Your Brain Is God

Book Description
This collection of essays, written by the poster boy of 1960s counterculture, describes the psychological journey Timothy Leary made in the years following his dismissal from Harvard, as his psychedelic research moved from the scientific to the religious arena. He discusses the nature of religious experience and eight crafts of God, including God as hedonic artist. Leary also examines the Tibetan, Buddhist, and Taoist experiences. In the final chapters, he explores man as god and LSD as sacrament.


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"Timothy Leary and his psychedelic researcher team quickly discovered that being scientists - even Harvard scientists - could not shield them from the strong taboo against "brain-change." Changing your brain and expanding your mind with magical plants is against the law. The brain has replaced the genitals as the forbidden organ that must not be touched or turned on by the owner. Fortunately there is one loophole - the religious metaphor. While there is nothing in the Bill of Rights to protect scientific freedom, there is a First Amendment protection of Freedom of Religion." "The moment of decision came during a wild all-night LSD session when Richard Alpert went up to Leary, eyes popping, and announced, "The East! We must go back to the wisdom of the East!" At first Leary was reluctant because, like many of us, he responded negatively to the word "God." Like Galileo and so many other scientists and philosophers before them, they were in uncharted territory. So religion it would be! Only Timothy was insistent that there would be no kneeling down, no dogmas, no holy men, no followers, no churches, no public worship, and no financial offerings." Your Brain Is God is Leary's summa theology. It is an activist, do-it-yourself theology. As a kind of scientific paganism, God is defined in terms of technologies involved in creating the universe and engineering the eight stages of evolution, which he called the Eight Crafts of God. The ritual use of sacraments - LSD and essences of entheogenic plants - accelerates activating the divinity within and experiencing the eight crafts.


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