2024-02-11 10:52:43
- The psychologist kicked out of Harvard because of drugs co-founded the hippie movement
- Timothy Leary’s unique biography links him to the Beatles, Charles Manson and a host of Hollywood stars
Surprisingly, in recent months the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued new guidelines for research on LSD and other psychedelics such as psilocybin and ketamine for the treatment of depression and PTSD. The move by the authority has scientists and patients hoping for the creation in the near future of more effective drugs for some of the most difficult to treat mental illnesses that affect millions of people, the Los Angeles Times reported.
But this news is even more unusual against the background of the biography of the scandalous scientist Timothy Leary, who as early as the 60s of the last century claimed that this type of drug could help fight depression, and thus earned himself numerous enemies and trouble , being arrested as many as 36 times and spent a long time in prison.
The once Harvard psychologist, whose advocacy of mind-altering drugs and defiance of the status quo made him an icon, became, in the words of President Richard Nixon,
“the most dangerous
man in america”
At the same time, he was one of the founders of the hippie movement in the West, whom the poet Allen Ginsberg described as a “hero of the American consciousness” and the writer Tom Robbins called him a “brave neuronaut”.
Timothy Francis Leary was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1920. He was the only child of an Army captain and a wife whose friend was General Douglas MacArthur.
Following family tradition, Leary entered the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1940, but soon became embroiled in a drunken dispute and dropped out under pressure.
In the same year, he decided to become a psychologist. “He believed that what people
called abnormal
it’s actually just an exaggeration of the normal personality,” says University of British Columbia psychologist Jerry Wiggans on this occasion. Gradually, however, his unconventional views won him recognition, and his 1957 book, The Interpersonal Diagnosis of Personality, was declared “the most important psychology book” of the year.
But as he grows in the profession, his personal life is in turmoil. A severe blow of fate followed – on his birthday in 1955, he and his two young children found his wife dead in their car, locked in the garage with the engine running. In 1959, Leary joined the Center for the Study of Personality at Harvard University. There he embarked on scientific work, but according to the memories of his colleagues, he was not satisfied with simply studying the human personality, but wanted “to find a way to change it”.
A key moment in this direction came the following year, when, during a trip to Mexico, a close anthropologist suggested that Leary ingest “magic mushrooms.” “I gave way to delight, as mystics have done for centuries when they peered through the curtains and discovered that this world – so apparently real – was actually a small stage set constructed by the mind,” the psychologist will write about this moment in his autobiography. “I learned that … consciousness and intelligence can be systematically expanded. That the brain can be reprogrammed.”
Upon his return to Harvard, Leary enthusiastically began a series of experiments in which his students administered psilocybin and later LSD. He led the project from 1960 to 1962, testing the therapeutic effects of these psychedelic substances.
It is important to clarify that in those years the use of such opiates in the United States was legal. It is another matter that his colleagues at Harvard criticize his research mainly because he himself took psychedelics along with the patients. In the end, under the pretext that he did not regularly complete his classes, in May 1963 the famous educational institution fired him. But ironically, precisely because of the scandal that broke out, many people
learn about use
on psychedelics,
and for Leary himself, whose fame gradually turned him into one of the icons of the counterculture in the United States.
With the typical Irish temperament of a man who, if he hears something, proclaims it from the rooftops, the rambunctious psychologist declares to all ears that psychedelics – in the right doses, in a stable environment and under the guidance of psychologists – can affect behavior in ways that which cannot be achieved with regular therapy. He proves it with successful cases of treatment of alcoholism and “reformation” of criminals, and many of his patients admit that they had deep mystical experiences that permanently improved their lives.
In particular, his experiences at Concord Prison evaluated the use of psilocybin and psychotherapy in the rehabilitation of released prisoners. 36 inmates reportedly repented and vowed not to repeat their crimes after his therapy. And while the overall recidivism rate for American prisoners is 60%, the rate for those in Leary’s project has reportedly dropped to under 20%. Alcoholics Anonymous also supports his treatment.
Having become a star, Leary finds rich sponsors – the heirs of a famous tycoon, thanks to whom he continues his bold but controversial research. Public interest in drugs is growing rapidly. The poet Ginsburg even proclaimed that the Cold War would end immediately “if only President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev took LSD together.”
Leary began to travel and give many lectures. In his autobiography, he wrote about drug experiences with Marilyn Monroe and conversations on the subject with Cary Grant. At the same time, he knows that a backlash is brewing. And he really didn’t have to wait long. Even scientists who applauded his work before he started using drugs question Leary’s claims about LSD.
Instead of backing down, Leary declared that taking the psychedelic substance was a “sacramental ritual” and continued to fervently promote its use for consciousness expansion.
But his entire idyll came to an abrupt end when he was accused of smuggling a small amount of marijuana into the country from Mexico in 1965. His sentence was more than severe:
30 years in prison
and a $30,000 fine
The smuggling charge was later dropped, but on retrial he was sentenced to 10 years for drug possession by a judge who called him a “threat to the country”.
But the psychedelic guru remains adamant. In 1966, Leary even appeared before a Senate committee set up with the intention of eradicating such use by criminalizing it, to push for “legislation that would permit responsible adults to use psychedelic drugs for serious purposes.”
In his testimony, Leary pleaded with the subcommittee not to criminalize the use of psychedelic drugs, as he predicted that would only increase their use among America’s youth. When subcommittee member Senator Ted Kennedy (younger brother of President JFK) asked him if LSD use was “extremely dangerous,” Leary replied, “Sir, and the automobile is dangerous if used improperly. . . .” Human stupidity and ignorance are the only dangers facing the people of this world.”
Leary’s testimony proved ineffective—on October 6, 1966, just months after the subcommittee hearings, LSD was banned in California, and by October 1968, nationwide. But then the use of psychedelics by young Americans really takes on nightmarish proportions.
Leary’s advocacy of psychedelic drugs peaked during the Summer of Love in 1967. He was accepted as the spiritual leader of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, a drug group that produced Orange Sunshine, the world-famous variety of LSD that fueled the counterculture.
That same year, Leary was invited to attend the Human Be-In, a gathering of 30,000 hippies in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, where, speaking to the crowd, he coined the famous phrase “Get on, tune in, get out,” which becomes his emblem.
As the hippie movement grew, his presence became a staple at major events,
including concerts,
like the one at Woodstock
He became close to writer Ken Kissey’s “Merry Pranksters” and many of the era’s most famous bands. The Moody Blues recorded a song for him and Jimi Hendrix accompanied his songs on an album. On June 1, 1969, he was also one of a select few who sat in a Montreal hotel room at the bedside of John Lennon and Yoko Ono to sing Give Peace a Chance together.
After that, he ran for governor of California against the then Republican incumbent, Ronald Reagan himself. His campaign slogan “Come Together to the Party” led The Beatles to create “Come Together” specifically.
But instead of pursuing a successful political career, Leary was arrested in 1970 to serve a 10-year sentence. The curious thing is that in order to choose a suitable prison dormitory for him, they subject him to a common test. But probably the authorities did not know that the author of the questions in it was the scandalous psychologist himself. He did flawlessly on his own questionnaire and presented himself as a very trustworthy man with a penchant for gardening, thus securing a placement in the lightest possible prison, where he was appointed gardener.
And there, on a moonless night in September 1970, he climbed a telegraph pole and crossed the prison fence. A waiting car – organized by the radical underground movement Weathermen, according to news reports, assisted him in his escape and helped him
to leave
illegal country
for a fee of $25,000 paid by the Brotherhood of Eternal Love.
In exile, Leary visited the Black Panthers (a radical left-wing group) in Algeria. He then moved from country to country trying to find asylum, but in 1973 he was detained while trying to enter Afghanistan and extradited back to the US.
Leary was returned to prison, this time at the strict Folsom, with a record sentence of 95 years. Then he was placed in a cell with Charles Manson – a notorious cult leader whose followers committed several murders in the late 1960s, for which he was sentenced to life in prison. In their conversations through the bars, without seeing each other, Manson wonders
why isn’t the psychologist
used his influence
“to control people”. At one point, Manson tells Leary, “They took you off the street so I could continue your work!”.
Leary himself, after making a deal with the FBI and becoming their informant, was released early in 1976 and entered into the protected witness program. Tim’s work then moved into other areas: space exploration, life extension, and, primarily, computers and technology. The reason is that he believes that “computers will be to the 21st century what LSD was to the 1960s and 1970s.”
But his personal life, after five official marriages and as many unofficial ones, remains a complete ruin, and in the end he remains divorced. In 1990, his daughter Susan, then 42, was arrested in Los Angeles for shooting her boyfriend in the head while he slept. After years of mental instability, she committed suicide in prison. In January 1995, Leary was diagnosed with prostate cancer. True to his eccentricity, he announced to old friends that he was beginning a process of “designer dying” by ingesting a variety of illegal and legal chemicals.
Leary died at the age of 75 on May 31, 1996. His death was captured on video. In his final moments, he clenches his fist and asks, “Why?” Then, opening his fist, he says, “Why not?”
Its dust was scattered into space aboard a Pegasus rocket in April 1997.