Timothy Leary's
ultimate.trip
Dr. Timothy Leary,
Harvard psychologist, counterculture philosopher, and
psychedelic turned cyberdelic guru, passed on to another dimension on
June 1,
1996. Leary announced that he had terminal prostate cancer early in
1996,
coming forward to say, "How you die is the most important thing you
ever do."
Leary's condition soon became a global event, hosted by Leary himself
on
leary.com, his home page on the World Wide Web. Leary's enthusiasm and
positivity regarding his approaching death had captivated the world:I love topics the Establishment says are taboo. When I found out I was terminally ill I was thrilled. You've got to approach your dying the way you live your life - with curiosity, with hope, with fascination, with courage and with the help of your friends....Death is life's greatest event.
"For millenia the fear of
death has depreciated individual confidence and increased dependence on
authority."
Dr. Leary originally planned to "choose the moment of his death" and post it as a LIVE broadcast on the internet. But his intended CYBERCIDE never came to fruition, and instead he died in his sleep and in the company of friends at his Beverly Hills home.
Only days before he died, Leary learned that some of his remains would
be
launched into space on a Spanish satellite in the fall of 1996.
When we told him two days ago that we could do this, he was literally jumping up and down in his wheelchair...said longtime friend Carol Rosin. Also in Leary's original plans were intentions to have his head frozen upon his death. Soon before his death, Leary decided against having his head frozen, saying that
the cryonics experts had no sense of humor. I was worried I would wake up in 50 years surrounded by people with clipboards.
In the last 10 years of his life adventure, Leary was an outspoken advocate of using technology and the global information highway as a means of mind-expansion. Just as Leary saw LSD as a personal, spiritual and inter-personal journey, he also saw the internet as a vast web, globally connecting people, each on personal journeys into their computers.
In his 1995 book CHAOS AND CYBERCULTURE,
Leary wrote
The history of human evolution is the record of technological innovation...and the personal electronic-knowledge processor equips the individual to survive and evolve in the age of information. This is the liberating hands on concept. Power to the people means personal technology available to the individual.
"The time has come to talk cheerfully and joke sassily
about personal responsibility for managing the dying process. For
starters, let's demystify dying and develop alternative metaphors for
consciousness leaving the body.... Let us explore the option of
re-creational dying."
Andy Frith
Leary's transformation into cyber-philosopher launched him into the world of a new generation: the WEBSTOCK generation of twentysomethings who related to Leary's new "trip." Paul Krassner commented when Leary died,
He was always described as a drug guru. There was so much more. He's part of a long tradition of philosophers-a cultural philosopher, a spiritual seeker. One of the underplayed notions of psychedelics was that they provided a vehicle for a spiritual revolution. He always made that connection.
Leary's incessant creativity and laughable eccentricity until his final
moments perpetuated his role as a purveyor of positivity and constant
questioner of norms. Author Robert Anton Wilson commented at a memorial
service in San Francisco that Leary's deathwas the first time that I have lost someone dear to me when I feel I don't have to mourn...because Timothy believed it was something o.k. to celebrate.
Keeping with his spirit of exploration and carefree living, Timothy
Leary's
last words were...
WHY NOT?
Leary's death captured the eyes of the international media. Extensive pieces appeared in the New York Times, L A Times, The Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, the San Francisco Chronicle, People, and Boston Magazine. News programs such as the NBC Today Show, 48 Hours and CNN, aired live or taped interviews with Dr. Leary in the months before his death. On the day Leary died, the World Wide Web was flooded with discussions of Leary, and most major news sites posted articles announcing his death.
A full length documentary, Timothy Leary's Dead is being
produced for
broadcast TV and home video. Interscope, the producers of the Doors
movie,
is producing a film biography of Leary.
For more information, check out his author
biography, written before his passing.
Tim's home in cyberspace