Shamans

The hippies had among them some individuals who can be considered Psychedelic Shamans. These shamans led the way, first by experimenting themselves, then by reporting the results and promoting their realizations in various media. Here brief biographies of the most famous Shamans.

http://www.blotterart.net/gallery/album18/Leary

Timothy Francis Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) was an American psychologist and writer, known for his advocacy of psychedelic drugs. During a time when drugs such as LSD and psilocybin were legal, Leary conducted experiments at Harvard University under the Harvard Psilocybin Project, resulting in the Concord Prison Experiment and the Marsh Chapel Experiment. Both studies produced useful data, but Leary and his associate Richard Alpert were fired from the university nonetheless because of the public controversy surrounding their research.

Leary believed LSD showed therapeutic potential for use in psychiatry. He popularized catchphrases that promoted his philosophy such as "turn on, tune in, drop out"; "set and setting"; and "think for yourself and question authority". He also wrote and spoke frequently about transhumanist concepts involving space migration, intelligence increase and life extension (SMI²LE), and developed the eight-circuit model of consciousness in his book Exo-Psychology (1977).

During the 1960s and 1970s, he was arrested often enough to see the inside of 29 different prisons worldwide. President Richard Nixononce described Leary as "the most dangerous man in America".

In his sixties, he was with no home, no job, no credit and dwindling credibility. He moved to Los-Angeles and started socializing in Hollywood circles, a natural evolution for those attempting to alter perception. He believed that Hollywood and the Internet would be the LSD of the 90’s, empowering people on a massive scale.

His lectures became multi-media extravaganzas with live video and music, entitled “Just Say Know”.  His books became graphic novels, focusing on the World Wide Web. He increased his daily diet to consist of 30 cigarettes, one marijuana biscuit, one bonghit, half a cup of coffee, and a great deal of nitrous oxide.

Dr. Leary died of inoperable prostate cancer, and he’d planned an elaborate death ritual for himself. He’d set up web-cams where fans of his work could watch him commit suicide in real time. Instead he died in his sleep, uttering the last words: “why not”.

Later, his ashes were loaded into the same 9x12 inch canister containing the remains of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and blasted into space on the Pegasus Rocket.  

Sources:

http://www.timothyleary.us/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Leary

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/nov/24/ken-kesey-magic-trip

Ken Kesey was one of Oregon's most famous, critically acclaimed and controversial authors. His rise to literary and cultural prominence was the product of his distinctive skills and experiences.

Kesey was born on September 17, 1935, in La Junta, Colorado, and in 1946 he and his family moved to Springfield, Oregon. In both high school and at the University of Oregon, Kesey was a champion wrestler. After earning a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Oregon's School of Journalism in 1957, Kesey attended Stanford University's creative writing program under the tutelage of acclaimed historian, novelist, and short story writer Wallace Stegner. While at Stanford, Kesey participated in U.S. Army experiments involving lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and mescaline. These hallucinogenic experiences would change Kesey's outlook on life and inspire his writings.

He published One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1962 and the quintessential Oregon novel Sometimes a Great Notion in 1964. Both novels explore what Kesey saw as the conflict between modern industrial society and individuality, a struggle between conformity and freedom. This struggle was also central to Kesey's personal life, where he turned to psychedelic drugs to find personal liberation.

Considered a founding father of the 1960s counterculture, Kesey promoted drug use as a path to individual freedom. He founded a group known as the Merry Pranksters whowere notorious for their “acid tests”.

In 1965, Kesey's drug use landed him in jail for six months. Upon his release, Kesey moved to a farm near Eugene to raise his family. He would publish a loosely organized memoir of his experiences in 1973's Kesey's Garage Sale. In 1975 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest became an Oscar winning film and Kesey briefly worked as a professor of writing at the University of Oregon. He published his third novel, Sailor Song in 1992, and lived in Pleasant Hill, Oregon, until his death on November 10, 2001.

Sources:

http://www.ohs.org/the-oregon-history-project/biographies/Ken-Kesey.cfm

http://nnm.ru/blogs/spiridonn/karlos-kastaneda-castaneda-carlos-sobranie-sochineniy/

Carlos Castaneda (December 25, 1925 – April 27, 1998) was a Peruvian-born American author. Immigration records for Carlos Cesar Arana Castaneda indicate that he was born on December 25, 1925 in Cajamarca, Perú. Records show that his surname was given by his mother Susana Castañeda Navoa. His father was Cesar Arana Burungaray. His surname appears with the ñ in many Hispanic dictionaries, even though his famous published works display an anglicised version. He moved to the United States in the early 1950s and became a naturalized citizen in 1957. In 1960 he was married to Margaret Runyan in Tijuana, Mexico. They lived together for only six months, but their divorce was not finalized until 1973. He was educated at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) (B.A. 1962; Ph.D. 1973).

Starting with The Teachings of Don Juan in 1968, Castaneda wrote a series of books that describe his purported training in traditional Mesoamerican shamanism. His 12 books have sold more than 8 million copies in 17 languages. The books and Castaneda, who rarely spoke in public about his work, have been controversial for many years. Supporters claim the books are either true or at least valuable works of philosophy and descriptions of practices, which enable an increased awareness. Academic critics claim the books are works of fiction, citing the books' internal contradictions, discrepancies between the books and anthropological data, alternate sources for Castaneda's detailed knowledge of shamanic practices and lack of corroborating evidence.

Castaneda died on April 27, 1998 in Los Angeles due to complications from hepatocellular cancer. There was no public service, Castaneda was cremated and the ashes were sent to Mexico. It wasn't until nearly two months later, on June 19, 1998, that an obituary entitled A Hushed Death for Mystic Author Carlos Castaneda by staff writer J.R. Moehringer appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

Sources:

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8088.Carlos_Castaneda