Timothy Francis Leary was an American psychologist and writer known for his strong advocacy of psychedelic drugs. Evaluations of Leary are polarized, ranging from bold oracle to publicity hound. He was "a hero of American consciousness", according to Allen Ginsberg, and Tom Robbins called him a "brave neuronaut".
Psychedelia refers to the psychedelic subculture of the 1960s and the psychedelic experience. This includes psychedelic art, psychedelic music and style of dress during that era. This was primarily generated by people who used psychedelic drugs such as LSD, mescaline and psilocybin and also non-users who were participants and aficionados of this subculture. Psychedelic art and music typically recreate or reflect the experience of altered consciousness. Psychedelic art uses highly distorted, surreal visuals, bright colors and full spectrums and animation to evoke, convey, or enhance the psychedelic experience. Psychedelic music uses distorted electric guitar, Indian music elements such as the sitar, tabla, electronic effects, sound effects and reverb, and elaborate studio effects, such as playing tapes backwards or panning the music from one side to another.
Ram Dass, also known as Baba Ram Dass, was an American spiritual teacher, guru of modern yoga, psychologist, and author. His best-selling 1971 book, Be Here Now, which has been described by multiple reviewers as "seminal", helped popularize Eastern spirituality and yoga in the West. He authored or co-authored twelve more books on spirituality over the next four decades, including Grist for the Mill (1977), How Can I Help? (1985), and Polishing the Mirror (2013).
John Cunningham Lilly was an American physician, neuroscientist, psychoanalyst, psychonaut, philosopher, writer and inventor. He was a member of a generation of counterculture scientists and thinkers that included Ram Dass, Werner Erhard and Timothy Leary, all frequent visitors to the Lilly home. He often stirred controversy, especially among mainstream scientists.
Ronin Publishing, Inc. is a small press in Berkeley, California, founded in 1983 and incorporated in 1985, which publishes books as tools for personal development, visionary alternatives, and expanded consciousness. The company's tagline is "Life Skills with Attitude!" In a 1996 Publishers Weekly profile, the company describes itself as a "strong player in the hemp and psychedelia market" that has little competition from major publishers.
The eight-circuit model of consciousness is a hypothesis by Timothy Leary, later expanded on by Robert Anton Wilson and Antero Alli, that suggests "eight periods [circuits] and twenty-four stages of neurological evolution". The eight circuits, or eight systems or "brains", as referred by other authors, operate within the human nervous system. Each corresponds to its own imprint and subjective experience of reality. Leary and Alli include three stages for each circuit that details developmental points for each level of consciousness.
Julia B. Cameron is an American teacher, author, artist, poet, playwright, novelist, filmmaker, pigeon fancier, composer, and journalist. She is best known for her book The Artist's Way (1992). She also has written many other non-fiction works, short stories, and essays, as well as novels, plays, musicals, and screenplays.
Betty Edwards is an American art teacher and author best known for her 1979 book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. She taught and did research at the California State University, Long Beach, until she retired in the late 1990s. While there, she founded the Center for the Educational Applications of Brain Hemisphere Research.
The Psychedelic era was the time of social, musical and artistic change influenced by psychedelic drugs, occurring from the mid-1960s to mid-1970s.
Andrew Thomas Weil is an American celebrity doctor who advocates for alternative medicine including the 4-7-8 breathing technique.
The Harvard Psilocybin Project was a series of experiments in psychology conducted by Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert. The founding board of the project consisted of Leary, Aldous Huxley, David McClelland, Frank Barron, Ralph Metzner, and two graduate students who were working on a project with mescaline.
Ralph Metzner was a German-born American psychologist, writer and researcher, who participated in psychedelic research at Harvard University in the early 1960s with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert. Metzner was a psychotherapist, and Professor Emeritus of psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, where he was formerly the Academic Dean and Academic Vice-president.
The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on The Tibetan Book of the Dead is a 1964 book about using psychedelic drugs that was coauthored by Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner and Richard Alpert. All three authors had taken part in research investigating the therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs such as LSD, psilocybin and mescaline in addition to the ability of these substances to sometimes induce religious and mystical states of consciousness.
"Turn on, tune in, drop out" is a counterculture-era phrase popularized by Timothy Leary in 1966. In 1967, Leary spoke at the Human Be-In, a gathering of 30,000 hippies in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and phrased the famous words, "Turn on, tune in, drop out". It was also the title of his spoken word album recorded in 1966. On this lengthy album, Leary can be heard speaking in a monotone soft voice on his views about the world and humanity, describing nature, Indian symbols, "the meaning of inner life", the LSD experience, peace, and many other issues.
The Zihuatanejo Project was a psychedelic training center and intentional community created during the beginning of the counterculture of the 1960s by Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert under the umbrella of their nonprofit group, the International Federation for Internal Freedom (IFIF). The community was located in Zihuatanejo, Guerrero, Mexico, and took up residence at the Hotel Catalina in the summers of 1962 and 1963.
Don Lattin is an American journalist and the author of six published books, including The Harvard Psychedelic Club and Changing Our Minds -- Psychedelic Sacraments and the New Psychotherapy Lattin’s work has appeared in many U.S. magazines and newspapers, including the San Francisco Chronicle, where he worked for two decades as a staff writer covering religion, spirituality and psychology.
The following is a list of works by Timothy Leary. The majority of Leary's works were put into the public domain by his estate in 2009.
Brian Sydney Barritt (1934–2011) was an English author, artist, and counterculture figure. He served in the British army, and was a friend and collaborator to such notables as Timothy Leary, William Burroughs, and Alex Trocchi. He was particularly active in the Beatnik, psychedelic, and Krautrock scenes.
The Hitchcock Estate in Millbrook, New York is a historic mansion and surrounding grounds, associated with Timothy Leary and the psychedelic movement. It is often referred to in this context as just Millbrook; it is also sometimes called by its original name, Daheim.
Entheogenic drugs have been used by various groups for thousands of years. There are numerous historical reports as well as modern, contemporary reports of indigenous groups using entheogens, chemical substances used in a religious, shamanic, or spiritual context.
