Chapter 20

A Holy Mess
J^y ce^rd) on the Interpersonal reflex in 1957,
/ ^T^ which launched me on this path and is described
^ W' extensively in Politics of Self-Determination, demonstrated how humans fabricate and maintain their own personal worlds. By 1966 this self- responsibility message was expanded from the interpersonal to the neurological realm. Your actions determined the envi^ ronment you inhabited. Divinity was within, and the word "God" was understood to refer to ■■hbhmhi the Higher Intelligence resident within Onlv the
one' s own brain and within one' s own VOUn
DNA. The aim was to provide a socially listened acceptable reason for tampering with your own brain and increasing intelligence.
As the 1960s exfoliated, the religious metaphor continue boomed. To our dismay. Jesus Christ, what a holy mess! We told people that they were gods — only the young listened. And we published two books and scores of essays and interviews pushing The Journey to the Eastern Lobes of the Brain.
It worked because it was so seductive. There was a lot to learn back- East — The barefoot grace, the body- control sinuosity of yoga, the wiry elastic
100 Your dranh God
mind' trick of seeing everything from the standpoint of eternity. The ultimate cool of fatalism. The junky- hindu grin of pompous, self- satisfied passivity. The comforting babble of mantra nonsense- syllables. New, colorful, bizarre Hindu Lord' s Prayers to monkey- mimic.
Most cults and religions that sprang up in the 1960s and 1970s recruited docile "followers. " The Mansons, the Moons, the Jim Joneses, the swamis, the wmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Bom- Again Preachers all play ^ , ., ...^ on the primitive, prescientific,
Tate reeponsibility .r .it j . u v.
r I .^^ ^ mrantiie loser desire to submit to
for making your own . . . r. ^u
|. r ^^ ^-•-P I ^ parental authority figure. The
crisp advice transmitted m our mmmmmmmm Jq, \^^ yourself theology was —
Take responsibility for making your own life beautiful.
Wise Tricl^ster
Oriental religions, like their western counterparts, are elaborate rationalizations for avoiding change. The Eastern religious philosophies are the final flowering of the great pre- scientific wisdom that took us from the caves and taught us everything beautiful and harmonious that could be produced by a hand- tool culture. What- ever could be done with the body, including the vocal chords, had been developed and poetized by 100 genera- tions of Hindu- Buddhist adepts.
Oriental philosophy is profoundly pessimistic, cyni- cal, stoic, and passive. Before modem scientific tech- nology expanded the scope of human perception there was, indeed, no place to go and nothing new. The same old body cycle — circles of birth, aging, and death. Stay detached from the outer world, because there is nothing you can do about the relentless leveling entropy of age.
Timothy Leary 101
The Oriental posture is unbearably smug and certain. Nothing makes any difference, so cool out. It's all one, and it' s all lost. The best Indian gurus are wise tricksters who have mastered the one simple rule of entropy — It' s all going to hell, so get yourself a comfortable spot here and now, and let the fools who are still searching come and project their illusions — and their money — on your calm, cool, blank facade.
Gifts from the Magi
I took the obligatory trip to the East, scanned the guru scene, got the picture. India is a sad country, run by bureaucrats. The British Civil Service mentality, patched onto the ultimate fussy pedantry of Brahminism, left everyone in a mean, petty mood. The Hindu an- tagonism towards change, scientific method, any active solution to problems, was depressing. It became clear that for 2, 500 years, the most intelligent, energetic, attractive Indians had been migrating westward.
India is not a place for fun- lovers, hope fiends, enthusiastic pro- lifers. But India still had a lot to teach
us Westerners, and we returned ^^
from Benares loaded with paradoxic
cal gifts from the Magi. We joyfully We translated
accepted and employed Oriental ^^ V2(6\C Hindu
pagan techniques to pursue, more teacning tnat
effectively, future Western goals. e\^erything \
,V7 J L u . illusion into the
We accepted the basic vmdoxr\
anti' Christian Hindu notion that the ^^ .^^u^i^^i j,^ .j,u
c ^• vc . . 1 neurological truth
aim of this hfe is contmual ^^ everything
se - development self- mastery. ^ ^ ^ J
se f- sufficiency. One could become J^ ^^^
a perfect master, not of others, but of one' s own body and brain.
102 Your dra\nh God
We used this insight in our image. We translated the basic Hindu teaching that everything is illusion into the modem neurological truth that everything is a figment of your own brain. We resolved to fabricate the illusion that, through science, we can decipher and discover — which really means create — new levels of energy, new layered realities, new stages of evolution.
Basic Paganism
We bought the Vedic notion of reincarnation — updated by modem genetics and expanded into the future. NeO' Lamarckianism is back in town in the guise of genetic engineering. True, everything we do in this lifetime fabricates our next incarnations, but these future realities can be created in our lifetime. Listen, F 11 tell
you about multiple reincarnations I
.-^ J u ^^^^ sailed full- throttle through the
' ne good old ^^^^^^^ 20s, the Boring 30s, the b?a5ICpagail9ri Booming 40s, the Consuming 50s, the qOteVCr:pOdy Celestial 60s, the Terrestrial 70s, the movm ^g^in. Transitional 80s, and half of the ""''"'^^ Chaotic 90s. And all this taught me
how to pre- incarnate for future years — were I still body- bound to live them.
Everything we did in the 1960s was designed to fission, to weaken faith in and conformity to the 1950s social order. Our precise surgical target was the JudeO' Christian power monolith, which has imposed a guilty, inhibited, grim, an ti- body, an ti- life repression on Western civilization.
Our assignment was to topple this prudish, judgmen- tal civilization. And it worked. For the first time in 20 centuries, the good old basic paganism got everybody moving again. White people actually started to move
Timothy Leary 103
their hips, let the Marine crewcuts grow long, adorned themselves erotically in Dionysian revels, tuned into nature.
The ancient Celtic- pagan spirit began to sweep through the land of Eisenhower and J. Edgar Hoover. Membership in organized churches began to plummet. Hedonism, always the movement of individuals manag- ing their own rewards and pleasures ran rampant.
Millions of Americans exulted in the old Celtic Singularity. Every woman a queen, every man a king; God within. The classic paganism now combined with the American virtues of
do- it' yourself, distrust of authority. a™™™™™™™™! Millions of Americans writing their riCaOni5ITl, tY)€'
own Declarations of Independence — IDOVCtTlCnt Ot My life, my liberty, my pursuit of \nd\V\dU9\3
happiness. managing their
Millions of marijuana smokers, ^^ rcw^rde
adepts in hatha yoga, and meditators ^^^ plea5Ure5, experienced the neural level o{ con- ^^^ rannpant. sciousness — transcended symbols and ■■■■■^■i contacted raw energy hitting their nerve endings. At least another million LSD, peyote, and mushroom eaters, contacted cellular consciousness — have had experiences transcending both symbolic game and sensory apparatus. Next we have those who have taken large doses of LSD, mescaline, DMT, and have con- tacted the molecular and elemental energies within the cellular structure, experiencing the "white light, " the "void, " the "inner light. "
If we add those millions of institutionalized mystics who have had involuntary psychedelic experiences, this group swells to astounding proportions. Each of these different psychedelic levels — neural, cellular, molecu-
104 Your 3rain h God
lar — is beyond symbols, incoherent to the symboUc mind. Most psychedeUc voyagers are aware of the Umitless reaUties in the nervous systems, but there is no conception of the meaning and use of these potentials.
Alas, most of these explorers couldn't handle the freedom or independence. The familiar hunger for authority, the recurring obsession to submit; to give responsibility to a master. George Harrison groveled in front of the Maharish. Poor Bob Dylan submited to Christ. Peter Townsend babbleed
inanities about Meher Baba. '^'''''''''''''''''^ Swarms of gurus and
The word Vdigbn" spiritual- teachers ran around translates "to bind" announcing new command-
from the Latin. ments, new prohibitions.
■■■■■■■■■■ The word "religion" beau-
tifully defines itself, of course. It translates "to bind" from the Latin — "re" means back and "ligare" means to tie up. All reli- gions are straightjackets, jackets for the straight. Look at the faces of the followers — the Hare Krishnas, for example — and you'll get the point. Pimpled losers who don' t like their own looks and have no love of their own singularity.
Jackets for the Straight
We learned a lot. We were disappointed that for every new- breed, self-confident scientist pop- ping up on the scene, there were 99 new cult- followers. There was a gloomy period when I felt bewildered guilt at having encouraged this lemming- like rush to Eastern bonds.
Timothy Leary 105
The master- follower thing was particularly annoying. I despise followers of any kind, espe- cially those who follow me. As it happens I am not alone in this distaste; no one really likes followers. Followers do not like themselves, of course; that's why they crawl. And masters have nothing but contempt for BHMMHnn their subservants , which is why they I despise impose such colorful embarrassments followers of upon them.
S^^^y Religious Freedom
vrlOSe Wno ^ glance at American history is
follow me. comforting. Since the Pilgrims, the m^KKKKKm Quakers, the Mormons, the Emersonian Transcendentalists , our frontier country has always seethed with kooky cults and splinter messiahs. The amazing Independent religiosity, the off- the- wall fervor of Americans has always been a wonderful source of eccentric individuality.
There were, after all, no Jehovah's Witnesses or Hare Krishnas running around Franco' s Spain or the Soviet Union. I am also comforted by the thought that the new religiosity is part of our wonderful aristocratic American consumerism, the insatiable American tele void brain demanding new sensations, new surprises, new heroes, new reality scripts.
You are a God Act like one!
-Tiinot% leaiy
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-Timot% leaiy
LEARY LIBRARY
You are a God...
TIMOTHY LEARY and his psychedelic researcher team quickly discovered that being scientists-even Harvard scientists-could not shield them from the strong taboo against "brain-change." Changing your brain and expanding your mind with magical plants is against the law. The brain has replaced the genitals as the forbidden organ that must not be touched or turned on by the owner. Fortunately there is one loophole— the religious metaphor. While there is nothing in the Bill of Rights to protect scientific freedom, there is a First Amendment protection of Freedom of Religion.
Live like one.
II
The moment of decision came during a wild all-night LSD session when Richard Alpert went up to Leary. eyes popping, and announced. "The East! We must go back to the wisdom of the East!" At first Leary was reluctant because, like many of us. he responded negatively to the word "God." Like Galileo and so many other scientists and philosophers before them, they were in uncharted territory. So religion it would be! Only Timothy was insistent that there would be no kneeling down, no dogmas, no holy men. no followers, no churches, no public worship, and no financial offerings.
Live your iii^iiest vision.
YOUR BRAIN IS GOD is Leary's summa theology. It is an activist, do-it-yourself theology. As a kind of scientific paganism. God is defined in terms of the technologies involved in creating the universe and engineering the eight stages of evolution, which he called the Eight Crafts of God.
The ritual use of sacraments— LSD and essences of entheogenic plants- accelerates activating the divinity within and experiencing the eight crafts.
YOUR BRAIN IS GOD tells how to:
♦ Prepare for a session ♦ Embrace ego loss
♦ Handle physical symptoms ♦ Imprint the Taoist experience
♦ Evalu^l psychedelic "experts" ♦ Be a psychedelic guide
^ Enjoy psychedelic prayers ♦ Turn on. tune in. drop out
^^ Be
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