Inside the Mind of Timothy Leary

By George H. Litwin

This book describes some of the earliest explorations with psychedelics including psilocybin, LSD, mescaline, and DMT as experienced by world figures including Timothy Leary, Richard Albert/Baba Ram Dass, Aldous Huxley, Alan Watts, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Charles Mingus, Paul Desmond, Huston Smith, and others. Litwin was present at ea

• Language: English
• Publisher: George H. Litwin
• Release date: Aug 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798985035995

George H. Litwin

George H. Litwin grew up in Detroit, Michigan, USA and graduated from the University of Michigan with high honors in psychology. He received the National Science Foundation Fellowship for published work, leading to earning a PhD in Personality Psychology from Harvard University where he met and worked with Timothy Leary. George Litwin was there with Timothy Leary at the first psilocybin sessions with Aldous Huxley, Richard Alpert/Baba Ram Dass, Alan Watts, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Charles Mingus, and many others. His new book, Inside the Mind of Timothy Leary, tells the stories of these fascinating explorations. He is also well known as one of the founders of the field of organizational climate.

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INSIDE THE MIND OF

TIMOTHY LEARY

George H. Litwin, PhD

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Copyright © 2023 George H. Litwin. All rights reserved.

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Ebook ISBN: 9798985035995

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1. Timothy Leary: Harvard Faculty Member

Mexico

Genie in the Bottle

Chapter 2. Timothy Leary on Grant Avenue

My Experience

Timothy’s Experience

Aldous’s Experience

Chapter 3. Aldous Huxley

Relationships

Spiritual Awakenings

Opening the Doors

Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Huxley’s Legacy

Huxley’s Last Words

About Aldous Huxley

Chapter 4. Richard Alpert and The Love Sessions

The Love Sessions

Chapter 5. David Aberle and the Navajo

Results

Chapter 6. Allen Ginsberg

Chapter 7. Peter Orlovsky

Chapter 8. Richard Alpert Becomes Baba Ram Dass

Explorations in India

My Own Experience in India

Ram Dass and the Millennial Generation

Ram Dass: Connecting Hinduism and Judaism

Chapter 9. Maynard Ferguson, Paul Desmond, and Charles Mingus

Chapter 10. Ralph Metzner

Chapter 11. Alan Watts

Chapter 12. William Burroughs

Chapter 13. Huston Smith

Chapter 14. Walter Pahnke

Chapter 15. The Ego Is Our First Friend—and Our Worst Enemy

Our Brain When We Are Born

Development of the Ego as a First Friend

The Ego Is the Enemy

Transformational and Homeostatic Science

Conclusion

Chapter 16. Good Drugs and Bad Drugs

Chapter 17. SMI²LE: Timothy Behind Bars

Chapter 18. What I Learned

Set and Setting

Instant Ecstasy versus Meditation

About the Author

INTRODUCTION

This book focuses on events transpiring in the 1960s, a decade fraught with cultural conflict in America. When John F. Kennedy was elected president in 1960, he represented a younger generation filled with hopes and aspirations, seeking greater freedom. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 shocked the world and intensified the turmoil of those years. If Kennedy symbolized freedom and exploration, J. Edgar Hoover, conservative director of the FBI, represented suspicion of any signs of rebellion or deviation from social norms. Another sign of the movement toward greater freedom was the birth control pill. Originally limited to married women, the pill soon was available to all, becoming one of the freeing forces that led to a climate of exploration. The experiences I had, which I describe in the following pages, took place in this cauldron of social conflict and change.

I was a graduate student in psychology at Harvard University during the 1960s. My assigned adviser was Dr. Timothy Leary. As it happened, I lived within a mile of the house that Professor Leary rented while he was at Harvard; it was on Grant Avenue and figures importantly in the recounting of this story. Later, he moved to Newton Avenue—even closer—so it was natural for me to go over to his house when I wanted to talk with him. Each time I arrived, there was something going on, and soon I became part of those activities.

I spent quite a bit of time with Timothy Leary. He became my mentor, and my lifelong friend. I was with him at Harvard, at his homes in Massachusetts—even in Switzerland when he broke out of prison and went to live in a chalet on the Italian-Swiss border. I was there at the celebration he hosted (while still alive) to mark his impending passing, along with others you will meet in this story: Baba Ram Dass, Ralph Metzner, and many more.

Many years ago, renowned mystic and teacher George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, author of various writings including Meetings with Remarkable Men, attempted to describe levels of human consciousness. People are the means, the path, to understanding, he said. While I do not compare myself to Gurdjieff, I, too, have had the privilege of meeting many remarkable people. Some were teachers, some were mystics. They all had in common the same qualities that Gurdjieff portrayed in his book.

I remember sitting around the dining room table when I lived in the same house with several other psychologists, including Gunther Weil, Dick Katz, and David Winter. We read aloud from a Gurdjieff book, passing the book around as each person read a passage. This happened night after night. At some point, I began to understand what Gurdjieff was writing about. The people he described were both compassionate and meditative. They were remarkable in their care for others, which they drew from a deep spiritual core inside themselves. Gurdjieff’s book made a great impression on me and ultimately inspired me to write this book:

A remarkable man is one who stands out from those around him by the resourcefulness of his mind and knows how to be restrained in the manifestations which proceed from his nature, at the same time conducting himself justly and tolerantly towards the weaknesses of others.

—G. I. Gurdjieff, Meetings with Remarkable Men, 1963

While I can in no way recreate the reality that Gurdjieff created, along the way I have met many people with the qualities he describes—and I include some of them in this short volume. The people on my remarkable person list include well-known names from recent times (for example, Aldous Huxley and Allen Ginsberg), and some who are not well known. Each of these remarkable people had a persona that was created in our present culture. Yet my personal experiences with these people are quite different from the way others have described them.

As Gurdjieff suggested, I, too, found the remarkable people I write about in this book to be quite tolerant of the weaknesses of others and clear in their own purpose. Timothy Leary was extraordinarily intelligent, quick to see through the appearance of things and grasp the underlying truth. He was an innovative thinker, with numerous insights into what the future might hold. He was bold in his understanding of how psychedelics could be used as a treatment for mental illness. I found him to be the most remarkable of all.

Resource:

Gurdjieff, George Ivanovich. Meetings with Remarkable Men. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1963.

CHAPTER 1

TIMOTHY LEARY: HARVARD FACULTY MEMBER

Early in the 1960s, competing forces clashed in the United States over issues of social justice and human rights: racism gave rise to the civil rights movement; economic inequality birthed strikes; inequality between the sexes sparked feminism; police brutality incited riots; the Vietnam War resulted in mass protests and the killing of protestors by the US military. In the mental health field, institutional lockup and harsh treatment of patients spurred development of alternative methods of care and research into new drugs to allow the mentally ill to live more productive lives.

The culture conflict also existed at Harvard University. President Nathan M. Pusey sought to tighten control by reducing the number of deans. Professor David McClelland, chair of the Social Relations Department, reacted by creating greater diversity and introducing new faculty members with fresh—some would say radical—thinking. That’s what brought Timothy Leary to Harvard.

While