Chaos & Cyber Culture - Softcover

Timothy Leary

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0914171771 ISBN 13: 9780914171775

Publisher: Ronin Publishing, 1994

Synopsis

Timothy Learys Chaos and CyberCulture is his futuristic vision of the emergence of a new humanism with an emphasis on questioning authority , independent thinking, individual creativity, and the empowerment of computer and other brain technologies. This cyberpunk manifesto describes a new breed that loves technology and uses it to revolutionize communication and tweak Big Brother while being successful, achieving political power and having fun. Timothy Leary is a leading figure in the consciousness revolution of the 1960s.

Chaos and CyberCulture brings together his provocative, futuristic writings, lively interviews and cogent conversations with a variety of writers and thinkers. Chaos and CyberCulture defines the emergence of the New Breed of the Information Age, who are creating the cyberdelic politics and culture of the 21st Century.

Chaos and CyberCulture is a substantial work (over 100,000 words) consisting of over forty chapters and conversations with leading figures. There are eight main sections and a epilogue.

About this title

About the Author:

Timothy Leary (1920–1996) was a psychologist, author, lecturer, and cult figure. He was best known for having popularized the use of mind-altering drugs in the 1960s.

Timothy Leary was born October 22, 1920, in Springfield, Massachusetts. He was educated at Holy Cross College, the U.S. Military Academy, the University of Alabama (A.B., 1943), Washington State University (M.S., 1946), and the University of California at Berkeley (Ph.D., 1950). During World War II, Leary served in the U.S. Army, achieving the rank of sergeant in the Medical Corps. Subsequently he was an assistant professor at the University of California; director of psychiatric research at the Kaiser Foundation, Oakland, California; and a lecturer in psychology at Harvard University.

Leary and colleague Alpert (Ram Dass) were expelled form Harvard for their LSD research with students. Leary and Alpert then founded the International Foundation for Internal Freedom (IFIF) to promote LSD and similar drugs. In 1965 Leary visited India and converted to Hinduism, announcing that his work was basically religious. The following year, IFIF headquarters at Millbrook, New York, was raided by local police under the direction of G. Gordon Liddy, later to become notorious himself as the iron man of the Watergate scandal.

Leary had been arrested for possessing a small quantity of marijuana in 1965 and again in 1968. He was given ten-year sentences on each count, to be served consecutively rather than concurrently. This harsh sentence was almost certainly a result of his notoriety, as it bore little relation to the offenses, which even then were not regarded as serious. After serving only six months, Leary, with the aid of the Weather Underground, a left-wing terrorist organization, escaped from prison. Thereafter, he resided in Algeria, Switzerland, and finally Afghanistan. In 1973 he was seized and returned to California, where he was given an additional sentence for his prison escape. Leary was not released from confinement until 1976.

Leary's last book, Chaos and Cyber Culture was a hypertext instruction book of sorts, proclaiming that "the pc is the lsd of the '90s." Leary even "wired" his own final days on his website (Leary.com) in word and image. Leary surrounded himself with friends, famous and otherwise, as well. As Gen X chronicler and longtime friend of Leary, Douglas Rushkoff wrote in Esquire, "On learning of his inoperable prostate cancer, Tim realized he was smack in the middle of another great taboo: dying. True to character, he wasn't about to surrender to the fear and shame we associate with death in modern times. No, this was going to be a party." Originally, Leary had planned to have his brain cryogenically frozen, but decided instead to have his ashes shot into space. Leary died in Beverly Hills, CA, on May 31, 1996. His last words: "why not?"

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

For several thousand years it has seemed obvious that the basic nature of the universe is extreme complexity, inexplicable disorder-that mysterious, tanked magnificence popularly known as Chaos.

The poetic Hindus believed the universe was a dreamy dance of illusion (maya).

Individualistic thinking is the orighinal sin of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic bibles and sabotages attempts by the authorities to order Chaos.

The first rule of every law-and-order system is to trivialize-daemonize the dangerous concepts of Self, Individual Aims, and Personal Knowledge. Thinking for Your Selves is heretical, treasonous, blasphemous. Only devils and satans do it. Creative thinking, committed out loud, becomes a capital crime. It was Three Strikes and Youre Out for several hundred thousand Protestant dissenter during the Inquisitions of the Roman papacy-not to forget the witch-burnings performed by the Protestants when they took charge of the Chaos-control department.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ronin Publishing
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0914171771
• ISBN 13: 9780914171775
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320
• Editor: Michael Horowitz, Vicki Marshall
• Illustrator: Carolyn Ferris, Vic Keller, Keith Haring, Andy Frith, Brummbaer