Major Project Progress

This is an offshoot to the previous post, Roszak also delves into the personality of Timothy Leary - the "promoter, apologist, and high priest of psychedelia nonpareil." In most histories I have read so far, Leary is portrayed as the mystical shaman of the counter culture. He is shown to be a religious believer in the power of the psychedelic experience. However, Roszak's history portrays Leary from an entirely different perspective. Roszak attributes Leary's profound advocacy of psychedelia to little more than a greedy pursuit of financial gain. He states, "It was not until his academic career had been washed up (he was dismissed from Harvard in 1963) and he had twice run a-foul of the narcotics laws, that he blossomed forth-and then almost overnight-as a self-proclaimed cultic swami. This rather makes it difficult to avoid seeing more than a fortuitous connection between Leary's legal entanglements... and his subsequent claims to visionary prophecy." This is backed up by Roszak when he states that Leary's first 'psychedelic celebration' occurred within 6 months of the time his lawyer appealed that one of his convictions be reversed as a violation of religious freedom. This seems a rather uncompromising coincidence and certainly provides a new perspective on Leary's depiction in history. Roszak does not go as far as to condemn Leary as a complete hack, stating that Leary may have begun his endeavors halfheartedly but soon lost himself "in an eccentric identity." This is important in considering Roszak's perspective of drug use/abuse in the Sixties as it differs immensely from the opinions of the 'left'. Most prominently, the historians who look fondly upon Leary are the Boomers who lived through the Sixties and seem to view it through rose-tinted glasses. It will be interesting to contrast the two perspectives once I get my hands upon a copy of "Imagine Nation" and more particularly "Tomorrow Never Knows".