Timothy Leary was born 100 years ago today.
Leary was a psychologist and writer, known for his advocacy of psychedelic drugs.
During a time when drugs such as LSD and psilocybin were legal, Leary conducted experiments at Harvard University under the Harvard Psilocybin Project, resulting in the Concord Prison Experiment and the Marsh Chapel Experiment.
Both studies produced useful data, but Leary and his associate, Richard Alpert, later to become Ram Dass, were fired from the university.
Leary believed LSD showed therapeutic potential for use in psychiatry. He popularized catchphrases that promoted his philosophy, such as "turn on, tune in, drop out,” "set and setting” and "think for yourself and question authority.”
Leary wrote and spoke frequently about transhumanist concepts involving space migration, intelligence increase and life extension (SMI²LE). He also developed the eight-circuit model of consciousness in his book, Exo-Psychology (1977).
During the 1960s and 1970s, Leary was arrested regularly and was held captive in 29 different prisons throughout the world. President Richard Nixon once described Leary as "the most dangerous man in America.”
Leary died of inoperable prostate cancer in 1996 at age 75.
Leary is often considered one of the most prominent figures during the counterculture of the 1960s, and since those times has remained influential on pop culture, literature, television, film — and especially, music.