Timothy Leary
Timothy Leary
Hannah Wilson
Childhood
 Born October 22, 1920 in Springfield, MA
 Parents
 Abigail Farris
 Strongly Catholic farm family
 Extremely devout
 Timothy “Tote” Leary
 1st generation Irish immigrants
 Wealthy and successful family allowed for “hedonistic” life
Childhood
 Caught between the two worlds of his parents, but
drawn to the “Leary life”
 Had a huge imagination and loved to read
 Charming and charismatic personality emerged when he
discovered sports and girls
School
 Classical High School
 Editor of school newspaper
 Popular and athletic
 Poor attendance and controversial editorials led to
dismissal
 Holy Cross Jesuit College
 Lack of girls was unbearable
 Dropped out and abandoned Catholicism
 University of Alabama
 “Accidentally” began studying psychology
West Point Academy
 Struggled with obedience and authority
 He was caught smuggling in whiskey, and was requested to
resign when he refused to name his accomplices
 He was “silenced” and given demerits for miniscule
infractions
 After nine months without breaking, he was asked his terms
for leaving
California
 PhD in psychology from Berkeley
 Director of Psychology Research at Kaiser Foundation
Hospital
 Publication of Interpersonal Diagnosis of Personality and
Multilevel Measurement of Interpersonal Behavior
 Height of his professional career
Marianne
 Intelligent, sophisticated, and sexy
 Two children, Susan and Jack
 Wild parties and heavy drinking
 Their marriage crumbled and she committed suicide on
his 35th birthday after she found out about an affair.
Transitions
 After his first wife’s death and failed second marriage
spent time travelling through Europe
 Mystery illness left him ready to die, and at this point
was when he first experienced something spiritual
 Took a position at the Harvard Center for Personality
Research
“Magic Mushrooms”
 Only recently had been been introduced to mainstream
society by anthropologists and Time article
 Sacred mushrooms for Mexican village ceremonies
 Tim left Mexico a changed man
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6jmGSS955g
Harvard Psychedelics Research
 Research began with psilocybin
 Psilocybin workshops run with over 200 colleagues, grad
students, and volunteers
 Met with skepticism, but received positive feedback
Prison Studies
 Worked with Massachusetts prison system to use
psilocybin to rehabilitate inmates
 Recidivism went from 70% to 10%
Marsh Chapel Experiment
 Psilocybin study at an Easter service to compare the
psychedelic experience to religious ecstasy
 No difference in experiences of 90% of tripping
volunteers and that of saints
 90% report religious revelations when taken in a
religious setting. Report the same years later
LSD
 Created accidentally by a Swiss chemist in 1943
 Caught the interest of the CIA and military to be used as
a “truth serum” or chemical weapon of madness
 Unknowingly dosed employees and civilians
 Frustration that effects were unpredictable and
uncontrollable
Leary’s First Trip
 “If there’s any one single investigator in America worth
seeing, it is Dr. Leary.”
 Took a spoonful of LSD from a mayonnaise jar
 Wrote that it was the most shattering experience of his
life
IF-IF
 International Federation for Internal Freedom
 Mission of research and publication of scholarly articles
 Trained guides for safe use of psychedelic drugs
 Psychedelic “summer camps” in Mexico
Millbrook
 Gothic mansion in Duchess Co. NY
 Communal home
 Weekend seminars for raising consciousness
 Research and work on “Imprinting”
 Closed after harassing police raids, vicious rumors, and
unwelcoming community
Rosemary
 Daughter of a Midwestern carnival magician
 String of failed marriages
 Fell in love with Tim at first sight
 They were the counterculture equivalent of JFK and
Jackie O.
Mid 1960’s
 Human Be-In
 San Francisco 1967
 Audience changed to the young “hippie” movement
 Associating with prominent and influential people
 Campaign for California Governor
 Became more polarized in public opinion
Prison
 Sentenced to 20 years
 Played the system to be placed in low security prison
 Escaped to Algeria with the help of the Weather
Underground
Algeria
 Safe haven for revolutionaries
 Took up company with the Black Panthers
 Kidnapped and held hostage when he became more of a
nuisance than asset
Switzerland
 Traded a life in the spotlight for freedom
 Separation from Rosemary
 Running in circles of influential people
 Collaborated with German band Ash Ra Tempel to create
Time+Space=timeESPace
Arrest and Imprisonment
 Arrested in Afghanistan and sent back to California
 He knew he had no chance at winning this time
 His sanity was in question at the trial
 Sent to Folsom where he was treated as insane and
spent significant time in solitary confinement
Panspermia
 Theory that life does not originate on Earth, but in
space and spread by collisions of meteors and comets
 Tim developed his own creation myth
 Waiting for a comet to come free him from Earth
FBI Informant and Release
 Became an FBI informant cooperating with them to nail
down groups like the Weather Underground
 Marked as the death of the sixties
 His association with the FBI was never forgiven nor
forgotten
Computer Age
 Materialistic and money driven 1980’s
 Psychedelics and his ideas had become obsolete
 Directed his focus to computers
 Connected with the new generation through the love of
technology
Final Days
 Prostate cancer in 1995
 Last days filled with public appearances and visitors
 Ashes scattered by friends and some sent to space
Leary’s Legacy
 His development of personality classification, work in
group therapy, and criticism of doctor-patient
relationships were important steps forward in the 50’s
 His idea of being responsible for your own reality is now
standard principles of life coaching and the personal
development movement
 His prophecy about computers and their potential are
now common knowledge
 He was the figurehead of the 60’s drug culture and
sparked the fire of revolution and social movement
Discussion Questions
 William Burroughs wrote that “It may be another
century before [Timothy Leary] is accorded his rightful
stature.” Do you think he was just a man before his
time? Or was he really the cult leader he was made out
to be?
 LSD has been credited with some of the greatest
accomplishments in history, from the artistic
achievement of the Beatles and Bob Dylan to the
discovery of Chaos Theory and the double helix of DNA.
Do you think Tim was on to something with “Tune in,
turn on, drop out?” Should it be acceptable to
“enhance” our consciousness?