Timothy Leary's Dead (1996) - full transcript

- It was my ambition to, to
really liberate the world.

Why not?

I mean, why settle for anything less?

And I have a sense of humor about it.

I know the odds are against me,

but we only have a few years here.

Let's try to leave this
spaceship a better place.

♪ Timothy Leary's dead ♪

♪ No, no, no, no, he's
outside, looking in ♪

♪ Timothy Leary's dead ♪

♪ No, no, no, no, he's
outside, looking in ♪



- The Harvard professor who became

the outlaw acid king of the 1960s is dead.

- Timothy Leary has died as he lived,

in a rather unconventional fashion.

- He died at his Beverly
Hills home at the age of 75.

- He was a counterculture
icon of the sixties,

an author, a lecturer, an
ex-con and a celebrity.

- [Narrator] His zest
for dying was not unlike

his zest for living life to the fullest.

In 1967, he counseled the
world of young people to quote,

"Turn On, Tune In and Drop Out."

Many of them did with psychedelic drugs,

but he was also a respected
Harvard psychologist

until he became a renegade.



- To me, he was a driven
man and a great philosopher

and a seeker of the truth and a futurist.

And he always kept a
very positive attitude

and always kept working
and working and working

and always saying, if
I make too much money,

you have to tell me, because that means

I'm doing something wrong.

- [Narrator] One of his greatest
moments of excitement came

when he learned that some of his remains,

a few grams of his ashes, would
be carried to outer space.

- So when he saw that burst of that light,

he said, "That's me!"

- This rogue intellectual,
this visionary genius

will be around on the web net

for the cyber generation and beyond.

- Timothy Leary, by the way, had said

that he was thrilled to learn that he had

inoperable prostate cancer.

To him, death was just
a promising adventure.

And when it came for him this morning,

he left behind a lot of people
who say they will miss him.

And some who say they will not.

♪ Oh, Danny boy, ♪

♪ The pipes, the pipes are calling ♪

♪ From glen to glen, and
down the mountainside ♪

♪ The summer's gone and
all the flowers are dying ♪

♪ It's you, it's you must
go, and I must bide ♪

♪ But come ye back when
summer's in the meadow ♪

♪ Or when the valley's
hushed and white with snow ♪

♪ Yes, I'll be here in
sunshine or in shadow ♪

♪ Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy ♪

♪ I love you so ♪

♪ But when ye came ♪

♪ And all the flowers are dying ♪

♪ And I was dead, as dead I will may be ♪

♪ He'll come and find the
place where I am lying ♪

♪ And kneel and say an Ave there for me ♪

♪ And I will hear, though
soft you tread above me ♪

♪ And on my grave, will
warmer sweeter be ♪

♪ And ye will bend and
tell me that you love me ♪

♪ And I will sleep in peace ♪

♪ Until you come to me ♪

♪ Oooooooo ♪

- I went into psychology 20 years ago,

basically as a career.

I was simple-minded
enough to take seriously

the motto's of psychology,

that psychologists
supposed to be finding out

what goes on with the human being.

And five years ago, by accident in Mexico,

I took Mexican mushrooms.

So-called magic mushrooms of Mexico.

And I learned more about my
brain and its possibilities.

And I learn more about psychology

in the five hours after
taking these mushrooms

than I had in the preceding 15 years

of studying doing research in psychology.

(various chimes sounding)

- [Prison Interviewer] What
were you really advocating then?

- Well, my main message is use your head,

specifically, learn how to
use your nervous system.

It's this, for the last 15 years,

I've been studying my own nervous system.

I've gotten to use my own nervous system,

the way Leeuwenhoek and the first men

that got the microscope,

or Galileo, the first guy
that got the telescope,

it takes years to learn how to focus it

and dial it and tune it.

I know that the nervous
system is a computer.

We can program it in many
different directions.

It's like a series of motion
picture or television cameras.

We can focus it and turn it
around on different objects.

It's, it's electronic, it's electric.

We can dial it and tune it.

It's there to be used.

And the challenge of the
human race right now,

I call it the neurological
age we're going into,

we've got to learn how to use our heads.

LSD is an extremely
powerful mind opening agent.

We are now in the Psycho-Chemical Age.

In the future, it's not going
to be what book do you read?

But which chemical do
you use to open your mind

to accelerate learning?

- The drug revolution in
America was a disaster.

And to the extent that
Timothy Leary promoted that,

he was the high priest
of the drug revolution.

He had of course a philosophy
that went beyond that.

But I'm talking about the
main thing that he did

had a very negative effect.

- [Prison Interviewer] Are
you ahead of your time?

Is that why you haven't
been accepted totally yet?

Are you too far ahead of?

- Yes, I'm in a kind of a time warp.

(soft flute music)

- [Female Newscaster] Timothy Leary

was the Psychedelic Movement's
prophet of perception,

a high profile LSD advocate

who was scaring the hell
out of mainstream America.

- We are neurologically
and biochemical in touch

with thousands of generations
that came before us.

It's just that our mental symbolic minds

can't decode these messages.

And many have been
discovering this experience

and developing methods to get high

or to go out of their mind,
for thousands of years.

I think that I was the person

that was in a position of stature

and respectability and basically power.

I could say this cause
I didn't want tenure.

I didn't want to be a professor.

I didn't want government funding.

The government never gave
us a dime for our research.

Some private groups did,

so that I simply wasn't intimidated

and everything we were
doing was legal and open.

There are a lot of
people, young usually men,

the aim of their whole
thing is to get to Harvard,

like salmon coming up stream,
they flop into Harvard,

and they don't, that's the end.

They're Harvard professors.

The same time, you've had at Harvard,

for a long time, people
like the counterculture

and the transcendental and
the "All is One" movement.

You had Emerson and you had Thoreau,

remember Thoreau and Emerson?

Thoreau in prison, you know what?

When Emerson came and said,

what are you doing in there, David?

And he said, what are you doing out there?

I mean, Thoreau one of our
great, great philosophers,

was in prison for failing to pay a tax

to support the Mexican war.

- [Male Newscaster] The man
in the middle with glasses,

Richard Albert, one of the two Americans

most often blamed or praised
for the psychedelic revolution.

- I've had, as I say, LSD over 300 times.

And one of the dramatic characteristics

of the psychedelic experience
is being with another person

and suddenly seeing the ways
in which they are like you.

We had a lot of kind of
charming hysteria for awhile.

Yes, humor and stuff.

And then I went off into the living room

and I started to have this
very dissociative experience.

So you started to have this
dissociative experience

of where all you become is awareness,

is a point of awareness,
that's all that's left.

I remember the first
time this happened to me,

as professor went, and
middle-class boy went,

and pilot went and all
of my games were like,

going off into the distance.

Like I only had a body left

and then I couldn't find my
body look with my eyes open,

and I got frightened.

And I got the panic, which is the panic

that proceeds the psychological death.

Because indeed, Richard Albert
was dying at that point.

And the panic was no stop, stop!

I've got to hold on to
something so I'll know who I am.

And I was about to scream for Timothy

when I went through the doorway,

I mean, I was about to scream.

And Timothy, the wise old
Timothy always says things like

trust your nervous system.

Suddenly, I went and became so free

and knowing who I was and
being, resting in my being.

And I thought, boy, have I
been screwed my whole life!

I had been cut off from this thing.

And I went out cartwheeling in the snow,

outside Tim's house.

- When we first started
our research at Harvard,

we middle-class professors
didn't know what this was about.

One thing we learned right
from the beginning is

don't use the language of psychiatry

because the language of
psychiatry is sick, well,

doctor, patient, you've got this neurosis,

you've got the psychosis,

almost forcing the person to be a victim.

- We were heretics at Harvard.

And then we were heretics in a society

because you're advocating the overthrow...

Come on in, Ralph!

Hi!

- [Male News Announcer] Dr. Ralph Metzner,

a psychopharmacologist

and Timothy Leary's principal assistant.

- When you take LSD,
everything falls apart.

All learned structures,
all thought patterns,

all the beliefs, opinions,
emotional convictions,

positive or negative.

They all fall apart.

How a person sees himself,
what he thinks of himself.

Huxley and Gerald Heard
and Humphry Osmond,

and various people said,

no, no, you can't, you know,
tell everybody to turn on.

This has to be kept quiet.

He'd say no, that's an elitist thing.

You know, the time for that has passed.

The need is too great.

- [Male Interviewer] Your not
saying LSD can not be misused?

- Of course, it's a form of
energy and it releases energy.

And any form of energy,
which man has discovered,

can be used for ill or for good.

It can be used to gain power,
control over other people,

or it can be used to help
people develop and grow.

- And we had spent about a
year on the faculty together,

teaching some course together,

he was a widower with two children.

Everybody else in that situation
knows they're at Harvard

and they're playing it for
what they can do with it.

And I mean, there's a tremendous amount of

"publish and perish" and
all of that sort of thing.

And Timothy was just different than that.

He didn't care.

I came back to Harvard in February.

He already had a project going.

And his project was basically saying,

the experience I had in
Mexico was true and profound.

These things are treated in
my culture as psychotomimetic

by the psychiatric community,
as pathology inducing things.

I think that's the
wrong metaphor for them.

I'm going to do research
as a Harvard professor.

I think that's an incredibly big leap.

- Scientific studies have proven

that the human brain has dozens,

maybe over a hundred receptor sites.

These are little locks to the brain.

And each of these receptor sites

has been designed over millions
of years by DNA genetics

to be opened up by a certain
plant that's out there.

That's, that's very poetic.

That the plant queendom
for thousands of years,

had been evolving in
synchronicity with mammals,

warm blooded mammals with brains.

And still today,

these plants have this
automatic effect on the brain.

Nothing happens by
synchronicity or accident.

I think it's evolution.

- What charmed me about
Timothy was that his,

his ability to continually undercut

the, the parameters of my mind.

He was constantly pushing
the edges of the envelope,

you might say.

He was constantly looking at things

in a slightly different way.

- He had a gift for talking
to large groups of people

that was totally phenomenal, kind of the,

this Irish oratory.

And if you look at what
happened in the sixties

with psychedelics,

the sixties was the birth of
the civil rights movement.

It was the beginning of
the ecology movement.

It was the beginning of
the women's movement,

it was, liberation movement.

It was the beginning of
the sexual revolution.

It was the beginning of
the anti-war movement.

And I would

- [Richard Alpert] And rock and roll,

minstrels to carry the whole thing.

- Tremendous cultural
creativity that was released.

And I would be willing to bet

that in every single
one of those movements,

some psychedelic
experiences played a role.

(meditation music)

- [Meditating Woman] It's
like dying and being reborn.

To take one little piece out
of one of my experiences,

I could say, I

became the idea of a stained glass window.

I entered a cavern of dripping jewels.

- It doesn't, it does hurt my feelings,

I must admit to see Tim being the subject

of such relentless negativity
continuing to this day.

I think it's quite unfair.

And he's basically being blamed.

He's a scapegoat for people's own fears

and their own messed up
neurotic preoccupations.

- That's making me into a victim,

and who's the cause of my victim hood,

some terrible people that disgraced me,

or else I was wrong, I was disgraced.

There is no disgrace here.

My mother was upset, of course,

and all my Irish Catholic relatives,

Timothy is being thrown out of Harvard.

But, and I respect that
and I was very sorry

that that happened.

But believe me, the last thing
in the world I wanted to do

was to have tenure at Harvard.

I'd still be there with
moss growing out of me.

(peaceful guitar music)

- I think he had told me that he,

he may have been an altar boy as a kid.

And he told me that his dad was a dentist

and was the first person that
turned him on to nitrous oxide

when he was just a kid.

And, and he liked that a lot.

And that his his mom
was very straight-laced,

and from what I understand,
very disapproving.

He also tells me that his grandfather

had tons and tons of books.

And Tim used to go visit his grandfather

and his grandfather's room and, and,

and take some of the books.

And his, I think his grandfather told him

Timothy don't ever be like everybody else.

- Before he even discovered
LSD, he was this, you know,

sort of iconoclastic

rabble rouser, Irish type.

- Ireland has been in a wonderful position

of being a counter-culture to England,

and being protected by
it, and it's obvious

that England tried to control the Irish.

And most of the good Irish got
out and became in the wind.

- His whole philosophy is
everything's an individual thing.

To not, not be sort of,

go along with the robot societal norms.

And that's very unusual these days.

I mean, everybody's saying
conform, conform, conform,

and Timothy Leary is saying, no, no,

that's not the way that it is.

You're an individual, be that individual.

You're a god, act like one.

- You can be Irish without
ever going to Ireland

in the sense of having a sense of,

of looking at the other side,

being outside the establishment
of keeping moving,

and finding other people like you,

that are all around, all the time,

and you'll find them in poetry,
you'll find them in art,

you'll find them in music.

I have been from an early age,

fascinated by the great
intellectual adventures,

of the philosophic challenges.

I always wanted to be a philosopher.

So I was immediately
drawn to this experience.

When I, when I heard about it.

- When you take LSD and
your consciousness expanded,

the number of possibilities

and the number of perspectives
dramatically multiplies.

And then you're in real
ontological confusion.

That's why we always have urged people,

don't take LSD unless
you're very well-prepared,

unless you're specifically
prepared to go out of your mind.

Don't take it unless you have someone

that's very experienced with
you to guide you through it.

And don't take it unless
you are ready to have

your perspective on yourself
and life dramatically change,

because you're going to
be a different person.

Jack Kennedy did take drugs,

including LSD at the
White House with a woman

named Mary Pinchot Meyer,

who was the ex-wife of Cord Meyer,

who was the dirty tricks head of the CIA,

the Number Two guy there.

I'm telling you the story to tell you

about the drug thing was
happening at that time.

I probably pushed my nervous system

as much as any human being living.

I've taken LSD over 500 times,

and I've experienced a wide range of these

biochemical neurological possibilities.

(peaceful piano music)

- [Male News Anchor] Timothy Leary's

rented estate is almost
as fantastic by day

as it is by night.

3000 acres, complete with man-made lakes,

in the rolling woodlands
of upstate New York.

- We were visited by

people from every form of
consciousness experimentation.

Yogis, we were wall-to-wall
yogis and swamis and Taoists

and tea leaf readers and
vegetarians, and anything.

We were interested.

We wanted to know because we
were square Harvard professors,

and we didn't know much about this.

- Peggy Hitchcock, who
was a friend of ours,

said, I think my brothers
just bought this place,

this cattle ranch, and
there's an old house on it,

up in Millbrook.

Let's go.

And we drove up, she and I,
and I came to this house,

a 63 room house, all boarded up,

but indoor walk-in
refrigerators, nine bathrooms.

I said, this is our place.

She said, well, if you want it,

you'll have to turn on my brothers.

They were both 22.

They were part of the Mellon family.

So at that point I took on my
project of turning them on.

The first year was absolutely
unbelievably idyllic.

We had this incredibly beautiful home.

We had a web of friends
and a network of creative

and interesting people pouring in and out.

We had the New York city scene,
plus the Millbrook scene.

And then there were these weekends

where everybody just played together.

Maynard Ferguson was down
at the Gatehouse with,

with Flo and the kids.

(horn playing)

There were football games.

It was like the Kennedy years

at Hyannisport, or something like that.

It had that quality.

Wonderful, big feasts
and great experiments.

And somebody was always on trips.

We were always guiding trips
there or running trips.

And that was a very beautiful time.

- So you're never going to
be sure exactly who's who

and who's supposed to do what.

If anybody from the community is asked to

run a psychedelic session or cook a meal

or to run a television camera...

(mystical electronic music)

- He used to get phone
calls that would come into,

to Millbrook from people.

And he would take these
phone calls from people.

He didn't know who the
hell they were at all.

And a lot of them were people
freaking out on LSD somewhere.

They'd never taken it.

And one of the most common
things for them to say was that

Dr. Leary, you've got to help me!

I'm dying, I'm dying!

He'd say, yes, you are dying.

And then he'd say, and so am I.

And he explained, he'd explain
the 50 billion year old

life process and all the cells

dying and living and dying and living.

And, you know, new body every six years

and your own blah, blah, blah.

Pretty soon the person would be cooled out

and wouldn't, you know, fly
off a bridge or something.

- There was a field where the last summer,

we all went out and moved out
there and lived in teepees.

We did that on Lunacy Hill

and it was lunacy for us to go out there.

But also there was another hill further on

called Ecstasy Hill.

And these were all places
where people would go

and trip and do these wonderful things,

throw out their clothes,

have a marvelous time swimming
in the lakes, whatever.

It was, 2,500 acres, completely fenced in.

It was a world into itself.

- People could take the psychedelics

in whatever way they wanted,
as long as they wrote a report.

And we made sure that
it was in some way safe.

- Local kids were saying,
what's going on up there?

We've got to go find out.

So they would come up.

And there were a lot of girls
schools, Vasser is nearby.

There was Bernard Junior
Girls School in Millbrook,

and they had signs at the school that said

Any girl seen at Millbrook
entering or leaving the property,

or is there, is immediately expelled.

And that was true for all of them

because they'd come in and they go

waltzing on back to college turned on.

- Allen Ginsberg first came to
see us when we were beginning

and we had a psilocybin

mushroom drug session for him.

I think Huxley was there.

He was in one room
upstairs, and his boyfriend,

Peter was in another one.

During the experience, they wandered down

through the house naked - it
was kind of a mansion house.

And it was, it was almost
old Testament prophetic

that here was a prophet
coming, his eyes were gleaming.

- Most everybody there took LSD.

We settled down to
discussing the situation,

discussing the images being
set up against everybody,

and reinforced and listening
to Joan Baez records

on the phonograph and
chanting Buddhist prayer.

- And I recommend,
respectfully to this committee

that you consider legislation,
which will license

responsible adults to use these
drugs for serious purposes,

such as spiritual growth.

- At about two or three in the
morning, one in the morning.

I'm not sure the time
I heard these sounds,

like this kind of (animal noises)

this animal growling, anger
sound, get up, get up.

And I, you know, realized that it was

some kind of problem,

some kind of raid.

- The first time that I
was harassed by the law

was on a Saturday night, at midnight.

I was in my bedroom with my
wife and I was talking to my son

and the door banged open.

And in came G. Gordon Liddy

with 24 armed and booted sheriffs.

- [Prison Interviewer] Warrant?

Did they have a warrant on hand?

- Uh, yeah, but the warrant was,

they found no mariajuana,
the warrant was thrown out.

They, they did confiscate a little plant

that we had on peat moss,
which was a geranium.

- Funny thing about Liddy
is that he was the one guy

that was like, nice,
polite, was not a problem.

Didn't bully anybody.

He came up to me said,
hi, hello, how are you?

What's your name?

Took it on a clipboard.

Didn't try to arrest me,
harass me, bother me,

push me in a corner or anything else.

And the people that were
the were the assholes,

the horrible, you know,
sheriffs and the, the, the,

the townsmen, you know, with the badges.

- Now Gordon Liddy then ran for Congress

on the basis that he had
driven me out of the county.

And from there, he went to the
White House as a drug expert.

And how did Gordon Liddy
get to be a drug expert?

Because he had fought Timothy Leary.

- It was like that attack
on Dr. Frankenstein's castle

to get the invisible monster.

It basically, in fact,
the place looked like

Dr. Frankenstein's castle.

And the townspeople did,
were all coming with hoes

and scythes and shovels
and, you know, trying.

And they probably were still
worried that Dr. Frankenstein

will come back and start
the monster up again.

♪ Oh Lord, take me higher ♪

♪ Than a bird can fly ♪

♪ Oh Lord, take me higher ♪

♪ Until I touch the sky ♪

♪ Oh Lord, take me higher ♪

♪ To that sweet bye and bye ♪

♪ Oh Lord, take me higher ♪

♪ Hey, before I die ♪

- Tim got thrown out of every institution

he ever belonged to, including
the United States of America.

And Afghanistan, and
the Black Panther party.

He got thrown out of, you know,

West Point for smuggling
alcohol, I think, right?

- Yeah.
(laughter)

- I think, which everybody
else was doing to, but.

- I was actually thrown out of Holy Cross,

but they let me stay on without leaving

and same thing at West
Point. No, they couldn't,

no, they couldn't throw me out,

but I agreed to resign
if they'd apologize.

And I got thrown out of
the University of Alabama,

we're spending the night
at the girls' dormitory.

(women screaming)

- The Catholic Church never threw him out.

He went away from the Catholic Church.

I mean, I, yeah.

(laughter)

You know, I was with Matthew
Fox, he got thrown out.

- Right, yeah, Long Island.
(laughter)

I said to him, I only got
thrown out of Harvard,

you got thrown out of the Catholic Church.

- Boy that's big time.

- Yeah that's big time stuff.
(laughter)

- I was married for 13
years to Rosemary Woodruff,

who was, we were together at Millbrook,

and she helped me escape from prison,

we were together in Europe and all that.

And she now is spending
a lot of time here.

As a matter of fact, she came,

she was here last week and
she's coming back next week,

so, I'm still in very
close touch with Rosemary.

This is the house decorated by my ex wife,

Barbara who left two years ago.

We were together for 13 years.

And her son, Zach is the young
man that's your host today.

- [Narrator] You're also married to Nina,

Uma Thurman's mother, right?

And there was Joanna,

and your first wife was Marianne, right?

- My deepest love, yes

Yes, we were together again for 11 years.

Yeah.

And she killed herself
on my 35th birthday.

(Somber guitar music)

Huxley predicted how he wanted to die.

And indeed, he did it himself.

And I came to see him
just down the road here at

Mulholland drive in Hollywood,

to bring him a copy of a
book we'd written about it

called "The Tibetan book of the Dying"

and to talk with his wife, Laura,

and then two or three days later,

as she's described in her
book, this timeless moment,

he wrote down LSD and she gave him LSD.

And Dr. Sydney Cohen who
was probably the most famous

worldwide doctor on drugs was there.

And Dr. Cohen from UCLA gave him LSD.

And he gave him also the,

going away pills that allowed him to,

to die in peace and in dignity

the way he had written
about in his own books.

(chiming cymbals)

I consider the, how you die
to be the greatest decision

you make in your life.

We had no choice, after all,

of where and with whom we were born.

You know, you were there in the womb,

and you popped it out and you didn't know

what you're going to find.

And in many of the great
decisions in our life

like marriages or graduations,

it's, you know, social and all that.

But to arrange the greatest
moment of your life,

it should be the going away party,

the graduation celebration.

And I've been planning
it for, for many years.

- [Interviewer] He's
expressed that he's going to

have his body frozen.

- [Richard Alpert] His whole body?

I just thought it was his head.

- [Interviewer] They're just
going to freeze his head?

- That's what I, he
only paid for the head.

I didn't know he was
getting the whole body.

I don't know.
(laughter)

Maybe he's got his whole body.

- [Interviewer] Is it a special deal?

- I mean, I don't know.

I just assumed.

- [Interviewer] Why
would, why would somebody,

why would somebody freeze their head?

- Well, they'd freeze their brain.

He, he's really interested
in freezing his brain.

Isn't he?

I mean, that's what I understand.

Not his body.

- When science has progressed
to position where they can,

for example cure a cancer right away.

They can maybe pop my brain
in a unfortunate person

that the brain, their brain is dead,

but their body's still alive.

It could be a hell realm.

It could be also absolute...

He could be laughing
all the way to the bank

up in heaven and say,

I did it!

I got it, I froze the brain.

Now we'll go, oh,

wait until I show the establishment this.

- But it's probably going
to happen two rooms down,

they'll pickle me, or they'll
put stuff in to keep my,

my dead brain and my dead body alive.

The soul is the key here
because there's an agreement

that the soul is the
essence of an individual

and your consciousness.

And if you study the
dictionary definition of soul,

it's kind of embarrassing.

It's very much like the
dictionary definition of brain.

- All of the history
of all of the mysticism

of religions have all
suggested that who we are

is not our body and who we
are is not our thinking mind.

Timothy's going in the
face of that at the moment.

- [Ralph Metzner] He is!

- He is carrying philosophical materialism

to an exquisite, exquisite
penultimate point.

♪ I wandered barefoot through the Haight ♪

♪ My hair was long and straight ♪

♪ Time out of body out of mind ♪

♪ And if you never see me again ♪

♪ Remember flowers, not guns ♪

♪ And beaded vests and
tattered jeans again ♪

♪ Time out of body out of mind ♪

♪ Probably find the diggers ♪

♪ Probably won't go home ♪

♪ Probably find the pot of gold
and rainbows all the same ♪

♪ It's a psychedelic baby of the mind ♪

♪ A Coney Island baby of the mind ♪

♪ Time out of body out of mind ♪

- It's true, a much higher
percentage of people

in California who have come because

they want something different.

They wanted to do things
they can't do back there.

I see flowers, I listen to flutes.

I see searching young people
who are looking for beauty.

I see joy.

I see no guns.

I see no handcuffs.

I think this is a holy place.

It looks perhaps strange
to the whiskey drinking

middle-class person,
but every new religion,

every new sacrament looks strange.

- He said,

it's my mission to introduce
this drug to the world.

He said it like a general.

If there are a few casualties,

I still have to look
at the larger picture.

- And when he saw those 20, 30,000 people,

at the Human Be-In, it
really affected his mind.

He had a speech prepared,
- Right.

Which he didn't make, and
he looked out at that crowd

and he said, "Turn on, tune in...

- That's right.
"and drop out."

- And you know why you
didn't make that speech?

- Drop out from college,

- Yeah.
Drop out from your jobs,

drop out.

- Right, and that became the mantra!

- Turn on, tune in and drop out.

We're turned on.

And we're tuned in.

And we're very dropped out,

- Turn on, tune in and drop out.

(laughter and applause)

- A mantra is something
is repeated over and over

and causes an effect to take place.

The mantra was turn in, tune on, drop out.

Or, turn on.
(laughter)

Turn on,

- Tune in, and drop out.

- Yeah, that's it.
(laughter)

(peaceful guitar music)

- The establishment, I
don't even like to say that,

but that's essentially what it is.

It was churches, that were
afraid of the new doctrine.

It was politicians that
scared that people were,

were saying that we're not
going to go to Vietnam,

but that was politicians
saying you've got to go.

I mean, you go where we tell you.

There was a whole revolution
going on among the young

saying, no, no, no, no, we,

there's something we can drop out of.

And what we're dropping
out of is your vision

of what this world is all about.

And the reason we're dropping out is,

let us tell you about it.

We've seen the way this world can be

when you see it from a higher perspective.

And that, that was what Tim was doing.

- [Male News Person] The
favorite pastimes of the hippies,

besides taking drugs, are
demonstrations and partying,

seminars and groups of discussions.

And they take many trips.

And the trip of the hippies
is generally an unusual one.

- Well, I mean, it's no
secret that the Beatles

took at LSD and they
took LSD very early on

before, you know, in 66, 67,

when Sergeant Pepper's was coming up.

(peaceful mediation music)

- This was a real historic event.

It totally changed the scope
and opened up the pop culture.

- [Interviewer] Did the
Beatles learn about LSD

through Timothy Leary?

- Oh, who didn't at the time?

You know, I think, and, I mean,

the Beatles were definitely
publicly in support

of his cause when it
was happening, you know.

John and Yoko and Tim were always in touch

and the Beatles saw the Maharishi,

that's when I think Tim and John first met

and they did, of course, in 1969 the,

the hotel "Give Peace a Chance."

- Peace.

P E A C E.

P E A C E.

- All we all saying is
give peace a chance,

all we are saying is give peace a chance,

etcetera, etcetera.

♪ All we all saying ♪

♪ Is give peace a chance ♪

♪ That's all were saying ♪

♪ All we all saying ♪

♪ Is give peace a chance ♪

(soft guitar music)

- I mean, these psychedelic drugs

lead to all kinds of things

that turning away from responsibility

one's not always in control
of what they're doing,

their emotions, it's an
illusionary perception.

What we're trying to
teach young people today

is to be in control, to
be a part of the system,

to take responsibility for your action.

I think the whole counter
culture movement of the sixties,

the free spirit "Do
your own Thing" movement

has really been the death
knell of the nineties.

I think we have very,
very profound problems

in this society today and an
abundance of those problems

and the degradation of society
in general can attributed

to drug use because psychedelic
drugs were advocated

back in the sixties, back in
the Woodstock, "Me Generation,"

as let's enlighten ourselves,

let's expand our perceptions and horizons.

This appeal to the
gratification of the senses

lead to a total denial of
personal responsibility

and a moral and spiritual responsibility.

So we're gratifying the
sensual rather than the soul.

- Albert Hoffman was the
discover of lysergic acid.

It wasn't snake oil, it
wasn't phony cancer cures.

It was something that changed
my life for the better

and changed the lives of almost everybody

that I know, who I care about.

(peaceful harmonica music)

- People nowadays talk
about recreational drug use.

Okay, that was, there
was nothing the least bit

recreational about my drug use.

It was not at all recreational.

It's very serious work.

When I was a little kid, I
wanted to be an astronaut.

I wanted to go into space.

And then as I got older,
it just seemed to me like,

if you want to go into space,

the kind of people who go into space are,

like the Firesign Theater said,

people who like to sleep
in tubes and push buttons,

adventurers like you.

So, you know,

it seemed to me like if you
wanted to go into space,

you know, clip off your hair
and follow orders for 20 years.

And the people who, you know,
control space might, you know,

deign to shoot out there.

Taking LSD, it's like space.

It's not easy to get there.

(electronic noises)

You know, these guys
on the way into space,

they suffer G forces, their
faces are all distorted.

They go with the free fall,
and get sick and puke.

They have to go through all this training.

It's difficult.

Eventually you learn how to do it.

That's how it was to me with taking LSD.

I mean, at first you'd
experience all this, you know,

horrific distortion and
pressures and so forth.

And you know, you'd learn to deal with it.

- [Male Interviewer] What
about going out a window

and getting involved with
the sidewalk 12 floors under?

- Well, the hundreds of
thousands people taking LSD,

how many people have done that?

The statistics show that
taking LSD is no more dangerous

than signing up for four year
course at Harvard college,

a certain percentage
of people who do either

are going to get into trouble,

but there's no scientific
evidence that LSD causes any such.

- [Male Interviewer] Any
distortion of the sort of root

to say suicide statistic or the root?

- Or mental hospital commitment.

- [Male Interviewer]
Mental hospital commitment.

- There's no evidence.

- People like Timothy Leary who were in,

in somewhat positions
of power and authority

who advocated the use of drugs.

I mean are 10 times worse than
the drug dealer on the street

because the drug dealer on the street,

Hey, you want to buy it?

I'll sell it to you.

He's not out there espousing
and advocating the use of drugs

to enhance one's, one's mind perceptions.

- I just believe it's
the way of our system.

It's the way it works.

You know, when people come
to stand for something

that's against the system, they're just,

they get shitted on.

- [Timothy Leary] Turn
on, tune in and drop out.

You can't say that, they tell me.

But what I am saying happens to be

the oldest message of human wisdom.

Look within, find your own divinity,

detach yourself from social
and material struggle.

Turn on, tune in and drop out.

- Leary terrified an entire
generation of parents.

I mean, he wanted, they
wanted all their kids

to get the same kind of education

that Leary himself had had.

Parents wanted their kids to be PhDs.

I mean, Leary after all was a PhD himself.

The psychedelic experience
was a very grand one.

It was almost, it was on one level,

almost too easy to come by.

Like, why work so hard

if you can have a vision
just by taking a pill?

He did present a lot of
temptations to a lot of people

that were very hard to resist.

But most of the people I knew

who spent a year or two
completely tripped out,

one's a doctor, one's a
lawyer, one's a judge.

- Sure, people turned on,
tuned in and dropped out.

And then they turned on
and tuned in and took over.

(electronic music)

(suspenseful music)

- He came from a pod of protection

and it was inevitable
that he would get busted.

- Well yeah, it was for
possession of a two roaches

of marijuana that were found in an ashtray

of a car by a cop

who was notorious for planting.

You know, all this stuff about
the OJ trial and planting.

Wow, I sure learned a lot about
the agricultural tendencies

of cops to plant, plant, plant.

- [News Announcer] Marijuana
cigarettes are called joints.

One that has been partly
smoked is called a roach.

Note this burned hotspot in the paper

Unrefined marijuana called
unmanicured often contains seeds.

Marijuana seeds burn very
hot, often exploding,

like tiny bombs through the paper.

These bomb craters are clearly visible,

even at a distance to
those who use their eyes.

- The roach or the LSD thing is that,

all that is, is a,

the excuse because in the society,

because of our enlightened
constitution and bill of rights,

you cannot persecute someone
for the way they think.

- Many of us feel that
the current marijuana laws

are not only unconstitutional,

but extremely severe.

And these laws are going to be tested

in my appeal to higher court.

- He wasn't put in jail until he announced

he was going to be governor.

And that's when they started
the heavy surveillance

on Tim and want to put him away.

- While he was running for governor,

suddenly his bail was revoked

and he was running against Ronald Reagan.

- I've never been legitimately arrested.

I'm in prison now because one
evening I was in a parked car

and a policeman came up to
the car and opened the door

against my wishes and made a
pass at the ashtray and said,

you're under arrest for,
and I said, for what?

He said, for marijuana!

I said, what marijuana?
He reached in his pocket.

He pulled out two joints
that I'd never seen before

half joints and said, you're under arrest.

A year later, in Orange
County, you know Orange County

jury believed the policeman's story

and found me guilty of
possession of marijuana.

And then the judge,
instead of giving me bail

as I was entitled to for appeal,

help up a book that I had
been writing and said,

"Your ideas are dangerous

and we're not going to give you bail.

We're going to put you in
prison to keep you quiet."

- The old charge, the same charge

that was made against Socrates
of corrupting the youth.

And that's why Leary was considered

the most dangerous men alive,

for the same reason Socrates was.

- When Nixon called me the
most dangerous man alive.

Wonderful.

Wouldn't you want to have

someone like Nixon call you that?

- [Interviewer] Did he say
the most dangerous man alive,

or the most dangerous man in America?

- Oh who cares!
(Laughter)

- [Interviewer] I just wondered, you know?

- The most dangerous
man he could think of.

Oh he includes all Democrats
in that too, doesn't he.

When Nixon got involved
then we had hard times

and we couldn't do what we were doing.

Damn, right?

It was a joke.

At one point I was involved
in four or five legal criminal

things happening with posses

and informers and, and FBI teams.

So definitely we could not
sit around in the forest

and meditate by the waterfall.

Hell, we were out there like
any other persecuted group.

(lighter flicks and water bubbles)

- What, baby?

Hey it's catching me.

Yeah, caught.

(somber guitar music)

- [Prison Interviewer] What
are you doing in prison?

What do you do on a day by day basis?

- I have no trouble keeping myself alert.

There's plenty to do here.

The main thing doing is taking advantage

of this opportunity to study society

from this very interesting vantage point.

I'm talking to prisoners,
I'm listening to them.

I'm doing some writing.

My literary career zoomed
when they put me in prison.

I had no rent to pay and
I had no job to report to.

I had no family situation.

Didn't have to produce
erections and orgasm.

You know, no phones.

I was free to read and write.

It's been known throughout
centuries by philosophers

that reading can best be done in a prison.

- Its a description of
the early acid trips

that defined the whole way
people think about LSD.

- Politics of Ecstasy that you published.

- These are the political writings

that sparked the whole rebellious sixties.

Now, Timothy is no longer
just an agent provocateur.

He is really a historical
figure that has had an impact.

So now we're not just looking at him

as an immediate threat
to the Establishment.

Now we're looking at him as
someone who really engendered

many of the ideas that are
becoming the Establishment ideas.

- [Jail Interviewer]
Timothy, what, what happened

when they put you in jail?

I want to compare it to what
happened to Solzhenitsyn.

- You're gonna drag out of
your dusty attic of memories.

What are you going to
drag out to compare my?

- [Jail Interviewer] Solzhenitsyn.

Oh, we're digging around
in the library now, yeah.

- [Jail Interviewer]
Mandela, Nelson Mandela.

- I would say that
Solzhenitsyn is not a victim

and he would take out his cane
and he would shake it at you

if you implied that he was a victim.

Solzhenitsyn said when he was
in the bowels of the Gulag.

He had something like 500
years of prison stacked on him.

And those Russian prisons are not

like a prison farm here in California.

Solzhen said one writer can
bring down a country, one poet,

one song, one catch
phrase, one bumper sticker,

one graffiti can bring down a country.

He said that over and over again.

- [Prison Interviewer] What
do you think of your future?

Do you think you're going
to walk out of prison

a free man one day?

- I think my future is
very intimately connected

with the future of this country.

You just can't keep your
philosophers in prison.

If I am kept in prison,

it's going to be a very
bad symptom for freedom

and for hope and for union.

In a way I'm a spokesman
for millions of Americans.

And how are you going to
bring the country together,

if you're going to be locking up

people that are saying things
that many people believe in.

At that point, I realized
the only sensible thing to do

was to escape.

So I went to the reception center

where you have to take tests,

and on the basis of the tests,

they decide where they're
going to send you.

And when I went to take the test,

there was a Mexican
American convict there.

He was a trustee and he said, Hey, Doc,

you're going to laugh, but
the test I'm gonna give you

are the one that you designed.

Cause I did design a test
for the California system.

(upbeat music)

- The fact that he escaped from prison.

- [Interviewer] Yeah.
- Now that's big stuff,

- [Interviewer] That's big stuff.

- That's big stuff.

That's, you know, that's mythic.

- I had to walk at night
across the prison yard

and climb on top of a tree
to get on top of the roof

and go across the roof.

Where the telephone cable was going out

to the gate and I had
to shimmy across this.

I'd been doing pushups
like for three months

and I was in, but halfway across,

I realized I couldn't do it,

but I want to say that we all know

what the human body spirit
has resources there.

I broke Olympic records
at the age of fifty.

- No man, I don't think
I really can fathom

the idea of climbing
over barbed wire fence

and dodging gun trucks,
dodging searchlights.

- Well, I went underground
in this country,

got a fake passport and then
I shaved off all my hair,

so, and I wore glasses and I
was a Republican businessman

named McClellan.

I mean really it's embarrassing, but the,

the Senate committee on passport fraud

used my pictures as an
example of how skillful

the fraud could be.

- [Prison Interviewer] And
then you went on to Algiers.

- Uh huh.

- [Prison Interviewer]
You lived over there

with Eldridge Cleaver.

And what can you tell me
about Eldridge Cleaver?

What kind of a man is he?

There was a big rift there

after you'd lived there for a while.

- Eldridge Cleaver and I
disagreed strongly on philosophy.

And I remember my birthday,
October 22nd, 1970.

Eldridge gave me a gun.

I looked at it and then when he went home,

he took the gun with him.

But it's the only time
I've ever had a gun.

I believe that the revolution
is a neurological revolution.

It's a revolution of consciousness.

I think our weapons are
electronic, in the media.

I saw it more as a spiritual revolution.

Eldridge, as you probably know,

believed in a violent military revolution.

And I felt that this was old fashioned

and would get easily wiped out

and create bad vibrations where
we wanted good vibrations.

He actually kidnapped my
wife and I at one point.

And then the government
came in and said, listen.

The wonderful thing, the, the
assistant foreign secretary

of the Algerian government
said to Cleaver,

this is not Texas Mr. Cleaver.

You cannot arrest citizens in
our country, and we decide.

It was, it was all kind of
drama and bad "B" movie.

Well, I actually had escaped Algeria

and went to Switzerland
and I was supposed to,

go to Denmark, but I
jumped plane in Geneva

and the Swiss are wonderful about asylum.

I went to Zurich at the
same place where James Joyce

was in asylum and where
Lenin was in asylum.

At one point, anyone
that was having trouble

with their government could
escape and go to Switzerland.

As long as you had the money.

One thing about, don't go to Switzerland

unless you've got a credit
card, but if you have that,

it's a very civilized country.

And, but after a year and a half,

I love Switzerland.

They're wonderful people, but it's boring.

And outside of the ski
resorts and whatnot,

so I had to get out.

I made reservations to go to

seven or eight different
African countries.

And I found out that at the
time I supposed to come,

there were CIA squads
waiting for me to come.

I made a mistake.

I got off the plane in Afghanistan

and the Afghanistan
government had just become

part of the American foreign policy.

And so they kidnapped me and sent me back.

And then it was, boom,
prison, prison, prison.

I went to the real heavy
duty places like Folsom

That's the Harvard of
the California system,

Folsom's where the old time
professional criminals go.

When they put me in the
cell next to Manson,

they were doing it out of a game,

and they just kept me there
for three or four days.

And then they let me out.

- [Interviewer] Was there any contact

between you and Manson at that point?

- He was talking to me all the time.

Give me advice, telling me what to do,

where I made mistakes.

I never felt any bitterness or any fear.

I knew that I was prominent enough

that they weren't going to
kill me or gouge my eyes out.

But boy, those guys really,

they can throw it at you if they want to.

I had about 60 or 70 years, on appeal.

- [Interviewer] My gosh.

And I knew it was all going to end

when the Democrats came in power.

And I remember exactly where
I was, within three months,

I was out of the
California criminal thing.

- [Female News Announcer]
Paroled, Leary adapted

to the next decade like
a psychedelic chameleon,

hitting the college lecture circuit.

(upbeat piano music)

- Two years ago, Leary
surfaced into prominence again

by lighting up to smoke at
the Austin, Texas airport.

It was a protest against the smoking ban.

He was promptly arrested.

(upbeat piano and cymbals)

- Well, I've been through several taboos.

We had a taboo about sex.

When I grew up as a kid,
you couldn't talk about sex.

You know, it was really hard to understand

the sexual revolution, the
drug revolution before the 60s.

Doctors had drugs.

I mean, you had to have
diseases for drugs.

And the idea that
chemicals, neuro-chemicals

could be used by intelligent
people, trained to,

to learn how to operate their brain.

That was a big taboo, big taboo.

- Your daughter is a psychopathic case.

She is on the verge of insanity.

She has marked symptoms of drug addiction.

And I firmly believe she
has been using marijuana.

- [Woman] Margarie, Margarie!

(woman screams)

- With marijuana, the element
that gets your high is THC.

We tell the young people

that it also destroys your brain cells.

Now, I don't know, from what I'm seeing

of the young people today, in many cases,

there's a lot of problems
academically with these people.

They don't need to destroy what,

what brain cells they have left.

- I wasn't allowed to smoke grass publicly

in front of my parents
until I was 15, yeah.

The LSD movement today, I
think is very alive and well.

- Hey man, hey man, tell me
where's the rave happening?

- I don't know.

- [Woman On Street] Do you know
where we could get tickets?

Sexy.
(laughter)

- [Man Looking For Rave] Whoa!

- Parents that don't have
the parenting control

that they did when I was a kid.

So they have these rave parties
and it's all underground.

They'll get dope.

They'll pass out flyers.

And they hold it in different locations.

Maybe every week, every month,

wherever they're going to do it,

where they all get loaded with drugs.

And the music is indicative
of violence as well.

Many of the times they'll bash each other.

They'll fight with each other.

And they'll actually
flagellate themselves.

- Basic difference (women laughing)

I think between like,

this generation and our generation

(man grumbling)
is the drugs, you know?

Beause back then there was acid

and mushrooms and psychedelics, and now,

- There's coke and crank
and everything's so.

- But it's not to the extent now,

I mean, it's not just,

- So young, you know?
(man hushes)

- Like crack and crank and, you know, PCP.

It's so much more deadly now.

It's scary, you know, but I
think that's what people like.

I think just that living
on the edge like that.

(dramatic piano music)

- I don't care, I'm a
friend of lizard king.

(man laughs)
I don't care.

- Now, of course, drugs are everywhere.

The number one foreign policy

of American government is drug policy.

But, and now the attitudes towards death,

I think the final taboo,
maybe DNA is going to be

the next one in about 30, 40 years.

We start tinkering around with the DNA,

but I don't even want to think about that.

I've got enough trouble
here, but death is the taboo

and I'm going to explore this turf,

and I'm going to hopefully

send back messages as to what I find,

and then I'll make a lot of mistakes.

And the great thing about science

is that people learn
more from the mistakes

than they do from the
predictions that come true.

♪ Pink and blue, green and red ♪

♪ All these colors
running around my head ♪

♪ On the table there's a head ♪

♪ Oh my God, Tim Leary's dead ♪

(soulful guitar music)

- The time has come for you
to seek new levels of reality.

Your ego and your name
game are about to cease.

You're about to be set face
to face with The Clear Light.

That was John Lennon.

Yeah, told me that when he was taking LSD

they read this to him.

What bullshit is that about?

About, you know, naked, spotless,

intellect is like a transparent
vacuum and he was right.

Poetic babble.

- [Interviewer] If you said to
a mistake, for example, that,

- You're never mystic for more than five,

- [Interviewer] Five minutes.

- Five minutes, yeah.

- [Interviewer] But a
man sitting on a mountain

in a state of, of fasting.

- That's bullshit.

- That's bullshit?

Total bullshit?

- Well, people do that.

I mean they climb,

- They don't get the same consciousness,

- They climb up flagpoles in America.

- I don't think that

Tim is really on a
spiritual path actually,

to tell you the truth.

- I don't think he's a mystic.

- [Interviewer] He's not a mystic?

- I don't think so.

- He's never had a spiritual teacher.

He's never been able to take anybody

as a spiritual teacher.

- He's never done any real practices

other than taking chemicals and thinking.

- [Interviewer] Well, what about the idea

that there's a unity beneath it all?

Well, I say beneath, not beneath!

It's around!

You use the metaphor then of hierarchy.

That what is what is beneath,

see, you got to go up like that,

see, the hierarchical mode is useful...

- [Interviewer] Well, well, it's like

the layers of an onion,
what's inside the onion,

- Oh, so now the human soul's

like an onion!

Ha ha ha!
(clapping)

Well, that's wonderful.

50 billion years, we've evolved
to have brains like onions,

with all these things we peel off,

(laughter)

I'm getting hungry.
(laughter)

Let's have sliced brains and mushrooms,

I'm being silly, but why not?

(old time parade music)

- If you're going to freeze
after clinical death,

it seems to meet your freezing meat.

- [Interviewer] What happens

if we're contacted by extra terrestrials?

What's the scenario then?

Well, if we're contacted
by extraterrestrials,

of course, number one, who knows?

And it raises some interesting questions.

Why would a self-respecting species

on some star system up there
that has evolved to the extent

they can package bodies, send
them 20 million light years.

Why would they come to a small little

swampy planet like this?

It's the third stone from the sun.

And we're way out.

It kinda boggles my mind.

You know, a lot of the
lovely middle-aged ladies

in the Midwest are talking
about being abducted

and sexually molested
by extraterrestrials.

Why would an intelligent space person

come all the way down to Iowa

and kidnap a 70 year old grandmother to,

to abuse her sexually?

I mean, it boggles my mind.
(laughter)

- [Interviewer] To take her DNA.

To play with it.
(laughter)

But, yeah, that's something else, yeah.

They don't have to fuck her though.

(woman screams)

But she wants to be fucked, right?

(woman screaming)

(old timey parade music)

(woman laughs)

- You know a fried egg?

Your brain is like fried egg?

- Yeah, yeah.

(laughter)

Over easy, lightly.
(laughter)

Over easy, lightly.

- Scrambled?

So would your brain be fried or poached?

Boiled?

- Fresh.

- Fresh.

- Country fresh.

(soulful music)

- In August, all this
terrible stuff happened.

The first thing was that we got the news

that Jerry Garcia had died, you know?

And then I got the news Leary is dying.

And I'm like, oh my God,
this is so terrible.

I just felt really hammered.

And then somewhere I saw a news item

that said, Leary says, he's
thrilled that he's dying.

First, it was just like
a smack in the face.

And then after about
one second, I just went,

thank God for this man.

Here's the guy who's a
public figure who is wise.

He's seen through, he's lived a long life.

He's done so many great
things, he's going "I'm dying."

"I'm excited."

"What do you think is
out there, you know?"

"I'm going to get to find out."

(laughter)

(relaxing guitar music)

- Well, you know, there was in seventies,

this very popular Moody Blues song,

and there was a line in it,

Timothy Leary's dead.

And I was very surprised when I found out

that Timothy Leary really hates that line,

just grates on him.

And I guess it's because
he felt that somehow

he was over with, he was done
with, and of course he wasn't,

he recreated himself and,

and reinvented himself with a cyberpunk

and as a futurist.

♪ Timothy Leary's dead ♪

♪ No, no, he's outside ♪

♪ Looking in ♪

- I don't basically care whether
I come back again or not.

I've lived the most exciting
life of anyone I know of,

and I wouldn't mind a few
million years just sacking out.

- With this cryonic capsule.

We shall freeze ourselves and reawaken

40 years in the future.

- Ye gad, Brain!

What will we do in the future?

- I don't know yet, Pinky,

but it has to be better
than what we're doing now.

- Timothy said a few years
ago that getting your,

that having yourself cryonically frozen

was the second stupidest
idea he'd ever heard.

Letting the worms get you
was the first stupidest idea.

- The brain simply needs
a very small number of,

of chemicals like oxygen and calcium.

I'm going to find exactly
what the brain needs

because the most exciting
moment in my life,

and I think could be for any of our lives,

the time when your heart stops beating,

boom, your body's gone,
but your brain can usually

stay alive for two to five minutes,

and it's possible to keep your
brain alive for more time.

And that, that unknown territory
between the end of the body

and the final hookup of the brain

is the most exciting
turf, terrain, period,

I think, in life because of,

we all want to know
what's going to happen.

- From the very beginning,

I have told the cryonics people,

starting with Robert Edinger
who founded the movement

in 1964, that it was
impossible to freeze anybody

at the present time or their
head at the present time

and bring them back
sometime in the future.

That's zero possibility.

- I am keeping my "soul" alive

through cryonics,

freezing my brain,
possibly freezing my body.

They're going to be at least 50 or more,

little vials around
the world with my blood

so that they can go in and
do a DNA resuscitation.

- [Journalist] Do you have any sense

that when he might want to
wake up, you know, some,

some point in time, is there,

does he have a favorite kind of scenario?

- Not, not during a
Republican administration.

(fast paced piano music)

- [Interviewer] He thinks
that he can be brought back

in maybe a hundred or a thousand years.

- If you had just paid so much
to have your brain frozen,

wouldn't you?

- If I were to freeze this brain today,

bruising it with dimethyl sulphoxide

and ringer solution say 15% DMSO,

you would have a perfectly preserved brain

a thousand years from now,

but there'd be no possibility
of bringing this brain back.

And I told Leary several
times over the years,

knowing that he wanted to have

cryogenic preservation
of his head, I says,

well, I just don't think
that it will ever be possible

for you to be brought back.

- In some way, Timothy identifies
with his thinking brain

and assumes that that vehicle
is a very highly articulated

and evolved vehicle that has carried

a lot of information here.

And there will come a time when technology

will allow him

to retain his "himness"

the way he knows himself

through this constellation
of biochemical circuitry

and function in maybe a nice
solution or maybe in somebody,

in a body of a young somebody or other,

and do it all over again
with, with Timothy's brain,

you know, and Timothy will
say, wow, here I am in this.

You know, he sort of like
changing from a Ford, you know,

and then buying a new car.

- The concept of the human body as a car

and that the human brain or
the soul uses it drive around,

that's, that's Buddhism, that's Hinduism!

That's the fact that the body's a vehicle

to take your brain around where
your brain wants you to go.

- I don't know anybody else in the world

that can move in and out of
their body like you though.

You actually were moving
in and out of your body.

- Well, anyone that's ever had
a hallucinogenic experience

or anyone that's taken any good dope.

(laughter)
Come on.

- So you're referring to like,

- 30 million people that
right now in America,

that they get home and they take a toke.

- Turn on the ignition and,

- Wow, vroom!

- Going around the block a few times.

- Clear the runway, I'm taking off, vroom!

- I hope that Timothy Leary,

if he's reconstituted in the future,

will be just as much of a troublemaker,

as he wasn't in this century.

I love him for that.

I forgive everything
else for that, because,

it's beautiful to be a
troublemaker in this century

because it's a very troubled century.

- If we pay him, if there is
an inducement of any kind,

any, any payment, any
check that we pay him,

then they could argue that
we paid Leary an inducement

for him to commit suicide on camera.

Paul, are you there?

The felony murder rule.

- I mean, this is, this is like Kevorkian.

- [Zach] Hey.
Isn't it?

- [Zach] How're you doing?
- Hey Zack, welcome.

He's in Michigan.

- Is someone going to
take care of the taxi?

- [Todd Mills] Oh yeah, yeah,
yeah, here, could you just,

- He's going to come back for me too.

- [Todd Mills] Let's see,
how much is it, do you know?

- It's $40.

- [Paul Davids] They all have,

they all have legal
culpability, don't they?

- I need a 20 bucks, for the cab driver.

- Right.

- Are you guys accomplices?

Are you murderers?

- [Todd Mills] Well, there's going to be

an attending physician.

- Yes.

- So he's going to be highly compromised

if he's involved in the,

he's going to be on camera.

- Correct.

- Is it going to be Kevorkian?

- No.

- It's a physician that doesn't mind

showing his face doing
this, and, you know,

potentially jeopardizing his
license to practice medicine?

- Yes.

- Is he going to do the neurological style

or the full body?

- Neurological.

- So that means his head

- Head.
Has to be moved.

- Head, right.

- Head and spine?

- No, just head.

- They don't remove the spinal cord?

- I mean, just the bottom,
the bottom of the vertebrae.

Yeah, just from here, the neck up.

- It's the back of the neck.

- Mm hm.

(Old time jazz music)

- See, quantum physics
gave us the real term

to describe what happens when you take a,

a powerful psychedelic plant or drug.

Chaos, chaos, everyone, all
the physicists say now chaos

is the basic nature of the universe.

Chaos of course is

extreme complexity that the human mind

can't understand right now.

And the fun of existence is to
keep taking different pieces

of the chaos and learning
how to deal with the chaos.

You can't change it but you can surf it.

I like the idea of surfing
the waves of chaos.

(electronic noises)

♪ I'm surfing the chaos ♪

♪ Riding the wave in my mind ♪

♪ Surfing the chaos ♪

♪ It's spring cleaning time ♪

Sugar cubes ain't for babies,
Mr. Natural blows my mind

♪ I ain't seen a better sunset ♪

♪ Since I dropped some orange sunshine ♪

- We're all fucking confused

I'm fucking confused, man.

We're confused!

I'm so fucking confused, man.

It's all chaos.

Please, man, I'm surfing the
chaos like you told me to,

I can't handle it no more.

Don't leave me now.

Don't die on us.

Don't die on us.

Don't die on us.

(peaceful piano music)

- [Interviewer] Negative LSD Takes Users

on Trip to Nowhere.

But if you read it right, it's "Now Here."

(laughter)

- If you extricate yourself
from the structures

of your own mind, you really are,

I guess, surfing with chaos.

I guess that's one way of looking at it.

(birds chirping)

(soulful guitar music)

- Well, there's the terrible
sadness that you feel.

And then,

In the case of my daughter,

she wanted to have her organs donated

so that there was a lot
of midnight paperwork.

Because it was a Catholic hospital,

and Catholic hospitals don't like anything

that allows the individual to decide.

The Catholic Church is
against birth control,

it's against abortion,

it's against even donating your organs.

They belong God.

And so it took a lot of time to,

I don't know if this
answers your question,

but it's a deeply moving experience.

Didn't he make it sound like
I have cancer of the leg?

And of course it's gonna be,

they're gonna have to take a bunch of skin

off of my leg here and put it over here.

I won't be able to walk
for what, a couple days?

(peaceful piano music)

There are probably a billion human beings,

that would love to watch me die as slowly

and as painfully as possible.

All of them Republicans and Communists.

- [Todd Mills] Would you like
to record that for posterity?

- What, what?

- [Interviewer] Would
you like to record that

for the future?

- Record what?

- Your death.

I mean, you've always said,

- I've just explained to you, my death,

it's going to be recorded,
it's going to be,

yeah, it's going to be,
probably on the world wide web.

- [Todd Mills] Oh, live?

(laughter)

- Part of the time,

(laughter)
I can't

- Part of the time.

- It's going to start off live

and with any luck we'll have a final cut.

(laughter)

They can move on to a post production.

("Timothy Leary's Dead" plays)

♪ Timothy Leary's Dead ♪

♪ No, no, no, no he's outside looking in ♪

♪ Timothy Leary's Dead ♪

♪ No, no, no, no he's outside looking in ♪

♪ He'll fly his astral plane ♪

♪ Take some trips around the bay ♪

♪ Brings you back the same day ♪

♪ Timothy Leary ♪

♪ Timothy Leary ♪

(instrumental)

♪ Timothy Leary's Dead ♪

♪ No, no, no, no he's outside looking in ♪

♪ Timothy Leary's Dead ♪

♪ No, no, no, no he's outside looking in ♪

♪ He'll fly his astral plane ♪

♪ Take some trips around the bay ♪

♪ Brings you back the same day ♪

♪ Timothy Leary ♪

♪ Timothy Leary ♪

(instrumental)

♪ He'll take you up,
he'll bring you down ♪

♪ He'll plant your feet
back on the ground ♪

♪ He flies so high, he swoops so low ♪

♪ Timothy Leary ♪

♪ He'll fly his astral plane ♪

♪ He'll take some trips around the bay ♪

♪ He'll bring you back the same day ♪

♪ Timothy Leary ♪

♪ Timothy Leary ♪

♪ Timothy Leary ♪

♪ Timothy Leary ♪

♪ Timothy Leary ♪

♪ Timothy Leary ♪

Am I insane?
(song continues to play)

Of course that's a very tricky question

for anyone to answer.

I've lived through the
thirties and forties

and fifties and the sixties.

I don't think anyone who
still erect after those years

has had his sanity tested.

Am I insane?

I think on the strongest
sanest person around.

- [Head Caster] I'm very
pleased to meet you.

What we're doing now,

- [Timothy Leary] Thank you,
this is a new experience.

- [Head Caster] I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

Applying a bald cap first,

just so we don't get some
material in your hair.

It's algenate, which is a
material that dentists use

when they make the
impressions of your mouth

and doesn't stick to skin or hair.

- Unbelievable that this is on TV.

- There are two steps.

We're going to apply the algenate
first, once that sets up,

which just takes a few moments,

we're going to apply plaster bandage,

which is what broken bones are cast with,

which is a rigid material,
the algenate is soft.

- [Timothy Leary] Oh,
that's my, oh, my favorite.

That's a greatest scene in
movie history, I love that.

My boyfriend in Macardo said

you're supposed to take care of me

and do what I tell you to do?

See that, I want to dance.

I wanted to win that dance with you.

And I want that cup, got it?

Just like, what a scene!

- [Head Caster] So you'll only
be under for about 15 or 20

minutes at the very most.

(soothing piano music)

Great, just relax.

- [Timothy Leary] A new
experience, I'll tell you.

I've been to some of the
most expensive whorehouses

in Bombay and Calcutta
but nothing like this.

- [Head Caster] Nothing compares to this.

- [Timothy Leary] Do you
use plastic caulking?

- [Head Caster] Well no, were
not caulk specialists, but,

- You know the plastic cock, uh,

- [Head Caster] Caulking?

- In the 1960s, there was a bunch of,

- [Assistant Caster] Plaster casters?

- Yeah.

- Oh the plaster casters!

I know of them, yes.

- [Interviewer] Hendrix was a caster?

- [Timothy Leary] Yeah, well,
you had all these rock stars.

I won't name their names.

But white ones, but when (indistinct)

Hendrix was like this.

(laughter)

- [Interviewer] You look like the mummy.

This is so fantastic, wow.

(men mumble to one another)

- [Head Caster] 92 wives.

Ramses the Third had 3000.

(Timothy grunts in surprise)

Probably about four minutes.

- [Assistant Caster] That set up on you?

- [Head Caster] Set up will
be about two more minutes.

And then we'll try to take it off.

Thank you very much.

Give us some resistance, you
can kinda pull yourself out.

Pull back against it.

Here it comes, slowly, easy.

(Timothy grunts)

Rebirth.

Reanimation.

Very nice, how are you?

- Woo ahhh.

- Perfect, now we can clean you up.

(peaceful piano music)

♪ Pink and blue, green and red ♪

♪ Oh my God, Tim Leary's dead ♪

♪ Hug the mountains, kiss the sky ♪

♪ Old Tim Leary got way too high ♪

(guitar instrumental)

- That's a good place to stop, huh?

(choking noise)
Cut, cut!

(laughter)