The Psychedelic Experience

Timothy Leary was one of the most famous countercultural icons of the 1960’s. In 1957, the Harvard psychologist experienced a “profound transcendent experience” while taking hallucinogens in Mexico. No longer content with his work in personality assessment, Leary began advocating the psychotherapeutic and spiritual benefits of LSD. His “experiments” with LSD often involved students and wild “tripping” parties, which eventually led to his dismissal from Harvard. With patronage from heirs of the Mellon fortune, Leary continued his experiments and prolific writing career at a rambling estate in upstate New York known as Millbrook. In 1967, Leary spoke at a San Francisco “Be-In,” where he coined the phrase “Turn on, tune in, and drop out.” Labeled as “The Most Dangerous Man in America,” Leary had many run-ins with the law and served several prison sentences. He died of prostate cancer in 1996; the following year seven grams of his ashes were launched into space aboard a Pegasus rocket.