Timothy Francis Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) was an American writer, psychologist, futurist, and advocate of psychedelic drug research and use, and one of the first people whose remains have been sent into space. An icon of 1960s counterculture, Leary is most famous as a proponent of the therapeutic and spiritual benefits of LSD. He coined and popularized the catch phrase "Turn on, tune in, drop out."
Contents [hide]
1 Biography
1.1 Early life
1.2 Psychedelic experiments and experiences
1.3 Trouble with the law
1.4 Leary's last two decades
1.5 Death
2 Influence on others
3 See also
4 References
5 External links
Biography
Early life
Leary was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, an only child[1] of an Irish American dentist who abandoned the family when Leary was 13. He graduated from Springfield's Classical High School. Leary attended three different colleges and was disciplined at each.[1] He studied for two years at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. Leary received a bachelor's degree in psychology at the University of Alabama in 1943. An obituary of Leary in the New York Times said he had a "discipline problem" there as well, but that he "finally earned his bachelor's degree in the U. S. Army during World War II,"[1] when he served as a sergeant in the Medical Corps. Leary dropped out of the class of 1943 at The United States Military Academy at West Point. He received a master's degree at Washington State University in 1946, and a Ph.D. in psychology at the University of California, Berkeley in 1950[2]. The title of Leary's Ph.D. dissertation was, "The Social Dimensions of Personality: Group Structure and Process." He went on to become an Assistant Professor at Berkeley (1950-1955), a director of psychiatric research at the Kaiser Family Foundation (1955-1958), and a lecturer in psychology at Harvard University (1959-1963). He was officially expelled from the faculty of Harvard for failing to conduct his scheduled class lectures, though he asserts that he fulfilled all his teaching obligations. Another possible cause for his (and, a little later, Dr. Richard Alpert's) dismissal was his role in the mushrooming popularity of then-legal psychedelic substances among Harvard students and certain sympathetic faculty members.
Leary's early work in psychology continued the exploration by such pioneers as Dr. Harry Stack Sullivan, Dr. Karen Horney, Sam Biglari, and others, of the importance of interpersonal forces to mental health.
Kurt was an extremely happy child. He would wake up everyday so happy. He was
In 1967 the Beatles were in Abbey Road Studios putting the finishing touches on their album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. At one point Paul McCartney wandered down the corridor and heard what was then a new young band called Pink Floyd working on their hypnotic debut, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. He listened for a moment, then came rushing back. "Hey guys," he reputedly said, "There's a new band in there and they're gonna steal our thunder." With their mix of blues, music hall influences, Lewis Carroll references, and dissonant experimentation, Pink Floyd was one of the key bands of the 1960s psychedelic revolution, a pop culture movement that emerged with American and British rock, before sweeping through film, literature, and the visual arts. The music was largely inspired by hallucinogens, or so-called "mind-expanding" drugs such as marijuana and LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide; "acid"), and attempted to recreate drug-induced states through the use of overdriven guitar, amplified feedback, and droning guitar motifs influenced by Eastern music. This psychedelic consciousness was seeded, in the United States, by countercultural gurus such as Dr. Timothy Leary, a Harvard University professor who began researching LSD as a tool of self-discovery from 1960, and writer Ken Kesey who with his Merry Pranksters staged Acid Tests--multimedia "happenings" set to the music of the Warlocks (later the Grateful Dead) and documented by novelist Tom Wolfe in the literary classic The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968)--and traversed the country during the mid-1960s on a kaleidoscope-colored school bus. "Everybody felt the '60s were a breakthrough. There was exploration of sexual freedom and [...
Psychedelic drugs were an icon of the 1960s, its role embedded within the rising counterculture in response to the economic, social, and political turmoil throughout the United States. As a means to impose a central power and control social order, federal authorities were quick to ban the recreational and medical use of psychedelic drugs without consideration of its potential benefits. The recent state laws on the legalization of marijuana in Oregon and Colorado with others soon to follow, is a sure sign of an eventual collective shift in the perceptions of psychedelic drugs. Not only does Daniel Pinchbeck document his reflections on the personal consumption of psychedelic drugs in his unconventional novel Breaking Open the Head, he also advances several assertions on modern Western society in his exploration of polarized attitudes on this controversial topic.
Many people attribute modern psychology to psychologist such as Sigmund Freud, Ivan Pavlov, and B.F. Skinner. Though, they were a part of developing modern psychology, many forget to recognize important founders such as William James. According to King, Viney and Woody, James came from a family with a strict father, raised in tolerance. James and his father had many encounters because of their different views. They were a wealthy and cultured family. James attended Harvard, studying a broad spectrum of just about everything. He finally received his medical degree in 1869, but then became depressed and anxious about life. He was not fond of medicine and was then offered to teach a course in the Relations between Psychology and Physiology. He was also the founder of Harvard’s first psychology laboratory. James then began to teach psychology as well as writing the first U.S. psychology text, Principles of Psychology, in 1890; this book was the main psychology textbook for many years to come (p.284). James was well known for his philosophy, which he explored many areas. For example individualism, which he believed that circumstances shape individuals and then individuals shape the world also that we understand reality only through individual experiences. Pluralism was another view which he believed that there are many ways to understand the world, and a variety of methods and topics to study. Also, for James pragmatism was a belief that if an idea worked it was valid; these ideas should have “cash value” as he stated. He meant that these ideas should be useful and apply them to the real world. Although philosophy was a major part of his work, he was also known as the American founder of psychology (King, Viney &Woody 2013, p.286). Wi...
Charles Manson’s illicit upbringing contributed to the manipulative criminal he grew up to be. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1934 to an unmarried 16-year-old mother, and to a father he never met. When he was only 5-years-old, his mother was sentenced to prison for armed robbery. After moving from household to household in foster care, then later being expelled from boarding school, Manson commit his first crime in 1948 when he was caught and convicted for robbing a grocery store. He spent the rest of his adolescence and early adulthood in and out of jail for car theft, forging checks, and running a prostitution ring. In between sentences he married and divorced two women, and had two children. In prison, where he did most of his growing up, he learned to play the guitar, and became obsessed with the Beatles. Manson was released in the spring of 1967, despite asking to stay (Bugliosi 14-38). Manson never felt like he belonged to normal society, as he spent so much of his time in prison. “I never realized that the people outside [of prison] are much different from the people inside. People inside if you lie, you get punched… There’s a certain amount of truth in prison. And being raised in prison, I was pretty much raised in light of that truth” (Journey). ...
"Mr. Scott, Ms. Maddox? Here's your baby boy!" These were the first words that Kathleen Maddox heard when she gave birth to a healthy baby boy, to whom she would later give her maiden name. Charles Milles Manson, born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on November 11, 1934 (FAQ's 1), seemed to be a normal child, when, in fact, he was trouble from the start. The two had not planned to have a child, and certainly did not expect him to end up being the most notorious killer of the 20th century. In the summer of 1969, Manson made the residents of California afraid to leave their homes (Fillmer 2). Charlie Manson committed grotesque crimes, controlled his trials, and now resides in the California State Prison (FAQ's 1).
Charles Manson Charles Manson. He and his cult, "The Family," together killed. seven people, bloodied and butchered. The people who he and others killed. the Tate and LaBianca families, were wealthy and well-off.
Leary had a belief that LSD showed improvements in therapy, that the human mind would expand and there would be personal truth. During the hippie movement he was constantly arrested and was known as “-in the words of President Richard Nixon - “the most dangerous man in America”” (Bliss Jim, “The death of Timothy Leary, ‘The most dangerous man in America’”). Later in 1995, Leary was diagnosed with inoperable prostate cancer. And then in 1996, he died lying in bed with his friends. Another group of influential leaders to the youth movement was The Beatles.
Walsh, Jason. "All in our heads: have we taken psychiatry too far?"Irish Times 14 Aug.2010,
Shortly after graduating while in his early twenties he spent time serving in the Peace Corps in Columbia, and admittedly was known to partake in drugs during this time in his life. At the age of twenty-two he met his wife, Mary Cedarleaf, who was also serving in the Peace Corps. By the time he was turned twenty-five, he earned his Master’s in Business at American University, which provided the leverage he needed to get to his next position in the workforce. After college he went to work for United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Lima, Peru for a couple of years. He then returned to the United States to do environmental work in Chicago for Ecology and Environment Inc. In 1980 he applied for a job in the CIA and effectively changed his life forever.
“Turn on, tune in, drop out”: These six words can instantly transport a rush of nostalgia to anybody who grew up during the 1960s and 1970s. This iconic phrase came from no other than Timothy Leary. Leary was a psychologist and writer who advocated for the exploration and use of Lysergic acid diethylamide, better known as LSD. Among other popular hippie figures such as the band Grateful Dead, or singers Joan Baez and John Lennon, Timothy Leary stood out as a strong leader in the movement. Of all the important figures in the Hippie Movement, Timothy Leary had the greatest impact on hippie culture.
Oswald. I learned that in a field where you are dealing with people who have a mental disorder and are responsible for their growth that you have to sometimes dig deeper than what lie on the surface. You have to care to know more than the diagnosis but the actual causes and how that individual can overcome them so that they can live a much more functional and gratifying life. This brings me into my field of occupational therapy where we deal with a variety of clients with different types of disabilities such as mental illness patients. Occupational therapy practitioners (OTPs) learn early on in education that we do not treat just physical capabilities or functions of a person but the inner person as well- the mind. This form of philosophy is called metaphysics which is defined as being a holistic approach; treating the mind and the body as one entity (Ryan, S. and Sladyk, K., 2014, pg.
L. Ron Hubbard was an American author and he was the founder of the Church of Scientology. Born on March 13 in 1911 Lafayette Hubbard grew up in Helena Montana. Hubbard became a writer for pulp fiction magazines during the 1930s starting his career in the field of writing. Hubbard was best known for his fantasy and science fiction stories, however he wrote many other genres. In May of 1950 the book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health was published. It was after this that L. Ron Hubbard began to really promote Scientology as a religion and established the church of Scientology in 1953 located in Camden, New Jersey. (What is Scientology, 25-29)
1) Corey, Gerald Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy, 6th edition, Brooks and Cole, Stamford, CT p. 153.
A severe economic depression, as well as the beginning of psychology as a social science, marked the 1890’s. Paranoia is known to be a thought process, heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid beliefs can also be associated with the feelings of powerlessness and victimization. When Christian von Ehrenfels founded gestalt psychology, William James also published “Principles of Psychology”, which introduces readers to four methods of psychology: analysis, introspection, experiment, and statistical studies. This period experienced a tremendous amount of growth within the scientific studies of the psychological mind, and can be known as the experimental stage of social sciences.