"Timothy Leary at Folsom Prison, 1973" complete version, rarely seen:
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Music
yep
Movies
those too
Television
early 80s: Tim explaining why he's always considered himself a "button-downed" mainstream American in this lively & informative interview.
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Books
Leary's 1957 textbook, Interpersnal Diagnosis of Personality launched the movement in psychology called "Transactional Therapy," later popularized in Eric Berne's 1960s self-help blockbuster Games People Play
If psychology was to achieve the goal of lasting positive behavior change in individuals it needed a road map, a user's manual simple enough that subjects could be full participants in their own self-improvement, without coercion. The Leary Grid was born out of the simple premise that people know themselves in relation to others. Yet interpersonal transactions (or subtle give & take between individuals) had the benefit of being cross-cultural and universal across the planet. The "Leary Grid" grouped these behaviors into a model for understanding personality with the goal of changing or outgrowing destructive and painful patterns.
The grid divided into four categories - "friendly-strength; friendly-weakness; unfriendly-strength and unfriendly-weakness" - and further subdivided into 64 personality traits. Clients could map their own personality in similar fashion to Tarot Cards or the I Ching. Unlike these more esoteric systems the circular grid combined thoroughness and simplicity. It was designed so that a client could map their strengths and weaknesses, while their counselor could compare it with their own observations. Trust was gained more quickly in the therapeutic relationship compared with other systems such as Freudian psychoanalysis, a process which often lasted years. Dr. Leary's grid is still in use by some psychiatrists today. Despite decades of thought, very little was known about the roots of human behavior, its motivations, origins, and patterns of expression. Consciousness lay at the heart of this riddle - which Leary and others in his field knew all too well was the tool being employed to understand itself.
After the horrors of the Second World War, the Holocaust, and Hiroshima, a new urgency led the search for a reliable, non-coercive method for behavior change; which people could freely employ to affect lasting positive change of patterns that were painful and destructive yet impossible to stop by an act of the will. Enter hallucinogenic plants, used by indigenous peoples in remote regions and archaic cultures since pre-history. They worked directly to perturb consciousness, like tossing a pebble in a still pond. Leary, who was introduced to psilocybin-containing mushrooms during the summer of 1960 in Mexico, immediately recognized the tool that could do for psychology what the microscope did for botany and biology. Many young people would do well to remember that Leary was 40 years old and a father of two, whose first wife had committed suicide, and event that was to leave him profoundly shaken with his field of study - and subsequently willing to experiment with a folk remedy about which little was known. Afterwards he said "I learned more about the mind and the brain during those few hours by the pool in Mexico than I had in all my previous years of education and research in psychology. You are never the same once you have had the veil drawn."
Leary's penchant for trying promising new techniques made him an early pioneer of Group Therapy, considered dangerous by many psychologists of the time (late '50s). Tim recalled later in his life the scorn of his colleagues at the time: "Group therapy! You can't do that! Why, they'll infect each other: the neurotic patient will trigger the obsessive/compulsive and the psychotic will make the borderline hysterical...!" These fears were put to rest not by a psychologist but by a layperson: Bill W., founder of Alcoholics Anonymous who had written to Carl Jung about the difficulty of treating alcoholism, and received a letter of encouragement from the eminent doctor: "religiomania is the cure for dipsomania (alcoholism)". Rules for the safe & responsible self-governance of such groups were developed by Bill W., and Alcoholics Anonymous is still the prototype for countless support networks. Bill W. later became an enthusiastic proponent of LSD-assisted psychotherapy for especially difficult cases, including his own (see: Autobiography of Bill W.. In Canada during the 50s-60s, Drs. Osmond and Hoffer reported a staggering cure rate of 70% (sobriety after one year) with as few as one high dose session (250 - 500 mcg.) in supportive surroundings. The therapeutic potential of LSD, according to Dr. Osmond in later years, was in its ability to "allow the alcoholic to see what's been happening to him from a number of different perspectives, which he was unable or unwilling to do before."
Another Leary study looked into the effectiveness of psychological therapy. Regardless of the therapy employed, the subjects progress after several years showed that about 1/3 improved, 1/3 deteriorated, and 1/3 had no change. The results shook the psychological establishment, since the same outcomes could be expected for people not in any treatment.
When Dr Leary first took the so-called "Teonanacatl" (or: "Flesh of the Gods") of Mexico in 1960, he was convinced he had found exactly what the science of understanding human behavior lacked: a tool for understanding the nature of consciousness itself. Leary later said "I learned more that day than in all my previous education and work as a professional psychologist." While "getting high" was nothing new - Dr. Ronald Siegel says in his book Intoxication that the drive to alter consciousness is as normal as eating, sleeping and sex - every culture has its chosen intoxicants while furiously trying to suppress the rest. The West has had alcohol, a drug that arguably has shattered more lives than any discovered by mankind.
Leary, it ought to be remembered, advocated responsible use of psychedelics and Cannabis. At one point he suggested people be issued with licenses, similar to those for driving. Cannabis, once understood, could be used in ceremonial fashion. Knowledge of the safe and responsible use of LSD & psilocybin (from mushrooms) or peyote (from cacti) for those who wanted the experience would be, as in primitive cultures, facilitated by doctors who themselves had taken and were familiar with the sacraments. History played out very differently -- millions wanted to have the mystical experience that musicians and iconoclasts like Ken Kesey and Aldous Huxley were praising. Leary, seen as the elder statesman of the "Hippies" was singled out for persecution and arrested dozens of times. This served to radicalize him about the need to change American society in the nuclear age, hence his slogan "Turn On Tune In Drop Out." He eventually was sentenced to 10 years for less than 1/2 oz. of marijuana. Upon turning himself in to serve his sentence, he was given the standard battery of psychological tests, including a test he himself had written a decade before. He answered the questions in such a way as to appear conventional, timid and easily led, with an interest in forestry and gardening. Prison authorities, amused by the irony of the private v. public Leary, concluded that he was a low escape risk. He was placed in the minimum security men's facility near San Luis Obispo, Calif. where he immediately started planning his escape. With the help of militant anti-war group The Weathermen, he staged a dramatic escape, climbing a tower to a telephone wire which he crossed to the other side of the prison wall, made a dash to a prearranged rendezvous point, where a small car met him and whisked him away. He described the thrill of the experience and "laughing non-stop" for almost an hour. Then he reportedly asked the anonymous rebels: "Why didn't you bring a movie camera?"
The Learys moved on to Europe, eventually settling in Switzerland, which granted Timothy Leary exile as a political prisoner. Unfortunately, the strain of legal problems over the course of most of their marriage caused Rosemary to separate from Tim, beginning her own 25-year odyssey of living as an underground fugitive. Tim was eventually captured in Afghanistan by CIA agents and returned to the U.S. in shackles. He served another 5 years in over 30 prisons before being paroled by Governor Jerry Brown.
After LSD was made illegal (in Oct. '66 in California and 1971 nationwide, and Timothy Leary was jailed (the judge in sentencing him said his ideas were "dangerous"), scientific research into consciousness expanding medicines was shut down in a few short years. Any bright young grad student or psychiatry intern would be committing "career-suicide" if he or she desired to experiment in this area. What had been hailed only a decade earlier as no less important than the telescope for astronomy, LSD and other hallucinogens fell to disrepute, disinformation, and the criminal underground. Pressure to restart legitimate research by groups such as the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) has had limited success in relaxing government strictures.
Consciousness expansion happens in situations of grave crisis. If high-tech consumer society keeps its eyes closed to what paradoxically is among the oldest human wisdom, then in the words of Alfred North Whitehead: "it is the business of the future to be dangerous."
Heroes
Peace Out, Robert Anton Wilson: "One of the most important philosophers of the 20th Century: scientific, witty, hip, and hopeful." -Timothy Leary
"we operate on the basis that everyone
knows everything anyhow. This is the acid message."
- Timothy & Rosemary Leary, 1970-71 Swiss exile
This site is not intended to endorse the use of psychedelics as quick & easy tools to enlightenment. Use of any drug - including caffeine - can be deleterious to the health. "You have to be somebody before you can be nobody." - Ram Dass
2 ALL THOSE IN NEED OF THE EFFECTS OF WEED 2 IMPROVE UR WAY OF LIVING OR NEED WHAT POT IS GIVING I'M SENDING WISHES UR WAY & 2 THOSE WHO NEED MEDICAL MARAJUANA I SAY...SO SORRY 4 UR HEALTH, & THANK GOD U HAVE POT...IT FILLS UR LIFE WITH WEALTH & WITHOUT IT U'D BE IN A TUFF SPOT...BUT I DON'T SEE WHERE THE FUSS IS, IT'S ONLY A PLANT.. CREATED 4 MANY USES SO DON'T TELL ME 2 QUIT CUZ I CAN'T (ACTUALLY I WON'T)...IT'S NATURE'S ASPIRIN RELIEVING WHAT AIL'S U & 2 DEPEND ON THE GOVERNMENT 2 APPROVE IT IS A WASTE CUZ THEY FAIL U...IT RELIEVES STRESS, MENSTRUAL CRAMPS, ACHES & PAINS, ENHANCING THE MOOD UR IN, IMPROVING UR HEALTH AGAIN, & CONTRIBUTING 2 UR GAINS...2 DISCRIMINATE AGAINST US STONERS & THEN 2 GLORIFY THE ALCOHOLICS...MAKES ME FEEL LIKE A LONER & WE CAN BLAME IT ON POLITICS...THE EFFECTS ALCOHOL & CIGARETTES TAKE ON SOCIETY & 2 THEN SAY MARAJUANA IS WORSE ADDS 2 MY ANXIETY...WE HEADS AREN'T THAT BAD BETTER THAN ALCOHOLICS,SMOKERS & DRUGGIES...WE ADD SUNSHINE, AMUSEMENT & PEACE 2 LIFE SMOTHERIN' U WITH KISSES, LUVS, & HUGGIES...SO MOST DEFINITELY LEGALIZE POT 4 THE CHRONICALLY ILL, BUT ALSO LEGALIZE IT 4 THE RECREATIONAL THRILL...WHAT COULD IT HURT, THE WORSE, IT COULD MAKE U A FLIRT...LEGALIZE 2DAY & SEND HAPPY STONERS OUR WAY:}
although it's weed i continuously seek
it's definitley hard 2 find
& shouldn't really cost a dime
if we could only appeal sum sense 2 society
i could be surrounded by pot in every variey...
now that would most definitley be a fete:}
"Have you run out of money?" I asked. "Oh, last night when I arrived here I was robbed. My little bag with my passport and traveller checks was stolen; I only have my purse left with a few dollars. Not enough to reach the German Embassy in Kabul!" "Where did that happen?" "Just as I was entering the village somebody wanted to sell something to me. As I inspected the piece he tore my bag from me and disappeared into the desert. I then went to the police but they just smiled at me cause they don’t understand any English. All they managed to say was, “go Embassy Kabul”!
