Leary, Timothy

▪ 1997

      U.S. educator turned drug-culture guru (b. Oct. 22, 1920, Springfield, Mass.—d. May 31, 1996, Beverly Hills, Calif.), was considered the "messiah of LSD" and other hallucinogenic drugs in the 1960s. Urging people to "turn on, tune in, drop out," he spread a message promoting social rebellion and the psychedelic experience. Leary dropped out of both the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Mass., and the United States Military Academy, West Point, N.Y., but by 1950 he had earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Alabama, a master's from Washington State University, and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He taught at Berkeley from 1950 to 1955, was director of psychological research at the Kaiser Foundation Hospital, Oakland, Calif., from 1955 to 1958, and in 1959 became a lecturer at Harvard University. Leary's first drug experience came in 1960 in Mexico when he ate some hallucinogenic mushrooms. Back at Harvard he began experimenting with mind-altering drugs, but he was dismissed in 1963 when it was revealed that he had given drugs to students. Leary and a colleague then took over a mansion in Millbrook, N.Y., where they continued to engage in counterculture activities. Problems with the law began in the mid-1960s, and in 1970 Leary was imprisoned in California. The revolutionary group known as the Weather Underground aided him in a spectacular escape, and he fled first to Algeria and eventually to Afghanistan, where he was captured in 1973 and returned to a California prison. He was released in 1976. Leary spent the next few years on the lecture circuit, at times participating in debates with a onetime adversary, Watergate figure G. Gordon Liddy. He also became a computer aficionado, and his home page on the Internet chronicled his death from prostate cancer. Leary's last wish was to have his remains launched into space.

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▪ American psychologist

in full  Timothy Francis Leary  

born Oct. 22, 1920, Springfield, Mass., U.S.

died May 31, 1996, Beverly Hills, Calif.

      American psychologist and author who was a leading advocate for the use of LSD and other psychoactive drugs.

      Leary, the son of a U.S. Army officer, was raised in a Catholic household and attended Holy Cross College, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and the University of Alabama (B.A., 1943). In 1950 he received a doctorate in psychology from the University of California at Berkeley, where he was an assistant professor until 1955. During the 1950s Leary developed an egalitarian model for interaction between the psychotherapist and the patient, promoted new techniques of group therapy, and published a system for classifying interpersonal behaviour. He acquired a reputation as a promising young scholar and was appointed to the position of lecturer at Harvard University in 1959.

      At Harvard, Leary began experimenting with psilocybin, a synthesized form of the hallucinogenic agent found in certain mushrooms. He concluded that psychedelic drugs (psychedelic drug) could be effective in transforming personality and expanding human consciousness. Along with a colleague, he formed the Harvard Psychedelic Drug Research Program and began administering psilocybin to graduate students; he also shared the drug with several prominent artists, writers, and musicians. Leary explored the cultural and philosophical implications of psychedelic drugs; in contrast to those within the psychedelic research community who argued that the drugs should be used only by a small elite, Leary came to believe that the experience should be introduced to the general public, particularly to young people.

      Leary's experiments were highly controversial, and he was dismissed from Harvard in 1963 after colleagues protested. During the mid-1960s Leary lived in a mansion in Millbrook, New York, where he formed the centre of a small hedonistic community and began to intensively explore LSD, a more powerful psychedelic drug. His research, which initially had emphasized careful control over the “set and setting” of the psychedelic experience, became increasingly undisciplined and unstructured. He traveled widely and gave many public lectures, especially on college campuses, and because of his high public profile, he became a focus of the emerging public debate over LSD. His phrase “turn on, tune in, drop out” became a popular counterculture slogan. Cultural conservatives saw Leary as a corrosive influence on society—President Richard Nixon called him “the most dangerous man in America”—while many researchers felt that Leary delegitimized the serious study of psychedelic drugs.

      After arrests in 1965 and 1968 for possession of marijuana and a prolonged legal battle, Leary was incarcerated in 1970. He soon escaped and became a fugitive, living outside the United States for more than two years until being recaptured in Afghanistan. He was freed in 1976 and settled in southern California. During the 1980s and '90s Leary continued to appear publicly in lectures and debates, although he never regained the stature he had enjoyed during the 1960s. He also designed computer software and was an early advocate of the potential of new technologies such as virtual reality and the Internet.

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