The Harvard Psychedelic Club (edit title/settings)

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• Timothy Leary: The “high priest of LSD,” was a Harvard psychologist who went on to become the most infamous leader of the drug movement on the 1960s. After a series of high profile experiments with psychedelic drugs—including the “Concord Prison Project” and the “Good Friday Experiment”—Leary was dismissed from Harvard in 1963. He became an outspoken advocate of psychedelics and was eventually imprisoned on drug charges in the 1970s, only to escape with the help of the Weather Underground. He lived in exile with the Black Panthers until he was captured in Afghanistan and returned to the United States. After his release from prison, Leary became interested in space migration and computer-based “virtual reality.” He died in Los Angeles in 1996, and in 1997 his ashes (along with those of Gene Roddenberry) were blasted into orbit in outer space.
• Andrew Weil: The father of alternative medicine, was still a Harvard undergraduate when he embarked on a crusade to bring down the psychedelic research project started by Richard Alpert and Timothy Leary. Jealous when his friend Ronnie Winston (son of famed jeweler Harry Winston) was allowed into the fold while he himself was denied membership, Weil worked undercover at the Harvard Crimson to expose Alpert and Leary’s unsanctioned drug use with students. In the 1970s, Weil emerged as trusted medical expert on the safe use of mind-altering substances. By the 1990s, he achieved fortune and fame with a series of bestselling books and a television series on healthy living, and he was named one of the 25 most influential people in America by Time magazine. He currently lives on a ranch in southern Arizona, from which he runs a lucrative business selling dietary supplements.
• Richard Alpert: a.k.a. Ram Dass, was a Harvard psychology professor who first made headlines in 1963 when he was fired for taking psychedelic drugs with an undergraduate student. Along with his friend and colleague Timothy Leary, Alpert emerged as a leader in the crusade to foster higher consciousness through the use of LSD and other mind-altering substances. In 1967, struggling with his sexuality and dissatisfied with the life he was leading, Alpert made a life-changing pilgrimage to India. He returned to the United States as Baba Ram Dass, one of the era’s seminal spiritual teachers, and though he shared his wisdom and enlightenment with thousands of followers, he never fully forgave Andy Weil for the way Weil destroyed his career at the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.
• Huston Smith: was a philosophy professor at M.I.T. when his friend, Aldous Huxley, introduced him to Timothy Leary in the fall of 1960. Though his first experience with psychedelics, which took place in the living room of Leary’s Boston home, was terrifying, he nonetheless became an early leader several organizations Leary set up to provide the cultivation of higher consciousness with psychedelic drugs. In the mid-1960s Smith distanced himself from Timothy Leary and the drug movement, going on to become a world-renowned scholar of religion. In his ninety years, Smith has met with the Dalai Lama, interviewed the Reverend Martin Luther King, witnessed the founding of the United Nations, and seen his landmark book The Religions of Man (re-titled The World’s Religions) sell into the millions. He is now retired and living in Berkeley, California.
• Bill Ayers: The Weather Underground leader who helped Timothy Leary escape from prison, and who would be accused years later of being one of Presidential candidate Barack Obama’s “terrorist pals.”
• William Burroughs: The junkie writer who holes up in Leary’s attic in the early days of the Harvard Psychedelic Club.
• Eldrige Cleaver: The exiled Black Panther leader who offers Timothy Leary refuge at his Libyan compound, only to decide that the “high priest of LSD” needs “re-education.”
• Maynard Ferguson: The famous jazz musician who becomes trumpeter-in-residence at Leary’s psychedelic commune in upstate New York.
• Jerry Garcia: The Grateful Dead guitarist who leads his band at a party in the summer of 1966 to celebrate the Harvard Psychedelic Club’s arrival in San Francisco.
• Allen Ginsberg: The Beat poet and consummate LSD user who seems to find his way into nearly every chapter of the Leary/Alpert saga.
• Peggy Hitchcock: The heiress to the banking and oil fortune amassed by Andrew Mellon who convinces her brothers to let Leary and Alpert take over Millbrook, the family mansion in upstate New York, which they turn into a psychedelic Disneyland.
• Albert Hoffman: The Swiss chemist and inventor of LSD, who can’t decide whether to love Timothy Leary or to hate him.
• Aldous Huxley: The British author of Brave New World, who introduces Huston Smith to Timothy Leary, then briefly joins the Harvard Psychedelic Club.
• Theodore Kaczynski: The Harvard undergraduate and research subject in CIA-sponsored psychological stress tests, who would go on to become the notorious "Unabomber."
• John F. Kennedy: The President of the United States who, according to Leary, takes LSD in the White House and is assassinated in Dallas the same day that Aldous Huxley dies in Los Angeles.
• Ken Kesey: The novelist and leader of the Merry Pranksters, whose “Acid Tests” get California ready for the westward migration of the Harvard Psychedelic Club.
• John Lennon: The “trippy’ Beatle who decides to try LSD after reading Leary and Alpert’s book, then writes two songs in honor of Leary.
• G. Gordon Liddy: The Dutchess County, NY, district attorney (and later Watergate conspirator), who first makes a name for himself by going after Timothy Leary’s psychedelic commune.
• Moody Blues: The rock ‘n’ roll band, whose song “Legend of a Mind” asks whether Timothy Leary is dead, or just “on the outside, looking in.”
• Richard Nixon: The President of the United States who calls Timothy Leary “the most dangerous man in America.”
• Augustus Owsley Stanley III: The chemist and venture capitalist who counts Richard Alpert, Jerry Garcia, and legions of Deadheads amongst the consumers of the nearly four million hits of acid he churned out during the 1960s.
• Keith Richards: The Rolling Stones guitarist who shares a needle and a spoon during Leary’s flirtation with heroin.
• Paul Tillich: The famous German theologian who declines Leary and Alpert’s invitation to “find God” with a dose of LSD.
• Nena von Schlebrügge: The third wife of Timothy Leary and mother of actress Uma Thurman (with her second husband, the Tibetan scholar Dr. Robert Thurman).
• Bill Wilson: The co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, who experiments with LSD in the 1950s and 1960s and makes an unsuccessful bid to get Timothy Leary to join his organization.
• Ronnie Winston: The heir to the Harry Winston diamond and jewelry business, who becomes Richard Alpert’s “psychedelic soul-mate,” enraging a jealous Andrew Weil.
• Ralph Metzner: Add a description of this character.
• Paul Lee
• Kendra
• Osmond
• Andy Weil
• Jack Leary
• Kelman
• Rosemary
• David Mcclelland
• Caroline
• Maharaji
• Marianne
• Russin
• Hofmann
• Dick
• Chris
• Frank Barron
• Paisner
• Susan
• Pahnke

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• San Francisco Bay
• Harvard
• Berkeley
• India
• University Of California
• Millbrook
• Mexico
• New York
• America
• Massachusetts
• Boston
• Switzerland
• United States
• Los Angeles
• West Coast
• Cambridge
• Newton
• China
• Bodh Gaya
• Japan
• Europe
• Marsh Chapel
• Stanford
• England
• Claverly Hall
• Kyoto
• Grateful Dead
• Philadelphia
• Arizona
• Maui
• St. Louis
• Bay Area
• Zihuatanejo
• Soochow
• Hinduism
• Texas

Table of Contents edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Don Lattin (Author)

Awards edit see section history

• California Book Award (2010: Nonfiction, Silver)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 973.9220922

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › History › Americas › United States › State & Local › Massachusetts
• Books › History › Americas › United States › 20th Century › 1960s
• Books › Biographies & Memoirs › Historical › United States
• Books › Biographies & Memoirs › Professionals & Academics › Social Scientists & Psychologists
• Books › Biographies & Memoirs › Professionals & Academics › Philosophers