stage new character- Philosophy student Michael Hollingshead. He shows up at Harvard with a mayonnaise jar that's filled with sugar flavored with LSD, and catches Tim's attention with stories about the effects of LSD. Tim learns that LSD is a powerful hallucinogen synthesized by Swiss scientist Dr. Albert Hoffman in the early forties. Tim takes LSD and admits that “this time it was different. It was the most amazing experience of my life."
Many professors did not like that Tim gave drugs to graduate students and graduates, and they demanded greater control over Leary's experiments and research by the university administration. For Tim, this was a return to the old obsolete style of doctor-patient relationship that he had fought so hard against. The conflict flared up even more when the drug enforcement bureau intervened.
Tim soon learned that the CIA was interested in their activities. Moreover, many younger students who were excluded from the research program found other ways to obtain and actively take LSD. Many parents sounded the alarm when they found out that their children, who went to Harvard University in order to subsequently join the elite circles and become the "flower of society", see God instead and are going to India.
Strong pressure was exerted on the leadership of the faculty. “The deans were bound hand and foot. They strongly supported our research, which was already of world interest, but they were under such political pressure that they could not protect us in any way in the face of this anti-drug hysteria. In the thirties, Tim and Alpert are "released" from their positions at Harvard.
Leary and Alpert weren't particularly sad about being fired. In Tim's life comes new stage. In the spring of 1962, Leary and Alpert continued their research on psychedelics at the Millbrook Mansion outside New York City. On weekends, hippies and bohemians “hang out” in it, “flying off” to other realities and exploring the borderline states of their souls. “We considered ourselves anthropologists from the twenty-first century, inhabiting a time machine that landed in the dark sixties. In this space colony, we sought to create a new paganism and a new understanding of life as an art."
But soon Tim accuses Alpert of having ceased to control the events that take place in the mansion, and they break off relations. Alpert takes the name "Baba Ram Dass" and becomes a respected teacher of Eastern disciplines.
Even when Tim was at Harvard, he was visited by a socialist from Washington, Mary Pinchot. She wanted to learn as much as she could about LSD sessions and the ability of psychedelics to change people's minds. She said that there are influential figures in Washington who are interested in the effects of this drug. And she suggested “... to transfer research on the narcotic release of people's consciousness, which are now being carried out on students, to a higher level. For peace, not for war. We can "connect" the Cabinet, the Senate, the Supreme Court."
After breaking up with Alpert, Tim remembered this somewhat creepy proposal. “But on reflection, I realized that it was close to what we Harvards, lazily dreaming of a promising future in our LSD sessions, called the goal of our scientific research on psychedelic drugs. I looked at my reflection in the window: a forty-two-year-old man, involved in the feminist scenario of "drug connection" of US government leaders to the idea of establishing world peace. After leaving Harvard, Tim met several times with Mary, who warned him that he was under the close eye of the CIA and that he needed to stop engaging in open propaganda of psychedelics. During the last meeting, she looked really scared. The next time Tim saw her dead eyes was in a newspaper picture. She was killed right on the street while walking along the Ohio Canal in Georgetown with two shots to the left temple and one shot to the chest. One of her friends told reporters that Mary sometimes walked here with her close friend Jacqueline Kennedy. Tim wanted to know more. "A close friend of the Kennedy family is killed in broad daylight without apparent reason! And it did not cause much hype in the press. No angry protests. No investigation." There was clearly something wrong here, and Tim knew it.
Seeking to get away from Millbrook's hectic pace, Tim took his two children and future wife Rosemary Woodruff on a vacation to Mexico. But he was denied entry into the country, and upon returning home, marijuana was found on his eighteen-year-old daughter. Tim immediately took all the blame, which was greeted with enthusiasm by the police. He was sentenced to thirty years in prison, and his daughter was sentenced to five years in prison, and this is because they found ten dollars worth of marijuana! This conviction turned Tim into a hero-martyr and incredibly increased his popularity. However, during this period, the government began to actively pursue its anti-drug policy, and Richard Nixon called Tim "the most dangerous man in America." Unsuccessful raids and the intrusive attention of J. Gordon Liddy marked the end of the Millbrook era. Leary was released from prison only on huge bail.
In addition to the shift in cultural orientations, the rampant use of LSD by young people was of great concern to the government. Newspapers were full of sensational reports about the terrible hallucinogenic experiences of young people, from which the blood ran cold in the veins. "Politicians, police, official psychiatry - all unanimously took up arms against LSD and marijuana as the most terrible threat to the existence of the human race." Tim was upset that society so unanimously anathematizes LSD and at the same time does not pay the slightest attention to alcohol, which caused really terrible consequences. He began lecturing, giving interviews, and writing magazine articles emphasizing the need for an experienced mentor and deep knowledge during LSD sessions. America needed a responsible drug policy, and that meant education and upbringing, not criminalization. However, his articles practically did not get into thick magazines.
Tim understood the need for positive press coverage of psychedelics and positive associations with LSD. One of his friends suggested that he meet with Marshall McLuhan, who can formulate principles for creating a positive image of LSD in society.
Marshall said, “Sickening Senate and courtroom hearings are not the right podium to speak from. You must take advantage of the most modern tactics to arouse "consumer interest". It is necessary to draw a parallel between LSD and all the good that the brain can create: beauty, bliss, philosophical miracle, religious revelation, intellectual enhancement and mystical romanticism. Tim noticed that the "opposition" had already gotten ahead of them, "pouring" into the press a flood of negative information about LSD and the dangers of reimprinting consciousness under the influence of LSD. McLuhan reiterated that this is why it is necessary to create a positive image of the "LSD guru" in society. He advised Tim to smile when photographed, never appear angry in public, and exude reliability and strength.
“I followed his advice and step by step, from being fired from Harvard to deportation, from Laredo to the Lyddy raids, removed from research and academia, I moved into open opposition to the politics of the ruling regime.”
Shortly thereafter, he coined the expression "Turn On" (i.e., activate your neural and genetic inclinations), "Tune In" (i.e., harmoniously interact with the world around you.) and "Drop Out" (meaning active, selective and an elegant process of peeling off reflex or unconscious beliefs.) Unfortunately, the press took this phrase as a call to "go crazy on drugs and give up any constructive activity."
Tim and Rosemary moved to Laguna Beach, attended friendly meetings and showed social activity regarding the military-economic activity of the country. After filing an appeal, Tim gave lectures and gave interviews. He was recording music albums with Jimi Hendrix, Stephen Stills and Buddy Miles. Together with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, he sang the song Give Peace a Chance. He decided to run for governor of California, and at his request, John Lennon wrote the song Come Together as a campaign manifesto slogan.
Tim was lucky, and the drug case filed in Texas was canceled after being considered in Supreme Court. However, relations with the Californian authorities did not work out for him. Once they were driving in a car, and the police pulled them to the side of the road. For possession of two cigarettes with marijuana, they were arrested by a police officer, whom everyone knew that he specialized in planting drugs. During a search of Jack and Rosemary, they found hashish and pills with "acid" (LSD). Tim did not protest about the cigarettes, otherwise they would have been outweighed by Jack and Rosemary. So, in the most conservative district in the United States and in the homeland of Richard Nixon, Tim received a ten-year prison sentence and was immediately sent to prison for a crime that usually carried a six-month suspended sentence. It could take up to two years to receive an appeals court decision.
After Tim responded to a prison psychological test based largely on his research, he was transferred to a lower security prison in San Luis Opispo. From there, he made an incredible escape, managing to hide from the beams of searchlights and climb over the barbed wire. “Imagine the situation I was in: a forty-nine-year-old man who was threatened with the rest of his life in prison just because he urged people not to be afraid of the new opportunities that open up before them and to make their choice based on reason. And this at a time when the American government is led by Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, Robert Haldiman, J. Gordon Liddy, J. Edgar Hoover and other clinical opponents of the democratic process.”
Shortly after escaping, Tim "emerges" in Algeria, where he was offered asylum by the exiled leadership of the Black Panther, led by Eldridge Cleaver. However, Cleaver himself considers Tim unreliable and places him and Rosemary under house arrest. They manage to escape to Switzerland and Tim tries to get asylum there. At the same time, he met the man who synthesized LSD, Dr. Albert Hoffman. During the meeting, Tim questions Hoffman about the dangers of LSD. "Without the slightest hesitation, Hoffman replied that there was no evidence to support the devastating effects of LSD on the brain."
The Nixon administration is demanding the extradition of American criminal Leary by the Swiss authorities. The Swiss authorities refuse to renew the asylum granted to Leary, and he is forced to flee to Afghanistan. He is arrested right at the airport and handed over to the drug enforcement officers.
Since 1972, Tim has been wandering around prisons and is released only in 1976, when his successor came to the place of the old judge. Tim is at a crossroads again. “Again, I found myself in a shaky and unstable position. I am fifty-six years old, have no home, no job, no credit, and very little faith. I felt pretty lonely. It was a good time to start a new life." He moves to Los Angeles and begins to move in Hollywood circles. He feels like Hollywood is literally bringing him back to life. After all, doesn't cinema change perception?
In 1978, he marries Barbara Chase, who had a son, Zach. Tim develops a relationship with the boy that he never had with his first two children. He enjoys being with Zach.
In the 1980s, Tim tours college lectures and paints pictures of the exciting future that computers will bring to the world. “It was a real evolution. In the sixties, we made a great discovery: it turns out that the technology of organic chemistry can change your mind. And now we learn that these changes can be caused not by powders and smoking mixtures, but by electron beams and screens. He opens his own company, Futik, to develop software that encodes analog information contained in mental images into digital. He is convinced that in the nineties the Internet will become something like LSD in the sixties, enriching the consciousness of people at the mass level.
The circle closes in the nineties. Tim begins to realize that computer-controlled electronic environment is the brainchild of the psychedelic revolution. Against the background of the flourishing of promising technologies, Tim begins to modernize all of its activities. His lectures turn into multimedia buffoonery, accompanied by a synchronous demonstration of the video sequence on the display and music. His books become graphic novels, products of computerization. It focuses on the expansion of the global Internet. Tim realizes that the network space is the very place he has been striving for all his life, a place where you can create your own worlds and interact with them.
Soon Tim concentrates all his efforts on creating his own page on the Internet, http: //leary. com, where he puts archives, throws new ideas and where he communicates with fans. In his latest book, Chaos and Cyberculture, he wrote that computers have changed the nature of interpersonal communication. “I belong to the older generation. We use email and we think it's "fucking cool". Meanwhile, young people spend all their free time in the on-line Internet. What kind of e-mail is there, because they live in global network! Every self-respecting ten-year-old boy has his own page on the Internet. It's amazing, but when you consider that all this changes every month .... Multi-channel, speed, global scale, visualization. Naturally, words are still meaningful when used as symbols. Like the word "communism", for example.
But he does not lose interest in traditional sources of information - books: “If you are drawn into the electronic screen life, this does not mean at all that you should forget about the books from which you drew information in the past. The wording "books or computers" is complete nonsense. Books and computers!
Asked by a correspondent who interviewed Leary shortly before his death whether he would like people's minds to change in any particular way, Leary replied: “No. I want people to have information and be ready to change their minds, and how they do it is their own business. I don't care how you change your mind, as long as you don't use force to do so. And, if you don't mind, I would advise doing this with friends. Life is a team game, dying is a team game, and exploring the "brave new world" of computer screens is also a team game. There is nothing sadder than sitting alone in front of a screen for eight hours a day. It must be as sad as taking drugs alone. The whole "salt" of drugs is precisely that you share this "high" with the team.
Having learned in January 1995 that he is terminally ill (prostate cancer in an inoperable stage), he eagerly grasps the experience of dying as greatest journey of all times. “Then I knew nothing about cancer, and I wanted to find out everything about it. When it turned out that I was terminally ill, I felt euphoric. I just burned with curiosity: “That's great! It's finally starting real game". The experience of the process of dying has been a battleground for all the great philosophers from the time of Plato and Socrates down to our own day... It was even more than a keen curiosity. It was anticipation. After all, I am 75 years old. I have lived a long and fruitful life. I'm not a young man who dies in the prime of life, when a bright future is just opening up before him. I write about death, meditate on death, and practice dying for years.”
He does not fall into melancholy and depression. He still often hosts parties and is seen at town events where he arrives in his wheelchair. Trying to break the veil of secrecy and destroy many taboos associated with the process of dying, he decides to cover this process from beginning to end, leaving behind a "map", which he aptly dubbed the "Dying Topology". He told family, friends, and journalists that he intended to explore the dying consciousness in the same way he once explored the alternate realities of consciousness that opened up through drug use: courageously and with humor.
As time went on, Leary's statements became even bolder. At some point, he decided that when trying to keep him alive ceased to make any sense, he last time will take a psychedelic, drink a suicide cocktail and will transmit all his feelings to the global Internet. Then, after his death, a team of cryogenic technicians will join the case, who will freeze his body in order to later remove and preserve his brain. As a scientist, he did not believe that he would be resurrected in the future, but he understood the importance of cryogenic research and always advocated futuristic sciences. He considered it "his duty as a futurist" and promoted the whole process.
It goes without saying that such projects provoked a hype in funds mass media, and drew contemptuous criticism from Right to Die activists who oppose the artificial life extension of terminally ill people. They believed that Leary was accepting his death without proper humility. Rumors were strongly inflated by fans who sought to attract attention and claimed to receive some kind of "inside" information.
When Tim was asked if he believed that there comes a point when the body no longer functions but the brain is still alive, he replied: “It is a magical time in human existence. I am only repeating thoughts expressed long before me by Buddhists and Hindus. This is the period when consciousness leaves the body, but the brain does not stop yet. On average, it lasts from two to fifteen minutes. All the great
philosophers say that you have to get out of the body, that the body is doing all this plumbing, circulation and pumping, and as soon as you turn off the equipment of the body, there is a turning point, a transitional phase between dying and death. We saw this stage earlier in the game of life when we experimented with LSD. This is the area!”
The last phrase that Timothy Leary uttered before his death, having briefly regained consciousness, was the phrase: “Why not?”. He repeated this phrase many times, in every way, with different intonations: inquiringly, affirmatively, quietly, loudly, thoughtfully, sadly and confidently. He soon died. There was no outrageousness in his death. He died without a challenge, calmly and courageously, surrounded by loved ones whom he loved and who loved him. It happened in the early morning of May 31, 1996.
In an interview with David Jay Brown shortly before his death, Leary said:
"One of the most important lessons that I learned is that when you meet an unstoppable force along the way, don't give up! Keep moving forward... Always live in the most the best place wherever you can live. The choice of location for filming - the place where you set the film of your life - is incredibly important. Go where people share your interests, your aspirations and your optimism. Of course, this place must be safe and secure…”
JB: Is there any secret to your never-ending optimism and courage that you have shown all these years?
TL: Common sense. All this common sense and fair play. Because fair play is common sense. In my opinion, this is the right approach to life.
Timothy Leary's favorite word was MIND, and his last wish was to create a HOUSE in cyberspace that could exist forever.
January 13th, 2018
Somehow we are already with you, well, here you are in the continuation ...
Leary got his notoriety for researching the influence of psychedelics on the human psyche and nervous system. His research was in full swing when psychedelics (especially LSD) were outlawed. The experiments had to be stopped, but Leary was not going to give up psychedelics and sacrificed his professional career and reputation as an academic scientist for the sake of research.
This scandalous fame of Leary led to the suppression of his merits in those areas of psychology that later became associated with completely different names. The foundations of the theory of communicative games were also originally developed by Leary, but this theory gained fame in the modification of Eric Burne. Leary gained immense popularity at the height of the hippie movement.
His merits in psychology are great, but they preferred to be hushed up, because of the scandalous fame that Leary later acquired. Among the pioneers of group therapy, Tim Leary's name should have stood next to Perls, Rogers, Berne, and others. Communicative game theory was originally developed by Leary, and became famous after being modified by Eric Berne. Tim more than once outlined promising trends, and then easily gave them to be developed by other scientists. He was talented in many areas. It is known that "Come together" is a song that was written by Tim Leary, and then covered in a different manner by the popular Beatles. The song has become world famous.
The psychodiagnostic technique was published by the scientist in 1957, so it was impossible to remain silent about it, and even more so, to change the name of the author of this technique. This questionnaire began to be used by special services (FBI, CIA), calling it the "Leary Interpersonal Questionnaire". Thanks to the questionnaire, personality traits that are important for interacting with others are revealed.
Its use has shown high reliability. The questionnaire was translated into several languages, and today it is used in many countries of the world. The Russian-language version was modified and translated by L. Sobchik back in the seventies. If Leary continued his research and development further, he would certainly become one of the most serious research psychologists.
Barron told him about his experience with sacred mushrooms in Mexico. The Wall Street banker Robert Gordon Wasson brought information about these mushrooms to the West two years earlier. According to Wasson's theory, they were the forerunners of religion. They were used by the Indians to change the state of consciousness during rituals. They explained the hallucinations in a mystical way. The Indians performed sessions extremely rarely, because of this, addiction did not form. It is because of this that the scientist considered that this procedure is harmless.
Tim listened with some curiosity, but generally almost indifference, as Barron explained to him their significance in the study of consciousness. Later, Dr. Leary signed a contract to lecture at Harvard and research new methods of psychotherapy - for a period of three years.
After eight months at Harvard, in the summer of 1960, Leary spent a vacation in Mexico and tried mushrooms there for himself. He described this experiment in Religious Experience: Its Implementation and Interpretation, presented to a group of Lutheran pastoral counselors at the American Psychological Association. Upon returning to Harvard, where Leary was working at the time, he conducted several experiments on the effects of mescaline on the mind.
Interest in hallucinogens naturally led him to the most powerful of the psychoactive drugs - LSD. No one has yet seen anything particularly reprehensible in this. Leary was not a pioneer in the use of LSD. Back in the 50s, this drug was used in psychotherapeutic practice, although its effect on the psyche was not entirely clear and was actively studied. "LSD is more important than Harvard," he said, and in the spring of 1963 Leary and his assistant Richard Alpert became the first faculty members to be fired from Harvard by Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1838. The official reason was Professor Leary's absence from own lectures, but it was enough to read the leaflets with his spiritual manifesto, which were widely circulated around the university, to understand true reason layoffs. The last lecture he gave at Harvard was "American Education as an Addiction and its Cure."
As a result of the propaganda campaign launched by Leary, LSD gained unprecedented popularity, and was soon banned. The scientist considered psychedelic drugs a means for enlightenment, but did not take into account their negative impact on the psyche.
Over time, the press began to call him the "LSD Guru." Leary's own psychedelic experience left an indelible impression on him. “I suddenly felt,” he wrote, “that beauty and horror, past and future, god and devil are outside my consciousness, but inside me. I learned more about the workings of the human mind in five hours than in fifteen years of professional practice.”
The hippies considered the scientist their guru, they worshiped him, extolled him. Leary was fired from Harvard for allegedly disrupting his teaching schedule. In the late sixties, Leary ran for governor in the state of California.
Leary actively promoted psychedelics, lectured and wrote a number of books dedicated to expanding the boundaries of human consciousness. Since 1965, Leary began to have problems with the law - he was repeatedly arrested on charges of possession of drugs, until in 1969 the US Supreme Court found Dr. Timothy Leary not guilty in the marijuana tax case. On the day he pleaded not guilty, Leary announced his participation in the election for governor of California, thereby challenging Ronald Reagan. Leary's campaign slogan was "Pack up and have a party." In 1970, he was arrested on charges of possession and use of drugs, sentenced to a total of 38 years in prison.
Leary had to pass various psychological aptitude tests to determine where he was to be detained, many of which he himself had compiled, including the "Leary test", so he easily created an image of the person best suited for gardening and field work. Thanks to this, he was placed in a soft regime prison and began to be sent to clean up and improve the territories, which he took advantage of when he escaped in September 1970.
The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, at the origins of which stood Leary, paid the radical left organization Weathermen to transport Leary and his wife from the United States to Algeria, where he was taken under their wing by the leaders of the Black Panthers hiding there, led by Eldridge Cleaver. However, Leary then stated that Cleaver attempted to take him and his wife hostage. In 1970, Leary and his wife moved to Switzerland, but, not having received asylum there, Timothy was forced to flee to Afghanistan. There, right at the airport, Leary was arrested by the US Federal Bureau of Drug Enforcement, returned to the United States and again imprisoned in 1972, from where he left only in 1976 - already legally. The media of that time and some authors of articles about Timothy Leary associated his early release with cooperation with the FBI and testifying against his friends who organized the escape.
In fact, according to an open letter from friends of Timothy Leary, Leary never hid the fact of talking with FBI agents (which he wrote about in his autobiography) and did not cause real harm to anyone. He warned the friends who arranged the escape in advance about his cooperation. In the end, he testified only against those who had been underground for a long time or whose guilt could not be proven. This did not suit the special services, and he was left in custody.
His subsequent release was linked to the fall of Nixon, the Watergate scandal, the FBI abuse scandal with radical groups, and the change of California governor from Ronald Reagan to Jerry Brown. In the 1980s, Leary became interested in computers and even created a number of software products. In 1984, Leary joined the cyberpunk movement that took over America during those years. Even in that environment, he managed to become a leader, gathering people around him who were dissatisfied with reality. With William Gibson, the scientist promoted the reunification of man and computer, created several software products, and wrote a number of books.
Timothy Leary died on May 31, 1996 from prostate cancer. The process of dying was recorded on video at the request of the dying. The last phrase that Leary said before his death was: "Why not?". Shortly after death, his head was severed from his body and immediately frozen. 7 g of Leary's ashes were sent on April 21, 1997 to the Earth's orbit by the Pegasus rocket, where they stayed for 6 years until they burned up in the atmosphere.
Tim was born in Springfield. His parents were descendants of once immigrant Irish. Mother was a devout Catholic. She insisted that her son study at the Jesuit College. Timothy in her dreams was to become a shepherd. However, the son did not live up to his mother's expectations. The young man was hostile to the orthodox religion. Under the influence of his father, Tim ended up in a military academy. The officer didn't come out. Often he sat in the guardhouse, where he enjoyed reading literature on Eastern philosophy. In the future, he compared himself, who is in the academy, with a novice in a Buddhist temple. The young man understood that he made a mistake twice, choosing a life path on the advice of his parents, so he decided that he would choose his own path. Leary chose psychology.
At the age of twenty, Leary became a student at the University of Alabama, and upon graduation received a bachelor's degree in psychology. He confidently moved up the career ladder. So, in 1950, Tim became a doctor of psychology. His work on interpersonal behavior has been published. Soon at the hospital in Auckland, he headed a laboratory that conducted psychological research. Leary in those years was a typical American scientist. His monographs were published one after another, and all of them dealt with interpersonal relationships and interpersonal behavior.
Interesting Facts
Leary's views were shared by the English writer Aldous Huxley (he was also a supporter of the "expansion of consciousness" theory).
Former US President Richard Nixon once called Leary "the most dangerous man in America."
John Lennon wrote the song Come Together for him as a campaign slogan for governor of California.
There is evidence that after Leary's death, his brain had to be frozen so that in the future he could be brought back to life using cryogenetics.
A month after Timothy Leary's death, his close friend, the philosopher Robert Anton Wilson, received an e-mail: “Robert, how are you? Greetings from the other side... It's not exactly what I expected... It's very nice, but a big party has gathered... I hope you're all right. With love, Timothy."
Sources:
Epoch man. Not just a man-epoch. The man who made the era. Friend of Hunter Thompson, Tom Wolfe and Ken Kesey. His head after death (from which he made a reality show, by the way) was separated from the body and spent 7 years in orbit. He lost the election to Ronald Reagan. He made drug use, if not a religion, then certainly a new philosophical trend. He is an example of how you can live an insanely interesting life, spend decades on acid, but die a fairly old person. As a young man, he looked like the protagonist of The Shining, King-Kubrick; in old age - on one of the happy old men who are drawn on books on healthy lifestyle life.
Pre-acid era
Everyone gets the Timothy Leary they deserve.
Timothy Francis Leary. Born October 22, 1920 in Springfield (sings the theme song from The Simpsons), Massachusetts. His parents were Irish Catholics. The only child in the family. Tim's father served as a dentist in the United States Army and did not disdain alcohol, like all Irish people. According to Tim himself, his father periodically beat him while drunk. The Great Depression did not benefit the financial condition of the family. Tim received a generous gift from his father - a hundred dollar bill, and after that he never saw him. For the rest of his childhood, he was raised by his mother and her sister May, who remained an old maid. On the advice of his mother, who remained a zealous Catholic all her life, the future guru of the 60s spent his youth at the Jesuit College in Worcester, preparing to become a shepherd. He really became a preacher. Not much, though, and not in the way his mother wanted. The only thing that Timothy took away from the Jesuit College was a rejection of traditional religion for the rest of his life.
Leary's next step was apparently dictated by the influence of his father: in 1940, he entered the Military Academy at West Point. (Some motifs from Stendhal). But the military future guru of psychedelia turned out to be as useless as a priest. Most of the time the negligent cadet spent locked up in the guardhouse, having fun reading books on Eastern philosophy. After 18 months, most of the books had been read, and Leary took the documents from the academy. Double failure forced him to abandon the instructions of his parents in choosing a future profession.
In the summer of 1941, Leary entered the University of Alabama in the psychology department. But even here, Timothy did not manage to stay in one place for a long time: in the fall of 1942, he was expelled for spending nights in the women's hostel. (Ay yes Leary, ay yes Son of a bitch!) Having lost his reprieve from being drafted into the army, Leary spent almost two years in officer training courses, where he met his first wife, Marianne. As a result of the courses, Leary received the rank of corporal, but this was not the main achievement during this time: service in the army during the war (although Timothy not only did not take part in hostilities, but also did not leave the United States during the war) allowed him to complete his education by the Ministry of Defense. Leary graduated from the University of Washington in the same Department of Psychology. As a married man, I no longer went to women's hostels. At least he wasn't caught. The theme of it thesis became " statistical analysis indicators of intelligence. Leary defended his doctoral dissertation at the University of Berkeley, California. All 50th Timothy is engaged in a career: he receives a doctorate in psychology in 1950. But it cannot be said that his work in those years was exclusively theoretical. He is also the head of the laboratory. psychological research one of the hospitals in Auckland. During these years, Leary changes quite a lot: from yesterday's rebel and loser, he turned into a fairly typical scientist, not inclined to experiments. And everything that achieves only attentiveness and perseverance. However, Leary's scandalous fame, which he deserved in subsequent years, either led to the silence of many scientific achievements, or to the association of his work with the names of other scientists. His name could rank among the pioneers of the psychotherapy group. The world-famous book "Games People Play" by Eric Berne is based on Leary's idea of the theory of communicative games, which was later refined and expanded by Berne.
One of Leary's character traits, which is noticeable in all areas of his life, can be called a kind of restlessness, unwillingness to work on one problem. for a long time. Having come up with an idea, Leary forgot about it, or gave it to other scientists for development. It is interesting to note that the song "Come together" by the group The Beatles it was Leary who wrote it, and the well-known version of the Beatles is only an arrangement of his melody.
One of Leary's greatest merits in psychology can be called his Leary Interpersonal Diagnosis questionnaire, which was aimed at determining the main personality traits, as well as relationships with other people. According to him, any person can be attributed to one of six psychosocial types: imperious-leading, independently-dominant, straightforward-aggressive, incredulous-skeptical, submissive-shy, dependent-obedient, cooperating-conventional, or responsible-generous. The test is still used by American intelligence agencies to this day. However, it would be wrong to assume that the questionnaire is known only in the United States: it has been translated into many European languages (there is also a Russian analogue). To date, the Leary questionnaire is one of the main and most frequently used "tools" of a practicing psychologist.
acid era
- Dr. Leary, how many times in your life have you tried LSD?
- To date, there are 311 psychedelic sessions in my biography.
Even if Leary had ceased his scientific activity by the age of 40, he would still have entered his name in the galaxy of great scientists from psychology.
Leary's personal life was far from ideal. Timothy and Marianne had two children, but he was neither an exemplary father nor an exemplary husband. Leary inherited an addiction to alcohol from his father, addicted to the bottle and his wife. “Everything was spoiled by our long alcohol addiction' he once said. Marianne, either depressed or on impulse, hanged herself in the garage of their home in Berkeley. The morning after Leary's birthday, when he turned 35. family tragedy left an imprint on Scientific research Leary: he began to study science with less enthusiasm and seriously believed that he had already made the main discoveries in the field of psychology. He seriously thought about his professional future, which, as he felt, was unpromising. Leary spends the summer of 1956 with his children in Europe, where he first hears about the existence of psilocybin mushrooms from his friend and colleague Frank Barron. However, this method of expanding consciousness does not arouse much interest in a doctor of psychology.
Dr. Leary spends the next three years lecturing at Harvard and researching new methods of psychotherapy. Summer 1960 - he is in Mexico, where his first psychedelic experience takes place. It is worth mentioning that among the indigenous population this practice is exclusively religious in nature, and use is quite rare. In addition, only a narrow circle of shamans has access to knowledge about narcotic mushrooms. Which completely eliminates any possibility of drug abuse. It is this fact that convinces Leary (and the entire generation of the sixties after him) that Mexican "magic" mushrooms are completely harmless and not addictive. Leary decides on this risky experiment in the hope that it will help him solve many internal problems and get rid of stress. And his hopes were justified. “I indulged in the rapturous delight that mystics have experienced for centuries when they peer behind the curtain and discover that this world - so real in its manifestation - is really just a tiny decoration, constructed by the mind ... The mystics returned from there, rapturously and incoherently muttering about higher levels perceptions where you see realities that are hundreds of times more beautiful and meaningful than the soothing familiar scenarios of normal life ... A simple truth suddenly dawned on me: everything that we consider reality is nothing but a social fabrication. He described this experiment in Religious Experience: Its Realization and Interpretation.
Photo: Roy Kerwood Interest in hallucinogens naturally led him to the most powerful of the psychoactive drugs - LSD. Diethylamide d- lysergic acid was first synthesized in 1938 by the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann, but the psychotropic properties of this compound were discovered by accident on April 19, 1943. This date has since been called Bicycle Day, as Hoffman, having consumed acid and not knowing what awaited him, rode home on a bicycle. Surprisingly, he arrived without any damage, after which he became famous and lived for 102 years. Until the early 1960s, LSD was going to be used for the treatment of schizophrenia and alcoholism, since it was believed that the altered state of consciousness in schizophrenia and a psychedelic session were of the same nature. Now the idea of treating alcoholics with LSD looks very comical. However, it is worth remembering that half a century earlier, Freud proposed treating morphine addiction with cocaine. In the United States, acid remained legal until the late 1960s, which led to its widespread use. In addition, it is worth noting that lysergic acid is considered one of the most "safe" drugs (if such exist, of course). For example, it is much easier to die from an overdose of caffeine or alcohol.
Thus, Leary cannot be called a pioneer in the use of LSD. Yes and with scientific point his experiments with acid were not of great interest. He himself called this drug "brain vitamin", arguing that with its help it expands the possibilities of consciousness of a healthy person. But he found in these bitter pieces of paper what he was looking for while sitting on watch at West Point - inner freedom. Inner freedom for everyone! Just a few tens of dollars. The generation of children of World War II veterans could not help but like this idea.
Leary had by this point been fired from Harvard (formally for non-compliance with the schedule). Although there was something to fire him for: by no means greedy Leary handed out stamps to all interested students. He changed into pajamas, put on a bunch of baubles and made the 60s what we know him to be. Expelled from Harvard and deprived of a platform for experimentation, Leary found shelter in the old Millbrook mansion, not far from New York. The mansion, along with 4,000 acres of land, was donated by one of Leary's followers, where the latter founded the Castile community, named after the colony of intellectuals from Hermann Hesse's novel The Glass Bead Game. Another "merit" Leary of that time can be called the organization of the International Foundation for Internal Freedom, which had as its goal the financing of research on psychedelic substances. But the foundation has turned into an ordinary hangout: science (which used to be a controversial motive for the study of acid) has receded into last place. The mansion became just a gathering place for bohemian hippies whose sole purpose was to take drugs. Once Carlos Castaneda visited it, but he did not like what was happening and, according to his recollection, "caused only disgust."
With his light hand Dr. Leary's generation of children of war veterans is firmly addicted to acid. He was blessed by the dying Aldous Huxley, who may have finally seen "brave new world". Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and Arthur Koestler dreamed of becoming friends with Leary. Under his influence was created new style in music - psychedelic rock. The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane swore allegiance to him at their concerts.
By the mid-1960s, LSD had become an illegal drug, and Leary was in trouble with the law. In 1965, for the first time, he was detained at the border with Mexico while transporting only 15 grams of marijuana. The court sentenced him to a $30,000 fine and 30 years in prison. It was truly a draconian punishment for those times, and such a long prison term was apparently caused to eliminate a person dangerous to the fragile minds of young Americans. However, the court postponed the execution of the sentence, and Tim was released from prison on a huge bail made by his admirers and friends. This story did nothing to dampen Leary's popularity. On the contrary, they began to perceive him as a hero-martyr.
The end of the 60s was marked by the struggle of the US government with the drug boom: the media printed articles about the horrific consequences of LSD use, Richard Nixon called Leary "the most dangerous man in America." Leary responded by launching his own campaign: in 1966 he created the "League of Spiritual Discovery", he traveled around the country telling people about his new "religion", even trying to get LSD to become a religious substance necessary for rituals. He records albums with Jimi Hendrix and Buddy Miles. He was running for governor of California, and at his request, John Lennon wrote the song Come Together as a campaign manifesto slogan. It would be interesting to imagine what kind of trash and frenzy he would arrange if he won the elections.
The patience of the authorities snapped in 1970: Leary was charged with possession and distribution of LSD. In an interview with Playboy magazine, Leary stated that he was not at all afraid of prison, because "real prison is an inner prison." It is not known how much Leary liked the real prison, but he spent only three months in it. With the help of friends and followers, he again managed to escape punishment. For several years after the escape, Leary disappeared. It was rumored that at this time he was in contact with the leftist group Weathermen Underground, as well as with the leader of the African-American terrorist organization Black Panthers, who himself was on the run at the time. Justice was able to overtake Leary only in 1973 in Afghanistan, and this time he was threatened with up to 75 years in prison. Given Leary's age (and by that time he was already 53 years old), this term would have become life for him.
Post-acid era
The personal computer is the LSD of the nineties.
Leary was released from prison in 1976. In this regard, there are two versions. First: he made a deal with the authorities, handed over the organizers of his escape, moreover, he undertook to continue to “knock” on his dissident friends. The reward is early release. Second. In his memoirs, Leary denied the first version, linking his release to the fall of Nixon, the Watergate scandal involving excess of power by the FBI when working with radical groups, and the change of California governor from Ronald Reagan to Jerry Brown.
One way or another, but his time is irretrievably gone. The professor of psychology was released half-forgotten and already in the usual clothes of a city dweller instead of his branded pajamas, in which he used to walk around the city. The 60s died down. Yesterday's followers ended very badly, expanding and changing consciousness beyond the norm; either they ended badly for the spirit of the 60s and the ideas of Leary: they got cured and put on costumes. During the last 20 years of his life, he continued to be recognized as a leader in alternative culture. He was no longer a vocal advocate for drugs, but he never recanted his role as the spiritual leader of the psychedelic movement. After retiring, Leary took up the upbringing of three grandchildren. It lasted for eight years, which by the standards of the former rebel (although former rebels, like drug addicts, do not exist) is quite a long time. In 1984, his life changed dramatically again - Leary read William Gibson's technocratic dystopia Neoromantic. At 64, he declared himself a cyberpunk and, along with Gibson, promoted the movement of "social Darwinism on fast-forward" and "the biomechanical synthesis of man and computer."
Photo: Philip H. Bailey In one of his recent books titled Infopsychology, Leary wrote: Given reality let it remain for schoolchildren, but we will become pioneers of other, unknown and simulated realities. They are not virtual, they actually exist, you just need to find the password for them. Get on your computer and start searching." At the end of his life, his work was finally crowned with success: another reality was created, which no one tried to prohibit.
In 1995 Leary was diagnosed with inoperable prostate cancer. He turned his house into a virtual waiting room, allowing all Internet users to get acquainted with his latest works and watch the process of dying with his own eyes. His last words were "Why not?" . Upon death, his head was severed from his body and immediately frozen. 7 grams of Leary's ashes were sent on April 21, 1997 to the Earth's orbit by the Pegasus rocket, where they stayed for 6 years until they burned up in the atmosphere.
Mista Leary, he died
Hunter S. Thompson
“I will miss Timothy Leary - not because of his wisdom, or his beauty, or his perverted passion for fighting, or because of his wealth, or his strength, or his drugs - but mainly because I am no longer I will hear his laughing voice in the receiver, answering the night call of my phone. Tim usually called around two in the morning. He had this habit - one of many that we shared - he knew that I was awake and would answer his call.
We had the same routine with him. He, like me, believed that "after midnight anything can happen."
Just last week, he called me at 2:30 am to say that he was moving to a ranch in Nicaragua in a few days and that he would fax me his new phone. Which he did. And I think he faxed it to Dr. Kesey.
Of course. The house has many rooms. And Tim knew most of them. We will never know the limits of his diabolical vision, we will never know the number of lives he has latched on to in his wild and unnatural passions.
Sometimes we argued, but in the end we always came to peace. Tim was the Chieftain, the leader of the clan. He walked the earth and left the imprints of his elegant hoof on the lives of all of us.
He is forgotten now, but not forever. We will see him again soon. Our tribe is one less. There is one missing link in our circle. Another name was added to the roll of glory of the true warriors who saw great light and ran after him."
Today we will talk about the personality, biography and life of Timothy Leary, and at the same time we will begin a large series of articles about the most interesting, instructive and mind-expanding biographies of the best representatives of humanity. The man is a legend, the man is outside the system. Humanity sees such people every few years, and maybe once a decade. A person who was not afraid to follow his innovative path, despite the moral, ethical, moral postulates of the majority.
A man going against the "masses", leading those few who at that time were not afraid to disconnect from the "world mechanism", although this entailed a whole chain of scandals, contradictions and ardent opponents. A man who is already posthumously in 2000, according to one of the publications, he was awarded the title of the greatest thinker of the century. But let's go in order.
Biography of Timothy Leary
The biography and life of Timothy Leary began with the fact that he was born on October 22, 1920 in Massachusetts. Born to be quite polar in views married couple. Mother for whom the main life principles there were family values, and which rejected everything that went beyond the "usual". The father, on the other hand, is an extravagant man, indefatigable to everything that brings pleasure.Little Timothy was very fond of reading, and his grandfather's library became his favorite place, where he spent a lot of his time. Perhaps his later life was influenced, among other things, grandfather's instruction that he should not act as written in hundreds of these books, but go his own original way.
Timothy Leary psychologist
In those days, psychology was at the peak of popularity, and after graduating from school, Leary entered the University of Alabama, where he studied this science. Then doctorate in University of California at Berkeley.
Timothy Leary seemed to be a psychologist. Reading Freud, writes many works on psychology, gushing with innovative ideas ( some of which, in truth, were later attributed to his contemporaries because of the dubious reputation acquired later). But, in the end, in practice, he is disappointed in psychotherapy, calling it just an illusion that does not help people in any way.
As a result, Timothy quits his post at the university and moves to Europe. There he is visited by an old friend who talks about his incredible experience in Mexico eating psychedelic mushrooms.
The Psychedelic Experiments of Timothy Leary
Particularly not sharing the enthusiasm of his friend, Timothy still spends his next vacation in Mexico, where he tries "ritual mushrooms" and conducts his psychedelic experiments on himself. This vivid experience made an indelible impression on the scientist and set the course for all his future activities.
Upon return to Harvard University where he was working at the time, Timothy Francis Leary persuades the administration to give him permission to conduct research into the effects of psilocycin on the human brain.
Timothy Leary LSD
Studying and inspiring what kind of “inner freedom” from your own “I” do psychedelics give, he comes to the drug LSD, already known at that time.
Francis Timothy Leary, of course, did not invent LSD, and was not even a pioneer, this drug was discovered several years earlier by Professor Albert Hoffman, about which we will also write more. But in fact, LSD has already been used in secret services USA, and even used in official psychotherapeutic practice.
Lsd Guru
However, it is Timothy Leary that the hippies will call the "LSD guru". And now he is actively puts experiments on Harvard graduates, later on students studying theology. The goal was to find out whether such drugs could cause more vivid mystical experiences.
The results amazed the test subjects. They have never experienced such experiences. Then he connects prisoners in prisons to his experiments. And the most interesting thing is that the result was that most of the criminals after the "treatment" of this LSD guru did not relapse and did not commit further crimes.
However, the effect that people can now communicate with God directly, without "intermediaries", could not be overlooked. religious institutions. This system of society is in revolt, along with university professors and parents of students.
Naturally, after all, they have invested so much money and hopes in the future generation, and young people, breaking out of unnecessary guardianship and hooked on “acid”, dream of a trip to India and keep talking about the deepest spiritual experiences.Of course, the CIA quickly became aware of the course of experiments with LSD and successful experiments with the release of consciousness, the organization became seriously interested in the activities of Timothy Leary. He was eventually removed from his post at Harvard. Experiments with students have ceased.
The scientist moved to a mansion near New York. The fashionable youth movement of that time regularly gathered there. And with the filing of Timothy, it is firmly addicted to the drug.
Timothy Leary books
In 1964 Timothy Leary published his first book, The Psychedelic Experience.
As a certain version or view of the "Tibetan book of the dead”, which describes the meditative state experienced by a person on the border of life and death.
Moreover, Leary declares LSD to be a sacred drug, a "brain vitamin" that connects a person to big world knowledge, hidden within himself.
It certainly was the peak of his popularity. The print media are racing to publish articles about a former Harvard professor who poses a threat to society with his experiments, official psychiatry screams about the harmful effects of LSD. T imoti, on the other hand, gives numerous lectures and interviews in defense of the drug, in which he speaks of the need for deeper knowledge and study.
Some even visit it. representatives of the "top of power" with a proposal to conduct similar experiments in the Supreme Court and the Senate. Perhaps this prompted Leary to nominate himself for governor of California.
US government persecution of Timothy Leary
However, the police and the authorities The American authorities simply could not leave this controversial personality at large. Timothy Leary was arrested and sentenced to 30 years in prison. In captivity, he continues to work, writes a new work and a book about the "persons of the future", who can program their own mental state.
Timothy Leary in prison video
Friends who visited him behind bars noted that he looked young and cheerful. It was as if he had actually managed to reprogram his nervous system.
Moreover, you can see in this short video fragment what was the clarity of this genius’s thoughts even while sitting in prison, how sensibly he thinks, and how he controls his emotions, which clearly reflects his level of self-development, and also reflects the most correct and competent effect of psychedelics and LSD on the human brain, if that is even possible.
Some time later, at the age of 49, Timothy managed to escape from prison. Later he is found in Algeria, where he is offered asylum. From there he flees to Switzerland, where he is overtaken and demanded from the Swiss authorities to hand over a dangerous American criminal.
The next point was Afghanistan, but right at the airport Liri was arrested again. And since 1972 nomadism began in prisons. He was released only in 1976. His ardor diminished, and his popularity itself almost vanished.
Internet modern psychedelic
Timothy continues to write books and lecture. In his declining years, already a little moving away from chemical substances, opens his own software development company. And he is seriously interested in computers and the Internet, considering them to be the “children” of psychedelics.
Timothy Leary predicted that the internet in the 90s would be like LSD in the 60s. He wasn't entirely wrong. Except with numbers. It's no secret that today's youth is firmly "sitting" on the Internet. Social networks, forums, LiveJournal, video portals.It's hard for them to give up now. And all the horror and difference between this drug and LSD at one time, in the age range. As we wrote recently in the story, now the Internet “addicts” become from the age of 7 to 50. And at the same time, society, authorities, and the church do not rebel like that.
Apparently they themselves are already "sitting" on it. Only Leary hoped that the World Wide Web would be able to enrich our consciousness and be a positive mind-expanding psychedelic, here, too, he was rather mistaken, because 90% of Internet users today, having played, are more likely to lose awareness than gain it.
Final years and death of Timothy Leary
At the age of 75, Timothy learns that he is terminally ill with prostate cancer. And even this state is perceived by him as another opportunity to conduct experiments on himself. There is finally an opportunity to feel this stage of the fine line of this and that light.
Sharing all the stages of this process, he decides with the whole world through a camera installed in his home, and broadcasting everything to the worldwide network.
The media and activists rage at such brazen fearlessness before death. Timothy Leary argues that it is the transition to the other world, the process of the soul leaving the body, that is the very magical act that a person can experience. And without any drugs.
Timothy Leary died on May 31, 1996. By an incredible coincidence, this particular moment could not be photographed. Even dying, this scandalous personality excited the minds of millions. And all because of loyalty to their ideals, their truth, because of the greed for knowledge, because of the lack of fear of being outside the system. Truly, this is how Timothy Leary and his biography remained in history, no more, no less - the Man of Legend.
