"My advice to people today
is as follows:
If you take the game of life seriously,
if you take your nervous system seriously,
if you take your sense organs seriously,
if you take the energy process seriously,
you must turn on, tune in, and drop out."
"drop out, turn on, then come back and tune it in...
and then drop out again, and turn on, and tune it back in...
it's a rhythm...
most of us think God made this universe in nature-
subject object-predicate sentences...
turn on, tune in, drop out...
period, end of paragraph.
Turn the page...
it's all a rhythm... it's all a beat.
You turn on, you find it inside,
and then you have to come back
(since you can't stay high all the time)
and you have to build a better model.
But don't get caught - don't get hooked -
don't get attracted by the thing you're building, cause...
you gotta drop out again.
It's a cycle.
Turn on, tune in, drop out.
Keep it going, keep it going...
the nervous system works that way...
gotta keep it flowing, keep it flowing..."
-Timothy Leary'
During the Vietnam War, in
1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono held two, week-long Bed-Ins for Peace,
which were their non-violent ways of protesting wars and promoting
peace.
Knowing their March 20, 1969 marriage would be a huge press event,
John and Yoko decided to use the publicity to promote world peace.
They spent their honeymoon in Room 902 at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel
for a week between March 25 and March 31 and invited the world's press
into their hotel room every day between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. After their
other stunts, such as the naked cover of the Two Virgins album, the
press were expecting them to be having sex, but instead John and Yoko
were sitting in bed talking about peace with signs over their bed
reading "Hair Peace" and "Bed Peace".
The world's press ridiculed them relentlessly, but they didn't allow
their peace efforts to be hindered in any way. After seven days, they
flew to Vienna, Austria, where they held a press conference while
eating chocolate cake while they were inside a white bag, a promotion
for Bagism,
another of their concepts which called for social change.
During April 1969, John and Yoko sent acorns to the heads of state
in various countries around the world in hopes that they would plant
them as a symbol of peace.
For eight months, the couple was not granted a single visit with any
world leader.
John and Yoko's marriage, their first Bed-In, the Vienna press conference
and their acorn event were all mentioned in the song The
Ballad of John and Yoko.
Their second Bed-In was planned to take place in New York, but John
wasn't allowed into the country because of his 1968 marijuana conviction.
Due to its proximity to the United States, they decided to hold their
Bed-In in the Bahamas at the Sheraton Oceanus Hotel. They flew there
on May 24, 1969, but after spending one night in the 86°F (30°C)
heat, they decided to head to Toronto, Canada.
Eventually, they flew to Montreal on May 26 where they stayed in Room
1742 at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. During their seven day stay, they
invited Timothy Leary, Tommy Smothers,
Dick Gregory, and Al Capp and all but Capp sang on the peace anthem
Give Peace a Chance, recorded in the hotel room on June 1. The Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) conducted interviews from the hotel
room and has released this content for paid downloads to computers
and iPods through [MoboVivo].
In December 1969, they spread their message with a billboard reading
"War is Over! If You Want It -
Happy Christmas From John and Yoko".
The billboards went up in eleven cities.
The intent of bagism was to satirize prejudice and
stereotyping. Bagism literally involved wearing a bag over one's entire
body. According to John and Yoko, by living in a bag, others could
not judge you by the color of your skin, the length of your hair,
the clothes you wore, your age, or any other such attributes. It was
presented as a form of total communication. Instead of focusing on
outward appearance, the listener would hear only the bagist's message.
Interview with David Frost about Bagism:
Recording Give Peace A Chance
By Roy Kerwood
|
|
Psychedelic Prayers & Other Meditations
by Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner (Introduction)
(Orginal
Cover Copy)
TThe poems were inspired by
the Tao Te Ching (Way of Life), ancient spiritual writings
of Taoist philosopher Lao Tsu. Leary believed Tsu's writings
would serve as an excellent guidebook for psychedelic sessions,
so--armed with nine English translations--he sat under a tree
in India and attempted to distill the works' essential meanings
(from a drug-induced perspective, of course).
As meditation is to Eastern spiritual traditions, psychedelic
drugs were to Timothy Leary. The counterculture guru encouraged
people to transcend ego-centered perspectives of ordinary
human consciousness, go beyond the dualities of right and
wrong, and liberate themselves from their limitations.
The Tao Te Ching fit these purposes quite well, he thought,
and Ralph Metzner, who wrote the book's introduction, agrees:
"These meditations on the art and science of consciousness
expansion are serene, sensuous, funny and wise.
They are among the most inspired writings by one of the outstanding
visionary geniuses of the 20th century."
Purchase HERE!
|
Timothy
Leary
Thoughts & Quotes
"It must be emphasized that the evolution from fourth-circuit
gravity
to fifth-circuit levity is much, much more than a struggle between
generations.
The DNA strategy calls for continuous acceleration of the genetic
script,
and evolution has never happened faster than at present.
The bitterness of the old species grows increasingly paranoid, violent,
vengeful."
"I love topics the Establishment says are
taboo.
When I found out I was terminally ill I was thrilled.
You've got to approach your dying the way you live your life -
with curiosity, with hope, with fascination,
with courage and with the help of your friends....
Death is life's greatest event."
"Acid is not for every brain -
only the healthy, happy, wholesome, handsome, hopeful, humorous,
high-velocity should seek these experiences.
This elitism is totally self-determined.
Unless you are self-confident, self-directed, self-selected,
please abstain."
"There are three side effects of acid:
enhanced long-term memory,
decreased short-term memory,
and I forget the third."
"Thou shalt not alter the consciousness of thy fellow men."
"Thou shalt not prevent thy fellow man from altering his or her
own consciousness."
"Civilization is unbearable, but it is less unbearable at the
top."
"If you don't like what you're doing, you
can always pick up your needle and move to another groove."
"In the information age, you don't teach philosophy as they did
after feudalism.
You perform it. If Aristotle were alive today he'd have a talk show."
"Learning how to operate a soul figures
to take time."
"Science is all metaphor."
"The universe is an intelligence test"
"We are dealing with the best-educated generation in history.
But they've got a brain dressed up with nowhere to go."
"Women who seek to be equal with men lack
ambition."
"You're only as young as the last time you changed your mind."
"Your mythic guide must be one who has
solved the death-rebirth riddle."
Writings of Timothy Leary
(Some of these
titles can be found in our Psychedelic
Bookstore 1-they are linked below)
* The Interpersonal Diagnosis of Personality. Leary, Timothy. 1957.
The
Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the
Dead.
Leary, Timothy and Metzner, Ralph, Alpert, Richard, Karma-Glin-Pa
Bar Do Thos Grol. 1964.
(ISBN 0-8065-1652-6)
In 1964, Leary co-authored a book with Ralph
Metzner called The Psychedelic Experience,
ostensibly based upon the Tibetan Book of the Dead. In it he writes:
"A psychedelic experience is a journey to new realms of consciousness.
The scope and content of the experience is limitless, but its characteristic
features are the transcendence of verbal concepts, of space-time dimensions,
and of the ego or identity. Such experiences of enlarged consciousness
can occur in a variety of ways: sensory deprivation, yoga exercises,
disciplined meditation, religious or aesthetic ecstasies, or spontaneously.
Most recently they have become available to anyone through the ingestion
of psychedelic drugs such as LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, DMT, etc.
Of course, the drug does not produce the transcendent experience.
It merely acts as a chemical key - it opens the mind, frees the nervous
system of its ordinary patterns and structures." -Timothy Leary-
The Psychedelic Experience was the influence for John Lennon's song
"Tomorrow Never Knows" on The Beatles' album Revolver.
* Psychedelic Prayers & Other
Meditations.
Leary, Timothy. 1966. (ISBN 0-914171-84-4)
* Start Your Own Religion.
Leary, Timothy. 1967. (ISBN 1-57951-073-6)
* The Politics of Ecstasy.
Leary, Timothy. 1968. (ISBN 0-914171-33-X)
* High Priest. Leary,
Timothy. 1968. (ISBN 0-914171-80-1)
* Confessions of a Hope Fiend.
Leary, Timothy. 1973.
* Mystery, magic & miracle: Religion in a post-Aquarian age, (A
Spectrum book).
Heenan, Edward F. and Jack Fritscher, Timothy Leary. 1973.
Prentice-Hall. (ISBN 0-13-609032-X)
* What Does WoMan Want?: Adventures Along the Schwartzchild Radius.
Leary, Timothy. 1976.
Describes techniques of "Hedonic Engineering"
(Leary's name for tantric sex).
* The Periodic Table of Evolution.
Leary, Timothy. 1977
* Exo-Psychology:
A Manual on The Use of the Nervous System According to the Instructions
of the Manufacturers.
Leary, Timothy. 1977. Starseed/Peace Press.
* Changing My Mind Among Others.
Leary, Timothy. 1982. Prentice Hall Trade. (ISBN 0-13-127829-0)
* Flashbacks.
Leary, Timothy. 1983. Tarcher. (ISBN 0-87477-177-3)
* What Does Woman Want.
Leary, Timothy. 1987. New Falcon Publications. (ISBN 0-941404-62-5)
* Info-Psychology.
Leary, Timothy. 1987. (ISBN 1-56184-105-6)
* Info-Psychology: A Revision of Exo-Psychology.
Leary, Timothy. 1988. Falcon Pr. (ISBN 0-941404-60-9)
* Change Your Brain.
Leary, Timothy. 1988. (ISBN 1-57951-017-5)
* Your Brain is God.
Leary, Timothy. 1988. (ISBN 1-57951-052-3)
* Game of Life.
Leary, Timothy. 1989. New Falcon Publications.
(ISBN 0-941404-64-1).(Original Edition Published in 1977)
* Uncommon Quotes: Timothy Leary.
Leary, Timothy. Audio tape. 1990. Pub Group West. (ISBN 0-929856-01-5)
* Chaos and Cyber Culture.
Leary, Timothy and Michael Horowitz, Vicki Marshall. 1994.
Ronin Publishing. (ISBN 0-914171-77-1)
* HR GIGER ARh+. Giger, H. R.
(foreward). 1994. Benedikt Taschen Verlag. (ISBN 3-8228-9642-X)
* Surfing the Conscious Nets: A Graphic Novel.
Leary, Timothy and Robert Williams. 1995. Last Gap. (ISBN 0-86719-410-3)
* The Lost Beatles Interviews
Leary, Timothy (Afterword) and Geoffrey Giuliano, Brenda Giuliano.
1996. Plume. (ISBN 0-452-27025-1)
* Intelligence Agents.
Leary, Timothy. 1996. Ronin Publishing. (ISBN 1-56184-038-6)
* Concrete & Buckshot: William S. Burroughs Paintings.
Leary, Timothy and Benjamin Weissman. 1996. Smart Art Press. (ISBN
1-889195-01-4)
* Design for Dying.
Timothy Leary, with Sirius, R. U. 1997.
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
ISBN 0-06-092866-2 (pbk.);
* El Trip de La Muerte. Leary, Timothy. 1998.
Editorial Kairos. SPANISH. (ISBN 84-7245-408-8)
* The Delicious Grace of Moving
One's Hand:
The Collected Sex Writings Leary, Timothy. 1999.
Thunder's Mouth Press. (ISBN 1-56025-181-6)
* Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out.
Leary, Timothy. 1999. Ronin Publishing. (ISBN 1-57951-009-4)
* Politics of Self-Determination (Self-Mastery Series).
Leary, Timothy. 2001. Ronin Publishing. (ISBN 1-57951-015-9)
* The Politics of Psychopharmacology.
Leary, Timothy. 2001. Ronin Publishing. (ISBN 1-57951-056-6)
* Musings on Human Metamorphoses.
Leary, Timothy. 2002. Ronin Publishing. (ISBN 1-57951-058-2)
* Evolutionary Agents.
Leary, Timothy and Beverly A. Potter. 2004. Ronin Publishing. (ISBN
1-57951-064-7)
* Interpersonal Diagnosis of Personality:
A Functional Theory and Methodology for Personality Evaluation.
Leary, Timothy. 2004. Resource Publications.
(ISBN 1-59244-776-7)(Original Edition Published in 1957)
Articles, Studies
and Research
The
Star Larvae HypothesisAlchemical_Sunheads
Nature's Plan for Humankind
Addendum: Exo-Psychology Revisited
Exo-Psychology Revisited
The juvenilization of brain circuits induced
by weightlessness will produce a corresponding juvenilization of subjectivity.
The psychedelic experience provides a preview of the de-conditioned,
de-differentiated consciousness likely to characterize the juvenilized
minds of extraterrestrials.
Strong
Medicine for Prisoner Reform: The Concord Prison Experiment
by Thomas Riedlinger and Timothy Leary
Experimental
Production of Neurosomatic Electricity Between Two Self-Actualized
Hedonists
(Tantric
Sex)
by Dr. Timothy Leary, Ph.D.
Using
LSD to Imprint the Tibetan-Buddhist Experience
by Dr. Timothy Leary, Ph.D.
A Guide to Successful Psychedelic Experience
Load
and Run High-tech Paganism
Digital Polytheism
By Timothy Leary and Eric Gullichsen
Starseed
Transmitted from Folsom Prison
by Dr. Timothy Leary
(Review)
Timothy
Leary'S Last Trip (LSD)
The long, strange trip of Dr. Timothy Leary,
alternately lionized and despised as the High Priest of 1960s LSD
subculture, has inspired ...
all generations in search of self-discovery and expanded consciousness.
This authorized documentary of Leary's life pays homage to Leary and
other '60s counterculture personalities such as Ken Kesey and the
Merry Pranksters--who inspired Tom Wolfe's THE ELECTRIC KOOL-AID ACID
TEST--and Acid Test house band The Grateful Dead. Like other films
that deal with the work of iconoclastic American heroes,
such as WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS: COMMISSIONER OF SEWERS and GROWING UP
IN AMERICA--spotlighting '60s political radicals like Abbie Hoffman
and Jerry Rubin--this film offers testament to the power of revolutionary
thought.
LAST TRIP recounts Leary's early life, from his schooling at West
Point and his tenure as a Harvard professor, to the university and
government experiments that prompted his research into LSD and other
hallucinogens. Centering on Leary's relationships with key figures
in the heyday of the drug era, archival footage and interviews chronicle
the famous bus trip that first brought Leary and Kesey together.
Insightful interviews with Leary toward the end of his life (he died
of cancer in 1996), show that he dealt with terminal illness in a
manner as colorful as the era with which he will be forever linked.
Timothy Leary
Trivia
Leary once
recruited John Lennon to write a theme song for his California gubernatorial
campaign (which was interrupted by his prison sentence), inspiring
Lennon to come up with "Come Together", based on Leary's
theme and catchphrase for the campaign. Leary was also present when
Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono recorded Give Peace A Chance during one
of their bed-ins in Montreal, and is mentioned in the lyrics of the
song. (Lennon later denounced Leary, calling The Psychedelic Experience
"that stupid book", but credited Leary's role in his life.)
Leary was the explicit subject of the Moody
Blues song "Legend of a Mind", which memorialized him with
the words, "Timothy Leary's dead. No, no, no, no he's outside
looking in" (a lyric later incorporated into the Bongwater's
cover version of the Moody Blues song "Ride My Seesaw").
At first, Leary detested the line, but later found the sense of humor
to adopt "Legend of a Mind" as his theme song when he hit
the lecture circuit.
A number of other musical groups have admired and been influenced
by Leary, including the progressive metal band Tool,
the metal band Nevermore, Marcy Playground, New wave band Devo (Leary
even appearing in one of their films),
and Dog Fashion Disco.
Nevermore mentions Leary in their lyrics, and
titled one of their albums "The Politics of Ecstasy" (after
Leary's book by the same name). Also, on Nevermore's self entitled
album there is a song named "Timothy Leary". The Psychadelic
Trance band Infected Mushroom uses a soundclip of Leary saying "Tune
in, turn on, and drop out" in a song.
Leary made a cameo appearance in "STUFF," a short film directed
by Johnny Depp and Gibson Haynes about the Red Hot Chili Peppers guitar
player John Frusciante.
He also appears on 'Gila Copter' off the 'Linger
Fickin Good' album by the Revolting Cocks and also appears in the
video for 'Cracking Up'.
Leary also appears as the father in the Suicidal Tendencies video
"Possessed to Skate". He is also mentioned in the song "The
Seeker" by The Who: "I asked Timothy Leary/ But he couldn't
help me either".
In the movie, The Ruling Class, the character, Jack Gurney (played
by Peter O'Toole), who thinks he is Jesus, claims that the voice of
"Timothy O'Leary" told him he was God.
Trippy Links
60s
& Further Psychedelic Bookstore 1
Albert
Hoffman, Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner,
Robert Anton Wilson, Terence McKenna & More
DEOXY
An
extreme resource for Timothy's work.
"Put it into historical context.
The use of sacramental vegetables has gone back, back,
back in history to shamans and the Hindu religion and Buddhist religion.
They were using soma.
It's an ancient human ritual that has usually been practiced in the
context of religion
or of worship or of tribal coming together. I didn't pioneer anything.
The use of psychedelics for spiritual purposes was started in the
50s by Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs."
-Tim Leary -
The
Visionary Art of Alex Grey
LSD
Symposium 2006
The
Lycaeum
Entheogenic Database and Community
Albert
Hofmann Foundation
Dr. Albert Hofmann,
on the occasion of celebrating the 50th anniversary of his famous
bicycle ride:
"You, my dear friends, and millions all over the world who now
commemorate the 50th birthday of ergot's child,
we all testify gratefully that we got valuable help on the way to
what Aldous Huxley said
is the end and the ultimate purpose of human life--enlightenment,
beatific vision, love.
I think all these joyful testimonies of invaluable help by LSD should
be enough
to convince the health authorities, finally, of the nonsense of the
prohibition of LSD and of similar psychedelics."
The
Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)
The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) is
a membership-based,
IRS-approved 501 non-profit research and educational organization.
We assist scientists to design, fund, obtain approval for and report
on
studies into the risks and benefits of MDMA, psychedelic drugs and
marijuana.
MAPS' mission is to sponsor scientific research designed to develop
psychedelics and marijuana
into FDA-approved prescription medicines,
and to educate the public honestly about the risks and benefits of
these drugs.
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