1 IMOTHY LEARY

t~cre is no one who 6ad an experience With ~0 who
didn'c have an unforget~le, o~erwLeLrni~ expenence

Ho~ do c~rr~rs f~ei, our ir~r arpierahon?

	Coruputers help us understand how our brzins proc-
esrs ir]~nation. For example, as a psychologisr, I was
c~ught that the synapse, where rwo nerve endings ex-
change information, was a sort of on-off swirching de-
vice That is nor true at alt At d~e synapse rhere are
millions of c~antum sigr~ls, like an enormous television
screen. There is probably more complex informacion
exchanged berween one synapse and another than in
most computer programs~ Buc I have tO have an under-
s'=nding of computers to be aLle to say rhat. There is a
wanderfil paradox here: we can only navigate outside
as well as we can navigate within. Whac happened in
ehe SL`ues was that we did a lot of inner mpping, but
wc lacked the cybernetic-lan-

	guage technology to express	_

and map and chart whac we
were expenencmg.

Do ~uu misl ~e Sixne?

	Not really, though I must say
it was a fanrastic age of explora-
tior~ We had ehae old-time 14,ų2
Colurnh~s fever. We ser~ed that
we were brain expiorers. We in-
tlUtiK]y used meraphors of travel
- "trtpping," "coming down,"
"head pilots," "guiding voyag-
ers." The rneraphor "turning on"
relates eo ac~vating tne relevision

	SCt and booting up the computer	~ _

These da~s, the d.~gs ~n rog,~e

.~ot mind expan~ng. What does ~ Say about ff7e trme?

	The drugs char are papular co~ay - cocaine, pUls,
eCstasy, Venus, Eve- tend to alter mood racher than
expand consciousness. They can be instrurtive and
fi~n if handled prudently. But we still have to learn
how tO communicate what we experience. Let's be
frank: there will e~e new, improved drugs and waves
of inrernai explorations.

Wid7 - , enl?

	Ir is a genenc irnperative eo explore the brairL Why?
Berause it's there. If ~u are carryolg around in your
head 100 billion main~e computers, you iust hsve tO
get in there and learn how tO operate them There is
nothing in the oncside un~verse tbst Tsn't mirtored a ld
daplicau~d inside yout brain.

	Do ~u feel a k~dred spmt w~., the peeple who are iden-
t~ied ~h t/'e d.~g mo~ment, surl, as Richard Alpert -
a.k~. Ram Dass - and .~.ovelist a~1d Merry Pra~r~ster [eader
b en Kesey?

	Sure, although we all evolved so differendy. Richard
taL~cs abour going back to the source, which means g~
ing back to the past For many good reasons, Ric~ard
corumirred himself tO an extremely archaic Hindu or-
thodoxy But it's a peacefi~1 pl~losophy of caring and
charity. Richard was t~e Mother Teresa of the psyche-
deLic moYement. You can'r knock that But ~m Dass
ain't gor~na b6w your rnind open with new revelarions
and he a~n't gorma enrourage you tO storrn the gates of
d~e inf~space heaven wirtl cyberneric brainware.

Ho~ about Kin ftese~?

	Ken Kesey and hi, wife, Faye, are real Western he-
roes ~vlydZic ranchers. Frontier peopl~ Oregon Trail
fo~ Sak of the good ear~ Rugged-individualist peo
ple you can depend on in a crunch

	Hox~ atau! oll?ers asseciate~ 'with ~at penod? A6b~e
H<~ n?

	Abbie HofEman is a wonderfial legend. The most
radical, eloquent, rabble-rousung agitator of our tirne.

Je~ litr~?

	Jerry's your baslc YMHA director, a lilcabie ywag
executiv~ Jerry is a liberal conforrnist He could JUst as
weD hsve been a yonng liberal Republican. He's cer-
~ainly not your new Aristade or Phro.

Wf;at r~aJ hir roL. Sen?

	He had his own Holy Grail qUeSt He c~rEIinly was
OUt dlere in the front Lines. And he has a certain organ-
2ational charrn, which I adrnire. If ~u're loohng for a
veterans-of-the~imes consensus here, I'd guess that
ninety percent of the people who were involved in the
psychodelic brain discovery movemenr wo~ld tell ~u
chat LSD paved the way fior most of tlle cHku~l events
of the last twO decades - ecologr, New Age, Shjriey

G0 -' ~, :'

_ ~ SDrane~tie way~ormDut

~t~xcalfuralever~f o~tt~e/=ft~wo dera~e~ -ecoGo~y, [iefr~
craze, [[e~emovem~r~, S~ ey~oela~

MacI-aine? the e~orn-again persoral-rel~ion stuff, the
pesce movement7 the personal~ess craze, ~pop art,
personal-com,e~ueer hacking, MMV, B1~ h~omer, Sat-
N,ght Lbe and the cyberneric Eighties.

Cy~en?ehc?

	I think each decade in the raaring ewenrieth cenn~ry
has produced new technologies and art forms for per-
sonalizing and popularizing electronic, light-speed
quanturn energies. Since 1900 our sacieey of factory
workers and farmers has been ~usLormed inro an in-
for~nation-age cufture torally coramitted tO flashing re-
alities on s®ees~ Americens spend more time loohag
at television monitors ehan they do gazing into the eyes
of farnify and friend~ Power, politics and culture are
determined by who conrrols the screens

How lOe5 ~.5 ~ec~ - ?

	I folbw the trends of evolution. i go w~th the elec-
tron flow. I see myself as a quintessential American,
just geir~ along for the ride

~tessenG7~? You?

	Hey, I'm sixty-seven ~ears old I have actively expe-
rienced seven decades of accelerated change. I've
s~urfed each of the waves of the tweneieth cen~cy wieh
reasonable success and an enorrnous arnount of fulL In
the Forties, I was in the army for five years and in
school on che GI bill for five years. What could be
more apple pie? Ln che Fifeies, L was a burton-down
young professor wid1 kids, a subur4;'an house, drin~ng
nlarurii~ In dle Sixeies, I dutifolly, di~,endy turned on,
tuned in and, God knows, dropped ouc What was dhe
alternative? Turn off, tune out, blindly conform?

	The Sffrencies was ehe decade of the political pr~
oner. Nixon d~rew che dissenrers in jaiL I was uhe first
one to go into prison: Jan~ry 1970. Then, afrer Wa-
tergate, it was the Nixon gang's tun~ In the next six
years, I wacched my federal pursuers join me: ehe attor-

		~:

ney general, John Mitchell; Haldeman and Ehrlich-
rnan; Gordon Liddy. Now, in the Eighties, how can
sw am~d the compueer revolution?

Can pu desc?ibe your mor' n. bk co~r~rieU?

	My work involves cy~ernetic psychok'F,y- the per-
sonalizanon ar d p~pul~ation of qusatum mechani~
Packaging and communicating ehonghts at light
speed~ Putting electronic appliances in ehe hands of in-
dividuals. Firsr we had the telephone, then radio
movies, television Now we have computers, video
p6yers, compart discs7 home-editing appliances. It's
seill jOst ehe beginning. In ehe next five years we're
gonna design you an inexpensive electronic faciliry
for your living room. You'll be able eo move infor-
mation and irnages around on your screen in whatev-
er way you wane. Now, thatts revolutior ary.

~ ~ wa~?

	_	In the ewenty-first century,

whoever controls the scmn con-
rrols consciousness, uformation
and thonght. The screen is a
mitror of your rnind, get it? If
you are passively watching
screens, you are being pro-
grammed [f you ar~ editing ~ur
own sereen, you are in ~ntrol of
~ur mind George Onvell had it
wrong. He was tO~ oprimisric.
He wrote in 1,ų84 that Big
Brother would watch us from
screens on ehe walls of our livirlg

	_ l	roarns or betrooms. But that is

nothing. You could always duck
out of sight. The carrent horror is rhat Arnericans
voluntarily stick their amoeboid fares toward the
screen six or seven hours a day and suck up informa-
tion that Big Brorher is put~ng there. Here is the
key to our furure: We can and will control our own
screens. We are designing software that will empow-
er you tO produce and direct your own rnind movies,
your own prirne-rime shows.

And i7OPf M~ ~ ~C' us?

	This will create a new model of human being, ehe
cyberneric person. A new movement is emerging.
it'5 something ~e the bearn~s of the F~es or the
hippies of th~ Sixties Ic's called cyberpunk. The
concept comes from William Gibson's book Neur~
mcmcer. Cyberpunks are individuals who have the in-
telligence and the courage eo access and use high-
quanrum rechnology for rheir own purposes and
their own modes of con~TIunicarion

For ex~mpL ?

	In the movie WarGa7r~ d~e kiJ is a video horshot.
At school, rhe aurhoritarian, smug teacher gives him a
hard tirne. He goes tO the principal~s office, gets ~e
computer code and goes home and changes his grade.
He ends up using his cyber skills tO match wits wirh the
Pentagan compurers. Another exarnple of cyberpunk
was rhe yonng man from Hamburg, Mathias Rust,
who piloted a small Cessna throngh ~he elec~ronic
nets and defense systems of the Russians and landed
in Red Square. Why? Not for the C:IA, noe for the
Gerrnan army, but for his own fucking pleasure. He
is a cl;usic cyberpunk. Charles Lindherg, the Lone
Eagle, was another. Stanley Kuhrick. Jann Wenner.
Seeve Jobs. ~ could go on.

And ~y ~7?zbobre ~?

	Taking con~rol of ~e furure ourseE`es. Ignoring the
old-time insntutions and archaic politic~ You don'r or-

