Timothy Leary was a psychologist and writer who researched mind-altering substances and their effects on the human mind. He is known for the phrase “turn on, tune in, quit,” which urged people to use psychedelic drugs to change culture. He was kicked out of Harvard for experimenting on students and founded the International Foundation for Internal Freedom to promote LSD. He was arrested for possession of marijuana and escaped prison, but was eventually taken back to the US. He continued to write and lecture after his release and died in 1996.
Timothy Leary is widely regarded by the public as the guru of psychedelic drug research. He was a psychologist and writer whose main research topics were mind-altering substances and their effects on the human mind. Throughout his life, he has also been known as an icon of underground movements and counterculture.
While Leary did a tremendous amount of research on drugs like LSD, he’ll probably be best remembered for the phrase “turn on, tune in, quit.” He first used this phrase in a speech he gave in 1967 in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. It was intended to urge people to use psychedelic drugs to break away from normal social concepts and change the culture. Kindling referring to changing one’s mental state through drug use. Tune in to evaluate things while in this altered state of mind. By dropping out, Leary encouraged people to disassociate themselves from accepted social norms. Conservatives criticized him for these unconventional theories. In fact, former President Nixon went so far as to call him “the most dangerous man in America.”
Leary was born in Springfield, Massachusetts on October 22, 1920. His educational life began at Holy Cross College and included a short stint at West Point, a United States military academy. He then went on to the University of Alabama, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology, and then to Washington University, where he earned a master’s degree. In 1950 he received a PhD in Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley.
In 1959 he was teaching Psychology at Harvard. At the same time, he was raising his two children after his wife, Marianne, committed suicide. It was around this time that Leary became interested in the hallucinogenic substance d-lysergic acid diethylamide, more commonly known as LSD. He has begun using volunteer college students as guinea pigs for his drug experiments.
University officials were alarmed and prevented Leary from conducting further experiments on students. But he persisted and was kicked out of his position at Harvard. Before being expelled, he and a Harvard colleague, Richard Alpert, founded the International Foundation for Internal Freedom (IFIF). IFIF’s main goal was to promote LSD and various other drugs.
Around this time, in the mid-1960s, Leary evolved the IFIF into a religious movement which he called the League for Spiritual Discovery. At the heart of this religious movement was LSD and what he called the ancient art of turning on, tuning in, and quitting. It was during this period that his famous catchphrase was originally coined. He started holding many outdoor celebrations all over the country and his fame spread after that. In fact, many hold him responsible for LSD’s rising popularity in the 1960s, when millions began following its tune in creed.
His life took a turn for the worse when he was arrested for possession of marijuana in 1965 and 1968. He received ten-year sentences for each crime, but spent only six months in prison, after which he escaped, with the help of others, and fled to Algeria with his second wife, Rosemary. The two traveled through various countries and eventually ended up in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he was kidnapped before being disembarked by US authorities and taken back to the United States. He was given one more sentence for escaping him and was finally released in 1976.
Following his release, Leary became a prolific writer and lecturer. While his obsession with mind-altering drugs waned, he continued to tour universities talking about his hopes of colonizing space. His celebrity status never diminished, and he became a regular on television and radio while continuing to write books. He died on May 31, 1996, at the age of 75. His last known words of him are said to have been “why not?” it’s beautiful.”
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