The Timothy Leary Project

The life of Timothy Leary is examined through papers and correspondence preserved in his archive.

The first collection of Timothy Leary’s (1920–1996) selected papers and correspondence opens a window on the ideas that inspired the counterculture of the 1960s and the fascination with LSD that continues to the present. The man who coined the phrase “turn on, tune in, drop out,” Leary cultivated interests that ranged across experimentation with hallucinogens, social change and legal reform, and mysticism and spirituality, with a passion to determine what lies beyond our consciousness. Through Leary’s papers, the reader meets such key figures as Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Ken Kesey, Marshall McLuhan, Aldous Huxley, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and Carl Sagan. Author Jennifer Ulrich organizes this rich material into an annotated narrative of Leary’s adventurous life, an epic quest that had a lasting impact on American culture.

“A fascinatingly intimate record of how this brilliant, courageous, and awed genius changed our world.” —Michael Backes, author of the bestselling Cannabis Pharmacy

“[These notes and letters] portray a brilliant and restless genius who never feared to make mistakes or change his views.” —Ralph Metzner, PhD, coauthor, with Leary and Alpert, of The Psychedelic Experience

“Hopefully, these letters show people the real Timothy Leary—an inveterate letter writer who took the time to engage with all kinds of people. Few of us would be as generous.” —R. U. Sirius, cofounder of Mondo 2000 and coauthor of Transcendence