Timothy Leary

Timothy Leary
Leary in 1970
Born
Timothy Francis Leary

(1920-10-22)October 22, 1920
DiedMay 31, 1996(1996-05-31) (aged 75)
Education
Occupations
  • Psychologist
  • activist
  • author
Known for
Spouses
Marianne Busch
(m. 1944; died 1955)
Mary Della Cioppa
(m. 1956; div. 1957)
(m. 1964; div. 1965)
Rosemary Woodruff
(m. 1967; div. 1976)
Barbara Chase
(m. 1978; div. 1992)
[A]
Children3
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions

Timothy Francis Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) was an American psychologist and author known for his strong advocacy of psychedelic drugs.[2] Evaluations of Leary are polarized, ranging from bold oracle to publicity hound. According to poet Allen Ginsberg, he was "a hero of American consciousness", and writer Tom Robbins called him a "brave neuronaut".[3] During the 1960s and 1970s, Leary was arrested 36 times.[4] President Richard Nixon described him as "the most dangerous man in America".[5]

As a clinical psychologist at Harvard University, Leary founded the Harvard Psilocybin Project after a revealing experience with magic mushrooms he had in Mexico in 1960. He led the Project from 1960 to 1962, testing the therapeutic effects of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and psilocybin, which were legal in the U.S., in the Concord Prison Experiment and the Marsh Chapel Experiment. Other Harvard faculty questioned his research's scientific legitimacy and ethics because he took psychedelics himself along with his subjects and allegedly pressured students to join in.[6][7][8] Harvard fired Leary and his colleague Richard Alpert (later known as Ram Dass) in May 1963.[9] Many people only learned of psychedelics after the Harvard scandal.[10]

Leary believed that LSD showed potential for therapeutic use in psychiatry. He developed an eight-circuit model of consciousness in his 1977 book Exo-Psychology and gave lectures, occasionally calling himself a "performing philosopher".[11] He also developed a philosophy of mind expansion and personal truth through LSD.[12][13] After leaving Harvard, he continued to publicly promote psychedelic drugs and became a well-known figure of the counterculture of the 1960s. He popularized catchphrases that promoted his philosophy, such as "turn on, tune in, drop out", "set and setting", and "think for yourself and question authority". He also wrote and spoke frequently about transhumanism, human space migration, intelligence increase, and life extension (SMI²LE).[14]

  1. ^ Gates, Anita (January 5, 2021). "Tanya Roberts, a Charlie's Angel and a Bond Girl, Is Dead at 65". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on December 28, 2021. Retrieved January 5, 2021.
  2. ^ "Timothy Leary". psychology.fas.harvard.edu. Retrieved February 2, 2020.
  3. ^ Leary (1998), p. back cover.
  4. ^ Higgs (2006), p. 233.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Mansnerus was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Kansra, Nikita; Shih, Cynthia W. (May 21, 2012). "Harvard LSD Research Draws National Attention". The Harvard Crimson. Archived from the original on March 20, 2018. Retrieved March 15, 2018.
  7. ^ Department of Psychology. "Timothy Leary (1920–1996)". Harvard University. Archived from the original on April 5, 2018. Retrieved February 16, 2018.
  8. ^ Weil (1963).
  9. ^ Stevens (1983), pp. 273–274.
  10. ^ Junker, Howard (July 5, 1965). "LSD: 'The Contact High'". The Nation. Archived from the original on September 24, 2017. Retrieved May 31, 2017.
  11. ^ Greenfield (2006), p. 537.
  12. ^ Isralowitz, Richard (May 14, 2004). Drug Use: A Reference Handbook. ABC-CLIO. p. 183. ISBN 978-1576077085. Retrieved April 1, 2016. Leary explored the cultural and philosophical implications of psychedelic drugs
  13. ^ Donaldson, Robert H. (2015). Modern America: A Documentary History of the Nation Since 1945. Routledge. p. 128. ISBN 978-0765615374. Retrieved April 1, 2016. Leary not only used and distributed the drug, he founded a sort of LSD philosophy of use that involved aspects of mind expansion and the revelation of personal truth through 'dropping acid'.
  14. ^ Gillespie, Nick (June 15, 2006). "Psychedelic, Man". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on March 31, 2017. Retrieved September 16, 2017.


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