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NEA grant helps prison libraries purchase “Fahrenheir451″ along with film presentations and study materials.

Celtic Scribes: Timothy Leary

By Ray Cavanaugh

Timothy Leary was born in 1920 in Springfield, Massachusetts. His father was an Irish-American dentist who abruptly skipped town before his only son’s thirteenth birthday. Upon graduating from high school, Leary headed to College of the Holy Cross in nearby Worcester, where his penchant for mischief met with disciplinary opposition.

Clearly desiring a change of venue, the oppressed undergrad migrated south to the University of Alabama, where he was once again pegged as a discipline problem. Eventually receiving a bachelor’s degree in Psychology, Leary polished his act enough to obtain master’s and doctoral degrees in the Psych field.

Having held positions as assistant professor and research director, Leary was then able to land a coveted faculty seat at Harvard University. During a 1960 sabbatical to Mexico, the professor ingested what would become the most influential mushroom in western culture; it was a psilocybin mushroom, the same sort which, many moons ago, had been consumed by indigenous peoples in their quest for enhanced religious ceremony.

For Leary, the encounter was mind-blowing; he later proclaimed that the psychedelic snack had, in several hours time, enabled him to “learn more about [his] brain and its possibilities than fifteen years of doing research in Psychology.”

Wanting to share the enlightenment, Leary established the Harvard Psilocybin Project and invited participants to try his special mushrooms, which were legal at the time. Along with the purported mind-expansion, Leary’s mushrooms supposedly carried the potential to curb addictions and antisocial impulses. Following an extended experiment at nearby Concord State Prison, Leary claimed that mushroom-fed parolees experienced a lower rate of recidivism. Subsequent studies have disputed this claim.

Around Harvard, there had blossomed a psychedelic black market; people were chasing a whole kaleidoscope of hallucinated stimuli. At Harvard dorms, some visiting parents observed that their little scholars were chewing the carpet; it soon seemed uncertain if all pupils were receiving a solid liberal arts core. During this time, Leary’s position at Harvard was terminated, officially for the neglect of lecturing obligations, though many decided the termination was for Leary’s role in diffusing psychedelics.

In the mid-1960s, legal troubles began for Leary, who had emerged as a counterculture icon. He faced multiple charges for marijuana possession; one case even reached the Supreme Court, which ultimately decided to overturn his drug conviction. Leary celebrated such triumph by announcing his entry into California’s gubernatorial race, led at the time by future president Ronald Reagan.

Not every court decision went Leary’s way, however; for possessing a half-ounce of marijuana, he received a lengthy sentence. Upon arriving at prison, he was given a psychological test geared to assigning each inmate a suitable work detail. With his extensive Psych background (which even included the design of prison-administered psychological tests), Leary answered the questions in such a way so as to obtain a cushy gardening job in a section with comparatively lax security. He got the job he wanted, and soon escaped.

Having reunited with his wife, Leary fled to Algeria, then to Switzerland, where he ended his marriage and dabbled in heroin, before teaming up with an immensely wealthy socialite. Together, they went to Austria, Lebanon, and even Afghanistan, where Leary was intercepted by U.S. federal agents, much to the delight of then president Richard Nixon, who had previously called Leary “the most dangerous man in America.”

America’s “most dangerous man” was returned to his home-country and cast into the infernal bowels of California’s Folsom State Prison, where he inhabited a solitary cell immediately adjacent to that of counterculture devil Charles Manson.

According to federal authorities, Leary became an informant, sharing secret information about other radicals he had known. There was dispute over how much inmate Leary actually did reveal; many contended that he never supplied any significant information, and that his “cooperation” was merely a pretense used to gain early release from prison. At any rate, he was soon granted his freedom.

Out of prison, Leary divided his time between lecture tours, drug trips, and writing. In all, he authored over twenty books, mainly memoirs and social philosophy. This philosopher, however, was not one for Aristotelian ethics; he instead urged us all to “turn on, tune in, and drop out.” Leary was also an ardent early supporter of the internet, which he considered “the LSD of the 1990s.”

In 1995, Leary was diagnosed with inoperable prostrate cancer. As if tanking up for the biggest trip of all, he embarked on a rigorous daily regimen of “nitrous oxide, cigarettes, marijuana, heroin, and morphine.” By request, his death was videotaped. Having desired to go extraterrestrial instead of subterranean, his ashes were eventually rocketed into outer space – an untraditional yet fitting end for the Irish-American maverick who had a whole generation galloping into a higher planetary consciousness.

09 Nov 2009
Southbank Centre presents the 48th annual Koestler Awards exhibition “Art by Offenders, Secure Patients and Detainees” on show at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre. The exhibition includes some 130 exhibits created by inmates of prisons, young offender institutions, secure hospitals and immigration removal centres across the UK, as well as offenders supervised by probation and youth offending services and British prisoners abroad.

In a departure from previous years, the 2009 show is the first national art exhibition curated by serving prisoners. All the curators are from a women’s prison, giving the selection of 130 works a distinctly female perspective. The six curators were carefully chosen from women nearing the end of their sentences at HM Prison Downview in Surrey. As part of the nine-week educational project, the women have undergone intensive training, selected the exhibits, designed and built the displays and will be giving exhibition talks and tours. Each of the women involved will receive guidance about where to aim next with the new skills that they have learnt.

Jude Kelly, Artistic Director Southbank Centre said, “We are delighted to welcome back the Koestler Trust awards to the Royal Festival Hall, in the second year of a continuing partnership with Southbank Centre. We wholeheartedly support their work and philosophy. Developing the skills to express ideas and emotions through art and craft gives each prisoner and detainee a new sense of what is possible in their life and how they can build a different future for themselves.”

Tim Robertson, Chief Executive the Koestler Trust said, “Given the rising prison population, it may be obvious that the number of artworks entered for Koestler Awards should continue to grow each year. What is more remarkable is that the quality of the work is clearly rising too. And the women prisoners who have curated this year’s exhibition have shed it in a fascinating new light. Their selections feel warmly personal, sometimes dark, but with marvelous flashes of humour, and a particular emphasis on careful detail and discipline. They are giving those of us outside prison an unprecedented insight into custody, creativity and gender.”

Organised by The Koestler Trust, the UK’s best known prison arts charity, this year’s Awards attracted 5,867 entries, with prizes awarded in 52 categories. The exhibition includes film, music and writing alongside the visual arts. Visitors are invited to vote for extra awards sponsored by the Wates family, owners of one of the UK’s largest construction companies, the Wates Group.

All of the work in the exhibition has been made in the last year, and includes painting, sculpture, drawing, ceramics, textiles and other media. The female curators have been instrumental in shaping the design and hang at Southbank Centre, and some of their comments are included in the displays.

The Awards, now in their 48th year, aim to promote creativity across the criminal justice system. Many of the works are for sale at modest prices, with half the proceeds going to the artist. The sales provide invaluable financial support for the Koestler Trust, and 10% goes to Victim Support, the national charity for people affected by crime.
Read Southbank Centre / AG articles on Taxi
•Southbank Centre Presents Award-Winning Art By Women Offenders