Timothy Leary

Timothy Francis Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) was an American psychologist and writer, known for advocating the usage of  psychedelic drugs, with therapeutic intentions, under controlled conditions.

## Overview

As a clinical psychologist at Harvard University, Leary made experiments under the Harvard Psilocybin Project in 1960–62 (those hallucinogens were still legal in the US at the time), which resulted in the Concord Prison Experiment and the Marsh Chapel Experiment. The ethics in the science of his research were doubted by the faculty because he was taking psychedelics together with subjects and pressured other students in his class to take psychedelics in his studies. Leary and his colleague, Richard Alpert, were fired from Harvard University in May 1963.

Leary strongly believed that LSD had potential for therapeutic usage. He tested the use of LSD on himself and came up with a philosophy of mind expansion and personal discovery through LSD. After being fired from Harvard, he continued to promote the use of psychedelics and became a very recognised figure of the counterculture of the 1960s. He popularized catchphrases that populated his work and promoted his philosophy, such as "set and setting", "turn on, tune in, drop out", and "think for yourself and question authority". He also wrote and spoke about transhumanist concepts, such as intelligence increase, space migration, and life extension. Alongside to that, he also developed the eight-circuit model of consciousness in his book Exo-Psychology (1977). He would label himself as a "performing philosopher" for going around giving lectures

During the 1960s and 1970s, he was arrested so many times that he managed to see inside of 36 prisons worldwide. President Nixon even described him as "the most dangerous man in America".

## Drugs and hallucinogens

In 1957, Life magazine published an article that documented the use of psilocybin mushrooms for religious meanings in an indigenous Mazatec tribe of Mexico. Anthony Russo, Leary's friend, had tried psychedelic Psilocybe mexicana mushrooms during a trip to Mexico and told Leary about it. In August 1960, Leary made his way over to Cuernavaca, Mexico with Anthony and tried out some of the psilocybin mushrooms. That was one of the experiences that dramatically changed the course of his life. In 1965, Leary said that he had "learned more about ... (his) brain and its possibilities ... more about psychology in the five hours after taking these mushrooms than ... in the preceding 15 years of studying and doing research in psychology."

Leary returned from Mexico to Harvard in 1960, and him and Richard Alpert began a research, named as the Harvard Psilocybin Project. The goal was to analyze the reactions and effects that  psilocybin had on human subjects, by using a synthesized version of the drug, which only contained one of two active compounds found in the most of hallucinogenic mushrooms, including Psilocybe mexicana. The compound mentioned was synthesized by a process created by Albert Hofmann of Sandoz Pharmaceuticals.

## Legal Troubles

Timothy’s first run-in with jail came on December 23, 1965, when he was arrested for possession of marijuana. He then took his two children, and his girlfriend to Mexico for an “extended stay” to write a book. On their return, a US Customs Service official found marijuana in his girlfriend’s underwear. After taking responsibility for the crime, Leary was sentenced under possession under the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 on March 11, 1966, and given 30 years in prison, a fine of $30,000, and was order to undergo treatment. He appealed the case on the basis that the Marihuana Tax Act was unconstitutional, since it required a certain degree of self-incrimination in violation of the Fifth Amendment.

On December 26, 1968, Leary was arrested yet again in California, this time for the possession of a couple of marijuana "roaches". Leary said that they were planted by the officer who arrested him, but was convicted of the crime anyways.

On May 19, 1969, The Supreme Court agreed with Leary in Leary v. United States, declaring the Marihuana Tax Act unconstitutional, and overturning his 1965 conviction.

On January 21, 1970, Leary was given a 10-year sentence for his 1968 offense, with an extra 10 added later while in custody for a prior arrest in 1965, a total of 20 years to be served consecutively. On his arrival in prison, he was tested psychologically. Test used to assign inmates to appropriate functions and work. The thing is that he designed some of these tests himself (including the "Leary Interpersonal Behavior Inventory"), he answered them in such a specific way, that he seemed to be a very conventional person with an interest in gardening and related.

## Later Life

Leary was released from prison in 1976 by Governor Jerry Brown. After being relocated to San Diego, he took up resided in Laurel Canyon, and continued to write books and give lectures and "stand-up philosopher", something he named himself. In 1978 he married the filmmaker Barbara Chase, sister of the actress Tanya Roberts. Leary decided to adopt Barbara’s son, Zachary, and raised him. During this period, Leary took on several godchildren, including Winona Ryder and Media Lab director at MIT Joi Ito.

## Death

In 1995, Leary was given a diagnosis of an inoperable prostate cancer. He then notified Rams Dass and a part of old friends, and began the process of directed dying, a process that he would after name as "designer dying." Leary didn’t however, reveal his condition to the media at first, but he eventually did after the passing of Jerry Garcia in August. Leary and Ram Dass met again, one last time, before Leary's death in 1996.

Leary published his last book shortly before he died in 1994 titled *Chaos and Cyberculture*. In it, he wrote, "The time has come to talk cheerfully and joke sassily about personal responsibility for managing the dying process." His book *Design for Dying*, was a book in which he tried to give a new perspective on death and dying. Leary wrote about his belief that death is "a merging with the entire life process."