Timothy Leary's dead

 

"Legend of a Mind" is a song by the British progressive rock band the Moody Blues, and was written by the band's flautist Ray Thomas, who provides the lead vocals. "Legend of a Mind" was recorded in January 1968 and was first released on the Moody Blues' album In Search of the Lost Chord. It was the first song recorded for the album.

The original promotional black-and-white film for the song was filmed on location at Groot-Bijgaarden Castle near Brussels in Belgium.

The song's lyrics are about 1960s LSD icon Timothy Leary. Leary was an advocate for the use of LSD, enjoying its spiritual benefits, with one of his catchphrases being "Turn on, tune in, drop out."

The song is perhaps best known for its opening lines: "Timothy Leary's dead / No, n-n-no he's outside looking in" which allude to Leary's use of eastern mysticism (most notably the Tibetan Book of the Dead) to frame the psychedelic experience.

The song's lyrics describe both Leary and the effects of LSD, such as:

He'll fly his astral plane
Takes you trips around the bay
Brings you back the same day

as well as:

He'll take you up,
He'll bring you down.
He'll plant your feet back firmly on the ground.
He flies so high,
He swoops so low.
He knows exactly which way he's gonna go

If you want to watch the promotional video for the song, just click on the link below:

THE MOODY BLUES-R.I.P. RAY THOMAS-LEGEND OF A MIND (TIMOTHY LEARY'S DEAD)-1968 - YouTube

 

 Despite rumors to the contrary, Timothy Leary was NOT dead in 1968. In fact, he lived until 1996. At that point, seven grams of Leary's ashes were arranged by his friend at Celestis to be buried in space aboard a rocket carrying the remains of 23 others, including Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, space colonization advocate Gerard O'Neill and German-American rocket engineer Krafft Ehricke. A Pegasus rocket containing their remains was launched on April 21, 1997, and remained in orbit for six years until it burned up in the atmosphere.

Leary's ashes were also given to close friends and family. In 2015, Susan Sarandon brought some of his ashes to the Burning Man festival in Black Rock City, Nevada, and put them into an art installation there. The ashes were burned, along with the installation, on September 6, 2015.

Timothy Leary faced a variety of legal trouble during his lifetime. During the 1960s and 1970s, he was arrested 36 times worldwide. President Richard Nixon once described Leary as "the most dangerous man in America".

 

Leary believed that LSD showed potential for therapeutic use in psychiatry. He used LSD himself and developed a philosophy of mind expansion and personal truth through LSD. After leaving Harvard, he continued to publicly promote the use of psychedelic drugs and became a well-known figure of the counterculture of the 1960s. 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". He also wrote and spoke frequently about transhumanist concepts of space migration, intelligence increase, and life extension (SMI²LE). Leary developed the eight-circuit model of consciousness in his book Exo-Psychology (1977) and gave lectures, occasionally billing himself as a "performing philosopher."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Leary

 

By now, you are probably wondering why I have a sudden interest in Timothy Leary, and the answer is simple.

AARP.

The current issue of the AARP Bulletin contained an interview with Michael Pollon, author of “This is Your Mind on Plants”. 

In 2013, he started reading about experiments using psilocybin (LSD) to treat cancer patients. The vast majority of the people in the experiments received enormous benefit from the drug. Most reported a powerful, mystical experience, and losing their fear of death. It also reduced anxiety and depression.

In recent years, psychedelics have gained legitimacy from a variety of sources. Recently, Francis Collins, the head of the National Institutes of Health, published positive statements about psychedelics.

 

Harvard Health Publishing published an analysis of the drugs in June of this year.

According to the publication, there IS evidence that using psychedelics CAN be used for medicinal purposes. 

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/back-to-the-future-psychedelic-drugs-in-psychiatry-202106222508

 

Unlike Hunter S. Thompson or Timothy Leary, I’m not advocating that anyone should use illegal drugs, but from a practical standpoint, how much harm can marijuana, or other drugs, do to a terminally ill patient?