I Have America Surrounded

Much of what is known about the US government’s experiments with LSD was revealed in 1977, during Senate hearings in which Ted Kennedy, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, attempted to discover the extent of a CIA programme called Operation MK-Ultra. Operation MK-Ultra was the umbrella programme that covered all of the CIA’s research into chemical and biological weapons during the Cold War. Much of the work was shockingly immoral. Hundreds of mentally ill patients had been used as guinea pigs in research into brainwashing and mind control, and they were dosed with a variety of drugs without their consent or knowledge. At a hospital in Lexington, Kentucky, researchers had given inmates LSD daily for up to 76 days in a row. An American doctor5 who had sat on the Nuremberg tribunal against Nazi war criminals was discovered to have since undertaken work that clearly violated the Nuremberg Code for medical ethics. Perhaps the most scandalous experiments involved spiking random, unsuspecting members of the public. Drug-addicted prostitutes in San Francisco were hired to pick up men and bring them back to a CIA safe house that was operating as a brothel. Here the prostitutes would administer the drug in drinks so that the CIA could observe the results. The agent in charge of this operation was named George Hunter White. He used to sit on a toilet behind a two-way mirror sipping martinis while he observed the action. He then used pipe cleaners to make models of people in whatever sexual positions he felt were most effective in removing their will and causing them to let secrets slip, and he sent these models to his superiors for analysis.6 White would later praise his job on the grounds that ‘it was fun, fun, fun’. He went on to add about his time working for the CIA, ‘Where else could a red-blooded American boy lie, kill, cheat, steal, rape and pillage with the sanction and blessing of the All-Highest?’7

During this time the CIA were also monitoring, and at times covertly funding, other research on the drug in civilian medical and academic circles. Some of these experiments, such as the work of Dr Louis Jolyon West at the University of Oklahoma, were based on the Agency’s pet theory that the drug mimicked madness. Dr West, who was a CIA contract employee, conducted an experiment in which he gave an elephant the equivalent of 2000 human-sized doses of LSD, in order to see what would happen.8 The elephant in question lay down and never moved again. Any possibility of repeating this experiment in order to confirm these findings was dashed, unfortunately, when Dr West attempted to revive the elephant with a variety of chemical stimulants, and accidentally killed it.

But there was also work going on that seemed to contradict what the CIA understood about the drug. Doctors and psychiatrists, notably Dr Humphry Osmond in Canada and Dr Oscar Janiger in Los Angeles, were using the drug therapeutically. LSD was being used to cure alcoholism, study creativity and was even being given to patients in therapy. It became fashionable in Hollywood, and was administered to patients including James Coburn, Anaïs Nin and André Previn. Jack Nicholson used his treatment as the basis of his screenplay for the film The Trip.9 Cary Grant took over 100 trips to treat depression after the failure of his marriage, and claimed that as a result he had been ‘reborn’.10

This was baffling to the CIA. As they understood it, LSD was an ‘unconventional weapon’ that had the power to send people temporarily insane. They had successfully used it as a form of torture in interrogations. How could this be prescribed by psychiatrists in order to improve mental health? The effects of drugs are supposed to be predictable; a doctor should be able to prescribe a drug and be confident that he knows what it will do. LSD was not like that at all. Somehow it was able to produce totally different effects in different experiments. It just didn’t make any sense.

Leary was introduced to LSD by an Englishman named Michael Hollingshead. Hollingshead was working for the British American Cultural Exchange Institute in New York when he, together with his friend Dr John Beresford, bought a gram of LSD from Sandoz Laboratories for £285. Obtaining it was simple; they wrote to Sandoz on a piece of paper with a New York hospital letterhead, and claimed that they wanted to use it as a control drug in bone marrow experiments. The drug arrived in a small brown vial and, in order to make it a more manageable strength, Hollingshead mixed it with water and icing sugar and transferred it to a 16-ounce mayonnaise jar. Then he licked the spoon.

Fifteen hours later, when he came back down again, he knew that he had something unprecedented on his hands. He had a jar containing 5000 doses of a life-changing chemical, but no idea what to do with it. As he had first heard about LSD from Aldous Huxley, he called Huxley and asked for some advice. After a bit of thought, Huxley suggested that he contact Leary. ‘If there’s any one single investigator in America worth seeing,’ Huxley assured him, ‘it is Dr Leary. He is a splendid fellow’.11

Leary invited Hollingshead to Harvard but initially declined his offer of a spoonful of LSD from his mayonnaise jar. This was partly because the drug had already got a dubious reputation from the CIA’s military experiments, and partly because he believed that one psychedelic was more or less the same as any other. But when he saw the faces of people who had taken a dose, his curiosity got the better of him. He took a trip from which he would never really return. It was much stronger than psilocybin.

‘It was the most shattering experience of my life,’ he would write later.12 ‘It has been 20 years since that first LSD trip with Michael Hollingshead. I have never forgotten it. Nor has it been possible for me to return to the life I was leading before that session. I have never been able to take myself, my mind, or the social world quite so seriously. Since that time I have been acutely aware that everything I perceive, everything within and around me, is a creation of my own consciousness. And that everyone lives in a neural cocoon of private reality. From that day I have never lost the sense that I am an actor, surrounded by characters, props, and sets for the comic drama being written in my brain.’

Leary’s work had already started to create a slight separation, or dislocation, between his sense of self and the world at large. Over the years he had come to reject the notions of ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ behaviour, and instead saw all behaviour patterns as nothing more than ‘games’ that individuals had been trained to play. He saw himself at the time as simply playing the ‘psychologist game’. His daughter was performing the ‘schoolgirl game’ just as, for example, a murderer would be performing the ‘murderer game’. This viewpoint is not intended to deny moral responsibility entirely, but it does tend to dissociate the ethical element from behaviour patterns. It also removes the sense of seriousness from people’s responsibilities, and makes it harder to take social and institutional rules seriously. They are, after all, merely part of the ‘game’. When a Harvard colleague joked that they should form a ‘Psychopath Club’ with those who followed this philosophy, Leary had replied that he genuinely was a psychopath.13 He told his colleagues that he had violated ‘every part of the American Psychological Society’s code of ethics’, particularly the part about not sleeping with patients.14

But it was only after acid that Leary felt himself became truly distinct from the everyday world as other people understood it. This is not to say that he retreated, ignored or dismissed the world of normal consciousness. He just no longer viewed it as being the ultimate reality He now knew that what he was really living in was not reality itself, but a model of reality created by his own brain. He knew that he had constructed this model, and that he was responsible for it. He also knew that he could change it.

It’s generally accepted that what we ‘know’ to be the real world is not the real world itself, but a model constructed by our brains based on our senses and our previous experience. The brain receives information from the five senses,15 which it collates in order to produce a mental model of the world, and it is this that we inhabit. This model differs from ‘true’ reality in many ways. We may look at a car and see that it is red, for example, but the car itself has no intrinsic colour. Our notion of ‘red’ comes from the way our visual system interprets the way some photons of light are reflected from the car while others are not. We may see a chair and believe that it is solid, yet science assures us that this churning soup of particles and energy is mostly empty space. It only appears to support our weight because what particles are there repel us. We also know that there is a lot of information ‘out there’ that we do not perceive, such as television signals, or the fluctuations in the magnetic fields that certain animals can use to navigate. However, we generally assume that while our model of reality is not perfect, it is at least reasonably accurate and consistent with the real world. We certainly believe that we are passively observing the world we live in, rather than participating selectively in its construction.

Increasingly, it seems that this is not the case. Research done in areas such as assessing the validity of eye-witness reports has shown that individuals are prone to see only what they expect to see, and can ignore anything that seems anomalous or contradictory to their beliefs. In a famous experiment at Harvard University, Dan Simons and Christopher Chabris showed volunteers a recording of a basketball game and asked them to count the number of passes made. Around 40 per cent of volunteers completely failed to register that, early in the footage, a man in a gorilla suit walked slowly across the court, remaining clearly visible for about 45 seconds. This concept was used by Douglas Adams in his novel Life, the Universe and Everything to create a spaceship that could land on the pitch of a busy sporting event and not be seen by the crowd. The brains of the observers, the spaceship’s owner knew, would reject the visual information that their eyes reported, regard it as ‘somebody else’s problem’, and refuse to acknowledge its existence.

Over time, we create a mental model of the real world that is strongly influenced by our beliefs, prejudices and experience, and our model will differ from that of other people in far greater ways than is usually accepted. The world that we consciously inhabit increasingly resembles our own ‘world view’. Should an optimistic person walk down a street, for example, they would be inclined to register happy couples, pleasant weather or playing children. A cynical person walking down exactly the same street might completely miss those details, and see instead the homeless population and the graffiti. Of course, the street itself hasn’t changed between the two observations, but this is almost irrelevant, as no one is aware of the ‘true’ street in its entirety16 The same principal applies to every aspect of life, from the mechanism that decides which news stories grab your attention, to the personal qualities in others that you respond to or overlook. The result of this is that the ‘world’ in which we live is not an objective, distinct environment, but a model constructed in our own image. In the words of Alan Watts, the influential writer on Eastern religions, ‘Reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot’. Or as Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote back in 1860, ‘People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.’

Leary called these personal mental models ‘reality tunnels’.17Each person lives in a different reality tunnel from everyone else, and is personally responsible for constructing their own existential reality. To be truly ‘free’ it is necessary to recognise this for, in the words of the Discordians, ‘Whatever you believe imprisons you. Convictions create convicts.’18 This is a difficult concept to grasp, but it is profoundly important in understanding both Leary and his influence. It is the concept that explains the post-modern move away from the rational beliefs of the eighteenth-century Age of Enlightenment, which viewed reality as an absolute that could be understood through rational inquiry Enlightenment thinkers assumed that everyone operates in the same reality, but that, Leary believed, was just not true on a practical level. Concepts, relationships and events were now relative, and could only really be understood when analysed alongside the reality tunnels that created them. Our understanding of the physical world had been fundamentally changed when Albert Einstein recognised the importance of relativity, and now, Leary thought, it was time for the mental world to undergo a similar revolution.

Most people, however, go through life without ever questioning the validity of the world they inhabit, for these personal realities are convincing, seductive and consistently coherent. It is difficult to recognise their limitations, although the practice of meditation is useful for ‘switching off’ the brain’s participation in what is perceived. Not everyone would want to do this, of course. The realisation that what you believe to be ‘reality’ is in fact a flawed, personal construction can be a frightening idea, which can leave you feeling groundless, lost or alone. This explains the importance of religious, social and political movements, such as Christianity, environmentalism or communism. Movements like these attempt to ‘synchronise’ the individual realities of a large mass of people around accepted priorities and attitudes—a process that can be personally comforting.19

The idea that the world we are aware of is just an abstract of ‘true’ reality is fundamental to Leary’s later ideas, his behaviour and his sense of humour. The concept, however, existed for a long time before Tim.

It existed in the fifth century BC, in Plato’s claims that the world we are aware of is like the ‘shadows on the wall of a cave’. It is also a fundamental concept in Hinduism and Buddhism, where it is known as Maya, the world of illusions. But Leary was one of the first to approach the concept from an empirical, scientific viewpoint, and one of the first to use a synthetic chemical to see through the veils of Maya. As a result, he could make others experience this awareness without them undergoing years of religious training and practice. And unlike earlier mystics, who went to extraordinary lengths to achieve even a glimpse of the larger reality, he was also able to achieve this state whenever the mood took him. Indeed, he got into the habit of achieving it at least once a week.

Tim believed that LSD allowed you to reject a personal reality and imprint a different one. He argued that it was crazy to live in a reality that was negative and unrewarding because there were an infinite number of other ‘realities’ that the brain could use instead. This is the idea that underpins the majority of Leary’s philosophy. It is made explicit in the titles of some of his work, such as the LP You Can Be Anyone This Time Around or the book Changing My Mind, Among Others, and in remarks such as ‘You’re only as young as the last time you changed your mind’. By understanding how to reprogram your brain, you could step out of one reality and into another. It was a theory that Leary would repeatedly put into practice. His personal reality and his associated persona had changed before, but slowly, under the natural evolution of time. He had been a choirboy, a soldier, a sophisticated professional and an academic, and his version of reality had been shaped differently in each of these guises. From now on, however, Tim would be changing his version of reality every few years, or even every few months. Ideas and beliefs that had been intrinsic and crucial to him would be casually swept away by changing circumstances. Should his present reality prove to be inadequate, he would simply adopt a new one. But this was not a technique that would be easy on those around him.

People who met Tim now could tell almost instantly that there was something different about him. Some found him cold and slightly sinister, even almost inhuman. The majority, though, were spellbound. ‘I knew, the day he walked in, I’d never met anyone like him,’ recalled one of his students.20 ‘For a few years, I believed that he was the most creative human being that I had ever imagined,’ recalled his colleague and friend Richard Alpert, ‘He was head and shoulders above anybody else at Harvard or anyone else I’d ever met.’21 He seemed to have developed a knack of not imposing himself on people, but rather allowed those he met to project their own interpretation onto him. In this way he could be all things to all people—friend, scientist, charlatan, genius or irresponsible idiot. It is noticeable today, over 40 years later, that those who knew him at the time still describe him more as a legend than a real person. The impact he had on people has not faded with time. It may be tempting to blame, or thank, LSD for creating these reactions, but as his friend Lisa Bieberman once remarked, ‘To attribute Leary’s personality to acid is absurd, for there have been millions of LSD users, but only one Timothy Leary’ 22

After LSD, any thought of toning down his work to appease his critics at Harvard went out of the window. From now on psilocybin was out. LSD was the only tool strong enough for him. The fact that the use of this more controversial drug would only inflame his critics further was not a concern. Leary believed that LSD was more important than Harvard, and he wanted everyone to know it.

One problem the research team faced was that the existing medical terminology for ‘abnormal’ states was overwhelmingly negative. The language that typified the LSD reports emanating from the CIA and their partners used terms such as ‘manic’, ‘neurotic’ and ‘psychotic’. The researchers who were actually taking the drug themselves began to search for words that better described the bliss and awe that they were experiencing. When the scope of psychology proved inadequate for their needs, they found themselves drawn more and more to referencing Eastern religions, which had spent many thousands of years attempting to describe these ineffable states. This seemed a natural progression because those who had done most to popularise Eastern thought during the 1950s, the Beats, were the very same people who were participating in the research.

This did little to calm the concerns of other faculty members that Leary and Alpert’s work was becoming increasingly unscientific.

Harvard academics were clearly not sure how to react when they discovered Swami Vishnudevananda performing a headstand on the conference table in the Centre for Personality Research clad only in a loincloth. Tim seemed unconcerned by the reactions his work and life were generating. His house in the Newton Center district had become a multi-family commune, with Leary, Alpert and Metzner living together with various children and partners. This was unheard of at the time, and neighbours filed suit with the city, claiming that they were in violation of zoning laws that limited occupancy to single families. The old lady next door complained to everyone she could about ‘weird people who all wear beatnik uniforms’. A young man who had grown his hair down to his shoulders was a particular concern. ‘Every time I look at him,’ she confessed, ‘I want to vomit.’ 23

It has been claimed that by the end of 1962 the house had become increasingly chaotic. The English author Alan Watts, who is credited with popularising Buddhism in the West, was amazed at the mess that he found in Leary’s house. He could not understand how anyone who had experienced such expanded awareness could live in such squalor. Those who lived in the house, however, find this reaction a little unfair. Ralph Metzner lived in the commune throughout its existence and claims that the mess was ‘no more than average, although on some days it might have seemed excessive’.24 Metzner also doubts claims that psilocybin pills were left lying around where they could be found by children, for there was very little psilocybin available during the time of the Newton Center commune and people were very protective of their supplies. Jack Leary, however, has claimed that he found and ate some when he was aged 12. He later recalled staring at the dog, trying to understand how it could be sitting normally and jumping up in the air at the same time. The dog was equally mystified, as Jack had fed it some of the pills beforehand.25

Huxley was becomingly increasingly concerned about Leary’s progress. He was not treading the cautious, considered path that they had discussed. Indeed, he seemed to be almost wilfully courting controversy ‘Yes, what about Timothy Leary?’ Huxley wrote to Osmond in December 1962. ‘I spent an evening with him here a few weeks ago—and he talked such nonsense…that I became quite concerned. Not about his sanity—because he is perfectly sane—but about his prospects in the world; for this nonsense-talking is just another device for annoying people in authority, flouting convention, cocking snooks at the academic world; it is the reaction of a mischievous Irish boy to the headmaster of his school. One of these days the headmaster will lose patience…I am very fond of Tim…but why, oh why does he have to be such an ass?’26

Huxley’s words, as ever, were prophetic. The CIA had been keeping an eye on Tim’s work. They were aware of all LSD research because they were alerted by Sandoz Laboratories to every purchase of the drug.27Initially they were content to monitor activities quietly in the hope that his results would be of interest. But it soon became clear that Leary and Alpert were a touch too evangelical and too public with their work, and that their influence was spreading.

Leary had been crossing the country turning on influential people and talking to whoever would listen. He had taken the drug to Hollywood, where his growing fame made him an honoured guest at many film industry parties.28 It had also taken him to Washington, where he had been approached by a woman called Mary Pinchot Meyer, whom he trained to guide people on LSD trips. Meyer had recently divorced Cord Meyer, an influential CIA agent noted for his work in covert operations. She explained that she intended to organise LSD sessions for a group of ‘very powerful men’ and their wives and mistresses. Meyer has since gone on to feature in a number of conspiracy theories; a mistress of JFK, she was shot dead by an unknown assailant on a canal towpath in October 1964.29 It was Meyer, Leary claimed, who convinced John F. Kennedy to try acid, which he took, as well as other drugs, while in the White House.30

Tim loved all this attention. He loved being in the company of the rich, the famous and the brilliant. He loved his own growing sense of fame and notoriety. The volunteers who came to the project knew that Tim was the oldest, the smartest and the most psychedelically experienced of the group. It was around this time that, in the words of Ralph Metzner, ‘the issue of leadership, with its associated complex of idealization and disappointment, was beginning to rear its ugly head’.31

It soon became apparent that the participants in the programme were looking to Tim for guidance and expected him to lead them. This seems to have initially bothered Leary, but once he accepted that this was to be his role, he grasped the nettle firmly and never let go. Soon he was the unquestioned alpha male of the psychedelic project, and this position was strengthened with each new person he turned on. Under the influence of the drug, the tripper would often see the guide and drug-giver as an almost divine figure, the benign patriarch who had blessed them with this experience. It was an effect that Tim understood well, for during his first trip he had seen Michael Hollingshead in the same light. It had taken a couple of weeks for this perception to wear off, during which time he had embarrassed Alpert by following Hollingshead around like a lost puppy. For many people to whom he gave the drug, Tim became the personification of LSD itself. Young women in particular would fall hopelessly for him. It was a situation that was easy to take advantage of.