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Lysergamides Timothy Leary and Ram Dass

H

humbleBumble1

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Feb 15, 2024
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I’m currently writing about these two and their time in Harvard; their development from academics into cultural touchstones for a generation. Basically from when they met, through their time at Millwood, then at the end of Leary’s life.

I’ve read a lot about them and would love to hear other peoples thoughts on these two figures, or indeed on Ginsberg, Alan Watts, Ken Kesey, anyone floating around that scene.
 
Mjäll said:
Acid enabled them to invent "influencers" before the internet.

They influenced people to do shitloads of drugs. Now influencers influence girls to use make-up and boys to hate girls. Shitloads of drugs will have to sweep the stage once more.
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Yeah definitely. I guess you could almost call acid some sort of pre-internet media in the sense that it connected people. They were certainly influencers in the modern sense.

I watched Tim Leary’s interview with William Buckley which is good fun. It’s sad that we don’t have similar long form journalism/interviews nowadays where two respectful adversaries can share opposing views like that. The culture of debate was at least sometimes sophisticated back then.

I do wonder whether Leary’s radical “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out” rhetoric hampered the progress of, whilst it also encouraged, the acceptance of psychedelic drugs. In his public persona he could be quite inflammatory, but if you read some of his earlier writing he’s actually quite academic and more considered about the whole thing. I wonder if he’d been a bit more in that direction we wouldn’t have seen quite the pushback against the movement and ended up with Nixon calling him “The Most Dangerous Man In America”. I mean psychedelic research was basically non existent for the following decades and then has only recently seen a resurgence. So much lost time!
 
both of their behavior were very predatory. Look into the deeper truth behind these guys. A long list of people burnt and abused attending their parties
 
TripSitterNZ said:
both of their behavior were very predatory. Look into the deeper truth behind these guys. A long list of people burnt and abused attending their parties
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Sorry for the delayed response! I’d love to know more about this if you can share some sources.

I’ve read fairly widely about them (a lot of their work during/after Harvard; their autobiographies Being Ram Dass and Flashbacks; books about the time itself like The Harvard Psychedelic Club and The Most Dangerous Man In America; as well as various accounts of the circles they moved in), and although especially Timothy Leary’s behaviour certainly had some devastating consequences (arguably before he became the LSD guru rather than after), I haven’t come across accounts which indicate their behaviour was totally predatory.

As I say, I’d be super interested to know more of what you are talking about as there was definitely a cult of hero worship around them at the time so it could be there is stuff that isn’t widely known.
 
I've nicked part of his name for my nick, but I'm not actually that read up on Tim Leary. The problem is that I like to more or less match states with the psychonaut influencers when I check them out, and reading on "drop out" levels of acid is.. impractical. So thanks for mentioning that interview, I somehow missed that one.

I do believe I heard on Hamilton Morris' podcast with Dave Nichols (from a year ago) that, from the big pharma perspective, Leary's destructive power was a bit overblown. Some important decisions about the downclamp seem to have predated his shenanigans.

So I kinda just like his laugh, his love, and his life. The broad outlines, that is. The dirt kinda makes me not want to dig deeper. But it's a complex enough situation that calling into question the salient causal link between his basic stance and whatever negative results unrolled, is warranted.

Ram Dass I've been suspicious about. I've seen him be a woo generator. And I've had a browse through that book of his, "Be Here Now", which left me uninspired. Granted, he does admit in there he considers himself just averagely intelligent. It took me till very recently to discover his clever side on the psychedelic salon podcast, where he did a decent take on the topic of death. I didn't know he could sound sane, heh.

Still, I don't like how Mark Watts partners with the Ram Dass foundation to make a podcast out of Alan Watts' legacy. It's nice to hear some new obscure material from what I still think is the biggest mind of 'em all. But throwing sappy ads in there about therapy flies in the face of Alan's philosophy itself, and is therefore quite frankly plain insulting. But enough dirt has been dug up about him too, a book worth even. So I guess his close family is expected to do some sublimated defiance. And then there's the unfortunate truth there are a lot of people who use his words as some sort of mere ecclesial radiator, rather than actually learning from 'em. Supply and demand..

Nevertheless, they all form a wonderful topic to study and write about. So much sci-fi is history already, unbeknownst to still so many!


P.s.: just noticed they finally fixed Leary's wiki. For the longest time it had a sad pic of the guy who said to always smile in pictures. Didn't quite make sense. Now it does.
 
even leary warned his own nephew to watch out for ram dass. Ram dass was a sex abuser. Same with leary. Ram dass was possibly a pedo, and leary just your general sex offender. They abused both genders and abused many with drugs and took advantage of them
 
TripSitterNZ said:
even leary warned his own nephew to watch out for ram dass. Ram dass was a sex abuser. Same with leary. Ram dass was possibly a pedo, and leary just your general sex offender. They abused both genders and abused many with drugs and took advantage of them
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let's not get ahead of ourselves this accusations on two great names

if you have proof, feel free to shut me up
 

His guru neem baba was also a known sex offender in india.

Tim leary would lace people with copious amounts of drugs and have sex with them in orgies. highly doubt much of it was consensual

The dark truth is that these two guys twisted the minds of many in their little cult they ran with drugs and abused and used them to their own satifsication hiding behind the hippie spiritual shit like most of these fucking perverts do.



leary ram dass and john c lilly were best friends with the pedo poet alan ginsberg they all equally sick fucks and its time the psychedelic community expsoe ram dass tim leary and john c lilly they are fucking creeps
 
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Your link is paywalled, and I've searched through the video for evidence and didn't find any?

What did I miss?
 
TripSitterNZ said:

His guru neem baba was also a known sex offender in india.

Tim leary would lace people with copious amounts of drugs and have sex with them in orgies. highly doubt much of it was consensual

The dark truth is that these two guys twisted the minds of many in their little cult they ran with drugs and abused and used them to their own satifsication hiding behind the hippie spiritual shit like most of these fucking perverts do.



leary ram dass and john c lilly were best friends with the pedo poet alan ginsberg they all equally sick fucks and its time the psychedelic community expsoe ram dass tim leary and john c lilly they are fucking creeps
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Don't forget William S. Burroughs another pedo who was part of their group, though unlike the rest he preferred opiates over psychedelics.

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Chris Timothy said:
Your link is paywalled, and I've searched through the video for evidence and didn't find any?

What did I miss?
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the guy he is best friends with alan ginsberg, is a very famous american poet and pedophile. Him leary and alan would hang out 24/7. just look up that creep alan ginsberg on wikipedia it will confirm everything
 
It confirms Alan Ginsberg was severely deranged, yes. It's not proof they all were though?

"Everything" is a stretch of the imagination.
 
I'm troubled to read all these allegations about such important and influential thinkers. It is possible, IMHO, to separate the art from the artist, the music from the musician and the philosophy from the philosopher. People in the past may have acted in ways that we do not consider proper in the current (and in many ways more enlightened) cultural climate. We shouldn't discount their contributions.
Please take the time to fully read Leary's short volume Turn on, Tune in, Drop Out.
Please take the time to read Ginsberg's work as well as Ram Dass. Listen to Ram Dass' meditations - easily available on a streaming service like Spotify.
It is possible to accept that they (like everyone) had flaws; and yet their work remains significant.
The world is changed by people with jagged personalities.
 
Sorry guys, there is so much &%^$ing bullshit in this thread. I am almost tempted to close it. That would be tough. Shit, wouldn’t it? it reminds me of the political board. A bunch of empty allegations.
 
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I will give that I seem to remember a story that Burroughs was a member of NAMBLA. Heard that before BL. Yet the guy is not here to say if he was or not. I hate grave digging or digging up bones. I would probably come to everyone's defense the same here too.
DrBear said:
The world is changed by people with jagged personalities.
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As kooky as they were they added to the psychedelic history a lot more than their critics. I for one like Be Here Now. And unless you were around in the 70's you don't know the positive impact that book had to some people.

I like when Leary and Ram Dass made fun of each other later in life. They were friends that had different paths but could jive.
 
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