WEBVTT - Episode 10: TIMOTHY LEARY’S LAST TRIP 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:13.320 Yeah, I am the fairy man. 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:21.640 The human spirit is my business. Their madness, their passion, 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:28.560 the wonderful and monstrous ways they burn out their brief candle. 0:00:31.040 --> 0:00:34.199 I regret to tell you that very many American. 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:35.480 Lives in love. 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:42.080 Was heard to shouts from the car. He's dead. Whether 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:47.400 he referred to president or four hours, people must get 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:48.720 up and google identification. 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:57.040 I am here in the in between, to collect their 0:00:57.080 --> 0:00:59.880 spirits and carry them to what comes next. 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:05.600 This road is not on any map. 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:12.000 It spans the thresholds between their most forbidden desires and 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:14.640 their greatest fear. 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:20.560 All I ask for. 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:24.920 In payment is a tale and accounting of their lives 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:29.960 and the great temporary that is the land we're living. 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:33.840 These are their stories. 0:01:35.680 --> 0:02:09.919 This is the passage. 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:15.480 We've arrived early to pick up this next passenger, to 0:02:15.600 --> 0:02:20.640 bear witness to the end of this chapter before shepherding 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:32.800 him forth. America came of age during an industrial revolution, 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:37.400 a time of capital and progress and a slow push 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:42.440 toward a certain sameness. The Nuclear Age brought about the 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:49.560 nuclear family, TV dinners the suburbs. Into this age of 0:02:49.680 --> 0:03:13.400 conformity burst our passenger, Timothy Leary. 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:15.120 He spent his. 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:20.320 Life escaping breaking out of being another cog in society, 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:22.079 breaking out. 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:24.880 Of prisons physical and mental. 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:32.280 No institution could contain him be a military, academic, marital, 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:37.880 or criminal. Indeed, he was arrested thirty six times and 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:40.800 once pulled off and escaped, the likes of which Billy 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:46.560 the Kid would salute first and foremost. Timothy Leary was 0:03:46.600 --> 0:03:52.600 a student of consciousness, a psychologist, and then the trip 0:03:56.200 --> 0:04:01.280 in Mexico, he was introduced to mushrooms containing the psychedelic 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:08.720 compound psilocybin. This introduction redirected the course of his life 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:14.080 and the course of the nation. In Harvard, he dove 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:18.760 in at first to psychedelia, first exploring it as a 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:23.080 tool of psychiatry, and then expanding it as a means 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:29.240 to an elevated consciousness and understanding of the mystic. These 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:37.160 blurry edges defied understood science, and he was ousted from it. 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:42.200 So he became a sort of a folk hero, standing 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:47.080 against the nuclear age of sameness. Guys like him, they 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:49.640 kind of see how we see on this side of 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:55.279 the veil. Having ventured beyond the conventions of his own 0:04:55.320 --> 0:05:03.040 prescribed life. After escaping the cave where he'd been unconsciously 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:09.920 self imprisoned, and having then expanded across the shores of consciousness, 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:15.560 where all words and forms would melt away like castles 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:20.360 made of sand, And having then lost his mind and 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:28.520 the waves of infinite interconnectedness, he returned to coax others 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:32.120 to take the trip to them. He was a hero, 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:37.960 the captain of the Psychonauts, the High Priests of LSD. 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:44.359 What little unity that had held this nation together after 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:49.760 the Great World Wars disintegrated in his time. The glue 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:54.240 that bound the pieces of America together crumbled, and it 0:05:54.440 --> 0:06:00.920 fractured on ideological lines old verse, young, poor, verse, rich, liberal, conservative, 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:05.919 the establishment first, the counter culture. Blood flowed in the 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:12.200 streets of Chicago. Blood flowed in Mississippi, Berkeley, Kent State, 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:19.080 blood flowed in Dallas, Harlem, and Vietnam. The disintegration was 0:06:19.120 --> 0:06:23.880 fueled by a cultural revolution, fueled by a collective awakening, 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:30.560 fueled by him. 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:40.360 Why why why not? 0:06:57.960 --> 0:06:58.359 Hello? 0:06:59.200 --> 0:06:59.520 Hello? 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:03.040 Yeah? 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:13.960 Follow me? Not? Damn? Okay? What's the deal here? Man? 0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:18.360 Are you the angel of death come to shove me 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:21.720 off to the great beyond? Or a complex hallucination conjured 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:25.680 by a dying mind to brace itself for oblivion. I 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:31.160 am neither Okay, not really an answer, but that's okay. 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:35.520 A thing doesn't have to be real to reveal the truth. 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:39.680 So whether you're real or not, let me warn you 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:43.000 that this is no ordinary ghost you're chauffeuring. No, sir, 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:46.720 I am the very spirit of the nineteen sixties itself, 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:49.680 ready to embark on the next great trip beyond the 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:53.480 limits of the human nervous system. Hell, I figured that's 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:56.400 why you pick me up and ken Casey's old psychedelic 0:07:56.440 --> 0:08:05.840 school bus here. Yeah there, indeed, cragging me up, Larry, 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:39.800 take a seat, not damn Yeah, yes, heavy man. You know, 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:42.520 like any good scientists, I have a lot of questions, 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:46.959 so embrace yourself, the most pressing one being to which 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:50.240 far galactic outpost are you taking me? 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:51.599 Yeah? 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:56.800 Well, I have no answers, at least not for the 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:01.000 questions you will ask, only passengers and the tales they 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:05.319 pay for my carrying them across this final dark. 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:09.920 Now tell me what story will you pay me? With scientists? 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:17.280 Hmm, I've only ever asked where did we come from? 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:22.400 And where are we going? Friend? You know, like Galileo, 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:25.040 I was persecuted for the heresy of reporting the facts 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:30.520 of my research in the face of institutionalized dogma. Like Socrates, 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:33.959 I was found guilty of corrupting the minds of the youth. 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:38.200 Like Wilhelm Reich. My research was banned and I was 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:43.280 incarcerated by the state. In fact, President Nixon called me 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:48.520 the most dangerous man in America. I was j Edgar 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:51.720 Hoover's public Enemy number one. Yeah, I was a threat 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:54.240 to the Judeo Christian adult authority that was running the 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:57.240 hive of the time, so they had to lock me up. 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:05.800 But I did more than escape. I taught an entire 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:13.240 generation how to escape with me. My whole life, I've 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:18.760 been fascinated with understanding the human need to escape, what 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:23.199 force acts upon the mind to make a jail cell home, 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:28.360 or struggles to transcend its own happiness. In the early 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:31.679 nineteen fifties, I received my doctorate in psychology. It was 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:34.520 a booming industry at the time, after the Great Depression, 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:37.680 the war, and the bomb There was big money and 0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:40.600 keeping the man in the gray suit from having a 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:44.040 nervous breakdown. It wasn't long before I found myself at 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:50.160 Berkeley conducting research into modeling the human personality. I was 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:52.640 the first in my field to chart and organize the 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:58.320 very characteristics of human interaction itself. Yes, my models quickly 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:02.480 became the standard of diagnosis for therapists everywhere. By my 0:11:02.559 --> 0:11:08.680 early thirties. Well, I had it all, a wife, two kids, 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:13.840 a house by the beach, academic acclaim. But it wasn't 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:22.240 enough that Berkeley, the academic nightlife was positively back and all. 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:27.520 There were drinks, there were marijuana cias. There were women. Oh, 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:44.360 now there were women. My wife, my wife, mary Anne. 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:49.520 It's just that she didn't mind the occasional dalliance with 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:52.640 a student or faculty wife, so long as I stuck 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:57.200 to the one simple rule, don't fall in love. But 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:00.319 like any rule I've ever been given, you know, I 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:06.120 had to break it. I met another woman, younger, smarter 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:07.800 than most of her age, but not too smart, if 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:11.959 you know what I mean. Well, had a real fire 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:15.319 in her. By the second time we slept together, I 0:12:15.400 --> 0:12:18.760 knew I had broken the one rule. Worse than that, though, 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:23.560 I got careless. One night, when we were both drunk, 0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:27.400 my wife called me out, and I didn't care enough 0:12:27.520 --> 0:12:32.440 anymore to deny the affair. Maryanne accused me of breaking 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:35.160 our one rule, don't fall in love, and I reminded 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:38.280 her that that was her rule, not mine, and she 0:12:38.320 --> 0:12:41.480 could she could, she could well, she could leave if 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:44.160 she didn't like it. So she got in the car. 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:49.319 Marianne sat there for a few minutes before coming back inside. 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:52.400 She instead went straight to bed without another word. Now 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:55.719 over the following week's life just went on much as 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:58.880 it did before. You know, she never spoke of the 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:03.400 one rule again, her rule, And I, well, I didn't. 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:06.560 I didn't stop seeing my mistress. I mean, what difference 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:09.960 with that of man? But I did you know, I 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:13.640 made concessions to my wife. I spent more time with 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:16.880 her and became more discreet in my extramarital affairs. And 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:19.480 you know, that's the thing to remember here. I think 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:29.600 I tried. That's I really tried. Weeks later, on the 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:32.520 morning of my birthday, I woke up to a note 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:37.120 on the pillow. Written on it were seven simple words, 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:42.200 Happy birthday, you son of a bitch. Well, here we 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:46.480 go again, I thought. I stumbled down the stairs to 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:51.760 the kitchen and discovered she baked me a cake. The 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:55.800 candles were lit, they were halfway burnt down. I was 0:13:55.840 --> 0:14:01.000 transfixed as I watched them flicker. The dance of their flames, 0:14:01.120 --> 0:14:03.960 the colors they radiated more vibrant than normal, like there 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:09.400 was a message somehow trying to reach me if I 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:15.000 studied them hard enough. And then that's that is when 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:21.000 I heard it. The car, our car in the garage, 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:28.320 sitting there idling mary Anne, good old, predictable mary Anne, 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:31.200 once again two hung up on her issues, to do 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:35.320 what I've done my whole life, take the next necessary 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:42.880 step forward. I saw her sitting there in the front seat, 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:45.640 with her hands on the wheel in her Sunday best, 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:51.560 leaning forward and prayer, asking to be forgiven her cowardice, 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:55.880 or for the strength that she lacked. It didn't matter. 0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:59.040 I had enough. I would answer her prayers and end this. 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:07.360 Yanked the door open. She fell limply into my arms. 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:09.600 Her eyes were closed, but there was a faint smile 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:13.040 of satisfaction that I hadn't seen on her face in years. 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:21.600 I attempted to rouse her, but she she she refused. 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:29.880 That's when it hit me. The carb was still running, 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:36.040 the windows were rolled up. How long had she had she? 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:42.520 I checked her pulse and found none. I shook her again. 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:50.120 I shouted her name. Then I cursed it. Stupid, stupid 0:15:50.720 --> 0:16:01.800 mary Anne. She killed herself carbon monoxide poisoning. She didn't 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:08.840 mean to, right, she couldn't have. It wasn't my fault. No, 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:13.600 I told myself that, standing there in the kitchen on 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:15.760 the phone, waiting for the operator to connect me to 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:21.480 the police station. From the corner of my eye, she 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:28.480 stood there watching. Being a trained psychologist, I knew it 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:36.400 wasn't her. The real her was still in the garage. 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:41.080 So I forced myself not to look at what was 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:48.680 clearly a a hallucination of my wife, and instead focused 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:51.400 on the birthday cake on the counter. The candles were 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:57.120 still burning. I found myself spacing out on flames, colors, 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:04.160 scouring them for a glimpse of a way out. Then 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:08.159 Mary Anne stepped over to the birthday cake and with 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:14.720 a wink, blew out the candles before I could make ash. 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:18.080 The last thing I heard before the darkness took hold 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:21.760 was the operator asking me if I was still there. 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:28.680 Whatever the darkness was, that, claimed Mary Anne, Well it 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:34.520 was it was mine now, and I had I had 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:39.800 what a psychologist might call a nervous breakdown. I quit Berkeley, 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:43.440 got married again. The mistress, of course, in for a penny, 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:46.840 in for a pound, But that quickly fell apart. I 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:50.879 traveled to Europe at a colleague there who, well with 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:53.760 a little of the old leery charms, set me up 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:58.280 with a lectureship at Harvard. Still the darkness lingerede and 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:02.000 with it so did Marianne. I would find her standing 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:05.480 at the back of the classroom, from darkened corners, behind 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:08.840 the wheel of empty cars, just watching, unable to speak, 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:16.280 unable to escape something I had to be done. After 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:20.840 fifteen years in the field of psychology, I arrived at 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:27.000 the sorry conclusion that psychology wasn't doing much to solve 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:31.399 my emotional or mental problems, much less that of the 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:36.879 American people, if not the entire fucking human race. So 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:40.399 while I was in Mexico, I'm an anthropologist. Friend of 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:44.160 mine told me how well he was studying the indigenous 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:48.159 shaman of the area, and well they use psilocybin mushrooms 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:51.879 to treat mental illness, and well he confided in me 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:55.439 that he had tried it, and he swore doing so 0:18:55.560 --> 0:19:00.960 gave him the insight to overcome his shell shock. I 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:05.280 scored some mushrooms from the hotel staff, and I took 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:08.639 them pool side. The fung i tasted even worse than 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:13.119 they looked bitter, stringy. Of course, I saw mary Anne, 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:17.439 still in her Sunday best standing there watching and I 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:18.280 almost got up to. 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:19.040 Leave, and then. 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:31.440 They kicked in. I could feel something shifting. I felt strange, 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:40.680 mildly nauseous, detached, Everything quivered with life, even inanimate objects. 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:47.639 I gave way to the light and I discovered a 0:19:47.720 --> 0:20:03.960 see of new possibilities, other realities at the swimming pool 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:07.080 that day, I learned more about the human mind than 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:11.359 I had in my entire professional career. And when the 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:21.840 trip faded, Marianne was nowhere to be found. I was free. 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:31.400 Yeah it worked. I returned to America and got approval 0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:34.320 to set up the Harvard Psychedelic Project. And you know, 0:20:34.400 --> 0:20:38.640 people often forget that it wasn't the counterculture that introduced 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:43.680 America to the psychedelic revolution. It was the suits. It 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:48.600 was us at Harvard, the professors, the medical industrial complex, 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:52.280 the CIA with their black budget mk ultra LSD experiments 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:56.240 in pursuit of the perfect truth serum or brainwashed assassins. 0:20:57.040 --> 0:21:01.280 They distilled their own fear, paranoia, and aggression, engineered a 0:21:01.320 --> 0:21:07.600 concentrated solution of ongoing trauma. The results weren't pretty asked 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:13.200 Bobby Kennedy, and Sir and Sir Ham asked the poor 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:16.800 souls who found themselves secretly dosed with the weapon grade 0:21:16.920 --> 0:21:19.680 LSD by their uncle Sam and learned the hard way 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:25.960 that they couldn't fly from their hotel window. We've all 0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:29.600 heard those stories. I mean, thankfully we had more success 0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:33.359 than the spooks. We made significant advancements in psychedelics, in 0:21:33.880 --> 0:21:37.920 the treatment of trauma, you know, we made incredible breakthroughs 0:21:37.920 --> 0:21:41.600 with the hardened convicts. And while we produced a lifetime 0:21:41.600 --> 0:21:47.720 search for existential meaning in mere hours, I mean, that's 0:21:47.760 --> 0:21:52.080 not what they wanted. They wanted to abstract giddiness that 0:21:52.200 --> 0:21:56.240 both tantalized and frightened the masses. It wasn't long before 0:21:56.240 --> 0:21:59.840 the halls of Harvard were packed with spaced out, fresh 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:03.600 and outraged faculty. I tried to show them the keys 0:22:03.640 --> 0:22:09.280 to psychological liberation, but all they saw was chaos. I mean, well, 0:22:09.880 --> 0:22:13.840 I know, no surprise here. But the Psychedelic Project was 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:18.760 shut down and I was forced to resign. But it 0:22:18.800 --> 0:22:21.720 was too late. The proverbial cat was out of the back. 0:22:22.440 --> 0:22:25.800 Now my home was besieged with counterculture pilgrims desperate for 0:22:25.840 --> 0:22:28.919 a shortcut to enlightenment. Now, what I offered was science, 0:22:29.119 --> 0:22:32.239 what they wanted was mysticism. With a little bit of 0:22:32.320 --> 0:22:35.560 neurochemical lightning, they learned that they didn't have to die 0:22:35.640 --> 0:22:38.320 for the generals, or the CEOs or the middle class, 0:22:38.400 --> 0:22:42.240 middle aged whiskey drinking masses. Which is exactly when my 0:22:42.440 --> 0:22:50.960 research finally was taken seriously by all the wrong people. 0:22:54.080 --> 0:22:58.040 Shortly after Tricky Dick decided that I was the most 0:22:58.160 --> 0:23:02.000 dangerous man in a mayor well, my door was kicked 0:23:02.000 --> 0:23:06.439 in by an ambitious Da G Gordon Lyddy, who along 0:23:06.520 --> 0:23:09.760 with twenty three armed sheriffs, ransacked my home. Now they 0:23:09.760 --> 0:23:12.720 didn't find anything, and well, the warrant was thrown out, 0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:15.199 but I got the message and I split the scene 0:23:15.480 --> 0:23:17.960 at large again. I headed south with my lover and 0:23:18.000 --> 0:23:22.040 two children back to Mexico. Got as far as the 0:23:22.040 --> 0:23:25.639 border before the pigs pulled this over for a strip search. 0:23:28.640 --> 0:23:32.159 They have away with massages. I was standing there naked 0:23:32.200 --> 0:23:36.040 while some pig rummaged through my belongings. When I saw 0:23:36.040 --> 0:23:41.680 her again, Mary Anne, smiling from the corner. I knew 0:23:41.720 --> 0:23:45.240 then what was coming. The pigs found an ounce of 0:23:45.280 --> 0:23:49.000 marijuana in my daughter's underwear. Naturally, I took the wrap 0:23:49.040 --> 0:23:53.560 for it. It was my first offense, but well, because 0:23:53.640 --> 0:23:57.080 I was the infamous LSD Guru, they slapped me with 0:23:57.119 --> 0:23:59.800 a thirty year sentence to be served at the California 0:24:00.200 --> 0:24:02.720 Colony Prison, but I was plotting my escape before the 0:24:02.760 --> 0:24:06.080 gavalive at Hammered. Upon arrival, the first thing they did 0:24:06.160 --> 0:24:09.639 was give me a personal diagnostic test. Yes, the same 0:24:09.720 --> 0:24:14.480 personal diagnostic test that I myself created to assess flight 0:24:14.560 --> 0:24:17.439 risk in prisoners. So I gave the answers of an 0:24:17.440 --> 0:24:21.240 ideal prisoner and found myself in minimal security. A few 0:24:21.280 --> 0:24:25.480 weeks later, I was well scrambling over the prison walls 0:24:25.520 --> 0:24:28.560 and shimmied a phone wire to freedom. From there, I 0:24:28.600 --> 0:24:31.399 rendezvous with some contacts in the Weather Underground and was 0:24:31.440 --> 0:24:37.280 smuggled out of the country. Well. Now in Algeria, I 0:24:37.400 --> 0:24:40.399 was holed up with Eldridge Cleaver. I was a Minister 0:24:40.440 --> 0:24:43.600 of Defense of the Black Panthers, a fellow expatriot and 0:24:44.040 --> 0:24:48.840 expatriot in exile from the man. We collaborated on revolutionary 0:24:48.840 --> 0:24:56.760 strategies until he grew impatient with my more racous impulses, 0:24:57.320 --> 0:25:00.560 until inevitably the Panthers had well, they had escort me 0:25:00.600 --> 0:25:05.320 out of Algeria at gunpoint. Well, eventually the CIA caught 0:25:05.400 --> 0:25:09.400 up with me and Kabul. Next thing I know, I'm 0:25:09.400 --> 0:25:15.920 back in California, standing before judge. Now, I just want 0:25:15.960 --> 0:25:20.840 to take a second, because the only threat more dangerous 0:25:21.440 --> 0:25:26.040 than any prophet or any monster, or is a trickster. 0:25:27.080 --> 0:25:29.280 Anyone who preaches that the aim of the individual life 0:25:29.320 --> 0:25:34.040 is to know yourself, not to kneel or to be obedient, 0:25:34.080 --> 0:25:40.359 but to liberate yourself. Now that is heresy to suggest 0:25:40.359 --> 0:25:42.800 that the primary goal in this existence is to treat 0:25:42.840 --> 0:25:47.640 others as human beings, not to fear or oppress them. Oh, 0:25:47.880 --> 0:25:56.200 that's dangerous. It flies in direct opposition to every fundamental 0:25:56.240 --> 0:25:59.720 religion and every political party or military institution in service 0:25:59.720 --> 0:26:04.879 of any state, any every I had the power and 0:26:04.920 --> 0:26:09.280 the wisdom of the clown. And clowns are terrifying because 0:26:09.320 --> 0:26:13.440 they are unpredictable. I was a threat because I provided 0:26:13.480 --> 0:26:19.119 access to the extraordinary. I held the key to unlock 0:26:19.160 --> 0:26:22.760 all the cages, and I handed it out to anyone 0:26:24.440 --> 0:26:41.639 who wanted it. But Mary, Yeah, was there the whole trial, 0:26:43.680 --> 0:26:50.800 watching with amused pity. The trial was quick and nasty. 0:26:52.119 --> 0:26:54.359 The powers that be had learned their lesson. This time. 0:26:54.400 --> 0:26:59.040 They were not locking me away in some rinking dink cage. 0:26:59.600 --> 0:27:05.320 They put me in fulsome prism next door to another 0:27:05.320 --> 0:27:11.679 infamous counterculture guru incarcerated there, Charles Manson looked up to you. 0:27:11.960 --> 0:27:13.120 Entire generation did. 0:27:13.600 --> 0:27:16.240 Charlie made it clear that he had been expecting me. 0:27:16.280 --> 0:27:19.800 I found a welcome package of cigarettes and paperbacks on 0:27:19.840 --> 0:27:23.800 my bunk. We conversed through the air vent between ourselves 0:27:24.720 --> 0:27:28.199 anywhere you wanted. At first, he tried to get in 0:27:28.240 --> 0:27:30.840 my head and to rattle me. That's what I can 0:27:30.880 --> 0:27:31.680 never figure out. 0:27:31.840 --> 0:27:33.879 You showed everyone that could have a new head, and 0:27:33.880 --> 0:27:35.080 you never gave him one. 0:27:35.320 --> 0:27:35.800 That's it. 0:27:37.480 --> 0:27:41.680 That's the point I don't. I don't want to impose 0:27:41.720 --> 0:27:44.600 my realities on other people. The idea is everybody takes 0:27:44.640 --> 0:27:49.360 responsibility for their own nervous system, creates their own reality. 0:27:50.320 --> 0:27:54.800 Anything else is brainwashing. And that's your scene, Charlie, not mine, 0:27:55.200 --> 0:27:56.000 as your mistake. 0:27:56.640 --> 0:27:58.080 No one wants responsibility. 0:27:58.560 --> 0:28:01.240 Everyone wants to be told what to what's really true, 0:28:01.840 --> 0:28:05.720 what's really real? Because this world inside our heads, in and out, 0:28:05.720 --> 0:28:08.200 it's all death and I need to be told how. 0:28:08.080 --> 0:28:14.920 To face You're wrong, Charlie, look around you. It's all love, 0:28:15.240 --> 0:28:15.800 not death. 0:28:17.080 --> 0:28:19.240 That's not what the woman in your sale says when 0:28:19.240 --> 0:28:20.200 you're sleep at night. 0:28:22.359 --> 0:28:23.960 What's your name again, Mary something? 0:28:25.040 --> 0:28:28.680 Why don't you ask her if it's love or death. 0:28:28.480 --> 0:28:29.320 That drives us? 0:28:38.400 --> 0:28:41.000 Like I said, he wanted to get inside my head 0:28:41.000 --> 0:28:43.920 as badly as he wanted me inside his own. But 0:28:43.960 --> 0:28:47.200 it didn't matter. I had accomplished what neither Mary Anne 0:28:47.200 --> 0:28:53.720 nor the infamous Charles Manson ever could. I escaped, both 0:28:53.760 --> 0:28:57.120 figuratively and literally. Years later, I was pardoned by the 0:28:57.120 --> 0:29:00.719 governor and freed to a new world. The Hippies and 0:29:00.760 --> 0:29:06.040 the weathermen and the panthers were gone. It was Reagan's 0:29:06.040 --> 0:29:09.040 America now, and the psychedelic Revolution had been abandoned for 0:29:09.120 --> 0:29:14.240 the power trip of cocaine in the stock market. The 0:29:14.280 --> 0:29:17.840 same man I had co founded the Youth International Party with, indeed, 0:29:17.840 --> 0:29:19.920 the same man I had vouched for on the stand 0:29:20.080 --> 0:29:22.440 in the trial of the Chicago Seven, had become a 0:29:22.520 --> 0:29:30.840 businessman a suit. The yippies had become yuppies, and I well. 0:29:31.960 --> 0:29:34.840 I unfortunately realized that I was no longer a major 0:29:34.880 --> 0:29:39.400 threat to the system, but something much worse, a minor celebrity. 0:29:40.560 --> 0:29:45.320 Grandpa hippie babbling about drugs, love and the Revolution. I 0:29:45.400 --> 0:29:51.240 learned playing the clown was worse than playing the guru. Still, 0:29:51.440 --> 0:29:57.400 my infamy kept me high and off the streets. The 0:29:57.400 --> 0:30:06.560 most dangerous man in America had retired into irrelevance. My 0:30:07.040 --> 0:30:12.040 whole life has been about escaping, but not just my life. 0:30:10.800 --> 0:30:14.800 I mean I mapped the human psyche and then discovered 0:30:14.800 --> 0:30:21.040 how to go beyond it, to transcend, to explore, to escape. 0:30:21.360 --> 0:30:24.400 You know, it was my father who gave me my 0:30:24.440 --> 0:30:31.840 first lesson in escaping. Yeah, when he split the scene 0:30:31.840 --> 0:30:35.160 when I was just a kid. He died drunk and 0:30:35.200 --> 0:30:41.200 broken alone. My mother was determined that I would be 0:30:41.240 --> 0:30:43.880 a better man than him, all the while never forgiving 0:30:43.920 --> 0:30:51.400 me for being his son. Maybe that pain is what 0:30:51.520 --> 0:30:56.080 drove me to understand people, the mechanics of the lack 0:30:56.120 --> 0:31:02.120 of intimacy. Maybe that, in turn drove me to achieve 0:31:02.200 --> 0:31:08.960 the success my mother believed beyond me. You see that 0:31:08.480 --> 0:31:11.720 that's what I was trying to spare Marianne and the kids. 0:31:11.720 --> 0:31:13.920 I wasn't going to leave her and the children the 0:31:13.960 --> 0:31:16.560 way that my father left me and my mother. I 0:31:16.640 --> 0:31:19.760 was determined to work it out to reach the next 0:31:19.840 --> 0:31:22.160 level do you know if she got impatient. That's not 0:31:22.280 --> 0:31:26.080 my fault, right, that's not my fault. I could have 0:31:26.120 --> 0:31:30.080 fixed what was broken in her in us, but she 0:31:30.240 --> 0:31:33.040 never gave me the chance. She gave up, she ran away. 0:31:33.360 --> 0:31:44.520 I'm not the Okay. Yeah, looks like California out there. Huh. 0:31:45.200 --> 0:31:47.720 So I guess it could be either heaven or hell. 0:31:48.600 --> 0:31:53.120 Yeah, I'm not a fan of California either. I'm not 0:31:53.160 --> 0:31:56.520 a fan of a dry heat anyway. 0:31:56.560 --> 0:32:00.640 You know, I haven't decided yet if this is real, yeah, 0:32:00.760 --> 0:32:03.680 or just the last flicker of my dying mind. 0:32:04.160 --> 0:32:07.600 Yeah, Yeah, it doesn't matter. 0:32:08.360 --> 0:32:31.760 Yeah, I guess not. No, I did it. I escaped 0:32:31.760 --> 0:32:35.520 them all, all the spooks and the pigs in their prisons. 0:32:36.000 --> 0:32:41.800 I escaped life. But I guess I can't escape death. 0:32:41.920 --> 0:32:48.400 Uh As in life, I step into death a man 0:32:48.760 --> 0:32:52.600 liberated from all. 0:32:52.600 --> 0:33:12.920 Wait, what is that? Mary am Mary Anne? No, No, no, no. 0:33:10.920 --> 0:33:19.479 No, no, Ferryman, you can't leave me here, Ferryman, Please, 0:33:20.920 --> 0:33:21.920 you can't be real. 0:33:23.000 --> 0:33:23.960 You can't leave me here. 0:33:24.680 --> 0:33:27.480 You can't you can't here. You can't do that. 0:33:28.320 --> 0:33:33.120 No. 0:33:31.680 --> 0:34:06.400 No, even gurus of their inner demons, no matter how 0:34:06.480 --> 0:34:10.759 far out into the corners of consciousness, you get you 0:34:10.880 --> 0:34:11.960 are still there. 0:34:13.719 --> 0:34:18.760 The you that is most you of guilty conscious. 0:34:18.320 --> 0:34:23.720 Cannot travel unencumbered, as this great teacher of men shall 0:34:23.880 --> 0:34:37.600 learn on his passage. 0:34:48.320 --> 0:34:51.880 The Passage stars Dan Fogler as the Fairman. This episode 0:34:51.920 --> 0:34:55.520