I am a bit of a fan of John Higgs, having read three of his previous books The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band Who Burned One Million Pounds, The Future Starts Here: An Optimistic Guide to What Comes Next and William Blake vs. The World.
I loved reading these books as his works often takes many turns that often bamboozle me but always had me interested in the topics he was covering. I find that Higgs seems to be a Humanist at heart and he gets to the heart of the matter and the core questions we all ask; what is our purpose and how does this affect the narrative we tell ourselves?
So, it was with much curiosity that I picked up his book on Timothy Leary, the famed face of the counter-culture movement who advocated for the use of LSD and advised people to ‘Turn On, Tune In and Drop Out.’ Apart from this, I didn't know much else apart from the fact that he was called 'The most dangerous man in America' by then President Richard Nixon.
This book was a great primer then as the first few chapters are a biography highlighting Leary's rebellious and self destructive nature before he settled as professor of psychology at Harvard. He found that the psychology profession was not having the success it claimed it making; 1/3 made good progress, 1/3 made some progress and 1/3 made no progress with psychological help... this sounded pretty good until he revealed that his test group showed similar results with no help. He realised that the psychological profession was built on sand upon the white middle class expectations of 'norms'. He declared professional development was needed and the only way to achieve that was for psychologists to open themselves up to the lives of their patients rather than be removed- in other words,to touch grass. He was a maverick before but when he discovered magic mushrooms his world view opened up.
There was an idea that the emergence of religion was due to psychedelics but, as you can imagine, this was a hugely controversial and would receive backlash so his friend and advisor Aldous Huxley, of Brave New World fame, suggested Leary try the drugs on the powerful and influential to see what they thought and move the conversation forward as culturally powerful people.
There was a school of thought that said that psychedelics would be too powerful for the general populace and needed to be protected and controlled by the elite. Leary disagreed and got on side with the Beat Generation and Allen Ginsberg stating that everyone in the world should experience the ecstatic and that drugs should be kept away from the elite.
These two conflicting views led to Leary testing the drugs on prisoners who were nearing release to prevent recidivism. Then LSD happened the changed Leary’s view to include the reality tunnel and the idea that society was a construct. This idea is not new and many religious teachings and meditation teach this too but not in such a scientifically supported way from a Harvard academic.
He helped start the counter culture movement but some took it as an excuse to drop out of society. The 1967 Summer of Love slowly moved into the remorseful morning after in 1969: The Beatles broke up, the Manson family committed horrific crimes and there was a mood of dourness at the close of the decade as the optimism dissipated. The possible positive uses of psycheledics was glossed over with the more shrill arguments about the hippie culture. Leary's life from there is full of crazy escapades as he pivoted from philosopher, lifestyle guru to friend to the rich and famous.
Higgs is an excellent writer and his skill in conveying a complex life with verve and energy is compelling. The fact that he presents Leary as a vain, complex and flawed human being yet still a hopeful maverick makes this an intriguing read and, with the recent reappraisal of the medicinal use of psychedelics, possibly a renaissance man way ahead of his time.
I would recommend this book as this is a singular life lived and we may never know the like again.
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