-Caveat Lector- LSD guru Timothy Leary made fun of abductees By Paul Davids Date: 10/27/2000 URL: http://www.alienzoo.com/features/o/200010270001.cfm ======================================================== Paul Davids It’s "Smash an Icon Week" here at FLYING SAUCERS OVER HOLLYWOOD, and so we’re decapitating Timothy Leary again. In 1997, Strand Releasing distributed a feature-length documentary film I directed (and produced with Todd Easton Mills) about the "Turn on, Tune in, Drop out" psychedelic 1960s leader that ended with a notorious scene of post-mortem decapitation for cryogenic preservation of the brain. That ending has now been video-streamed as a Halloween spectacular at www.ilooks.com. The film is called TIMOTHY LEARY’S DEAD, a title that comes from a line in the famous Moody Blues song about Leary called "Legend of a Mind." In the last year of Leary’s life, I conducted many hours of videotaped interviews with him, dressing him up in a stylish and appropriate green Nehru jacket for the occasion, as well as an elegant white suit. Leary, or "Dr. Tim" as his friends called him, abandoned a commitment to dressing cool long before that point, and for 365 days out of the year (and for almost all of his interviews) he basically wore one rumpled black and white jacket that had a psychedelic pattern. I changed that. In the interviews, we covered many of the nooks and crannies of his rabble-rousing life, from his Fighting Irishman youth and days as Harvard’s most eccentric and risk-taking psychology professor, through his days leading the League for Spiritual Discovery (LSD) at a mansion in Millbrook New York. Remember, Dr. Tim was on "the wrong side" in the Drug War - he advocated the responsible use of Psychedelic Vegetables, as he referred to them - and Richard Nixon declared him "The Most Dangerous Man Alive." We journeyed through his magic mushroom days in Mexico, his incarceration as a political / philosophical prisoner - and in one session we got around to the subject of flying saucers. Though Leary had blown his own mind countless times and could imagine infinite possibilities in our vast universe, he somehow still clung to the negative attitudes of orthodox, skeptical psychology regarding the subject of extraterrestrial flying saucers. Like most psychologists of his generation, he believed that life exists throughout infinite space. However, he stated in my film that he DOES NOT believe that extraterrestrial beings would "package alien beings in spaceships and send them hundreds of light years through space so that they could land in farm pastures and rape little old ladies in Iowa." That seemed to be the extent of his understanding of the alien abduction enigma. He was no Dr. John Mack of Harvard, that’s for sure. And then he took a drag on his cigarette, paused for reflection and added: "But those little old ladies . . . they’d LIKE to be raped by space aliens, wouldn’t they? THAT’s the point!" He actually didn’t use the word "rape." He used another four-letter word for sex that begins with an "F" and ends with a "K" and which we can’t print here at AlienZoo because we’re PG-13. TIMOTHY LEARY’S DEAD is a VERY irreverent movie. Timothy lived to blow people’s minds, and I realized that my film would never be seen by more than a handful of people if I didn’t blow a few myself. I may have over-done it. Not only did the movie invite the wrath of the Establishment (the folks who were SUPPOSED to hate it), that mind-blowing final scene made me persona non grata with more than a few of Dr. Tim’s most loyal followers. It seems they decided they loved me about as much as they loved G. Gordon Liddy the night he invaded Millbrook with a small army of narcs and arrested Leary for possession of a geranium plant (that Liddy thought might be marijuana). I took my unpopularity in stride. In the movie business, you learn to take your licks. And speaking of licks, our movie poster had a star on it that said LICK THIS POSTER. A few people did, thinking there was acid on it, and in Berkeley, the police methodically removed every single poster from the billboards and telephone poles. That is, every poster that was left after the Aging Hippies and gang-bangers swiped a bunch of them to eat. Dr. Tim's head To dramatize Timothy’s statements about alien abductions, I actually rented an alien costume from Sony Pictures’ Props department and went to the home of the publisher of UFO Library, who agreed to dress up like a little old lady. She put her hair up in curlers, powdered her hair gray and climbed into bed, where she read a UFO magazine. We then filmed a scene of me (as the alien) jumping on top of her in bed and (CENSORED) as we (CENSORED) up and down, the camera capturing every lurid instant of (CENSORED), while the bed springs squeaked and (CENSORED). We then showed me as the alien with the old Iowan lady in bed after sex, smoking a cigarette. So much for Dr. Leary on the subject of contact experiences. On to his next favorite controversy. . . Throughout the interviews, Dr. Tim talked about his plans to have his head removed and frozen (using cryonics) when he died. He was dying of cancer when we shot this film and had only about six months to live. Dr. Tim figured there was one chance in ten million that he could be brought back to life one day if they froze his head, but he figured the odds were zero if they didn’t. Dr. Tim explained that if they unfroze his head some day, he didn’t want his old, sick body back. He wanted a new clone of himself or his brain popped into the body of a brain-dead person. The official story is that Leary changed his mind about the deep freeze a month before he kicked the bucket. This might be true and might not, so don’t ask me, this is not a press conference. The point is, Timothy Leary finally announced that he didn’t want his head becoming an icon, and that he distrusted cryonics labs. So the official story is, he chose another publicity stunt for his farewell party instead - he was cremated and had some of his ashes shot into space. But within a few months of Timothy Leary’s death, our movie came out with an ending scene that showed Dr. Tim’s demise, decapitation, and the storage of his frozen head. That’s when the LSD guru’s most serious-minded devotees got VERY upset with me and threatened to banish me if I ever showed up at one of their raves. Apparently, they kicked me out of Hippie-Land forever, and never again would I show up in San Francisco with flowers in my hair. Many of the former leaders of the Psychedelic Revolution denounced me because I had the audacity to do something UNTHINKABLE. They forgot that the very lesson Timothy taught us was that NOTHING is UNTHINKABLE, so do it (as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody). As I said at the outset, you can see the controversial ending to TIMOTHY LEARY’S DEAD right now, today, as a Halloween Spectacular at www.ilooks.com, a site I would recommend to you anyway, whether Timothy Leary was playing there or not. Finish reading this article and then click over to ilooks and get grossed out. (One patron barfed in the theater where this film showed in Berkeley and our theatrical playdates were then cut very short in the Bay Area). You may even want to order a VHS copy of the whole movie while you’re there, and I hope you will because only a fraction of you probably saw it. With the www.ilooks.com connection, which I authorize, you’ll promptly receive your copy. The critics were evenly divided over the authenticity of the decapitation scene. A study of the news articles adds up to unique research in journalistic sociology. For the New York Times, the scene was real. Their review stated that Leary was now a "Headless Body in Topless Orbit." Ed Guthman, of the San Francisco Chronicle, decided it was real, and he denounced the film on the day it opened because the ending was done in unspeakably bad taste. At the New York Post, Michael Medved also concluded it was real. Like many other critics, he warned all "decent" people everywhere to avoid it at all costs. "Turn on, tune in, DON’T GO" he shouted. But he didn’t like Timothy Leary alive or dead. But love him or hate him, all free-thinking people have to admit that Timothy Leary started a revolution that has been helping Republicans get elected ever since. Dr. Tim was certainly not a Republican. He ran for Governor of California against a Republican named Ronald Reagan, and they threw him in jail during the campaign. In fact, one of Dr. Tim’s greatest fears about cryonics was that he might be resuscitated during a Republican administration. ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY gave the film a "B," a higher grade than they gave to STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE, but they decided the ending was an egregiously clever put-on. I don’t mind anybody thinking that. Dr. Tim realized that if the Establishment thought that his frozen head, suitable for cloning, DID exist, it was only a matter of time until authorities would find an excuse to search every cryonics lab in the world until they found his head so they could pull the plug. The Establishment would do anything to prevent Timothy Leary from returning from the dead, quite possibly to the point of making door to door searches for the head, perhaps at the same future time they go door to door to confiscate guns. "Excuse me, ma’am, do you have any unregistered handguns? And we’ll just take a quick look in your freezer while we’re here, step aside, please." The Toronto Star declared: "He’s dead, but where’s his head? TIMOTHY LEARY’S DEAD purports to show the severing of the Acid King’s head from his body, soon after his death from prostate cancer. But is it really Leary’s head on screen, or just a mask? Davids considers this his biggest mystery." It goes on to say: "Davids is convinced the anti-Leary forces are out there, waiting to interrupt Leary’s final experiment." >From Silicon Valley, Steve Rhodes Reviews says: "It seems that Leary, with his inflated view of the power of his brain, wanted his head frozen so his brain could be preserved for future generations. We get to witness the actual decapitation. And it is as horrific as it sounds." Steve Rhodes is definitely in the camp that believes Leary lives in a freezer. Newsweek described the ending as "The most shocking scene in a movie . . . sure to cause a furor." THE Izine DECLARES: "For any scholar or keen observer of the ‘60s and ‘70s this visual mantra will fulfill your wildest fantasies, and for those who seek a portal into eccentricity, then this will blow your mind. An exceptional piece of documentary film-making for an exceptional pioneer." Reviewer Andrea Chase said: "The last scenes of TIMOTHY LEARY’S DEAD show his head being removed and frozen. But can we believe our eyes? Considering his relationship with reality, it’s the perfect Leary-esque parting shot." >From the New York Underground Film Festival: "Even post-mortem, Leary makes sure to shock audiences: graphic footage of his head being severed from his body for cryogenic storage will be sure to wake up even the most burnt-out Hippie devotee." ON SCREEN rates films giving them between one and four eyeballs, with four being the best. They said: "Any movie in which the hero weighs the possibilities of expiring live on the net, having his head cryogenically frozen, or shooting his cremated remains into space, is good for at least three eyeballs in my book." So what’s actually going on here? Could the Leary loyalists be lying when they claim the ending of our movie was nothing but a cosmic wink, a parting joke? Are they guilty of a coverup, to secretly work for the success of Leary’s future biological return? Time and space do not permit me to make a full reply to those complex questions today, but if you don’t believe it, consider this: Timothy Leary signed one of his books to me, writing the words: "HERE’S TO THE SUCCESS OF OUR FILM! LET’S MAKE THE SEQUEL IN 2020!" So how do you think he expects me to direct him in the sequel, if he didn’t freeze his head intending to be resuscitated within two decades? See you next week at FLYING SAUCERS OVER HOLLYWOOD, as we continue our endless search for THE TRUTH, wherever we can find it. In the meantime, maybe a bit of the truth is lurking over at www.ilooks.com. Happy Halloween. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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