Timothy Leary was a lecturer in clinical psychology at Harvard’s Center for Research in Personality (Harvard Crimson, 1962), appointed in 1959 according to the Crimson’s obituary (Harvard Crimson, 1996). With Richard Alpert he led the Harvard Psilocybin Project, which Alpert dated from autumn 1960 to the end of 1962 (Alpert’s letter, 1963).
Leary and Alpert used the phrase “set and setting” in a December 1962 letter (Harvard Crimson, 1962), and Leary co-wrote a 1963 paper on psilocybin in a supportive environment (Leary, Litwin and Metzner, 1963). His Concord Prison Experiment claimed to cut reoffending, but a 1998 re-analysis found no real effect (Doblin, 1998).
In May 1963 Harvard dismissed Alpert, and the Crimson reported that Leary had been relieved of teaching and his salary suspended for absence (Harvard Crimson, 1963). Leary said for years that he was fired; the record is less clear. A 2010 paper argues the Harvard scandal and the two men’s fame largely drove US federal prohibition of psilocybin in 1968, an interpretation rather than a settled fact (Wark and Galliher, 2010). He became a symbol of the 1960s counterculture.
Sources
- Harvard Crimson, 9 July 1963
- Alpert’s letter to Pusey, Harvard Crimson, 1963
- Doblin, 1998, Journal of Psychoactive Drugs
- Wark and Galliher, 2010
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