Power to the Pupil!
An Interview with Timothy Leary
By Cat Saunders
Editor's Note: Timothy Leary was born on October 22nd, 1920. He finally made that old pop song come true ("Timothy Leary is dead") on May 31st, 1996. The following interview took place in late 1991.
Leary began his career at the age of 20 when he entered West Point, going on to serve six years in the Army. Following discharge, he earned his master's and doctorate degrees and gained wide respect for his extensive professional writings. In 1959, Leary was appointed to the Harvard faculty and there began clinical research of psychedelic drugs, working with such collaborators as Aldous Huxley, R.D. Laing, Richard Alpert (Ram Dass) and Allen Ginsberg.
Although LSD was legal until 1966, Leary was fired from Harvard in 1963 because of the public impact of his work (the official reason was that he missed some scheduled lectures). The dismissal turned him into a sort of cult hero for the new generation at the same time it made him a target for harassment by "The Establishment."
Leary's writing, traveling and lecturing continued until a series of minor drug arrests landed him a ten-year prison sentence in 1970 for possession of less than one-half ounce of marijuana. By pretending to be a model prisoner, Leary escaped nine months later with the help of the Weather Underground.
He received political asylum in Algeria, but Eldridge Cleaver proved to be a difficult host, so Leary escaped his clutches as well, wandering around Europe until 1973 when he was captured by DEA agents in Afghanistan. He was sent to Folsom Prison where, for a time, he occupied a cell next to Charles Manson. During the '70s, when the deception of the Nixon administration surfaced with the Watergate break-in, Leary's sentences were reviewed and finally, in 1976, he was paroled.
Now living in the Hollywood Hills with his wife, Barbara, Leary is involved in the electronic revolution—designing software to return the "power of the screen" to the hands of the individual. With more than 25 books and monographs to his name as well as hundreds of articles and interviews in every kind of magazine, Leary's present ambition is to become the "most valuable philosopher" of the 20th century. With a life as illustrious as his, he no doubt has the guts and the credentials to play that role.
Cat: What do you think your most important contribution has been?
Timothy: I've been around for 40 years surfing the waves of human change, all of which have something to do with empowering the individual. I've been a cheerleader of sorts, encouraging people to take advantage of the available technologies for controlling your own mind.
The first revolution in the 1950s was the psychology that you can change your own mind. We had to wrest that power away from the psychiatrists and the medical profession. Then in the 1960s, we experimented with the power to self-medicate and change your own brain—to hook up new circuits on your own biocomputer. We had to take control of psychoactive drugs away from the State and the medical profession in order to give people—adult individuals—pro-choice on that matter.
Then in the 1970s, I was involved in political changes. These political changes were not about partisan politics. We weren't trying to overthrow one party to put in another. Instead it was the politics of the individual which came to the forefront. We've seen these changes played out in this country first and then later in Europe.
In the last ten years, we've been involved in the electronic revolution, in which we're trying to take the power of the screen away from large organizations that control television. And now, in the 1990s, we're involved in developing inexpensive software for the individual to use to control their own screens.
So my major contribution has been to encourage these four revolutions of individual empowerment.
Cat: Would you say more about that last one, about taking back control of the individual's screens?
Timothy: Ninety-five percent of the American people are happy that we won a big war in the Gulf. I think that's disastrous! Anytime you get 95 percent of the American people to agree on anything, you know something's really gone wrong. The obvious reason for that disastrous statistic is that the television screen was controlled by the military and the administration. They made it very clear that if you control the picture you control the minds of the people.
In the last two years, there's been a tremendous explosion of inexpensive Japanese electronic technology designed for the individual consumer. At the present time, there are hundred-dollar graphic processing systems like Nintendos which, when hooked up to a compact disc storage of images, will allow the average individual to take what's on the television screen, put it in their computer and change it.
If you don't like George Bush's voice, you can put in the voice of Mickey Mouse. If you don't like Norman Schwarzkopf, you can drag him over to the Mac trash barrel and drop him off the screen.
Currently I'm designing software—prefabricated electronic environments that you can put inside your computer, like the doors of perception. You can move inside your screen and have other people meet you there. These will be coming out right now and through the next year.
The power of the screen needs to be in the hands of the people. Mainly this will be for educational purposes. In the 1970s we were talking about "power to the people." Now we're talking about "power to the pupil." We are students learning to communicate in the new multimedia language. How do you like that phrase, "power to the pupil?"
Cat: I like it! That reminds me. You had another motto during the 1960s that became part of your legend, "Tune in, turn on, drop out." If you had a motto today, what would it be?
Timothy: Well, the motto for the 1990s is, "Hang on, hang in, hang out"—and wait for the Republicans to drop out!
Cat: That's great! You've had quite an incredible life and have been involved in activities ranging from the sublime to the scandalous. I'm wondering, when you look back on your past, what are you most proud of having accomplished?
Timothy: I'm proud to have been one of the leading dissenters against the American government for the last 30 years. It takes a certain skill and toughness to keep a counterculture voice transmitting for three decades. I'm proud that I've been able to do this and maintain a certain amount of humor while getting better at voicing dissent.
Cat: Back in the 1960s, when acid (LSD) was still legal, you and Ram Dass were involved in experiments at Harvard. For people who aren't familiar with your work there, what did your research involve?
Timothy: We did dozens of research projects with rehabilitating prisoners. We provided mystical experiences for Harvard divinity students and did extensive and very elegant research on creativity through work with artists, musicians and painters. The main technique was to teach people how to turn on and operate their brains.
Cat: I have a number of clients with children who are now being bombarded with the "all drugs are bad" campaign. As parents who grew up in the 1960s and who occasionally use marijuana, they feel confused about what to tell their children. How would you advise them?
Timothy: Each family situation is entirely different. There can be no overall rule. But basically it is the job of any parent to be sensitive and honest to the situation and not to hide or deceive or lie. I think it is the duty of every parent to instill in their children a sense of questioning authority, to help them learn not to just passively accept whatever Big Brother tells them—whether that has to do with politics or with the war or with the "war on drugs."
For the parents, it's always good to express your doubts and express your feelings as clearly as you can. There are no easy solutions to these problems, but you can share the confusion and share the indecision with your kids.
Cat: In your role as "most valuable philosopher," what do you think of the current men's movement?
Timothy: I'm suspicious of any movement because I think we have to do it as individuals and small groups. I think that the idea of the confused male is good because it makes people think about it. Everyone has to come up with their own answers. There's no one solution. Some men should get tougher and some should get more sensitive but it's a consciousness-raising thing to have this idea of a men's movement around. As long as people keep a sense of humor, it can be very useful from person to person.
Cat: Speaking of humor, how did you ever get into the nightclub circuit doing standup comedy?
Timothy: I don't actually do standup comedy. I do give my lectures and demonstrations in comedy clubs. Throughout history, the role of the dissident philosopher has always used comedy because comedy is the way you can express resistance against authority, make fun of the establishment and make fun of your self.
Humor is the number one tool for the change agent. If you try to make people feel guilty by telling them how bad they are, that doesn't do any good. But when you get people laughing at themselves and laughing at the situation, you've increased the possibility for insight and change.
Cat: What has been your hardest personal obstacle to overcome as a human?
Timothy: Well, I'm not sure I'm a human! "Human." What do you really mean by that? Seriously though, I feel deeply and I suffer intensely. I suffer compassion with friends and family members whom I wish well. Also, I despair and weep over the current social-political situation.
In the last ten years, since 1980, Americans have turned into a hysterical, fundamentalist, fanatic religious state with daily erosions of civil rights and individual privacies. I'm very concerned about that. On the other hand, I'm an optimist. I'm an activist optimist. I'm out there doing everything I can to make it a better place by empowering the individual.
Cat: Is there anything you don't like about yourself?
Timothy: Yeah! I screw up at least a third of the time. And I'm really getting senile, which means that I'm getting grumpier.
Cat: Are you serious that you're getting senile?
Timothy: Yes, it's wonderful! It's a very interesting state. It's an altered state of consciousness! And if you know how to use it, it's a very valuable experience.
Cat: Can you stay conscious of being senile?
Timothy: Yes, I try to. The problem is that the older you get, the more files you open in the directories of your mind. Now I've got 70 files that all start with "March" or "April" or whatever. The mind gets cluttered up with so much data and so many names and so many figures that record-keeping and filing and directory management becomes more of a problem. But you can manage it.
Cat: Is there anything you particularly want to tell people right now?
Timothy: These whole life expositions are wonderful experiences. They're reunions, renewals, like old friends getting together. These expos are popping up all over the country now. It's a kind of adult education or post-graduate education, which is wonderful because it gives people different ways to learn new methods of growth and empowerment. It's another way we can give "power to the pupil"—and that means all of us.
This interview was originally published
by The New Times (October 1991).
|
