Timothy Leary

Timothy Leary , néle October 22nd 1920, deceased the May 31st 1996, is a American writer , Psychologue and militant for the scientific use of the Drogue S. He is the most famous partisan of the therapeutic and spiritual benefits of LSD. During the Years 1960, it invented and popularized the slogan “Turn one, tune in, drop out” , synonymous with dispute and release.

Biography

Childhood and studies

Timothy Leary was born with Springfield in the Massachusetts, in a family of notable of the New England. He studies for one short period with, to Worcester, Massachusetts, but reacts badly to the discipline of this establishment Jésuite. He also attends the military academy of West Point, but is made return at the end of 18 months. He obtains a license in psychology with the Université of Alabama in 1943, then a doctorate in psychology with the Université of Berkeley in 1950. He becomes auxiliary professor in Berkeley of 1950 with 1955, then research director of the Fondation Kaiser (1955-1958), and lecturer in psychology with the Université of Harvard (1959-1963). Leary described these years with scorn, being seen like:

An anonymous employee who joint with the long line of the commuters to go to the job the morning and which returns at his place the evening for ingurgiter of the martinis… like million intellectual robots resulting from the liberal middle-class.

The experiment of drugs

On vacation in Mexico, it consumes mushrooms hallucinogens containing Psilocybine, an experiment which will radically change the course of its life. As of its return to Harvard in 1960, Leary joins in particular Richard Alpert (known later under the name of RAM Dass), and undertakes with its students of research on the effects of the psilocybine, then on LSD.

He affirms that LSD (acronym of German Lyserg Säure Diäthylamid), correctly proportioned, preferably with the councils of a professional, can change the behavior radically. Its experiments are followed neither of Meurtre S, neither of Suicide S, neither of Psychose S, nor, in theory, of “Bad trip”. The purpose of its research is to find, thanks to the expansion of conscience, better treatments for the Alcoolisme, to rehabilitate the Criminel S and to instigate the Libido. Several participants in its research say to have lived of the experiments Mystique S and spiritual deep, which, claim, changed their life in a very positive way.

Leary and Alpert are isolated of Harvard in 1963: their colleagues are inconvenienced by the nature of their research and certain influential parents carry felt sorry for near the administration when they note that one distributes Hallucinogène S to their children. They then continue their research in a large manor in New York called Millbrook. Leary will write later:

“One was seen as Anthropologue S of the 21e century which would have travelled through time to find itself in darkness of the years 1960. In this colony of space, one wanted to create new a Paganisme and a new existence lived like Article”

Legal troubles

The repeated incursions of FBI involve the end of the Millbrook era. Leary is condemned for drug possession (perhaps brought by the FBI). He is regarded as the most dangerous man of the United States, and in spite of a lawsuit river, he is imprisoned during several years. He undergoes there at his entry the standard personality tests assigned with the prisoners for the attribution of the tasks. As he knows these tests well, he gives answers which will predispose it to work in the garden of the prison, from where in 1970, the Weather Underground Organization, movement gauchist, the fact of escaping.

With his Rosemary wife, it leaves the the United States clandestinely for the Algérie. Its plan is to take refuge in company of the black Panther Eldridge Cleaver, which proves to be a bad idea when this one tries to take it as an hostage. The couple manages to flee in Suisse. Separated from Rosemary, it is stopped by agents of the US government in Afghanistan and is extradited in the United States in 1974. He cooperates with the FBI with the surveys carried out into Weather Underground and he is released on April 21st 1976 by the governor Jerry Brown.

Thereafter, he proposes a model which supposes that the human spirit is composed of “Eight circuits of conscience”. According to him, the majority of people reach only four of these circuits during their life. The four others would be revolutionary ramifications of the four first and should give access the life in space and the widening of conscience necessary to scientific progress and social. According to Leary, some can reach these four other circuits by the Méditation and other spiritual ways. It quotes like proof of these four “higher” circuits the feeling of movement without inhibitions tested by the user of Marijuana. In its model of the eight circuits of the conscience, one of the functions first of the fifth circuit, the first to be appeared during the life in the outer space, would make it possible human to be acclimatized to an environment without air and low gravity.

In the search of new ways

On several occasions, Leary flirté with the occults and he was member of the magic order, the Illuminés of Thanatéros . One month before dying of a inoperable Cancer of the Prostate, Leary wrote one entitled book Design for Dying , which tried to show a new manner of considering death.

In 1964, it coécrit a book with Ralph Metzner, has Psychedelic Manual , which would be based on the Livre of dead the Tibetan. He writes:

“a psychedelic experiment is a voyage in new fields of conscience. The significance and the content of the experiment are without limits, but its characteristics are the transcendence of the verbal concepts, dimensions of Espace-temps and ego or the Identité. Such experiments of widened conscience can occur by a multitude of means: the sensory deprivation, exercises of Yoga, the Meditation disciplined, extases religious or esthetic, or spontaneously. Very recently, these experiments became accessible to each and everyone by ingestion from psychedelic drugs such as LSD, the Psilocybine, the Mescaline, DMT, etc Of course, it is not the drug which produces the transcendent experiment. It acts as a simple chemical key - it opens the spirit, releases the nervous system of its models and structures ordinary. ”

This type of experiment points out the astral Voyage or the experiment out of the body; thus on the basis of the prelude of psychological concerns, Leary passed to physical concerns, while being interested in the stellar voyages.

Died

The death of Leary was recorded in video. In its is delirious final, it repeats the words “ Why not ” (“Why not”). Its last words, according to his/her son Zach Leary, are Beautiful . A film entitled the Last Voyage of Timothy Leary of it was drawn but caused controversies because of a scene which would have been faked.

Seven grams of ashes of Leary were transmitted by a friend at Celestis to be sent in space on board a rocket carrying the remainders of 24 other people, in particular Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, Gerald O' Neill, Physicien of space, and Kraft Ehricke, scientist specialized in the rockets.

During several years, Leary was fascinated by the possibilities of the Cryogénie. As a scientist, he did not believe that he would be itself ressuscity, but he believed in the importance of cryogenics and preached sciences of the future. It acted for him of a “duty as a futurologist”. Leary was in relation to two organizations of cryogenics, the ALCOR and its subsidiary company CRYOCARE, but he asked finally that its body be incinerated; its ashes were distributed to his/her friends and his family.

Influences

Of alive sound, Leary, as a cantor of the freedom of conscience and its expansion, often côtoyé Allen Ginsberg, Aldous Huxley, Carlos Castaneda and John Lennon.

It was the subject of a song of the Moody Blues Legend off has Mind , which returned celebrates the expression: “ Timothy Leary' S dead. No, No, he' S outside looking in ” (“Timothy Leary died. Not, not, it looks us since outside”). About at the same time, a song of the Who, The Seeker , referred to him. The protagonist, seeking a certain universal truth, declares: “ I asked Timothy Leary, goal He couldn' T help me either ” (“I asked Timothy Leary, but it could not help me either”). In the musical comedy To hate treating movement Hippie years 1970, the last song Let the Sunshine in (“Let enter the sun”) refers to Timothy Leary, while requiring of us to get information about him (“ Answer for Timothy Leary ”).

The group of progressive metal Tool also refers to its writings on the piece epic Third Eye (live version) of the album Salival , by beginning the song with “ Think For Your Self, Question Authority ” (“even Think by you, call into question the authority”) and by developing its idea “During the evolution, our species was seen confronted with the fact terrorizing not to know which we are, and towards what we move in this ocean of chaos, there always were the authorities, the policies, the monks, the authorities of the education which tried to maintain to us by giving us orders, information, a constant regulation in order to insert in our spirits their vision of reality. To think by yourself you must call into question the authority and learn how to place you in a position to be vulnerable, of open mind, chaotic, confused, of vulnerability to inform you… ”. (song treating of this open-minded towards the unexplored and ignored zones our spirit).

Anecdotes and quotations

the expression “ Timothy Leary tickets ” indicates the small blotting paper squares soaked with LSD, probably because they offer a “ticket” for a new spectacle: a “voyage” in still unknown universes up to now.
Leary is the godfather of the American actress Winona Ryder.
Admirable paradox! One can sail outside only in exact measurement where one sails of the interior

Works

1957 : The Interpersonal Diagnosis off Personality
1964: The Psychedelic Experiment: In Manual Based one the Tibetan Book off the Dead , in collaboration with Ralph Metzner, Richard Alpert/Karma-Glin-Pa Karma Lingpa Bar C Thos Grol Bardo Thödol. ISBN 0806516526
1966: Psychedelic Prayers & Other Meditations
1967: Start Your Own Religion
1968: The Politics off Ecstasy ( the policy of the extase )
1968: High Priest . ISBN 0914171801
1973: Confessions off has Hope Fiend
1983: Flashbacks . ISBN 0874774977
1988: Your Brain is God . ISBN 1579510523
1988: Exchange Your Brain . ISBN 1579510175
1996: Chaos and CyberCulture . ISBN 2910718077 (French version)

Catalog of films

as actor

1983 : We' Re All Devo : Dr. Byrthfood
1987: Rare Medium
1989: Hard Awakening : To dine At Ronnie' S
1989: Shocker : TV Evangelist
1990: Fatal Ski (video): Buddy
1990 : Night Visions (TV): Old New Minister
1991: Ted and Come : Judge William H. Converse
1992: Roadside Prophets : Salvadore
1993 : Hold Me, Thrill Me, KIS Me : Mr. Jones
1994: Cityscrapes: Los Angeles : Philip
1995 : French Exit : Harbal Ecstacy Guy
1997: Conceiving Ada : Sims
1998 : Anarchy TV
2000: Twister: With Musical Catastrophe (video): He Dead
2002: Demon Island : Jonas the Chemist

as scenario writer

1979 : Dr. Timothy Leary (video)
1994: How to Operate Your Brain (video)

like realizer

1979 : Dr. Timothy Leary (video)

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