Leary

On January 14, 1967, Timothy Leary spoke at the Human Be-In, a gathering of 30,000 hippies in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, and uttered his famous phrase: "Turn on, tune in, drop out."

In full context, he said:

"Like every great religion of the past we seek to find the divinity within and to express this revelation in a life of glorification and the worship of God. These ancient goals we define in the metaphor of the present — turn on, tune in, drop out."

Leary later explained in his 1983 autobiography Flashbacks:

'Turn on' meant go within to activate your neural and genetic equipment. Become sensitive to the many and various levels of consciousness and the specific triggers that engage them. Drugs were one way to accomplish this end. 'Tune in' meant interact harmoniously with the world around you - externalize, materialize, express your new internal perspectives. Drop out suggested an elective, selective, graceful process of detachment from involuntary or unconscious commitments. 'Drop Out' meant self-reliance, a discovery of one's singularity, a commitment to mobility, choice, and change. Unhappily my explanations of this sequence of personal development were often misinterpreted to mean 'Get stoned and abandon all constructive activity'.

Leary began experimenting with psychedelic drugs in 1957, following the suicide of his first wife.  Beginning with psychedelic mushrooms on a trip to Mexico, he rapidly advanced to harder drugs such as LSD.  His belief that drugs were the key to spiritual enlightenment lead him to experiment on hundreds of college kids, as well as felons, to see if their experiences matched his own.  About 25% of those taking LSD found it to lead to spiritual enlightenment.  An amazing 80% of felons did not reoffend during the trial periods.

Drug usage was not an escape from reality for him, it was a way to god – which he discovered was in him the entire time.  His “discovery” lead him to share this experience with others.  Rapidly, he went from Professor instructing youth, to a peer of youth.  Perspective loss and importance of his responsibilities lead to firings as partying became more important. 

Those of us whom have worked in counseling are not surprised by this, we see this with every drug user we attempt to help.  It is as though they are trapped in adolescence, not able to neither accept nor handle responsibility.  They are always completely unaware of any difference between themselves and others which was not in their favor. 

In the end, unaware of his own condition, Leary became exactly what he criticized others for – a drop out.