Who is Timothy Leary

Accoring to Timothy Leary's archivist Michael Horrowitz,

The Leary Archive, stored in more than 300 boxes, contains scores of manuscripts and thousands of letters (both to and from Leary), mixed with thousands of miscellaneous printed and ephemeral pieces.

The Leary Archive is extraordinarily deep and rich in materials representing every aspect of Timothy Leary's varied career as West Point cadet, psychologist, psychedelic drug researcher, teacher and lecturer, activist philosopher, political dissident, generational icon, sloganeer, man-of-letters, gubernatorial candidate, prison convict, escapee and exile, stand-up comedian/philosopher, personal computer advocate, mixed media performer, and author of more than 30 books and nearly 400 research papers, articles, and interviews.

This website aims to make many of these items to the public as would be the wishes of Dr. Tim.

The Leary Archives Webites

Remembering Timothy Leary by Brenad Laura The San Francisco Chronicle on May 31, 1996. Excerpt Follows

I first met Timothy Leary when I was a producer at Activision, trying to keep up with his wildly complex ideas about a videogame based on cinema and interpersonal psychology. On my first trip down to LA to work with him he met me at the airport, striding down the concourse dressed in white pants, a white sweater, white sneakers and white hair, and whisked me off in an old pea-green Mercedes with broken seat belts. (The second time I came down I had to call him from the airport for directions. "Get to the Beverly Hilton," he said, "and then you just come whirling and swirling up the hill.") There were always dozens of people at Tim's house - mostly young, sometimes famous, always burning with energy and fiercely fond of the old man. At the end of that first hard day's work, Tim broke some brownies out of the freezer. "Dr. Leary," I said, "are those, uh, marijuana brownies?" He looked at me in mock astonishment. "I'm Timothy Leary," he explained.

But Timothy Leary didn't die of split chromosomes, marijuana lungs, or incurable drug-induced insanity. He died of an old man's disease, just plain old prostate cancer. He also drank too much alcohol and smoked too many cigarettes. He went to West Point, did you know that? - and built a patio on his house in Berkeley in the 50s with his own hands, for the kids to play on. Eerily standard American stuff.

Joi Ito Remembers Timothy Leary in a post on his blog
10 years since Timothy Leary's death May 31, 2006. Here is an excerpt.

I met Timothy Leary in Tokyo in the summer of 1990. Tim was excited about virtual reality and had told his friend David Kubiak in Kyoto to help him track down "young Japanese kids who know about virtual reality". I wasn't a VR expert, but I was into computer graphics, games and the rave/club scene. I had also just opened a nightclub in Tokyo. David, who lived in Kyoto, directed Tim to me and several others in Tokyo and we hooked up with him at a bar.

I hijacked the situation. After dinner I grabbed Tim and took him on a whirlwind tour of the Tokyo club scene. His visit happened to coincide with the time in my life when I was more tuned in to the Tokyo club scene than any other time in my life being the operator of one of the weirder nightclubs in Tokyo. I tried to explain how the Japanese youth were interpreting the rave and cyberpunk cultures. Tim got excited and we continued our dialog. He called these new funky Japanese kids "The New Breed". He changed the "tune in, turn on, drop out" to "tune in, turn on, take over." We talked a lot about neoteny, the retention of child-like attributes in adulthood, which he felt was exhibited in the culture of the Japanese youth at the time.

When I met Tim, I had been exposed to a lot of his work through his early writings and through the writings of people like Robert Anton Wilson. When I asked him whether he had actually talked to aliens as Robert Anton Wilson says in Cosmic Trigger, Tim explained that it was all a joke. A big joke. All that stuff about magic numbers and talking to aliens was a joke. Tim had an interesting relationship with the New Age culture that he helped create in the 60's but his interests had moved on to cyberspace and the next generation of youth. Tim was practical and analytical while also being an amazing performer and communicator. Above all, he was almost always very funny. He called himself a "performing philosopher."

When my mother moved to Los Angeles and I decided to base myself partially out of LA, Tim picked us up at the airport in LA and immediately threw a party for us at his home in Beverly Hills. That weekend, he insisted that we (mom, sister and myself) drive with him to San Francisco so he could introduce us to his friends there. He called Queen Mu, the publisher of Mondo 2000 and asked them to organize a party at the Mondo house. At that party, my sister met Scott Fisher, who she eventually married. We also met Mark Pauline of Survival Research Labs and probably 80% of the people I know in San Francisco. I have a feeling I might have met John Perry Barlow there as well. Tim also took me to the offices of The Well and introduced me to Stewart Brand. In one week, Tim had introduced us to his amazing network and had "plugged us in". I would not be where I am today if it were not for Tim's generosity in making his entire network available to us.

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