#78 – The Legacy of Dr. Timothy Leary

Transcript

R. U. Sirius (born Ken Goffman) is an American writer, musician, and cyberculture icon best known as co-founder and original Editor-in Chief of the first popular technoculture magazine, Mondo 2000, in the early 1990’s. His most recent book is True Mutations: Interviews on The edge of Science, Technology, and Consciousness. His other books have included Mondo 2000: A User’s Guide to the New Edge, Design for Dying, The Revolution: Quotations from Party Chairman RU Sirius and Couterculture through the Ages: From Abraham to Acid House. In the 1990s, he wrote columns for Wired News, ARTFORUM International, and the San Francisco Examiner, and was a regular contributor to Wired Magazine and his writing appeared in Time, Rolling Stone, Esquire, Vanity Fair, San Francisco Chronicle, Salon, Village Voice and many other mainstream and alternative publications. He is currently the host of the “NeoFiles” and “The RU Sirius Show” podcasts on the MondoGlobo Network at www.mondoglobo.net and a regular contributor to the online magazine 10 Zen Monkeys. Finally, R.U. Sirius is teaching an 8-week online course about the work of Timothy Leary from Feb. 26 to April 27, 2007.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

2 Comments

Brad Jacobson on July 29, 2008 at 4:23 am

What a fascinating episode! I had read most of Leary’s books a number of years back and brushed them aside in favour of more “serious” psychology in recent times. What many people don’t realise (and which I had forgotten) is that Leary was a quite remarkable thinker as well as visionary philospher (in my opinion).

‘The Intelligence Agents’ is a prime example of some of his briliant and outside the box thinking. (available from newfalcon.com)

Thanks for the reminder,
Brad

John Knight on December 31, 2009 at 4:37 am

Thanks for covering this Dr Dave. I think Tim is a seriously misunderstood character, most people seem to think “this guy” was a complete crack pot, but failed to look at the actual man’s messages or thinking; rather they got their info from the media, which was mostly character assassination.

One of the main things they missed was the idea that you can design your own realities, and should question what authorities tell you and decide for yourself, rather than take everything at face value. Indeed, watching him being interviewed, he seems like what most would call a crazy person, but after some education, you can see a man operating under the conventions of his own designed realities rather than those imposed by the cultural and political institutions around him.

Any doubters should check out “How to Operate Your Brain” (available to stream on youtube, albeit in poor quality), which shows a man with remarkable lucidity and insight.

I agree with you on the sad state of affairs that resulted from the general banning of LSD and the cutting off of research that these drugs were going under, which could have brought about some strong benefits to the community. I ‘d be personally interested to see what effect LSD-based psychotherapy would have on anorexia, and other conditions that share the same root cause as anorexia, such as bulimia.

I was very interested in some of the man and machine side of things in this conversation; the Japanese have a great number of existential explorations in this area. Anyone interested in this genre (often referred to as ‘Cyberpunk’, but why label things?) should check out the Ghost in the Shell series in particular.

Cheers all!
John

Brad Jacobson on July 29, 2008 at 4:23 am

What a fascinating episode! I had read most of Leary’s books a number of years back and brushed them aside in favour of more “serious” psychology in recent times. What many people don’t realise (and which I had forgotten) is that Leary was a quite remarkable thinker as well as visionary philospher (in my opinion).

‘The Intelligence Agents’ is a prime example of some of his briliant and outside the box thinking. (available from newfalcon.com)

Thanks for the reminder,
Brad
John Knight on December 31, 2009 at 4:37 am

Thanks for covering this Dr Dave. I think Tim is a seriously misunderstood character, most people seem to think “this guy” was a complete crack pot, but failed to look at the actual man’s messages or thinking; rather they got their info from the media, which was mostly character assassination.

One of the main things they missed was the idea that you can design your own realities, and should question what authorities tell you and decide for yourself, rather than take everything at face value. Indeed, watching him being interviewed, he seems like what most would call a crazy person, but after some education, you can see a man operating under the conventions of his own designed realities rather than those imposed by the cultural and political institutions around him.

Any doubters should check out “How to Operate Your Brain” (available to stream on youtube, albeit in poor quality), which shows a man with remarkable lucidity and insight.

I agree with you on the sad state of affairs that resulted from the general banning of LSD and the cutting off of research that these drugs were going under, which could have brought about some strong benefits to the community. I ‘d be personally interested to see what effect LSD-based psychotherapy would have on anorexia, and other conditions that share the same root cause as anorexia, such as bulimia.

I was very interested in some of the man and machine side of things in this conversation; the Japanese have a great number of existential explorations in this area. Anyone interested in this genre (often referred to as ‘Cyberpunk’, but why label things?) should check out the Ghost in the Shell series in particular.

Cheers all!
John