Timothy Leary

Leary was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, an only child[6] in an Irish Catholic household. His father, Timothy "Tote" Leary, was a dentist who left his wife Abigail Ferris when Timothy was 14.[16] He graduated from Classical High School in Springfield.[17]

Leary attended the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, from 1938 to 1940. He received a Jesuit education there, and was required to learn Latin, rhetoric, and Greek.[18] Under pressure from his father, he left to become a cadet in the United States Military Academy. In his first months at West Point, he received numerous demerits for rule infractions and then got into serious trouble for failing to report rule breaking by cadets he supervised. He was also accused of going on a drinking binge and failing to admit it, and was asked by the Honor Committee to resign. He refused and was "silenced"—that is, shunned by fellow cadets. He was acquitted by a court-martial, but the silencing continued, as well as the onslaught of demerits for small rule infractions. In his sophomore year, his mother appealed to a family friend, United States Senator David I. Walsh, head of the Senate Naval Affairs Committee, who investigated personally. The Honor Committee quietly revised its position and announced that it would abide by the court-martial verdict. Leary then resigned and was honorably discharged by the Army.[19] About 50 years later he said that it was "the only fair trial I've had in a court of law".[20]

To his family's chagrin, Leary transferred to the University of Alabama in late 1941 because it admitted him so expeditiously. He enrolled in the university's ROTC program, maintained top grades, and began to cultivate academic interests in psychology (under the aegis of the Middlebury and Harvard-educated Donald Ramsdell) and biology. Leary was expelled a year later for spending a night in the female dormitory and lost his student deferment in the midst of World War II.

Leary was drafted into the United States Army and received basic training at Fort Eustis in 1943. He remained in the non-commissioned officer track while enrolled in the psychology subsection of the Army Specialized Training Program, including three months of study at Georgetown University and six months at Ohio State University.[21] With limited need for officers late in the war, Leary was briefly assigned as a private first class to the Pacific War-bound 2d Combat Cargo Group (which he later characterized as "a suicide command ... whose main mission, as far as I could see, was to eliminate the entire civilian branch of American aviation from post-war rivalry") at Syracuse Army Air Base in Mattydale, New York.[22] After a fateful reunion with Ramsdell (who was assigned to Deshon General Hospital in Butler, Pennsylvania, as chief psychologist) in Buffalo, New York, he was promoted to corporal and reassigned to his mentor's command as a staff psychometrician.[21] He remained in Deshon's deaf rehabilitation clinic for the remainder of the war.

While stationed in Butler, Leary courted Marianne Busch; they married in April 1945. Leary was discharged at the rank of sergeant in January 1946, having earned such standard decorations as the Good Conduct Medal, the American Defense Service Medal, the American Campaign Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal.[23]

As the war concluded, Leary was reinstated at the University of Alabama and received credit for his Ohio State psychology coursework. He completed his degree via correspondence courses and graduated in August 1945. After receiving his undergraduate degree, Leary pursued an academic career. In 1946, he received a M.S. in psychology at the Washington State College in Pullman, where he studied under educational psychologist Lee Cronbach. His M.S. thesis was on clinical applications of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale.[24]

In 1947, Marianne gave birth to their first child, Susan. Their son, Jack, arrived two years later. In 1950, Leary received a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of California, Berkeley.[25] In the postwar era, Leary was galvanized by the objectivity of modern physics;[26] his doctoral dissertation (The Social Dimensions of Personality: Group Process and Structure)[27] approached group therapy as a "psychlotron"[28] from which behavioral characteristics could be derived and quantified in a manner analogous to the periodic table, foreshadowing his later development of the interpersonal circumplex.

Leary stayed on in the Bay Area as an assistant clinical professor of medical psychology at the University of California, San Francisco; concurrently, he co-founded Kaiser Hospital's psychology department in Oakland, California, and maintained a private consultancy.[29][upper-alpha 3] In 1952, the Leary family spent a year in Spain, living on a research grant. According to Berkeley colleague Marv Freedman, "Something had been stirred in him in terms of breaking out of being another cog in society."[30]

Leary's marriage was strained by infidelity and mutual alcohol abuse. Marianne eventually died by suicide in 1955, leaving him to raise their son and daughter alone.[6] He described himself during this period as "an anonymous institutional employee who drove to work each morning in a long line of commuter cars and drove home each night and drank martinis ... like several million middle-class, liberal, intellectual robots".[31][32]

From 1954[upper-alpha 3] or 1955 to 1958, Leary directed psychiatric research at the Kaiser Family Foundation.[33] In 1957, he published The Interpersonal Diagnosis of Personality, which the Annual Review of Psychology called the "most important book on psychotherapy of the year".[34]

In 1958, the National Institute of Mental Health terminated Leary's research grant after he failed to meet with a NIMH investigator. Leary and his children relocated to Europe, where he attempted to write his next book while subsisting on small grants and insurance policies.[35][36] His stay in Florence was unproductive and indigent, prompting a return to academe.

In late 1959, Leary started as a lecturer in clinical psychology at Harvard University at the behest of Frank Barron (a colleague from Berkeley) and David McClelland. Leary and his children lived in Newton, Massachusetts. In addition to teaching, Leary was affiliated with the Harvard Center for Research in Personality under McClelland. He oversaw the Harvard Psilocybin Project and conducted experiments in conjunction with assistant professor Richard Alpert. In 1963, Leary was terminated for failing to attend scheduled class lectures, though he maintained that he had met his teaching obligations.[37] The decision to dismiss him may have been influenced by his promotion of psychedelic drug use among Harvard students and faculty. The drugs were legal at the time.[38]

Leary's work in academic psychology expanded on the research of Harry Stack Sullivan and Karen Horney, which sought to better understand interpersonal processes to help diagnose disorders. Leary's dissertation developed the interpersonal circumplex model, later published in The Interpersonal Diagnosis of Personality.[39] The book demonstrated how psychologists could use Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) scores to predict how respondents might react to various interpersonal situations. Leary's research was an important harbinger of transactional analysis, directly prefiguring the popular work of Eric Berne.[40][41]

BNDD agents Howard Safir and Don Strange arrest Leary in 1972

Leary's first run-in with the law came on December 23, 1965, when he was arrested for marijuana possession.[104][105] 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.[106][107] 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.[upper-alpha 6]

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".[108]

On January 21, 1970, Leary received a ten-year sentence for his 1968 offense, with a further ten 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.[109] 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 nonviolent escape was a humorous prank and leaving a challenging note for the authorities to find after he was gone.[110]

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.[111] 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 U.S. (and eventually into Algeria).[112] 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.[113][114] Cleaver had put Leary and his wife under "house arrest" due to exasperation with their socialite lifestyle.[114]

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).[69][115] In 1972, 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 U.S.[115]

Leary and Rosemary separated later that year; she traveled widely, then moved back to the U.S., where she lived as a fugitive until the 1990s.[115][107] 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.[115] The couple married in a hotel under the influence of cocaine and LSD two weeks after they were introduced, and Harcourt-Smith used his surname until their breakup in 1977. They traveled to Vienna, then Beirut, and finally ended up in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1972; according to Lucy Sante, "Afghanistan had no extradition treaty with the United States, but this stricture did not apply to American airliners."[69] American authorities used that interpretation of the law to interdict Leary. "Before Leary could deplane, he was arrested by an agent of the federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs."[69] Leary asserted a different story on appeal before the California Court of Appeal for the Second District, namely:[116]

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.

Leary's bail was set at $5 million.[115][117] The judge at his remand hearing said, "If he is allowed to travel freely, he will speak publicly and spread his ideas".[118] Facing 95 years in prison, Leary hired criminal defense attorney Bruce Margolin. Leary mostly directed his own defense strategy, which proved unsuccessful: the jury convicted him after deliberating for less than two hours.[115] Leary received five years for his prison escape, added to his original 10-year sentence.[115] In 1973, he was sent to Folsom Prison in California, and put in solitary confinement.[115][119] 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."[120]

Leary became an FBI informant in order to shorten his prison sentence and entered the witness protection program upon his release in 1976.[121][122] He claimed that he feigned cooperation with the FBI investigation of Weathermen by providing information that they already had or that was of little consequence. The FBI gave him the code name "Charlie Thrush".[123] In a 1974 news conference, Allen Ginsberg, Ram Dass, and Leary's 25-year-old son Jack denounced Leary, calling him a "cop informant", "liar", and "paranoid schizophrenic".[124] No prosecutions stemmed from his FBI reporting. In 1999, a letter from 22 "Friends of Timothy Leary" sought to soften impressions of the FBI episode. 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.[114][125] The letter said that Leary had smuggled a message to the Weather Underground informing it "that he was considering making a deal with the FBI" and he then "waited for their approval". The reported reply was, "We understand."[125][126] 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 by Leary promoting LSD use. Leary was unable to be present due to his incarceration, and unable to arrange for legal representation; a default judgment was entered against him in the amount of $100,000.[127]

On April 21, 1976, Governor Jerry Brown released Leary from prison. After briefly relocating to Santa Fe, New Mexico, with Harcourt-Smith under the auspices of the United States Federal Witness Protection Program, the couple separated in early 1977.

Leary then moved to the Laurel Canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, where he resided for the rest of his life. Unable to secure a conventional academic or research appointment due to his reputation, he continued to publish books through the independent press while maintaining an upper middle class lifestyle by making paid appearances at colleges and nightclubs as a self-described "stand-up philosopher".[128] In 1978, he married filmmaker Barbara Blum, also known as Barbara Chase, sister of actress Tanya Roberts. He adopted Blum's young son Zachary and raised him as his own. He also took on several godchildren, including Winona Ryder (the daughter of his archivist Michael Horowitz) and technologist Joi Ito.[129][130][131]

Leary developed an improbable partnership 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 issues, including gay rights, abortion, welfare and the environment. Leary generally espoused left-wing views, while Liddy generally espoused right-wing perspectives. The tour generated massive publicity and considerable funds for both. The 1983 documentary Return Engagement chronicled the tour and the release of Flashbacks, Leary's long-germinating memoir; biographer Robert Greenfield has since asserted that much of what Leary "reported as fact in Flashbacks is pure fantasy."[132]

On September 25, 1988, Leary held a fundraiser for Libertarian Party presidential candidate Ron Paul.[133][134][135] Journalist Debra Saunders attended and wrote about her experience.[136]

Leary's extensive touring on the lecture circuit continued to ensure his family a comfortable lifestyle throughout the mid-1980s. He associated with a variety of cultural figures, including longtime interlocutors Robert Anton Wilson and Allen Ginsberg; science fiction writers William Gibson and Norman Spinrad; and rock musicians David Byrne and John Frusciante. In addition, he appeared in Johnny Depp's and Gibby Haynes's 1994 film Stuff, which chronicled Frusciante's squalid living conditions at that time.[137]

Leary continued to take a wide array of drugs (ranging from serotonergic psychedelics to the nascent empathogen MDMA and alcohol and heroin)[138] in private, but consciously eschewed proselytizing substances in media appearances amid the escalation of the war on drugs throughout the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Instead, he served as a prominent advocate for space colonization and life extension. He expounded on the eight-circuit model of consciousness in books such as Info-Psychology: A Re-Vision of Exo-Psychology.[115] He invented the acronym "SMI²LE" as a succinct summary of his pre-transhumanist agenda: SM (Space Migration) + I² (intelligence increase) + LE (Life extension).[139]

Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, and John C. Lilly in 1991

Leary's space colonization plan evolved over the years. Initially, 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 musician Paul Kantner's 1970 concept album Blows Against The Empire, which was derived from Robert A. Heinlein's Lazarus Long series. While incarcerated in Folsom State Prison during the winter of 1975–76, he became enamored by Princeton University physicist Gerard K. 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.[upper-alpha 7]

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 enjoined historically technophobic bohemians to "turn on, boot up, jack in."[140][141] He became a promoter of virtual reality systems,[142] 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[143] and Brenda Laurel, a pioneer in virtual environments and human–computer interaction. During the evanescent heyday of the cyberdelic counterculture, he served as a consultant to Billy Idol in the production of the 1993 album Cyberpunk.[144]

In 1990, his daughter Susan, then 42, was arrested in Los Angeles for shooting her boyfriend in the head as he slept. She was ruled mentally unfit to stand trial for murder on two occasions. After years of mental instability, she died by suicide in jail.[145][6][146]

Although he considered her the "great love of his life", Leary and Barbara divorced in 1992; according to friend and collaborator John Perry Barlow, "Tim basically gave me permission to be her lover. He couldn't be for her what she needed sexually, so it made more sense for him to anoint someone to do that for him."[147] Thereafter, he ensconced himself in a diverse circle of prominent figures, including Johnny Depp, Susan Sarandon, Dan Aykroyd, Zach Leary,[114] author Douglas Rushkoff, and Spin magazine publisher Bob Guccione, Jr.[148] Despite declining health, he maintained a regular schedule of public appearances through 1994.[upper-alpha 8] Reflecting a modicum of political rehabilitation after several failed attempts to adapt Flashbacks as a film or television miniseries, he was the subject of a symposium of the American Psychological Association that year.[149]

From 1989 on, Leary began to reestablish his connection to unconventional religious movements with an interest in altered states of consciousness. In 1989, he appeared with Robert Anton Wilson in a dialog called 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.[150] His planned 1994 WinterStar Symposium appearance was canceled due to his declining health. In 1992, in front of hundreds of Neo-Pagans, Leary declared, "I've always considered myself a Pagan."[151] He also collaborated with Eric Gullichsen on Load and Run High-tech Paganism: Digital Polytheism.[152] Shortly before his death on May 31, 1996, he recorded the album Right to Fly with Simon Stokes, which was released in July 1996.[153]

Timothy Leary reuniting with Ram Dass five days before his death

In January 1995, Leary was diagnosed with inoperable prostate cancer.[154] He then notified Ram Dass and other old friends and began the process of directed dying, which he termed "designer dying".[155] Leary did not reveal the condition to the press at that time, but did so after Jerry Garcia's death in August.[155] 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.[156][157]

Leary's last book was Chaos & 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."[155] His book Design for Dying, which tried to give a new perspective on death and dying, was published posthumously.[158] Leary wrote about his belief that death is "a merging with the entire life process".[158]

His website team, led by Chris Graves, updated his website on a daily basis as a proto-blog.[155] The website noted his daily intake of various illicit and legal chemical substances, with a predilection for nitrous oxide, LSD and other psychedelic drugs.[159] He was also noted for his trademark "Leary Biscuit", a cannabis edible consisting of a snack cracker with cheese and a small marijuana bud, briefly microwaved.[160] At his request, his sterile house was redecorated by the staff with an array of surreal ornamentation. In his final months, thousands of visitors, well-wishers and old friends visited him in his California home. Until his last weeks, he gave many interviews discussing his new philosophy of embracing death.[158]

Etoy agents with mortal remains of Timothy Leary in 2007

Leary was reportedly excited for a number of years by the possibility of freezing his body in cryonic suspension, and he 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.[161] 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".[161] He called it his "duty as a futurist", helped publicize the process and hoped that it would work for his children and grandchildren if not for him, although he said that he was "lighthearted" about it.[161] 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 that he would freeze his entire body, but due to lack of funds decided to freeze his head only.[114][155] He then changed his mind again and requested that his body be cremated, with his ashes scattered in space.[114]

Leary died aged 75 on May 31, 1996. His death was videotaped for posterity at his request by Denis Berry and Joey Cavella, capturing his final words.[114] Berry was the trustee of Leary's archives, and Cavella had filmed Leary during his later years.[114] According to his son Zachary, during his final moments, he clenched his fist and said: "Why?", then, unclenching his fist, said: "Why not?". He uttered the phrase repeatedly, in different intonations, and died soon after. His last word, according to Zach, was "beautiful".[162]

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 (¼ oz) 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 Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, space colonization advocate Gerard O'Neill and German-American rocket engineer Krafft Ehricke. 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.[163]

Leary's ashes were 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.[164]

Leary was legally married five times, sired three biological children and adopted a fourth child. He also regarded Joanna Harcourt-Smith (his domestic partner from 1972 to 1977) as his common-law wife for the duration of their relationship. His first wife, Marianne Busch, died by suicide.[165]

• 1945–1955 Marianne Busch (1921–1955)
  • daughter Susan[166] (1947–1990)
  • son Jack[167] (1949–)
• 1956–1957 Mary Cioppa[168] (1920–1996)
• 1964–1965 Nena von Schlebrügge (1941–)
• 1967–1976 (separated 1972) Rosemary Woodruff[169] (1935–2002)[107]
• 1972–1977 Joanna Harcourt-Smith (common-law wife) (1946–2020)
  • son Marlon Gobel (1976–)
• 1978–1992 Barbara Blum Chase (1946–)[170][171][172]
  • son Zach (1973–) (adopted)[173]

Leary was an early influence on applying game theory to psychology, having introduced the concept to the International Association of Applied Psychology in 1961 at its annual conference in Copenhagen.[174][175][176][upper-alpha 9] He was also an early influence on transactional analysis.[177][178] His concept of the four life scripts, dating to 1951,[179] became an influence on transactional analysis by the late 1960s, popularized by Thomas Harris in his book, I'm OK, You're OK.[180]

Many consider Leary one of the most prominent figures of the counterculture of the 1960s, and since those times he has remained influential on pop culture, literature, television,[174] film and, especially, music.

Leary coined the influential term reality tunnel, a kind of representative realism. The theory states that, with a subconscious set of mental filters formed from their beliefs and experiences, everyone interprets the same world differently, hence "Truth is in the eye of the beholder."[upper-alpha 10]

His ideas influenced the work of his friend Robert Anton Wilson.[181] This influence went both ways, with Leary taking just as much from Wilson. Wilson's 1983 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 its most ardent proponents and introduced it to a mainstream audience in 1977's bestselling Cosmic Trigger. In 1989, they appeared together on stage in a dialog called The Inner Frontier[182] hosted by the Association for Consciousness Exploration,[183] the same group that had hosted Leary's first Cleveland appearance in 1979.[184][185]

World religion scholar Huston Smith was "turned on" by Leary after being introduced to him by Aldous Huxley in the early 1960s. Smith interpreted the experience as deeply religious, and described it in detailed religious terms in his book Cleansing of the Doors of Perception.[186] Smith asked Leary 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.[187]

Leary authored and coauthored more than 20 books and was featured on more than a dozen audio recordings. His acting career included over a dozen appearances in movies and television shows in various roles and over 30 appearances as himself. He also produced and/or collaborated with others in the creation of multimedia presentations and computer games.

In 2011, The New York Times reported that the New York Public Library had acquired Leary's personal archives, including papers, videotapes, photographs and other archival material from the Leary estate, including correspondence and documents relating to Allen Ginsberg, Aldous Huxley, William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Ken Kesey, Arthur Koestler, G. Gordon Liddy and other prominent cultural figures.[207] The collection became available in September 2013.[208]

• Cyberpunk (1990)[211]

• Grateful Dead
• John C. Lilly
• David Peel
• The Sekhmet Hypothesis
• Zihuatanejo Project

• Fallowell, Duncan (1994). "Timothy Leary, Wonderland Park, Los Angeles". 20th Century Characters. London: Vintage Books.
• Minutaglio, Bill; Davis, Steven L. (2018). The Most Dangerous Man in America: Timothy Leary, Richard Nixon and the Hunt for the Fugitive King of LSD. Grand Central. ISBN 978-1455563586.

Wikiquote has quotations related to Timothy Leary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Timothy Leary.

• TimothyLeary.info – biography, archives, links, and more
• Lectures from the Leary Archive in audio format Archived October 2, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
• Timothy Leary at Curlie
• Timothy Leary at IMDb
• "Unlimited Virtual Realities for Everyone!" Archived August 17, 2011, at the Wayback Machine, ArtFutura, 1990.
• Timothy Leary papers, 1910-2009, held by the Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library.
• Rosemary Woodruff Leary papers, 1935-2006 at Manuscripts and Archives Division at the New York Public Library
• Image of Timothy Leary and his wife, Rosemary Woodruff holding a news conference in Los Angeles, California, 1969. Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive (Collection 1429). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.