Timothy Leary: “To use your head, you have to go out of your mind”

Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out… “My explanations of this sequence of Personal Development were often misinterpreted to mean get stoned and abandon all constructive activity” Dr Timothy Leary.

In the doctors own words…

Turn on: “Go within to activate your neural and genetic equipment. Become sensitive to the many and various levels of consciousness and the specific triggers engaging them.”

Tune in: “Interact harmoniously with the world around you, externalize, materialize, express your new internal perspectives.”

Drop out: “Self-reliance, a discovery of ones singularity, a commitment to mobility choice and change.”

Timothy Leary’s first psychedelic experience was in Mexico in 1960. Tim and his Harvard colleague, psychologist Richard Alpert*, traveled to Cuernavaca to conduct experiments with psilocybin-containing mushrooms.

*Richard Alpert later became known as Ram Dass.

They were aware of the historical use of these mushrooms by the indigenous populations in the region.

As Psychologists their purpose of performing these experiments was to explore the effects of psilocybin on human consciousness and behaviour.

This marked the beginning of their personal exploration into altered states of consciousness. Having profound impacts on their perspectives and beliefs about the potential of psychedelics to induce transformative experiences.

“I learned more about my brain and its possibilities and more about psychology in the five hours after taking these mushrooms than in the preceding 15 years of studying and doing research”
Tim Leary

Tim developed the Eight-Circuit Model of Consciousness and explained them in his 1973 book Neurologic and in his 1977 book Exo-Psychology (later Robert Anton Wilson expanded upon this in Prometheus Rising)… the first four of the eight circuits are “necessary for surviving and functioning in a terrestrial human society”… while the second four circuits are activated by meditation, breath-work, plant medicines etc.

Timothy Leary was often called the LSD guru but that was just a small part of the Doctors contribution to humanity… the upgrading of the neural circuits, the awakening of the spirit, and turning on of minds…