Leary believed that the first four of these circuits ("the Larval Circuits" or "Terrestrial Circuits") are naturally accessed by most people in their lifetimes, triggered at natural transition points in life such as puberty. The second four circuits ("the Stellar Circuits" or "Extra-Terrestrial Circuits"), Leary wrote, were "evolutionary offshoots" of the first four that would be triggered at transition points which humans might acquire if they evolve. These circuits, according to Leary, would equip humans to encompass life in space, as well as the expansion of consciousness that would be necessary to make further scientific and social progress. Leary suggested that some people may "shift to the latter four gears", i.e., trigger these circuits artificially via consciousness-altering techniques such as meditation and spiritual endeavors such as yoga, or by taking psychedelic drugs specific to each circuit. The feeling of floating and uninhibited motion experienced by users of marijuana is one thing that Leary cited as evidence for the purpose of the "higher" four circuits. In the eight-circuit model of consciousness, a primary theoretical function of the fifth circuit (the first of the four, according to Leary, developed for life in outer space) is to allow humans to become accustomed to life in a zero- or low-gravity environment.[94]
Legal troubles
BNDD agents Don Strange (right) and Howard Safir (left) arrest Leary in 1972.
Leary's first run-in with the law came on December 23, 1965, when he was arrested for possession of marijuana.[95][96] Leary took his two children, Jack and Susan, and his girlfriend Rosemary Woodruff to Mexico for an extended stay to write a book. On their return from Mexico to the United States, a US Customs Service official found marijuana in Susan's underwear. They had crossed into Nuevo Laredo, Mexico in the late afternoon and discovered that they would have to wait until morning for the appropriate visa for an extended stay. They decided to cross back into Texas to spend the night, and were on the US-Mexico bridge when Rosemary remembered that she had a small amount of marijuana in her possession. It was impossible to throw it out on the bridge, so Susan put it in her underwear.[97] After taking responsibility for the controlled substance, Leary was convicted of possession under the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 on March 11, 1966, sentenced to 30 years in prison, fined $30,000, and ordered to undergo psychiatric treatment. He appealed the case on the basis that the Marihuana Tax Act was unconstitutional, as it required a degree of self-incrimination in blatant violation of the Fifth Amendment.
On December 26, 1968, Leary was arrested again in Laguna Beach, California, this time for the possession of two marijuana "roaches". Leary alleged that they were planted by the arresting officer, but was convicted of the crime. On May 19, 1969, The Supreme Court concurred with Leary in Leary v. United States, declared the Marihuana Tax Act unconstitutional, and overturned his 1965 conviction.[98]
On that same day, Leary announced his candidacy for Governor of California against the Republican incumbent, Ronald Reagan. His campaign slogan was "Come together, join the party." On June 1, 1969, Leary joined John Lennon and Yoko Ono at their Montreal Bed-In, and Lennon subsequently wrote Leary a campaign song called "Come Together".[99]
On January 21, 1970, Leary received a 10-year sentence for his 1968 offense, with a further 10 added later while in custody for a prior arrest in 1965, for a total of 20 years to be served consecutively. On his arrival in prison, he was given psychological tests used to assign inmates to appropriate work details. Having designed some of these tests himself (including the "Leary Interpersonal Behavior Inventory"), Leary answered them in such a way that he seemed to be a very conforming, conventional person with a great interest in forestry and gardening.[100] As a result, he was assigned to work as a gardener in a lower-security prison from which he escaped in September 1970, saying that his non-violent escape was a humorous prank and leaving a challenging note for the authorities to find after he was gone.[citation needed]
For a fee of $25,000, paid by The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, the Weathermen smuggled Leary out of prison in a pickup truck driven by Clayton Van Lydegraf.[101] The truck met Leary after he had escaped over the prison wall by climbing along a telephone wire. The Weathermen then helped both Leary and Rosemary out of the US (and eventually into Algeria).[102] He sought the patronage of Eldridge Cleaver for $10,000 and the remnants of the Black Panther Party's "government in exile" in Algeria, but after a short stay with them said that Cleaver had attempted to hold him and his wife hostage.[103][104] Cleaver had put Leary and his wife under "house arrest" due to exasperation with their socialite lifestyle.[104]
In 1971, the couple fled to Switzerland, where they were sheltered and effectively imprisoned by a high-living arms dealer, Michel Hauchard, who claimed he had an "obligation as a gentleman to protect philosophers"; Hauchard intended to broker a surreptitious film deal, and forced Leary to assign his future earnings (which Leary eventually won back).[62][105] In 1972, President Richard Nixon's attorney general, John Mitchell, persuaded the Swiss government to imprison Leary, which it did for a month, but refused to extradite him to the United States.[105]
Leary and Rosemary separated later that year; she traveled widely, then moved back to the United States where she lived as a fugitive until the 1990s.[105] Shortly after his separation from Rosemary in 1972, Leary became involved with Swiss-born British socialite Joanna Harcourt-Smith, a stepdaughter of financier Árpád Plesch and ex-girlfriend of Hauchard.[105] The couple "married" in a hotel under the influence of cocaine and LSD two weeks after they were first introduced, and Harcourt-Smith would use his surname until their breakup in early 1977. They traveled to Vienna, then Beirut, and finally ended up in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1972; according to Luc Sante, "Afghanistan had no extradition treaty with the United States, but this stricture did not apply to American airliners."[62] That interpretation of the law was used by American authorities to interdict the fugitive. "Before Leary could deplane, he was arrested by an agent of the federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs."[62] Leary asserted a different story on appeal before the California Court of Appeal for the Second District, namely:[106]
He testified further that he had a valid passport in Kabul and that it was confiscated while he was in a line at the American Embassy in Kabul a few days prior to the day when he boarded the airplane; after his passport was confiscated, he was taken to "Central Police Headquarters"; he did not attempt to contact the American Embassy; the Kabul police held him in custody and took him to a "police hotel". The cousin of the King of Afghanistan came to see him and told him that it was a national holiday, that the King and the officials were out of Kabul, and that he (the cousin) would get a lawyer and see that Leary "had a hearing". On the morning the airplane left Kabul, officials of Afghanistan told him he was to leave Afghanistan. Leary replied he would not leave without a hearing and until he got his passport back; they said the Americans had his passport, and he was taken to the airplane.
His bail was set at $5 million.[105][107] The judge at his remand hearing stated, "If he is allowed to travel freely, he will speak publicly and spread his ideas,"[108] Facing a total of 95 years in prison, Leary hired criminal defense attorney Bruce Margolin. Leary mostly directed his own defense strategy, which proved to be unsuccessful, as the jury convicted him after deliberating for less than two hours.[105] The Brotherhood drug conspiracy charges were dropped for lack of evidence, but Leary received five years for his prison escape added to his original 10-year sentence.[105] In 1973, he was sent to Folsom Prison in California, and put in solitary confinement.[105][109] While in Folsom, he was placed in a cell right next to Charles Manson, and though they could not see each other, they could talk together. In their discussions, Manson was surprised and found it difficult to understand why Leary had given people LSD without trying to control them. At one point, Manson said to Leary, "They took you off the streets so that I could continue with your work."[110]
Leary became an informant for the FBI in order shorten his prison sentence and he entered the witness protection program upon his release in 1976.[111][112] He claimed that he feigned cooperation with the FBI investigation of Weathermen and its radical attorneys by giving them information that they already had or which he saw as being of little consequence; in response, the FBI gave him the code name "Charlie Thrush".[113] In a 1974 news conference, Allen Ginsberg, Ram Dass, and Leary's 25-year-old son Jack denounced Leary, calling Leary a "cop informant," a "liar," and a "paranoid schizophrenic."[114] Leary would later claim, and members of the Weathermen would later support his claim, that no one was ever prosecuted based on any information he gave to the FBI. In 1999, a letter was written by 22 'Friends of Timothy Leary' in an attempt to defend his reputation in light of the publication of FBI files relating to the same case. It was signed by authors such as Douglas Rushkoff, Ken Kesey, and Robert Anton Wilson. Susan Sarandon, Genesis P-Orridge and Leary's goddaughter Winona Ryder also signed the letter.[104][115]
Histories written about the Weather Underground usually mention the Leary chapter in terms of the escape for which they proudly took credit. Leary sent information to the Weather Underground through a sympathetic prisoner that he was considering making a deal with the FBI and waited for their approval. The return message was, "We understand."[115][116]
The letter writers did not provide confirmation that the Weather Underground okayed his cooperation with the FBI. While in prison, Leary was sued by the parents of Vernon Powell Cox, who had jumped from a third story window of a Berkeley apartment while under the influence of LSD. Cox had taken the drug after attending a lecture, given by Leary, favoring LSD use. Leary was unable to be present due to his incarceration, and unable to arrange for legal representation; a default judgement was entered against him in the amount of $100,000.[117]
Post prison
Leary was released from prison on April 21, 1976 by Governor Jerry Brown. He stayed briefly in San Diego, then took up residence in Laurel Canyon, where he continued to write books and appear as a lecturer and "stand-up philosopher".[118] In 1978, he married filmmaker Barbara Blum, also known as Barbara Chase, sister of actress Tanya Roberts. He adopted Blum's son Zachary and raised him as his own. He also took on several godchildren, including actress Winona Ryder (the daughter of his archivist Michael Horowitz) and MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito.[119][120]
Leary began to foster an improbable friendship with former foe G. Gordon Liddy, the Watergate burglar and conservative radio talk-show host. They toured the lecture circuit in 1982 as ex-cons debating a range of social and fiscal issues, including gay rights, abortion, welfare, and the environment. Leary generally espoused left-wing views, while Liddy held to a right-wing stance. The tour generated massive publicity and considerable funds for both, and Leary was returned to the spotlight through the personal appearances, the documentary Return Engagement which chronicled the tour, and the concurrent release of the autobiography Flashbacks. In 1988, he held a fundraiser for Libertarian presidential candidate Ron Paul.[121][122]
Leary's extensive touring on the lecture circuit ensured him a very comfortable lifestyle by the mid-1980s. He also attracted a more intellectual crowd, including Robert Anton Wilson, science fiction writers William Gibson and Norman Spinrad, and rock musicians David Byrne and John Frusciante.[citation needed] In addition, he appeared in Johnny Depp's and Gibby Haynes's 1994 film Stuff, which showed Frusciante's squalid living conditions at that time.[123]
Leary continued his frequent drug use privately, rather than evangelizing and proselytizing the use of psychedelics as he had in the 1960s. Instead, he preached on the notions of space colonization and an ensuing extension of the human lifespan, while also providing a detailed explanation of the eight-circuit model of consciousness in books such as Info-Psychology: A Re-Vision of Exo-Psychology and others.[105] He invented the acronym "SMI²LE" as a succinct summary of his pre-transhumanist agenda: SM (Space Migration) + I² (intelligence increase) + LE (Life extension).[124]
Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, and John C. Lilly in 1991
Leary's colonization plan changed greatly through the years. According to his initial plan to leave the planet, 5,000 of Earth's most virile and intelligent individuals would be launched on a vessel (Starseed 1) equipped with luxurious amenities. This idea was inspired by the plot line of Paul Kantner's concept album Blows Against The Empire, which in turn was derived from Robert A. Heinlein's Lazarus Long series. Leary was jailed in Folsom Prison during the winter of 1975-76, and he became enamoured by Gerard O'Neill's plans to construct giant Eden-like High Orbital Mini-Earths, as documented in the Robert Anton Wilson lecture H.O.M.E.s on LaGrange, using raw materials from the moon, orbital rock, and obsolete satellites.[125]
In the 1980s, Leary became fascinated by computers, the Internet, and virtual reality. He proclaimed that "the PC is the LSD of the 1990s" and admonished bohemians to "turn on, boot up, jack in".[126][127] He became a promoter of virtual reality systems,[128] and sometimes demonstrated a prototype of the Mattel Power Glove as part of his lectures (as in From Psychedelics to Cybernetics). He befriended a number of notable people in the field, such as Jaron Lanier[129] and Brenda Laurel, a pioneering researcher in virtual environments and human–computer interaction. With the rise of cyberdelic counter-culture, he served as consultant to Billy Idol in the production of the 1993 album Cyberpunk.[130]
In 1990, his daughter Susan (age 42) was arrested in Los Angeles for shooting her boyfriend in the head as he slept. She was ruled mentally unfit to stand trial on two occasions. She committed suicide in jail by hanging herself with a shoelace, after years of mental instability.[131][132][133] Leary and Barbara divorced in 1992, and he ensconced himself in a circle of artists and cultural figures as diverse as Johnny Depp, Susan Sarandon, Dan Aykroyd, Zach Leary,[104] author Douglas Rushkoff, and Spin magazine publisher Bob Guccione, Jr [134] Despite declining health, he maintained a regular schedule of public appearances through 1994.[135] In the same year, he was honored at a symposium of the American Psychological Association.[136]
From 1989 on, Leary had begun to re-establish his connection to unconventional religious movements with an interest in altered states of consciousness. In 1989, he appeared with friend and book collaborator Robert Anton Wilson in a dialog entitled The Inner Frontier for the Association for Consciousness Exploration, a Cleveland-based group that had been responsible for his first Cleveland appearance in 1979. After that, he appeared at the Starwood Festival, a major Neo-Pagan event run by ACE in 1992 and 1993[137] although his planned 1994 WinterStar Symposium appearance was cancelled due to his declining health. In front of hundreds of Neo-Pagans in 1992 he declared, "I've always considered myself a Pagan."[138] He also collaborated with Eric Gullichsen on Load and Run High-tech Paganism: Digital Polytheism.[139] Shortly before his death on May 31, 1996, he recorded the Right to Fly album with Simon Stokes which was released in July 1996.[140]
Death
Etoy agents with mortal remains of Timothy Leary in 2007
In January 1995, Leary was diagnosed with inoperable prostate cancer.[141] He then notified Ram Dass and other old friends, and began the process of directed dying, which he termed "designer dying."[142] Leary did not reveal the condition to the press at that time, but did so after the death of Jerry Garcia in August.[142] Leary and Ram Dass reunited before Leary's death in May 1996, as seen in the documentary film Dying to Know: Ram Dass & Timothy Leary.[143][144]
Timothy Leary reunites with Ram Dass five days before his death
Leary's last book before he died was Chaos and Cyber Culture, published in 1994. In it he wrote, "The time has come to talk cheerfully and joke sassily about personal responsibility for managing the dying process."[142] His book Design for Dying, which tried to give a new perspective on death and dying, was published posthumously.[145] Leary wrote about his belief that death is "a merging with the entire life process."[145]
His website team, led by Chris Graves, updated his website on a daily basis as a sort of proto-blog.[142] The website noted his daily intake of various illicit and legal chemical substances with a predilection for nitrous oxide, LSD and other psychedelic drugs.[citation needed] He was noted for his strong views against the use of drugs which "dull the mind" such as heroin, morphine and (more than occasional) alcohol, and also for his trademark "Leary Biscuits" (a snack cracker with cheese and a small marijuana bud, briefly microwaved).[citation needed] At his request, his sterile house was redecorated by the staff with an array of surreal ornamentation.[citation needed] In his final months, thousands of visitors, well-wishers and old friends visited him in his California home.[citation needed] Until his last weeks, he gave many interviews discussing his new philosophy of embracing death.[145]
Movie poster for Timothy Leary's Dead.
Leary was reportedly excited for a number of years by the possibility of freezing his body in cryonic suspension, and he publicly announced in September 1988 that he had signed up with Alcor for such treatment after having appeared at Alcor's grand opening the year before.[146] He did not believe he would be resurrected in the future, but did believe that cryonics had important possibilities even though he thought it had only "one chance in a thousand".[146] He called it his "duty as a futurist", and helped publicize the process and hoped it would work for his children and grandchildren if not for him, although he said he was "lighthearted" about it.[146] He was connected with two cryonic organizations, first Alcor and then CryoCare, one of which delivered a cryonic tank to his house in the months before his death. Leary initially announced he would freeze his entire body, but due to lack of funds decided to freeze his head only.[104][142] He then changed his mind again, and requested that his body be cremated, with his ashes scattered in space.[104]
Leary died at 75 on May 31, 1996. His death was videotaped for posterity at his request, by Denis Berry and Joey Cavella, capturing his final words.[104] Berry was the trustee of Leary's archives, and Cavella had filmed Leary during his later years.[104] According to his son Zachary, during his final moments, he clenched his fist and said, "Why?", and then unclenching his fist, he said, "Why not?". He uttered the phrase repeatedly, in different intonations, and died soon after. His last word, according to Zach, was "beautiful."[147]
The film Timothy Leary's Dead (1996) contains a simulated sequence in which he allows his bodily functions to be suspended for the purposes of cryonic preservation. His head is removed, and placed on ice. The film ends with a sequence showing the creation of the artificial head used in the film.
Seven grams of Leary's ashes were arranged by his friend at Celestis to be buried in space aboard a rocket carrying the remains of 23 others, including Gene Roddenberry (creator of Star Trek), Gerard O'Neill (space physicist), and Krafft Ehricke (rocket scientist). A Pegasus rocket containing their remains was launched on April 21, 1997, and remained in orbit for six years until it burned up in the atmosphere.[148]
Leary's ashes were also given to close friends and family. In 2015, Susan Sarandon brought some of his ashes to the Burning Man festival in Black Rock City, Nevada, and put them into an art installation there. The ashes were burned, along with the installation, on September 6, 2015.[149]
Personal life
Leary was married five times, and fathered two children.
1945-1955 Marianne Busch[150] (1921-1955)
daughter Susan[151] (1947-1990)
son Jack[152] (1949- )
1956-1957 Mary Cioppa[153] (1920-1996)
1964-1965 Nena von Schlebrügge (1941- )
1967-1976 Rosemary Woodruff[154] (1935-2002)
1978-1992 Barbara Blum Chase[155][156][157]
son Zach (adopted)[158]
Influence
Timothy Leary was an early influence on game theory applied to psychology, having introduced the concept to the International Association of Applied Psychology in 1961 at their annual conference in Copenhagen.[159][160][161][162]
He was also an early influence on transactional analysis.[163][164] His concept of the four life scripts, dating back to 1951,[165] became an influence on transactional analysis by the late 1960s, popularised by Thomas Harris in his book, I'm OK, You're OK.[166]
Many consider Leary one of the most prominent figures during the counterculture of the 1960s, and since those times has remained influential on pop culture, literature, television,[159] film and, especially, music.
Leary coined the influential term reality tunnel, by which he means a kind of representative realism. The theory states that, with a subconscious set of mental filters formed from their beliefs and experiences, every individual interprets the same world differently, hence "Truth is in the eye of the beholder".[167]
His ideas influenced the work of his friend Robert Anton Wilson. This influence went both ways, and Leary admittedly took just as much from Wilson. Wilson's book Prometheus Rising was an in-depth, highly detailed and inclusive work documenting Leary's eight-circuit model of consciousness. Although the theory originated in discussions between Leary and a Hindu holy man at Millbrook, Wilson was one of the most ardent proponents of it and introduced the theory to a mainstream audience in 1977's bestselling Cosmic Trigger. In 1989, they appeared together on stage in a dialog entitled The Inner Frontier[168] hosted by the Association for Consciousness Exploration,[169] (the same group that had hosted Leary's first Cleveland appearance in 1979).[170][171]
World religion scholar Huston Smith was "turned on" by Leary after being introduced to him by Aldous Huxley in the early 1960s. The experience was interpreted as a deeply religious one by Smith, and is described in detailed religious terms in Smith's later work Cleansing of the Doors of Perception.[172] Smith asked Leary, to paraphrase, whether he knew the power and danger of what he was conducting research with. In Mother Jones Magazine, 1997, Smith commented:
First, I have to say that during the three years I was involved with that Harvard study, LSD was not only legal but respectable. Before Tim went on his unfortunate careening course, it was a legitimate research project. Though I did find evidence that, when recounted, the experiences of the Harvard group and those of mystics were impossible to tell apart — descriptively indistinguishable — that's not the last word. There is still a question about the truth of the disclosure.[173]
In popular culture
Leary, John Lennon, Yoko Ono and others recording "Give Peace A Chance".
In film
The movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), adapted from a 1971 novel of Hunter S. Thompson, portrays heavy psychedelic drug use and mentions Leary
