Timothy Leary, opinions

[deus_ex]

I saw Tim L at the Bottom Line in NYC in 1980 and felt that he was not helping anyone with his rhetoric about psychedelics. I am certain that his "work" in this regard helped push the establishment towards containing and criminalizing psychedelic substances.
Real work by the Czechs and Stan Groff, and others was sidelined by Leary's politicizing and pontificating and even today the benefits of entheogens have been buried under shrill and unrelenting political nonsense.
The DEA won't even allow cannabis research in the US while international studies have proven repeatedly that there ARE medicinal benefits to Cannabis, that scientists SHOULD be allowed to grow and possess it for research purposes, etc...
When I was doing cannabis activism I wore a suit and tie, developed glossy brochures from a business perspective and conducted myself with the decorum necessary to do the job. Unfortunately my cheering section consisted of half naked long hairs with authority figure complexes... didn't need their help, didn't want it but it was their high profile bs that made the work much harder than it needed to be. Kinda like Shirley McClaine outing Dennis Kucinich's UFO sighting. Didn't help him or UFO research on little bit....
Same kind of dynamic.
So I don't think Leary was a visionary, he didn't do work that the establishment could engage, he didn't promote research or conduct any studies of merit, he just squared off against the establishment and had a long strange trip.

 

[GOD]

"Did you just not see what I didn't see?"

Yes .

Michael Hollingshead was the person who turned the world onto LSD and "The brotherhood of eternal love" gave it to the people .

A big part of the problem some "scientists" had with Timothy Leary was jealosy .

 

[GOD]

Aldous Huxleys opinion :-

"Huxley called me back a few days later, having thought over my problem, and suggested that I go to Harvard to meet a Dr Timothy Leary, a professor there, whom he'd met earlier that year in Copenhagen, when he had presented a paper on induced visionary experience before the Fourteenth International Congress of Applied Psychology. Leary had also read a paper on 'How to Change Behaviour' describing the induction of visionary mental states by psilocybin, the synthetic of the sacred mushroom of Mexico. He spoke very warmly of Leary as a scientist but also as a man, whom he described as 'a splendid fellow'. Leary had also written three classic monographs on personality and psychotherapy. 'If there is any one single investigator in America worth seeing,' Huxley assured me, 'it is Dr Leary.' "

 

[GOD]

This is taken from "The man who turned on the world" , a book that i recomend people who want to know to read . It explains in one paragraph the effect that Timothy Leary had . Why we wouldnt be where we are now without him . How he changed the world . What we owe him .


"It is interesting to look back at some of the original members of the Harvard Psychedelic Project, who were first introduced to LSD via the contents of the magic mayonnaise jar, and to note their successive and deepening involvement in the psychedelic movement, which was to spread from Harvard to all sections of our Western culture as well as introduce a new vocabulary for a turned-on youth movement ('psychedelic', 'acid', 'trip', 'stoned'); new slogans ('turn on, tune in, drop out'); new artistic forms (psychedelic art, acid rock, psychedelic discotheques, a Beatle album openly celebrating The Psychedelic Experience); new drug-associated organisations (The International Federation for Internal Freedom [IFIF] in Cambridge, The Agora Scientific Trust in New York, The World Psychedelic Centre in London, The Castalia Foundation at Millbrook); new religions (The Neo-American Church, The League for Spiritual Discovery, The Free High Church of Cumbrae [Scotland], The Church of the Awakening, San Francisco); new life-styles (head shops, Ashrams, communes, The Brotherhood of Eternal Love); an underground newspaper service; new literary forms and themes (High Priest, The Psychedelic Review, The Ecstatic Adventure, The Psychedelic Experience, Psychedelic Prayers, The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience) and so on and so forth. Along the crowded corridors of the Center walked Aldous and Laura Huxley, Arthur Koestler, William Burroughs, Charles Olson, Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky, famous musicians and painters, ministers, cured dope addicts. New York hipsters, oriental religious leaders, rabbis and even a couple of Jesuits."

 

[spice]

Thanks, GOD.

A lot of people are missing the point entirely.

 

[VerusDeus]

Well I guess I shouldn't have said that his research didn't lead to all the much, I mean the man still is a genius, and he has all my respect.

I just still can't really comprehend why he would want LSD to be like hype, rather then a commonly available therapeutic drug. Because now it's like a very well known but somewhat rare street drug. (not that he is to blame, not at all)

Edit: it's clearly not at all that Leary wanted to hype acid, moreso that he got sucked into the acid hype it all comes down to the fact that I should read up on Leary.


Peace.

 

[Brugmansia]

Interesting, I wonder if psychedelics would have become "street drugs" if it wasn't for Leary. Instead street drugs would have consisted of what.. cocaine.. speed.. MJ I guess. Not saying that LSD is the next Messiah or anything, and it is always dubious off of the street.. but I'd rather see psychedelics floating around than only addictive substances. Well I guess that is what has happened now in the past 10 years anyway, oh well..

Actually, the Harvard University got a large amount of LSD in 1961 and they started the big bang. But it was particulary the way it was used within the young culture. The rock bands, loudy outdoor festivals combined with mass of people together.

Representing the possibility of using Acid to dive deep in your own soul and dissolute the ego has never been an input of Leary. Which could have been a revolution without all the rough influences.

As far as I remember speed and cocaine came in the street scene in San Fransico after LSD. That, was actually the reason that no one wanted to be on the streets anymore.

 

[GOD]

Michael Hollingshead was the person who turned Timothy Leary and the people at Harvard university on to LSD , you can get the book "The man who turned on the world" wich tells the story here for free :-

www.erowid.org/library/books_online/man ... _world.pdf