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 praise for Timothy Leary's
Psychedelic Prayers

"The most witty of all Oriental mystics translated

by the funniest of all American philosophers, who
could ask for anything more? Lao Tse and Tim
Leary fit together so well I almost believe in
reincarnation."
ROBERT ANTON WILSON

"As a luminous trajectory, starting fromTao wisdom

of the 6th Century BC and landing in the
American scene the 21st Century,
as it enters

Psychedelic Prayers presents us with visions and

choices we can no long ignore."
LAURA HUXLEY

"Psychedelic Prayers is
perhaps the best-loved among
Leary's many books, and occupies a unique place in
psychedelic literature."
MICHAEL HOROWITZ

"Two of my Lao Tse and Timothy,

'oldest' friends:

deep in conversation, speak with one voice."

RAM DASS
Tim^tfiYLEABY
OIEDElic
ar ofHEi^niEDifAttons

Introduction
Ralph Metzner

Bibliographical Preface
Michael Horowitz

Preface
Rosemary Woodruff Leary

RONIN PUBLISHING
Berkeley California USA
Psychedelic Prayers and Other Meditations
ISBN: 0-914171-84-4
Copyright 1997 by the Futique Trust

Published by
Ronin Publishing
P.O.Box 1035
CA 94701
Berkeley,

www.roninpub.com
www.leary.com

All rights reserved. No

part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and

retrieval system, without written permission from the
publisher, except
for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

Originally published as Psychedelic Monograph II

by Poets Press
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 66-23650
Copyright 1966 by Timothy Leary

Project Editors: Sebastian Orfali & Beverly Potter

Manuscript Editors: Michael Horowitz, Ralph Metzner,
Rosemary Woodruff Leary
Copy Editor: Dan Joy
Cover Design: Brian Groppe
Book Design: Judy July
Production & Pre-Press: Generic Type

Art, Illustrations, Photos: Page border from wood box edition which apprears
on Dedication page, and throughout this edition by Michael
as vignettes

Green. Photos on pages 11, 12 & 126 by Peter Gould. Photo on page 30 by
Robert Altman. Illustration on page 118 by Bill Ogden.
 tABLE of corrf Errf s

Introduction by Ralph Metzner 9

Bibliographical Preface by Michael Horowitz 23

Preface by Rosemary Woodruff Leary 31

Foreword by Timothy Leary 35

PART I
Prayers for Preparation 45

PART II The Experience of Elemental Energy 53

PART III The Experience of Seed-Cell Energy 65

PART IV The Experience of Neural Energy 81

PART V The Experience of the Chakras 89

PART VI Re-entry: The Experience of the Imprinted World ... 97

Poems on the Conduct of Life 117

with Rosemary Woodruff Leary

Homage to the Awe-full Seer 125

Notes 133

Index According to the Tao Te Ching 139

Ralph Metzner with Nanette
and Timothy Leary at the
Taj Mahal, 1965.
 infRpDvcTion
RALPH METZNER
The first time I heard Tim Leary broach the idea of adapting
the Tao Te Ching as a guide-book for psychedelic sessions was
in Zihuatanejo, in the summer of 1962, during our first inten-
sive retreat devoted to the exploration and mapping of the
unusual states of consciousness opened up by psychedelics.We were work-
ing on the adaptation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead as a manual for psy-
chedelic sessions that was later published as The Psychedelic Experience. In
that text, Tim explained, the main teaching was to recognize the beautiful

and horrible visions that one encountered, what the Bardo Thbdol called the
"peaceful and wrathful deities," as emanations or projections of one's own
mind. With such recognition, triggered by the spoken words of the guide,
one could avoid grasping for the beauties and fleeing from the terrors, stay
centered and have a reasonable chance of making it
through the experience
to a balanced re-entry or "rebirth." Summing up the basic advice repeated
many times throughout this guidebook, we would tell psychedelic voyagers
to "relax and float down stream."
In one of our discussions Tim said that after we produced the
Tibetan Book of the Dead manual, we would adapt the Tao Te Ching,
which he considered a spiritually more advanced text. The book's essen-
tial teaching, for all of life, was to be like water ... to
keep flowing. This
was my introduction to the teachings of Taoism, as the work on the
Tibetan Book of the Dead was my introduction to Buddhism. Both have
remained treasured parts of my life ever since. Neither my undergradu-
ate education at Oxford nor the psychology graduate program at

Harvard had included any exposure to Eastern philosophies or religion.

So it was with a great deal of intellectual excitement that I started to
delve into these texts, both of which are among the pre-eminent classics
of the world's spiritual literature.
I believe my experience also paralleled that of Leary. A psychologist
highly trained and skilled in the Western methods of scientific research,
he felt affirmed in his spiritual approach to psychedelic experiences by
iO PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS + TIMOTHY LEARY

the discovery of these ancient spiritual writings. Their essential message,

once freed from the prevailing cultural symbolism, was fully consistent
with the insights coming from psychedelic experiences. Psychedelic
drugs and plants are catalysts for transcendent experiences or they can
be, given the appropriate preparation, attitude, and context (the "set and
setting," in Leary's felicitous phrase).
The Asian spiritual texts are centrally concerned with transcen-
dence, with learning to go beyond the ego-centered perspectives of
ordinary human consciousness, beyond the dualities of right and wrong,
and with becoming liberated from the fears and cravings that character-
ize human existence. For the traditional Asian religious teachers, the

method of attaining such liberating transcendence was not psychedelics

but meditation. Their goal, however, was essentially the same as that of

spiritually oriented psychedelic explorers.

The period of the early sixties, when these explorations of con-
sciousness and rediscoveries of ancient
spiritual traditions were being
made, was time of extraordinary excitement and challenge for Leary,
a

Alpert, myself, and the other psychologists of the Harvard project.

Unimaginable potentials for human transformation were seemingly
being opened up. Along with repeated experiences of transcendent states
of consciousness through psychedelics, we were experiencing a transcen-
dence of the usual framework of life in an academic institution. In 1962,
Leary and Alpert were dismissed from Harvard, my graduate studies
were completed, and the psychedelic research project that was initiated
there had to find a new home. None of us were particularly disappoint-
ed or hurt by this apparent disgrace. As Tim was to say, it was as "unrea-
sonable to expect a university to sponsor research in psychedelics as it

would be to expect the Vatican to sponsor research in aphrodisiacs."

The research and explorations of consciousness continued unabated:
at first witha training seminar in Zihuatanejo (which ended with our

group being expelled from Mexico) and then (after unsuccessful

attempts to continue the seminar in two Caribbean islands) in a magnif-
icent mansion owned by the Hitchcock brothers in Millbrook, New
York. In the late summer of 1963,
a group of about a dozen of us,

including Tim and two children Susan and Jack, Dick Alpert, my
his

wife Susan and myself, and several others, convened in Millbrook and
hunkered down for the fall and winter. Having been rebuffed in our
INTRODUCTION RALPH METZNER //

The Millbrook Big House

in 1965, at the time the
Psychedelic Prayers were
written.

attempts to establish a public psychedelic research center that would

make these extraordinary new tools accessible to anyone with a respon-
sible attitude, we decided to retreat and concentrate on writing and lec-

turing and our own personal work of transformation using psychedelics

and meditation.
It was a time of great creative fervor for all of us, but especially for
Leary. Many papers describing our work were written, lectures given,
conference presentations made. The Psychedelic Experience was published
in early 1964.1 continued to edit and
publish the Psychedelic Review,
with the assistance of Paul Lee and Rolf von Eckartsberg.We started to
give workshops, in which altered states of consciousness and changes in
perception were induced without chemical means. We called ourselves
the Castalia Foundation, after the mystical retreat center in Hermann
Hesse's novel The Glass Bead Game.
12 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS TIMOTHY LEARY

Leary in
Millbrook,
1966, with the
psychedelic
dog, Fang,
and Diane
di Prima's

daughter,
Jeanne.

Our experiences in Mexico and the Caribbean, as well as in earlier

group experiences when we were still Harvard, had brought us right

at

up against some very heavy barriers tocommunication and coopera-

tion -jealousy, possessiveness, competitiveness, envy, and so forth. There
were also experiences of feeling a warm inclusive unity and non-posses-
sive love for all beings. However, after these experience wore off, the

pre-imprinted feelings of the normal personality returned, made perhaps

more acutely uncomfortable by the memory of the free consciousness

experienced under the drug. The higher, more unified level of con-
sciousness could not be maintained. We saw how we were trapped by
ancient patterns of conditioning.

Perhaps naively, we wanted to see if we could override them by

consciously and intentionally choosing to do so. We began a series of
small group experiments in non-possessive relationships, which were
INTRODUCTION RALPH METZNER 13

mostly abandoned after a couple of weeks as being too artificial. Out of

all this, however, came some powerful learning and much laughter at the

ridiculousness of our preconditioned attitudes and habits and the diffi-

culty of escaping from them. Tim Leary's leadership style in these situa-
tions light, humorous, and very engaging. Dick Alpert too had
was a

great sense of humor and told fantastically intriguing stories of his

adventures on the lecture circuit. The jazz musician Maynard Ferguson,

together with his wife Flo and their three children, lived in the house as
well.We all became very close.
When we were not working on writing, lecturing or giving work-
shops, or trying to free our interpersonal relationships from pre-
imprinted possessive conditioning, we spent time working on the fan-
tastic grounds of the three thousand acre estate, clearing shrubbery and

building little retreat centers and hermit's nooks. I remember winter

walks in the moonlight, when the only sound was the crunching of our
boots in the snow. One crisp, cold day in November 1963 we got the

synchronistic news: Aldous Huxley, the wise elder of the psychedelic

movement, had died, and had taken a dose of LSD to facilitate the final
journey; and on the same day, John F. Kennedy, our charismatic presi-
dent, was assassinated in Dallas. This was a low body-blow to the collec-
tive American psyche a sudden loss of innocence and idealism, and an

ominous foreboding to those involved in the movement for the libera-

tion of consciousness.

During the spring and summer of 1964 the Millbrook group con-
tinued their psychedelic explorations, creative writing projects, garden-

ing, and connecting with artists, musicians, philosophers, researchers,

journalists. Ken Kesey and his busload of Merry Pranksters arrived
unannounced one day, after their legendary cross-country tour. Amazing
feastsand celebrations took place in the extravagantly baroque mansion
that we called the Big House. Millbrook became a kind of Mecca for

psychedelic seekers and adventurers.

Among the constant stream of visitors from New York was a
Swedish fashion model named Nanette, whose long-legged form was at
that time adorning numerous New York transit buses. She and Tim fell
in loveand moved in together. Shortly thereafter, a friend of hers,
another model named Kathy, with auburn hair and green eyes, arrived.
and I fell in love. Both Tim and I, introverted intellectuals that we
Kathy
14 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS TIMOTHY LEARY

were, felt initially awkv/ard with these glamorous and sophisticated

denizens of the New York fashion world. Our LSD experiences with
them however swiftly took us all to undreamed of levels of archetypal
tantric spirituality.
Another Hermann Hesse novel that had made a deep impression on
us was Journey to the East, a story of a group vision quest, a metaphorical

journey to the lands of mystic spirituality. Each of the seekers on that

journey had a personal goal, but all shared the goal of enlightenment
and liberation. "For our goal," Hesse wrote, "was not only the East, or
rather the East was not only a country and something geographical, but
it was the home and youth of the soul." In Hesse's novel, the group
quest, though initially ecstatically inspiring, falls apart under mysterious
circumstances in a doomed place called Morbio Inferiore.We were also

reading Ouspensky's In Search of the Miraculous and Gurdjieff's Meetings

with Remarkable Men, in which a 20-year quest in Asia by a group called
the Seekers after Truth described. Stimulated by these accounts of spir-
is

itual quests, the idea of an actual geographical pilgrimage to India had

formed in our minds.

So when the opportunity arose to accompany an Indian holy
woman, Gayatri Devi, with her group of Indian and American disciples,
on an ashram pilgrimage to India, I jumped at the chance and tried to
persuade Kathy to go with me. Tim and Nanette wanted to join us some
time later. Gayatri Devi, or Mataji as she was called, was a teacher in the

lineage of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, who had founded ashrams in

Los Angeles and Boston, had tried LSD and was supportive of the
exploration of its spiritual potentials. So in November of 1964 I found
myself on the plane to India in her company. Kathy had become very
anxious and conflicted and could not bring herself to go with me,
though she held out hope she might come later. After a week's stopover
in Kyoto, Japan, where we conversed with Zen teachers and visited
shrines and temples, we landed in Calcutta, where Mataji had thousands
of devotees. Enormously interesting visits to temple sites in Bhub-
haneshwar, Puri, Konarak and Benares followed. Then we went to Delhi
and northwards up into the hill country of Uttar Pradesh to Rishikesh,
where the Beatles later visited the ashram of Maharashi MaheshYogi.
Then I separated from Gayatri Devi's group and continued further
northwards and into the Himalayan foothills to the village of Almora.
INTRODUCTION + RALPH METZNER 15

Lama Anagarika Govinda, the Austrian-born Buddhist scholar, lived

there with his Parsee wife, Li Gotami, in a cottage on a ridge with an
unbelievably spectacular view of the snow and ice peaks of the
Himalayas. Every day I would walk a couple of hours to their house and
discuss various aspects of Tibetan Buddhist teachings with them. Lama
Govinda was impressed with the appreciative dedication we had written
tohim in our adaptation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. He agreed to
try a dose of LSD that offered to provide and guide for him. After an
I

initially turbulent period of confusion and anxiety at the intense somat-

ic changes induced, he centered himself with the aid of mantra and
mudra, and had an illuminating experience according to the model of
Bardo Thodol. He expressed his pleased anticipation of a visit from

Timothy Leary.
During my travels in India I had been writing Kathy and the
Millbrook group my impressions of India. Tim wrote back letters in
which he described the fantastic and joyous spiritual and social carnival
that Millbrook had become, his deepening relationship with Nanette,

their wedding, their travel plans for India, and his evolving ideas about
the processes of psychedelic consciousness expansion. He was using the

ethological language of imprinting. These ideas and understandings

formed the conceptual framework for his work in translating the Tao Te
Ching into a session manual for psychedelic experiences. Here are a few
excerpts from these letters:

The political-education battle over psychedelics has been won

and from now on it's
just a matter of time... next generation... my
only concern now is to learn to use my own head and to pursue
the incredible complexities that develop when two people begin to
explore their potentialities together and in small tribal groups.

Withdrawing energy and commitment from externals and

materials, etc. You know.
Nanette and I have been together almost every minute for the
weeks and she is an unending series of beauty and wise
last three

lessons...We are visiting the Episcopalian minister in town to

arrange the most romantic, mythic wedding in history... very soon.
You have to give everything to it without reserve and then it all

flows from one moment of happiness to the next... well you know.
16 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS TIMOTHY LEARY

The tribal scene is wonderful.

The trees are now leafless and etched black, like sumi-painting

strokes, and the dusk comes quickly late afternoons and fires are
glowing most of the rooms and the house breathes softly waiting
in

for the next period of change and movement... Nanette and I will
probably be joining you after the first of the year.
The meaning of imprinting is
"getting involuntarily hooked to

externals, accidentally presented externals at that!!!" The process of

de-imprinting is
getting consciousness back to the flow and back to

the body. Re-imprinting is

planned temporary hooking back to

externals.

Marriage plans... we are inseparable these days, keeping humor

and loving detachment while the turmoil swirls by. We think now
we'll leave for the Orient right after the wedding.

My understanding of the "trap of externalization" becomes

clearer. Imprinting freezes us to the outside the trick is to with-
draw once a week and then, each time, make a carefully planned
re-addiction to the outside systematically reducing the number of
externals and thus allowing for new complexity and subtlety. You
know.
Nanette has changed. More quiet, tranquil, amazing patience,
she moves through the turmoil areas with calm. She has Chinese,

Viking, south Sweden farm girl things at her core.

The power of imprinting continually astounds me. Frightening,
unless you continually and vigilantly recognize. We delight in the

prospect of seeing you soon.

Richard (Alpert) has mutated. He has taken over "Tim's role,"
whatever that means, and is genial, hospitable, radiating plans and
welcomes. He is
filling the house with creative men and beautiful
women... Wedding in four days. Incredibly long list of details all

clicking into place. Nanette is a pure, white fire of honesty and

love. We have been together about 23 hours a day for the last four

weeks.

Kathy... every hour a new crisis. Nanette and I have bought her
a ticket around the world which she now has in her possession. I
have made reservations for her to leave when we leave. We are

putting no pressure on her simply giving her another card in her

INTRODUCTION RALPH METZNER 1 7

hands a freedom card which she may or may not use. She is

miserable. Your have been magnificent. I guess that is all you

letters

can do... let her know you are waiting, without putting on a lot of

pressure or emotion. Perhaps by the time you receive this she will
be on her way.

In any case, and in all cases the only thing to do is to

free one-

selffrom internal distortions and external addictions.

We think of you always and with great joy that we'll be with

you soon.

was deeply moved and exhilarated by Tim's letters. Readers of

I

Psychedelic Prayers will recognize the themes of freeing oneself from

"internal distortions and external addictions" in his versions of LaoTse's
ancient text. The Taoist teaching on the importance of attuning oneself
with the flow of Tao resonates naturally with his statement that "de-
imprinting is
getting back to the flow and back to the body." As his let-
ters show, he was acutely sensitive to the fragility and vulnerability of

the imprinting process involved in human love relationships. There was

an exquisite poignancy for me in his messages, since my romance with
Kathy was hanging in the balance. For Tim and Nanette, although they
could hardly have known this, their visit to the Himalayan village of
Almora involved extraordinarily heightened creativity and spiritual
insight, but it also spelled the beginning of the end of their marriage.
took the three day journey by bus and train down from the Hill
I

Country to meet Tim and Nanette in Delhi. When I told them enthusi-
astically my meetings with Lama Govinda, they
about Almora and
decided they wanted to go there too. But before we headed back up
into the mountains, we wanted to see the Taj Mahal. We had heard that
once a month, around the time of the full moon, the grounds are kept
open to visitors at night. We thought this would be an extraordinary set-
ting for a psychedelic experience. During the day we took a tour of the
mausoleum, our senses heightened by legally available ganja. Our guide
enthusiastically explained the history behind this amazing structure.
"Shah Jehan, who built this monument, was not only in love with his
wife, Mumtaz Mahal ('Jewel of the Palace') but he also had a mania for
construction." He built it in response to his wife's dying request to
create something by which she would be remembered.
18 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS + TIMOTHY LEARY

Tim Leary was very impressed by the fact that Shah Jehan built the
Taj as an expression of personal-human love. He felt that the quest for
enlightenment still always had an element of selfishness ("my enlighten-
ment") whereas the Shah's love for his wife was purely other-oriented.
The question of how personal passionate human love could be integrat-
ed with the spiritual quest for liberation was clearly a central concern
for Tim during this period and perhaps a core theme of his entire

post-psychedelic life.
As the sun was setting and the full moon rising, we set up our ses-
sion blanket on the grass in front of the Taj. The sight of the Taj Mahal
in the moonlight is indescribable, even with normal perception. After
our eyes got adapted to the darkness, the light of the moon was brilliant
as daylight, the white marble dome glistened pale blue and silver, while

precious stones inlaid high on the dome

flashed and sparkled. Like a

mirage hung
it from the earth by a thin band of haze,
in space, separated

glowing and humming with radiance in perfectly harmonious wave-

field patterns.

& &
In his autobiography Flashbacks Leary described how in Almora,

they rented a house high on the ridge, with me in the guest room, and
started a routine of visiting Lama Govinda and Li Gotami every after-
noon. "It turned out that the Lama and I shared an intellectual obses-

sion compulsive penchant for classification." Govinda had made an

a
exhaustive study of Asian systems of consciousness and Leary, the author
of Interpersonal Diagnosis of Personality, had spent years studying Western
systems of personality. They got along famously.
Tim had brought along nine English language translations of the Tao
Te Ching. Each day, sitting on the grass in the warm sun under the pine

trees, he would pick one of Lao Tse's verses, read each of the versions
and attempt to distill the essential meaning using the perspectives
gained from his psychedelic experiences. Lao Tse's cryptic and profound
meditations on the invisible, all-pervasive universal energy flow process,
were rendered into language that psychedelic voyagers would recognize
from their experiences. Then he would reduce them down to the sparest
possible formulations, distilling, extracting the essence, carving words
INTRODUCTION + RALPH METZNER 19

like a sculptor hewing and polishing the stone to reveal the figure. Lao
Tse had been and princes. Leary translated his
a counselor to rulers
advice to them into suggestions for the psychedelic session guide.
I feel these meditations on
psychedelic consciousness expansion are
perhaps Tim Leary s most inspired writings. They are, by turns, serene,
sensuous, funny, and wise. He continued to work on them after he had
returned to Millbrook, where they were organized as a session manual
in six parts, to be read by the voyager or guide before and during a ses-
sion. I
suggested the name "Psychedelic Prayers." The six parts, corre-
sponding roughly to the outline of The Psychedelic Experience, were (1)

preparatory, (2) highest point of pure energy flow, (3) visions of biologi-
cal or seed energy, (4) verses focusing on the perceptual senses, (5) verses

focusing on the chakras, and (6) verses about re-entry, re-imprinting, or

return to everyday life.
The
three of us also visited Sri Krishna Prem, an expatriate

Englishman who had lived in an ashram as devotee of Krishna-Radha in

He was an extraordi-
the nearby village of Mirtola for over forty years.

nary figure, who

had integrated Hindu and Buddhist teachings with the
esoteric wisdom traditions of the West, including Gurdjieff. Where
Govinda was a scholar, a pandit, Krishna Prem was truly a sage a very
down-to-earth, unassuming, humble and humorous one. After our initial
visit, Tim went back once more by himself. I believe that with Krishna

Prem Tim was probably the closest that he ever came to accepting a

spiritual teacher. In Flashbacks he called Krishna Prem "The Wisest Man

in India."
For me, the meeting with Sri Krishna Prem was also a turning
point. When he talked about the so-called "left-hand path" of the
siddhas, the tantric yogis of ancient times, he interpreted this to be the
path of integrating the weaker, less developed function. I realized that

my meetings and readings with Lama Govinda were only strengthening

my intellect, which was already over-developed. suddenly got the
I

strong feeling that I should go back to the States so that I could piece
together my fractured romance with the insecure Kathy. In addition, it
was obvious that the relationship between Tim and Nanette was under-
going increasing strain, and I felt I should leave them alone to work
things out. It was after all their honeymoon. What was I doing there? I

left shortly thereafter.

20 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS + TIMOTHY LEARY

When I returned to Millbrook, it was to a scene of depressing chaos.

A seedy, drugged-out guy met me at the door wearing my clothes.
Gone were the serenity and glowing warmth of Castalia weekends, the

joyous enthusiasm for consciousness exploration in a family of seekers.

Instead, the Millbrook mansion had become an Addams Family house of

horrors, a scene of decadence and depravity and dabbling in black arts,
of lost souls wandering around in permanently drugged states, of vicious
conflicts leading at times to physical violence. Kathy's love for me had
turned to hate, as she blamed my and Tim's absence for the destruction
of the Millbrook dream. When Tim and Nanette, their relationship in
tatters, returned to Millbrook some weeks later, he wrote of "the
changes that had converted Millbrook from a community of scholars
and scientists to a playground for
rowdy omnisexuals." Millbrook had
become our Morbio Inferiore.
The league of seekers did, however, recover from this debacle. Leary,

Alpert and myself all went onto other phases of the story, told in other
books, other high adventures in consciousness exploration. Nanette went
on to marry an American Buddhist monk, who became an eminent
scholar-teacher of Tibetan Buddhism; one of their daughters isa famous
film actress. A
tantric love goddess arrived for Timothy in the form of
the very beautiful Rosemary Woodruff. The Millbrook community
flowered again with music, meditation, laughter, creativity, happy chil-
dren, and remarkable people.

Leary s path after this took him increasingly into the role of pio-
neering social change activist.His fearless honesty and brilliant mockery
in expressing radical viewpoints made him many enemies in high places.
He had the dubious honor of being most dangerous man in
called "the
America" by none other than Richard Nixon. He spent upwards of 50
months in jail on several continents, an experience that left him without
bitterness, but with razor-sharp insight into the American political sys-
tem. Hewrote 20 more books, developed theories and models of con-
sciousness and contributed to numerous group creative projects. He
married two more times and became a great-grandfather before his

death in May, 1996. To hundreds of thousands of his friends and admir-

INTRODUCTION RALPH METZNER 21

ers, he remains one of the outstanding visionary geniuses of the 20th

century. To me he was the perfect exemplar of one of those who in the

last of the Psychedelic Prayers are listed as likely to be closer to the Tao

"smiling men with bad reputations."

I don't believe he ever
again had the opportunity to devote himself
so completely to the exploration and description of spiritual develop-

ment, and how higher states of consciousness can be integrated into

ongoing life. His psychedelic prayers based on the Tao Te Ching integrate
ancient Eastern wisdom teachings with the insights of modern science,
and the practical knowledge gained fromdirect experience of expanded
states of consciousness. They provide the spiritual seeker using psyche-
delics with an unsurpassed guidebook to the realization of the highest

potentials of the human mind and of these amazing substances.

Ralph Metzner
Sonoma, California
October, 1996
V

J* mo thi
Le>*>,

Hit

Hand-drawn title-page of the

pre-publication version.
 BiBLiOGRAPHiCAL PREFACE
The Publishing History of Psychedelic Prayers
with a Note on the Text of This Edition

MICHAEL HOROWITZ
Written while Timothy Leary was visiting India in 1965
and finished at his celebrated commune-estate in
Millbrook, New York the following year, Psychedelic Prayers
is of 55 poems divided in six sections, adapted from
a series

the 37 chapters of Book I of Tao Te Ching (Way of Life), composed by

the immortal Chinese Taoist philosopher and keeper of the Royal
Archives, Lao Tse, in the 6th century B.C.
Leary was drawn to the "psychedelic" quality of the ancient work.
"My objective," he later wrote, "was to find this seed idea in each sutra
and rewrite it of psychedelia." Leary succeeded bril-
in the lingua franca

liantly in his aim: intended for guided meditational use during LSD ses-
sions, Psychedelic Prayers is perhaps the best-loved among his many

books, and occupies a unique place in psychedelic literature.

Psychedelic Prayers has an interesting publishing history. The first edi-
tion was printed by famed Beat poet Diane di Prima at her Poets Press
inKerhonkson, NY, not far from Millbrook. The first edition was print-
ed on textured paper and bound in pink wrappers; between one and
two thousand copies were printed. The second edition was printed on
laid paper in five different colored inks for psychedelic effect, and bound
in yellow wrappers; two to three thousand copies of this edition were
published (but not printed) by the Poets Press.
Psychedelic artist Michael Bowen created a Hindu design for the
frontwrapper of both editions; the back wrapper bears the publisher's
alchemical emblem. The author dedicated his book to William and
Aurora Hitchcock, his Millbrook benefactors. Both editions appeared in
the spring of 1966, about a year before the psychedelic Zeitgeist reached
its zenith.

University Books of New Hyde Park, NY, publishers of

24 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS TIMOTHY LEARY

The Psychedelic Experience (1964), brought out the third edition in August
1966: a photo-offset copy of the first edition, printed in dark brown ink,
with nearly identical wrappers to the second edition, in a print run of
5,000 copies.
The fourth edition appeared in the early 1970s under the imprint of
the League for Spiritual Discovery, a religious organization founded
by
Leary in 1967 and based upon the sacramental use of psychedelic sub-
stances. Once again the text was printed by photo-offset; the front and
back covers have entirely different designs by Dion Wright. This edition,
published by the Mystic Arts Bookshop in Laguna Beach, is dedicated to
The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, the legendary group of underground
LSD distributors of the brand named Sunshine. This edition appeared
author escaped prison and fled with his wife Rosemary to
after the

North Africa and Europe. The printing was very small, probably no
more than 2,000 copies, and intended to raise money for the legal
expenses of the fugitive Learys.
The
fifth North American edition is the most rare and
unique. Only
100 were printed in purple ink, with each poem on a separate leaf
sets

having a border design depicting sacred plants executed by Michael

Green. The calligraphy was done by Daniel Raphael. Each set of sheets
was contained within a customized wooden box with a sliding top panel
on which the title was carved. The work was
produced in Montreal in
1972 through the efforts of Rosemary Leary, then separated from her
husband and living underground as a fugitive. It was not intended for
commercial sale; each leaf was supposed to represent "script" (i.e., cur-
rency) which could be traded like a share of stock.
The text of the 49 (of the 55
Prayers varies greatly in this edition:
total poems) were printed, one to a page (necessitating some cuts in the

longer poems) with a number stamped on the verso of each sheet. The
arrangement of many of the poems on the page differs from their origi-
nal lay-out, with aesthetic considerations uppermost. Leary
expressed
satisfaction with this edition particularly the notion of poetry as
"script," for the author and his wife had sometimes resorted to produc-
ing impromptu manuscripts which they sold for money in order to sur-
vive in exile.
The first British edition, published by Academy Editions, London,
also appeared in 1972. This edition follows the text of the first edition,
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE + MICHAEL HOROWITZ 25

and is enhanced with Chinese landscape drawings.

The first foreign translation, a bilingual edition printed in German
and English, appeared in Bern, Switzerland from the publisher Mantram
in 1975 with a dust jacket designed by Swiss artist Hans Giger, later of
Alien fame. Two other friends of the exiled Learys, the British writer
Brian Barritt, and Swiss author Sergius Golowin, wrote introductions.
Pirated editions of the German translation appeared from God's Press in
Amsterdam & Kathmandu in 1975, and fromVolksverlag in Linden,
Germany in 1982.
A possibly unique, self-described "pre-publication manuscript"
(actually, mimeographed) copy in the Ludlow Library bears the variant
title
copy belonged to Rt. Rev. Michael
Psychedelic Prayer Book. (This
Francis Itkin, known in New York's East Village during the mid-1960s as
the "psychedelic priest.") The author's Harvard and Millbrook colleague

Ralph Metzner is listed as co-author, and Rabbi Zalman Schachter

(whose LSD trip with Leary at Millbrook is documented in High Priest)

provided some "added commentary." In their one-page introduction,

Leary and Metzner describe this edition as "being given to a few

friends" with the "hope you will send us your ideas for improving" the
work.

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28 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS TIMOTHY LEARY

A NOTE ON THE TEXT OF THIS EDITION

Two poems from PartV (V-7 and V-8) have been moved to
PartII (where
they are now II-8 and II-9) as it seemed to
the editors these
poems properly belonged to an earlier stage
of the psychedelic experience.
Six new poems from later chapters of the Tao Te Ching were adapted

by the author and his wife Rosemary in Laguna Beach, California about
two years after the first publication of the book, and published in the
January 17, 1969 issue of New York City's underground newspaper the
East Village Other under the title "Poems on the Conduct of Life." The
text of the poems is preceded by a 600-word preface in which the
author discusses, at times from new perspectives, the importance of the
Tao Te Ching, and states his intention of publishing "a newTaoist
guide-
book which could be called How
To Live The Turned-On Life In An
Uptight Society." Five of the poems are reprinted here in newly edited
versions (the sixth poem is an experimental sound poem that is better
recited than printed).
A final poem has been added at the end of the present edition.

"Homage to the Awe-full Seer," the longest poem book, was

in the

originally published in Psychedelic Review no. 9 in 1967. Although not a

translation from the Tao Ching, the theme of the poem closely associ-
te

ates it with the wisdom-message of the ancient Chinese text and the
impact made by the sage who wrote it.
Regarding the text of this edition, readers familiar with the original
1966 edition will notice occasional revision. The editors, who have all
worked closely with Timothy Leary on literary projects, have been long
aware of Leary s penchant for revising often substantially each of his
books at the time of their re-publication. During the last months of his
Timothy knew of the plan to republish Psychedelic Prayers which
life

pleased him greatly but was too ill to work on the new edition. He
made it clear that he expected us to make changes we deemed necessary
("It's your call," he liked to say).

Ralph Metzner, co-author with Leary and Richard Alpert of The

Psychedelic Experience (1964), assisted Leary when he first produced these
translations in India in 1965, and as noted earlier is listed as co-author in
the pre-publication, mimeographed edition of Psychedelic Prayers.
BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE + MICHAEL HOROWITZ 29

Rosemary Leary, who became engaged to the author while he was

still
completing work on this book, recited the prayers with her husband
at public events during the mid-1960s, making revisions in the text as

they went along; she worked on the adaptations of the additional poems
published in 1969, and was responsible for the remarkable 1972 wooden
box edition.
Michael Horowitz, the author's archivist and bibliographer, has per-
formed editorial work on Leary s books for 25 years, from Jail Notes
(1970) to Chaos and Cyberculture (1994).
While the editors had the author's encouragement and blessing in
taking on the daunting task of re-editing this sacred text of psychedelic
literature, they take full responsibility for any and all revisions, as

Timothy Leary passed away (May 31, 1996) shortly before we began
working on this new edition.

Note: The source for the bibliographical data in this article is: An Annotated

Bibliography of Timothy Leary by Michael Horowitz, Karen Walls, and

Smith (Archon Books, 1988). Acknowledgement is also made to The Fitz
Billy

Hugh Ludlow Memorial Library, where the printed works herein described and
illustrated were made available for examination.

mmmmmmmmmmm
Rosemary and Timothy at their home
in Berkeley in 1968.
 PREFACE
ROSEMARY WOODRUFF LEARY
In August 1965, a few months after we first met, Tim
picked me up at my apartment in Manhattan and took me
to the Millbrook Estate for a week or so before I left for

California.
Tim led me to the tower room. The window overlooking the vast
grounds was framed by a Hoya plant whose blossoms scented the air.
Later that evening he brought a bottle of wine and a tattered manuscript
to read by candlelight. His voice caressed me softly.

Gate of the Soft Mystery

Gate of the Dark Woman

I
stayed awake all that night puzzling over his adaptations of Lao
Tse. I didn't go to California.

Recently, I rediscovered a manuscript titled 1 08 Memories of Our

Present Incarnation which Tim wrote for me while in the California State
Prison at San Luis Obispo in 1970. In this passage Tim recalls writing
one of the poems in Psychedelic Prayers:

"Number 1 1. Millbrook During LSD session. We went

upstairs and made love. I wrote the sex chakra poem in

memory of your trembling earth beauty. Nov. '66"

A later reference in the same manuscript refers to reading the

poems together on-stage during the road tour of the Psychedelic

Celebrations later that winter:

"Number 42. Standing on stage at celebration reciting our

poetry and hearing your soft voice echoing back. What

beauty our love created for the world."
32 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS + TIMOTHY LEARY

I'd like to think so.

The next fewyears brought summers of love and seminars, fall lec-
ture tours, winter harassments, arrests and trials that culminated with
Tim's prison escape and our flight to exile in Algeria and Switzerland.
In the winter of 1972, after Tim and I had gone our separate ways,
the Psychedelic Prayers re-entered my life. A fugitive, I was hiding out in a
farmhouse near Ste. Agathe in Quebec. The snow reached above the first

floor and the electricity was out. Again, by candlelight,

I reread and edit-

ed the poems while my friend Brigitte collated the pages and baked oat-
meal cookies and her husband Sergai made the beautiful boxes to con-
tain them. We never made any money from this loving endeavor, but
Brigitte and Sergai Mars, with their baby daughter Sunflower, traded
them for food in health stores across the country. Brigitte later gave
these sets to Dr. Oscar Janiger, Terence McKenna, and distinguished
herbalists. Brigitte is
including a few of the poems in her new book on
herbs.

If you knew how to listen,

the seed would hum you a seed song.

It has been an immense pleasure to once again read and edit Tim's

work, this time in the company of dear friends Ralph Metzner and
Michael and Cindy Horowitz.
I
hope that lovers and seekers finding these poems will

Keep in touch
and be at home
everywhere.

Rosemary Woodruff Leary

1996
PREFACE + ROSEMARY WOODRUFF LEARY 33

Beloved -

Here are sutras baser 1

on Book I of the
forty-nine

Tao Te Ching .
to a few
This pre-publication manuscript is being given
friends. We hope they will enlighten you. We hope you will send

us your ideas for improving them.

are divided into five sections. For use in a

The sutras

session it is best to select two or three from each

psychedelic

should be read very slowly and in a serene voice.

section. They

should be considered prayers to be whispered.

They

Part I is read before the session. The sutra about the

is since it sets up the contract for

guide especially important

conducting the session.

Part II contains sutras about pure energy. These prayers

are to be read at the highest point in a session.

Part III concerns biological or seed energy and can be

read during the very "high" points of the session.

Part IV is prepared for experiments in body awareness-

breaking through to cakras or somatic nerve centers.

Part V is t* be read towards the end of the session- between

the eighth and twenty-fourth hour.

Keep in touch....

T.L.
R.M.

Early version of Introduction.

Timothy Leary on
the cover of the
San Francisco Oracle
(December 16, 1966).
 FOREWORD
TIMOTHY LEARY
The psychedelic or visionary experience releases a wide
range of awareness-of-energy and tunes us in to patterns of
neurological signals which are usually censored from mental
life.

Understanding, description, and intelligent use of these released

energies have puzzled scholars for thousands of years. Today, LSD ses-
sions puzzle, enrapture, awe, and confuse.
Mainly they confuse.
During the last five years, 1960-65, we have witnessed a psychedelic
revolution. Consider the statistics.

Over one hundred and fifty million Americans share the same

imprinted symbol system tribal language and rituals.

Of these, a good ten million have taken the first psychedelic step
and experienced the neural level of consciousness have transcended
symbols and contacted raw energy hitting their nerve endings. Here we
include the marijuana smokers, the adepts in hatha yoga, and meditators.
Another group, at least 500,000 Americans, have contacted cellular
consciousness have had experiences which transcend both symbolic
game and the sensory apparatus. We include here the peyote eaters, the
mushroom eaters, the LSD cult. If we add those millions of persons who
have had an involuntary psychedelic experience, those institutionalized
mystics we call psychotic, the ranks of this group swell to astounding
proportions. More than any other group, psychotics need the sort of
training and guidance provided by psychedelic manuals. They are
whirled into realms of raw sensory bombardment and cellular hallucina-
tion unprepared and socially anathematized. If psychotics were trained
in the use of psychedelic manuals such as this volume they would have
some understanding and control of the multi-level, multiple-exposure

experiences we call hallucinatory.

Next we have those whose consciousness has gone beyond game,

gone beyond direct sensory awareness, gone beyond cellular flow and

mmmmmtm***
36 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS TIMOTHY LEARY

contacted the molecular and elemental energies that crackle and vibrate
who have taken large doses of LSD,
within the cellular structure. Those
mescaline,DMT, and experienced what the eastern psychologists call
the "white light," the "void," the "inner light."
Each of these psychedelic levels neural, cellular, molecular are
beyond symbols, incoherent to the symbolic mind. And each of these
levels of consciousness is different from the others. This wide spectrum
of whirling energies all uncharted and unlabelled confronts the psy-
chedelic explorer.
So what is the net effect of these millions of visionary voyages?
A linguistic babel.
A chaos of potentiality.
A confusion of promise.
Most of these psychedelic voyagers are now aware of the limitless

stored in the nervous systems, but there

realities is no conception of the
meaning and use of these potentials.
There are of course no pat solutions, no easy answers provided by
LSD. On the contrary, every paradox, every ambiguity, every problem of

static-symbolic life is intensified, raised to exponential powers. Where

there once was a blind robot symbolic uncertainty (Johnson or

Goldwater?), there is now an uncertainty compounded and multiplied

by the knowledge of the illusory nature of routine reality and the exis-
tence of countless realities.

Fromthe beginning of the Harvard-IFIF-Castalia exploration into

consciousness two facts were apparent. First, that there were no extant

maps, models, myths, theories, languages to describe the psychedelic

experience. Second, that the temptation to impose old models, prema-
ture theories must be resisted.

Nocurrent philosophic or scientific theory was broad enough to

handle the potential of the 13 billion-cell computer.
Our decision then was to maintain an open posture, to collect data
on psychedelic sessions from a wide variety of subjects, in a wide variety
of settings, and to continue to look for better models and theories to
explain the psychedelic experience.
It became apparent that, in order to run exploratory sessions, manu-

als and programs were necessary to guide subjects through transcenden-

tal experiences with a minimum of fear and confusion. Rather than start
FOREWORD + TIMOTHY LEARY 37

de novo usingour own minds and limited experiences to map out the
voyage, we turned to the only available psychological texts which dealt
with consciousness and its alterations the ancient books of the East.
The Tibetan Book of the Dead is a psychedelic manual incredibly
specific about the sequence and nature of experiences encountered in
the ecstatic state. A revision of this text published under the title The

Psychedelic Experience was our first attempt at session programming.

For the last two years we have been working with another old,
time-tested psychedelic manual the Chinese text Tao Te Ching,
sometimes translated as The Way of Life.
Written some 2600 years ago by one or several philosophers known
to us now "the old fellow" (LaoTse), this text is still timelessly mod-
as

ern and will remain so for thousands of years to come as long as man

has the same sort of nervous system and deals with the range of energies
he now encounters.
The Tao Te Ching deals with energy. Tao is best translated as "ener-

gy," as energy process. Energy in its

pure unstructured state (the E of
Einstein's equation) and energy in its countless, temporary states of
structure (the M of Einstein's equation).
The Tao is an ode to nuclear physics, to life, to the genetic code, to
that form of transient energy structure we call "man," to those most stat-
ic, lifeless forms of energy we call man's artifacts and symbols.

The message of the Tao Te Ching is that all is

energy, all energy
flows, all
things are continually transforming.
The Tao Te Ching is a series of 81 verses which celebrate the flow of

energy, its manifestation and, on the practical side, the implications of

this philosophy for man's endeavors. Most of the pragmatic sutras of the
Tao were directed towards the ruler of a state. How can the king and his

ministers use this knowledge of the energy powers to govern harmo-

niously?
Like all great biblical texts, the Tao has been rewritten and re-inter-

preted in every century and this is as it should be. The terms for Tao
change in each century. In our times Einstein rephrases it, quantum the-
ory revises it, the geneticists translate it in terms of DNA and RNA, but
the message is the same.
The practical aspects of the Tao must also be rewritten and adapted
to the everyday situation. The advice given by the smiling philosophers
38 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS + TIMOTHY LEARY

of China to their emperor can be applied to how to run your home,

your office, and how to conduct a psychedelic session.
The Tao Te Ching is divided into two books the first comprising
thirty-seven chapters, the second forty-four.
In this volume of Psychedelic Prayers from the Tao Te Ching you will
find fifty-six poems which are based on the thirty-seven chapters of
Book I of the original.
These translations from English to psychedelese were made while
sitting under a bamboo tree on a grassy slope of the Kumaon Hills over-

looking the snow peaks of the Himalayas.

The work went like this. I had nine English translation of the Tao. I

would select a Tao chapter and read and reread all nine English versions
of it. Each translator, of course, made his own interpretation of the flow-
ing calligraphy. Nine western minds. But after hours of rereading and
meditation the essence of the poem would slowly bubble up. The aim
was to relate this essence theme to psychedelic sessions. Slowly a psy-
chedelic version of the chapter would emerge.
The first draft version would then be put under the psychedelic
microscope. For several years I have pursued the yoga of one LSD ses-
sion every seven days. The neurological amplification of cannabis was also
available. Each time our Moslem cook walked down to the village he

would bring back a crayon-size stick of attar. Attar means essence. The
essence resin of the marijuana plant is sometimes called hashish.
LSD opened up the lenses of cellular and molecular consciousness.
Attar cleansed the windows of the senses.
these sessions I would read the most recent draft of the Tao
During
poems. A humbling experience for the poet to have his words exposed
to the pitiless magnification of the psychedelic perspective.
Psychedelic poetry, like all psychedelic art, is crucially concerned

with flow. Each psychedelic poem is carefully tailored for a certain time
in the sequence of the session. Simplicity and diamond purity are

important. Intellectual flourishes and verbal pyrotechnics are painfuly

obvious to the "turned on" nervous system.
During these examinations a ruthless process of polishing, cutting
away takes place. Slowly the most blatant redundancies and mentalisms
were pruned.
Each poem in this volume has been exposed to several dozen
FOREWORD * TIMOTHY LEARY 39

appraisals by lysergicized nervous systems. Each psychedelic "try-out" is

different. People s reactions vary. What is essence-simplicity to one, is

truism to another. The "right" metaphor for one is contrived to another.
Most readers have found five or so poems in this collection which
vibrate in tune to their deepest resonances. The rest do not pass the
inspection of their psychedelic enlargers.
The fifty-six hymns have been divided into six groups:

Part I. Preparatory prayers to be read before the session. These

hymns apply the creative quietude of Lao Tse to the technique of run-

ning a psychedelic session.

Part II. Prayers invoking pure energy flow, molecular or atomic

energy beyond symbol, sense-organ or cellular energy. These prayers are
and ethereally during the "high" points which usually
to be read slowly
come during the first three hours of an LSD session.

Part III. Prayers invoking cellular consciousness, seed energy. Odes

glorifying the DNA code to be read from the third to sixth hour of the
LSD session.

Part IV. Prayers invoking sensory experiences registered by the

external sense organs. Hymns glorifying the direct awareness of vision,

hearing, touch, smell, taste to be read from the sixth to ninth hours of
the LSD session or during sessions involving neural ecstatagenic agents
such as marijuana, low doses of LSD, hatha yoga, meditation.

Part V. Prayers invoking sensory experiences registered by internal

sense organs, visceral awareness from the nerve plexes mediating elimi-

nation, sex, heart, lungs, and the frontal cortex. These hymns can be read
during the sixth to ninth hours of an LSD session when the subject has
cut himself off from external stimulation.

Part VI. Re-imprinting prayers designed to guide the subject dur-

ing the period of re-entry (nine to 24 hours), while the subject is
returning to the symbolic world and the post-session imprint is being
formed.
40 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS TIMOTHY LEARY

These divisions are based on the theory of levels of consciousness

developed during six years of psychedelic research and included in Static
[this book remains unpublished editor]
and Ecstatic Consciousness .

This mapping of consciousness is based on the neurological and bio-

chemical anatomy of the human body.
The theory is
simple.
Consciousness is
energy received by structure.
There are as many dimensions of consciousness as there are struc-
tures in the body and decode energy.
to receive

Any high school text in biology can be used to define the dimen-
sions of consciousness.

1. There is the symbolic mind that fraction of the nervous system

which perceives, discriminates, interprets, remembers learned (i.e., con-

ditioned) cues selectively imposed on the kaleidoscope of sensation. This

is the
imprinted mind. The prayers in Part VI of this volume are to be
used during the latter stages of the psychedelic experience when the re-
imprinting process begins to impose stasis on the ecstatic flow.

2. The nervous system defines the level of neural consciousness

direct, symbol-free registration of energies by nerve endings. The prayers

in Part IV of this volume are hymns to the five exterior senses. Odes of
gratitude and reverent readiness to attend to the tattoo of energies hit-
ting the visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory and gustatory sense bulbs.

3. Interoceptive sensations are messages from internal organs. Most

of these sensations are excluded from symbolic consciousness. Tibetan

Buddhists and Tantric Hindus have worked for centuries with methods
of contacting interior sensations and maps for symbolizing them. These
levelsof internal consciousness are called chakras. PartV of this volume
includes hymns to five classes of internal sensations messages from the
eliminative, sexual, cardiac, respiratory and fore-brain centers.

4. The unit of life, the building block of the tissues and organs medi-

ated by the nervous system, is the cell. The cell is a highly complicated
structure for registering and transforming energy. Every cell in your
body is an organization network more complicated than the city of
FOREWORD TIMOTHY LEARY 41

New York. The cell registers and decodes energy and remembers. The
cell communicative contact with the grosser level of consciousness
is in
of the nervous system. The brain of the cell is DNA.The afferent-effer-
ent nervous system of the cell is RNA. Part III of this volume is made

up of hymns praising the power and ancient wisdom of the cell, the
seed consciousness of DNA.

5. Cells are composed of smaller structures amino acid molecules

and atomic elements. These structures receive and decode energy. They
are older, wiser, more powerful than cells. The atom uses molecules and
cells the way the DNA code uses tissues, organs and nervous systems
and the way the symbolic mind uses cars and tractors. Part II of this
volume praises the wisdom of molecular and atomic process, prepares
you for this awesome level of consciousness and guides you through it.

6. Part I of this volume collects those Tao prayers which are relevant

to guiding a psychedelic session. These prayers are not specific to any

particular level of consciousness. They present the philosophy of creative

quietude passed on by Lao Tse.

The all other psychedelic texts, must be studied

Tao manual, like

intensively, the detailed theory of energy transformations thoroughly

learned, and the commentary notes for those prayers selected for the
session reread several times.

Psychedelic poetry should be read aloud (or taped) at a slow tempo,

in a low natural voice. The prayers are best read or taped by one who is
"high" at the time. Any tension, artificiality or game-playing on the part
of the reader stands out in embarrassing relief.
Read by the static intellect imprinted to symbols, and inundated by
the verbosity of our culture, these sutras are simply another sequence of
lifeless words. But to the consciousness released from
imprinted statics
these prayers can become precise bursts of trembling energy and breath-
less meaning.
You will wonder, perhaps, at the use of the term "prayer" to label
these sutras.

Prayer is ecstatic poetry. Psychedelic communication.

42 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS TIMOTHY LEARY

Ordinary, static communication in terms of prose symbols, is

game.
Mind addressing mind.
You cannot describe the ecstatic moment in static terms.
You cannot (without regret) communicate during the ecstatic
moment in static prose.
You cannot produce ecstasy with static symbol sequences.
When you are in a psychedelic state out beyond symbols game
communication seems pointless. Irrelevant. Inappropriate. Inadequate.
There is no need to communicate because everything is already in
communication. You are plugged into the multiplex network of energy
exchanges.
But thereare those transition moments of terror, of isolation, of rev-

erence, of gratitude... when there comes that need to communicate.

The need to communicate with the non-game energy source that
you sense in yourself and around you.
And there is the need, at exactly that moment, for a language which
is not mental or cliche. A straight, pure, "right" non-game language.

This is
prayer.

Mantra.

Ejaculation.

There are moments in every psychedelic session when there comes

that need to communicate at the highest and best level you are capable
of.

This need has been known and sensed for thousands of years. All
prayers are originally psychedelic communications with higher freer

energies tuning yourself in to the billion-year-old energy dance.

Conventional prayers, for the most part, have degenerated into game
rituals. Slogans. Meaningless verbalizations. Appeals for game help.
But that crucial non-game terror-reverence awe-full moment
comes...

There comes that time when the ecstatic cry is called for.
FOREWORD TIMOTHY LEARY 43

At that time, you must be ready to pray.

To go beyond yourself. To contact energy beyond your game.

At that time you must be ready to pray.

When you have lost the need to pray. . .

You are a dead man in a world of dead symbols.

Pray for life.

Pray for life.

Timothy Leary
Kumaon Hills, Almora, India, 1965
Millbrook, New York, 1966
 PRBYER5 FORPREPARAtlOn

HOMAGE TO LAO TSE

I - 1 The Guide

1-2 When the Harmony Is Lost

1-3 Life Seed Death

1-4 Let There Be Simple Natural Things

1-5 All Things Pass

1-6 The Message of Posture

PART I PRAYERS FOR PREPARATION 41

&5
The Guide

In the greatest sessions

One does not know that there is a guide

In the next best sessions

One praises the guide

It is worse when
One fears the guide
Or when one pays him

If the guide lacks trust in the people

The trust of the people will be lacking

The wise guide guards his words

And sits serenely

When the greatest session is over

The people will say:
"It all happened naturally"
"It was so simple, we did it all ourselves."
48 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS + TIMOTHY LEARY

When The Harmony Is Lost

When the
harmony is lost
Then come clever discussions and
"Wise men" appear

When the unity is lost

Then come "friends"

When the session is

plunged
Into disorder
Then there are "doctors"
PART I PRAYERS FOR PREPARATION 49

Life, light, love

Seed, sun, son
Death, daughter, dna

Hold in reverence
This Great Symbol of Transformation
And the whole world comes to you

Comes to you without harm

Dwells in common wealth
Dwells in the union of Heaven and Earth

Offer music . . . food . . . wine . . .

And the passing guest will stay a while

But the molecular message

In its passage through the mouth
Is without flavor

It cannot be seen
It cannot be heard
It cannot be exhausted by use

It remains
50 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS TIMOTHY LEARY

Let There Be Simple Natural Things

During The Session
Let there be simple, natural things
to contact during the session-

hand woven cloth

uncarved wood
ancient music

flowers-growing things
burning fire
a touch of earth

a splash of water
fruit . . .
good bread . . . cheese
wine
sacred smoke
candles

temple incense
a warm hand
anything more than five hundred years old

Of course always best to be

it is

Secluded with nature

PART I PRAYERS FOR PREPARATION 51

All Things Pass

All things pass

A sunrise does not last all morning
All things pass
A cloudburst does not last all day
All things pass
Nor a sunset all night

But Earth . . .
sky . . . thunder . . .

wind . . . fire . . . lake . . .

mountain water . . . . . .

These always change

And if these do not last

Do man's visions last?

Do man's illusions?

During the session

Take things as they come

All things pass

52 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS TIMOTHY LEARY

CLr O
The Message Of Posture

During the session

Observe your body
Mandala of the universe

Observe your body

Of ancient design
Holy temple of consciousness
Central stage of the oldest drama

Observe its structured wonders

Skin . . . hair . . . tissue

Bone vein . . . . . . muscle

Net of nerve

Observe its
message
Does it
merge or does it strain?
Does it rest serene on sacred ground
Or tilt, propped up by wire and sticks?

On tiptoe one cannot stand for long

Tension retards the flow

Superfluous noise and redundant action

Stand out-square, proud, cramped
Against the harmony
Observe the mandala of your body
 ART

The EXPERiEncE of
ELEIIIEnTAL EF[ERY

HOMAGE TO THE ATOM

II- 1
?% #8
PART II * THE EXPERIENCE OF ELEMENTAL ENERGY 55

That Which Is Called The Tao

Is Not The Tao

The flow of energy . . .

Here ... It ... Is .. .

Nameless
Timeless

Speed of light

Float . . .
beyond fear . . .

Float . . .
beyond desire . . .

Into this Mystery of Mysteries

Through this Gate of All Wonder

56 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS + TIMOTHY LEARY

Ethereal Pool Without Source

Empty bowl of radiance

Full of starry universe
Silent void

Shimmering
Ancestor of all things

Here
All sharpness rounded
All wheels glide along

Soft tracks of light

Ethereal pool without source

Preface to life
PART II * THE EXPERIENCE OF ELEMENTAL ENERGY 51

Jewelled Indifference

Galactic play
Belted radiance
Lethal spectrum
Restless diamond eye

Solar
So long
So long?

Jewelled indifference
Where's home?
Jewelled indifference
Where am I?

Jewelled indifference
I want to
go back!
Jewelled indifference
Help! I don't understand!
Jewelled indifference
Is it all a dream?

WARNING!
SOLAR SHUTTERS OPENING
LETHAL LOVE RADIATION BEWARE
FATAL UNITY BLISS FUSION
58 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS + TIMOTHY LEARY

All right. Who's next?

"The sound man faces the passing of human
generations
immune as to a sacrifice of straw dogs"

Good bye now

PART II THE EXPERIENCE OF ELEMENTAL ENERGY 59

Falling Free

Law of gravity . . .
falling free

Falling free . . . the root of lightness

Repose . . . the seed of movement

Stillness . . . the master of agitation

Gravity . . .
falling free
60 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS TIMOTHY LEARY

Sheathing The Self

The play of energy endures

Beyond striving

The play of energy endures

Beyond body

The play of energy endures

Beyond life

Out here
Float timeless

Beyond striving
PART II THE EXPERIENCE OF ELEMENTAL ENERGY 61

Manifestation Of The Mystery

Gazing, we do no see it

We call it empty space

Listening, we do not hear it

We call it silence

Reaching, we do not grasp it

We call it intangible

But here ... we

spin through it

Electric, silent, subtle

62 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS + TIMOTHY LEARY

I -

Please Do Not Clutch At The Gossamer Web

All in Heaven
On Earth below
A crystal fabric
Sacred gossamer web

Grabbing hands shatter it

Watch closely this shimmering mosaic

Silent . . .

Glide in

Harmony
PART II + THE EXPERIENCE OF ELEMENTAL ENERGY 63

I -

Hold Fast To The Void

Notice how this space

Between Heaven and Earth
Is like a bellows

Always full, always empty

Come in here, go out there

Breathing . . .

Silence

This is no time for talk

Better to hold fast to the void
64 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS TIMOTHY LEARY

Take In-Let Go

To breathe in
You must first breathe out
Let go

To hold
You must first open your hand
Let go

To be warm
You must first be naked
Let go
 The EXPERiEncE of
SEED-CELL EE[ERY

HOMAGE TO DNA
III-l The Serpent Coil of DNA
III-2 Prehistoric Origins of DNA
III-3 Clear Water

III-4 Returning to the Source

III-5 Lao Tse's Mind

III-6 Transfiguration Exercises

III-7 Tree Above-Tree Below

III-8 Fourfold Representation

III-9 The Seed Light

111-10 This Is It

III-ll Gate of the Soft Mystery

111-12 The Lesson of Seed

PART III THE EXPERIENCE OF SEED-CELL ENERGY 61

The Serpent Coil Of DNA

We meet it everywhere
But do not see its front

We follow it everywhere
But do not seeits back

When we embrace this ancient serpent coil

We are masters of the moment
And feel no break in the curling
Back to primeval beginnings

This may be called

Unravelling the clue of the life process

68 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS TIMOTHY LEARY

Prehistoric Origins Of DNA

Its rising is not bright
Nor its
setting dark

Unceasing, continuous
Branching out in roots innumerable
Forever sending forth the serpent coil
Of living things
Mysterious as the formless existence
To which it returns

Coiling back
Beyond mind

We say only it is

Formed from the formless

Life from spiral void
PART III THE EXPERIENCE OF SEED-CELL ENERGY 69

Clear Water

The seed of mystery

Lies in muddy water

How can we fathom this muddiness?

Water becomes clear through stillness

How can we become still?

By moving with the stream

70 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS TIMOTHY LEARY

Returning To The Source-Repose

Be empty
Watch quietly while the ten thousand forms
Swim into life and return to the source

Do nothing
Return to the source

Deep repose is the sign

That you have reached the appointed goal

To return to the source is to discover

The eternal law of seed

He who returns to this eternal law is

enlightened
Being enlightened he is serene
Serene he is open-hearted
Open-hearted he beyond social games
is

Being beyond social games he is in tune with seed

In tune with seed he endures

Until the end of his life he is not in peril

PART III + THE EXPERIENCE OF SEED-CELL ENERGY 11

Lao Tse's Mind Becomes Pre-occupied

With A Very Difficult Subject:
To Describe The Production
Of Material Forms
By The Tao

Is it a dream?
Shadowy
Elusive
Invisible

All things, all images move slowly

Within shimmering nets

Here essence endures

From here all forms emerge
Back from this moment
To the ancient beginning
12 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS + TIMOTHY LEARY

Transfiguration Exercises

What was inert . . . moves

What was dead .... lives
What was drab . . . radiates

Galactic time has labored to produce

This moment
Exquisite

The ancient saying that the isolated part

Becomes whole
Was spoken wisely

Seed flows
All forms glow

Remain quiet . . .

Pulsate
In harmony
PART III THE EXPERIENCE OF SEED-CELL ENERGY 73

The Tree Above-The Tree Below

What is above is below

What is without is within
What is to come is in the past

Tall deep
. . tree
.
green branching leaf . . . . . . . . . . . .

Root above .below .

thrusting
.
coiling . . . . . . . . .

Sky earth stem root . . . . . . . . .

Leaf. . .
green . . .
sap
Soil ... air
Seed
Soil . . . visible

Hidden . . .
breathing . . .
sucking
Bud . . . ooze . . . sun . . .
damp
Light . . . dark . . .
bright . . .
decay laugh . . .

Tear vein . . . . . . rain . . . mud . branch

. root
. . . .

The wood carvings await

Within each uncut branch
The carver s knife
74 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS TIMOTHY LEARY

Fourfold Representation Of The Mystery

Before Heaven and Earth

There was something nebulous
Tranquil . . . effortless

Permeating universally
Revolving soundlessly
Fusing

It may be regarded as the Mother

Of all organic forms

Its name is not known nor its

language
But it is called Tao

The ancient sages called it "great"

The Great Tao

Great means in harmony

Inharmony means tuned in
Tuned in means going far
Going far means returning
To the harmony

The Tao is great

The coil of life is great
PART III THE EXPERIENCE OF SEED-CELL ENERGY 15

The body is great

The human is designed to be great

There are in existence four great notes

The human is made to be one thereof

When you place yourself in harmony with your body

The body tunes itself to the slow unfolding of life
Life flows in harmony with the Tao

All proceeds

Naturally
In tune
16 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS TIMOTHY LEARY

The Seed Light

The seed light shines everywhere

All forms derive life from it

When bodies are created

It does not take possession

It clothes and feeds the ten thousand things

And does not disturb their illusions

Magical helix smallest form

. . .

Mother of all forms

The living are born, flourish and disappear

Without knowing their seed creator
Helix of light

In all nature it is true that the wiser

The older and the greater
Reside in the smaller
PART III THE EXPERIENCE OF SEED-CELL ENERGY 77

This Is It

The seed moves so slowly and serenely

Moment to moment
That it
appears inactive

The garden at sunrise breathing

The quiet breath of twilight
Moment to moment to moment

When we are in tune with this blissful rhythm

The ten thousand forms flourish
Without effort

It is all so simple
Each next moment . . .

This is it!
78 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS TIMOTHY LEARY

Gate Of The Soft Mystery

Valley of life
Gate of the Soft Mystery

Beginnings in the lowest place

Gate of the Soft Mystery
Gate of the Dark Woman
Gate of the Soft Mystery
Seed of all living
Gate of the Soft Mystery

Constantly enduring
Gate of the Soft Mystery
Enter
Gently . . .
PART III THE EXPERIENCE OF SEED-CELL ENERGY 19

The Lesson Of Seed

The soft overcomes the hard

The small overcomes the large

The gentle survives the strong

The invisible survives the visible

Fish should be left in deep water

Fireand iron kept under ground

Seed should be left free
To grow in the rhythm of life
fHE EXPERIEnCE OF IlEVR^L EriERY

HOMAGE TO THE EXTERNAL SENSES

IV - 1
Seeing

IV - 2
Hearing

IV - 3
Touching

IV - 4 Smelling

IV - 5
Tasting
PART IV + THE EXPERIENCE OF NEURAL ENERGY 83

Seeing

Open naked eye

Light . . . radiant . . .
pulsating . . .

"I've been blind all my life to this radiance"

Retinal mandala

Swamp mosaic of rods and cones

Light rays hurtle into retina 186,000 miles per second
Cross scope
Retinal scripture

The Blind I

Recoils at glittering energy

Impersonal, mocking
Illusions of control
"Too Turn it offl
bright!
Bring back the shadow world"

The Seer Eye

Vibrates to the trembling web of light
Merges with the seen
Merges with the scene
Slides down optical whirlpool
Through central needle point
84 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS TIMOTHY LEARY

Hearing

Sound waves, sound waves

Uncover lotus membrane
Trembling tattoo of
Sympathetic vibrations
Float along liquid canals

Single piano note

Meteor of delight
Collides with quivering membrane

Eternal note

Spins slowly
On vibrating thread

Ear you are

Sound waves
PART IV + THE EXPERIENCE OF NEURAL ENERGY 85

Touching

Extend your free

Nerve endings
Fine woven tendrils

Feel my fingers'
Soft landing on your creviced surface
Send sense balloon drifting up

Through miles of skin web

Tissue atmosphere of
Electric thrill contact

Soar free through epidermal space on

Shuddering fibres of breathless pleasure
86 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS TIMOTHY LEARY

Smelling

In the sensory landscape

Of tangled odors
Streaming belts of perfume
Ecstatic breath
Musk of glands
Sexual allure
Heaven scent
Elixir of life
PART IV THE EXPERIENCE OF NEURAL ENERGY 87

Tasting

The thin sheath

Covering the tongue

Melts . . .

Exploding taste buds

Quivering tissue . . .

Mouth flowers
The EXPERlEncE of The chakms

HOMAGE TO THE INTERNAL SENSES

V- 1 The Root Chakra

V- 2 The Sex Chakra

V- 3 The Heart Chakra

V- 4 The Throat Chakra

V- 5 The Crown Chakra

V- 6 Ascending Ladder of Chakras

PARTY + THE EXPERIENCE OF THE CHAKRAS 91

The Root Chakra

Can you float through the universe of your body

and not lose your way?
Can you dissolve softly?

Decompose?
Can you rest
dormant seed-light
buried in moist earth?
Can you drift

single-celled
in soft tissue swamp?
Can you sink
into your dark
fertile marsh?
Can you spiral slowly
down the great central river?
92 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS TIMOTHY LEARY

Can you float through the universe of your body

and not lose your way?
Can you lie quietly
engulfed
in the slippery union
of male and female?
Warm wet dance of generation
Endless ecstacies of lovers?
Can you your stamen trembling in the
offer meadow
for the electric penetration of pollen
writhe together on the river bank
coil serpentine

while birds sing?

Become two cells merging?
Slide together in molecular embrace?
Can you, murmuring
Lose all . . .

Fusing
PART V + THE EXPERIENCE OF THE CHAKRAS 93

Can you float through the universe of your body

and not lose
your way?
Flow with fire-blood
Through each tissued corridor?

Can you let your heart

pump down red tunnels
stream into cell chambers?

Can you center on this

Heart-fire of love?

Can you let your heart

pulse for all love
beat for all sorrow
throb for all pain
thud for all joy
swell for all mankind?

Can you let it flow

With compassion
For all life?
94 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS + TIMOTHY LEAKY

The Throat Chakra

Can you float through the universe of your body

and not lose your way?
Breathing
Can you drift into free air?

Rise on the trembling vibration

of inhale and exhale?

Can you ascend the fragile thread of breath

into cloud-blue bliss?
Can you spiral up through soft atmosphere
Breathing
Catch the moment between in-breath and out-breath
Just there . . .

Can you float beyond life and death

Breathing
PART V THE EXPERIENCE OF THE CHAKRAS 95

The Crown Chakra

Can you float through the universe of your body

and not lose your way ?

Can you focus on the billion-celled diamond network

Pull the sensory streams into your brain
Create an incandescent solar flare

A thousand-petalled
Lotus of light?
96 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS TIMOTHY LEARY

Ascending Ladder Of Chakras

Drift along your body's soft swampland

where warm mud sucks lazily

Feel each cell in your body communicating

in serpent-coiled rainbow orgasm

Feel the sensuous rhythm of time

pulsing life along the arterial network

Bring the ethereal breath of life into

the white rooms of your brain

Radiate golden light out to

the four corners of creation
 RE-EntRY: THE EXPERIEnCE OF
The imPRinTED world
HOMAGE TO THE SYMBOLIC MIND
VI - 1 The Moment of Fullness
VI - 2 How to Escape the Trap of Beauty & Goodness
VI - 3 For God's Sake-Feel Good
VI - 4
Re-Imprinting with Water As Element
VI - 5 The Lesson of Water
VI - 6 The Utility of Nothing

VI - 7 The Innosense of the Sensual

VI - 8 What the Brain Said to the Mind
VI - 9 How to Recognize the Tao Imprint
VI - 10 Illustration of a Tao Imprint

VI - 11 Keep In Touch
VI - 12 Use Your Knowledge of Nature's Law
VI - 13 The Conscious Application of Strength
VI - 14 Victory Celebration

VI - 15 Along the Grain

VI - 16 He Who Knows the Center Endures

VI - 17 Walk Carefully When You Are Among . . .

im*w^m^wm^w^tW&w&
PART VI + RE-ENTRY: THE EXPERIENCE OF THE IMPRINTED WORLD 99

The Moment Of Fullness

Grab hold tightly

Let go lightly

The full cup can take no more

The candle burns down
The taut bow must be loosed
The razor edge cannot long endure

Nor this moment re-lived

So now . . .

Grab hold tightly

Now . . .

Let go lightly
100 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS * TIMOTHY LEARY

How To Escape The Trap

Of Beauty And Goodness

As you return
Remember
Choose beauty, so
you define ugly
Select good, so you create evil
As you choose your joy, so you design your sorrow

The coin you are now imprinting has two sides

Better to return in the flow of theTao

For indeed
The opposites exist for you alone
Beyond your heads and tails

Dances the unity

All sounds harmonize

All games end in a tie

Your God stands on the pitcher s mound

nods to his catcher

winds up and throws

a shoulder-high fast ball

Right into your Devil's glove

PART VI RE-ENTRY: THE EXPERIENCE OF THE IMPRINTED WORLD 101

For God's Sake-Feel Good

As you return
Remember to choose consciously

Power is the heavy stone wrenched

from your garden of tenderness

Virtue is the heavy stone

crushing your innocence

What can be learned

From nature is
Harmony
Therefore
Shun the social
Cuddle the elemental
Avoid angles, lie with the round
Shun plastic, conspire with seed

Do no good
But for God's sake
Feel good
And Nature s order will prevail
102 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS * TIMOTHY LEARY

Re-Imprinting With Water As Element

Remember
The flow of water

Live at the natural level

fluid

Live close to earth

fluid

Live giving life

fluid

Live falling free

fluid

Live in the stream

fluid
PART VI RE-ENTRY: THE EXPERIENCE OF THE IMPRINTED WORLD 1 03

The Lesson Of Water

What one values in the game

is the play

What one values in the form

is the moment of
forming

What one values in the house

is the moment of
dwelling

What one values in the heart

is the beating

What one values in the action

is the timing

Indeed
Because you flow like water
You can neither win nor lose
104 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS TIMOTHY LEARY

The Utility Of Nothing

The Nothing at the center of the thirty-spoke

wheel . . .

The Nothing of the clay vase . . .

The Nothing within the four walls . . .

The goal of the game is to go beyond the game

You lose your mind

To use your head

You lose your mind

To use your head

PART VI RE-ENTRY: THE EXPERIENCE OF THE IMPRINTED WORLD 105

The Innosense Of The Sensual

Name the five colors-

shadow the eye

Name the eight notes-

muffle the ear

Name the five tastes-

coat the tongue

Naming stops the flow

Win the game, lose the play

Let innosense
Direct your desire
106 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS + TIMOTHY LEAKY

What The Brain Said To The Mind

One to me is fame and shame

One to me is loss and gain

One to me is
pleasure and pain
Murmured the brain

Looking down with compassionate curiosity

As a beautiful woman idly
Inspects a tiny blemish
On her long smooth flank

Looking down with compassionate curiosity

At the small imprinted
Chess board
Of the mind's external game

One to me is shame and fame . . .

PART VI RE-ENTRY: THE EXPERIENCE OF THE IMPRINTED WORLD 107

How To Recognize The Tao Imprint

One who returns in the flow of Tao

Brings back a mysterious penetration
So subtle
That it is misunderstood

Hesitant like one who wades in

a stream at winter
Wary as a man
ambush
in
Considerate as a welcome guest
Fluid like a mountain stream
Natural as uncarved wood
Floating high like a gull

Unfathomable like muddy water

How can we fathom this muddiness?

Water becomes clear through stillness

How can we become still?

By moving with the stream

108 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS TIMOTHY LEARY

Illustration Of A Tao Imprint

He stands apart
serene

curiously observing

He stands quietly

looking forlorn
like an infant who has not yet

learned to know what to smile at

He is a little sad for what he sees

While others enjoy their possessions

he lazily drifts, a homeless
do-nothing, owning nothing

Or he moves slowly close to the land

While others are crisp and definite

he seems indecisive

He does not appear to be making his way

in the world

He is different

A wise infant nursing at the breast

Of all life
Inside
PART VI P^E-ENTRY: THE EXPERIENCE OF THE IMPRINTED WORLD 109

The Tao flows everywhere

Keep in touch
Be at home
Everywhere

He who loses the contact

Is alone

Everywhere

Keeping in touch with the Tao

Is called

Harmony
110 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS TIMOTHY LEARY

fQtf
Use Your Knowledge Of Nature's Law

Nature's way is to leave no residue

All is absorbed

Therefore we treasure the "least of men"

All belongs
All is
salvaged
Nothing is
rejected

This is called Stealing the Light . . .

Nature's subtle secret

PART VI RE-ENTRY: THE EXPERIENCE OF THE IMPRINTED WORLD 1 1 1

The Conscious Application Of Strength

Force recoils
But
The time comes
When there is
nothing to do
Except act consciously
With courage
U2 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS * TIMOTHY LEARY

Victory Celebration

Celebrate your victory

with funeral rites

for your slain illusions

Wear some black at your wedding

PART VI RE-ENTRY: THE EXPERIENCE OF THE IMPRINTED WORLD i 13

Along The Grain

The Tao is nameless

Like uncarved wood

As soon as it is carved
There are names

Carve carefully
Along the grain
114 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS TIMOTHY LEARY

He Who Knows The Center Endures

Who knows the outside clever is

Who knows the center endures

Who masters others gains robot power
Who comes to the center has flowering strength

Faith of consciousness is freedom

Hope of consciousness is
strength
Love of consciousness evokes the same in return

Faith of seed frees

Hope of seed flowers

Love of seed grows
PART VI RE-ENTRY: THE EXPERIENCE OF THE IMPRINTED WORLD 1 1 5

Walk Carefully When You Are Among . .

"Holy men" and

"Righteous deeds"
from the internal
Distract

"Learned men"
Distract from natural wisdom

"Professional know-how"
Addicts people to the contrived and external

Be respectful and compassionate

But walk carefully when you are among
learned men
holy men
doctors

government officials

reporters
publishers
professors
religious leaders
psychologists
rich people
social scientists

women with beautiful faces

artists and writers
people who charge fees
city men
116 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS + TIMOTHY LEARY

movie makers
people who want to help you
people who want you to help them
Christians and Jews

For such however well meaning

as these,

Place you on their chessboard

Addict you to their externals
Distract you from
The Tao within
The lesson of the Tao is more likely
to be found among
gardeners
hermits
eccentrics

people who build their own homes

children

parents who learn from their children

amateur musicians
serene psychotics
animals
those who look at sunsets
those who walk in the woods
beautiful women
cooks
people who sit by the fire

wanderers
bakers of bread

couples who have been in love for years

smiling men with bad reputations
poeius on The conDi/cT of lIfe
WITH ROSEMARY WOODRUFF LEARY
(1969)

1 Concerning Dosage and Capacity

2 The Perfect Paradox

3 Terra Story

4 This Design Has No Plan

5 What Now?
?s^0##0^^k^^^k#^^s#mhk:
POEMS ON THE CONDUCT OF LIFE 119

Concerning Dosage And Capacity

When
amI

Of highest capacity
It flows through me

When
I am
Of middling capacity
I write poems about the flowing

When
I am
Of low capacity
The flow irritates me
120 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS TIMOTHY LEARY

The Perfect Paradox

The perfect
Contains
The imperfect

The great design

Contains
Deliberate flaw

Error
Is the architect
Of evolution

The complete life

An infinite series
Of timely accidents

Each blundering moment

A perfect part
Of the perfected hole

[Attention Readers: if you can detect the three mistakes in

this poem you will win a black and white pony]
POEMS ON THE CONDUCT OF LIFE 121

Terra Story

From ancient times

It has been known that
A man and woman
Are as rich
As the broad land
Through which
They wander freely

Sitting here
In front of our flimsy
Mountain cottage
We see
No wall
No buildings
No neighbors
122 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS + TIMOTHY LEARY

This Design Has No Plan

There no pure white

is

The Tao forever blending

There is no perfect human
The Tao forever bending
Great space has no corners
The Tao never ending
Great music is
faintly heard
The Tao forever sending
This design has no plan
It's forever mending

mending patching up giraffes making do mutants

false starts bulging-eyed frogs goofs some
catastrophic misfits smog The Timing's Off]

Emergency Stopgap Measures Adapt Survive For

God's Sake Don't Ask Me Why! Malthusian fuckups
Darwinian losers not another Ice Age humus top
soil shit There Goes My Paleolithic Garden!

Listen sisters and brothers

There's no shortage of anything . . .

The Tao forever mending

The Tao profusely lending
Blending . . .
bending . . .
sending
Forever ending
Never ending
POEMS ON THE CONDUCT OF LIFE 123

What Now?

Out of Tao
The One
Is born

Out of the One

The Two
Divide

Out of the Two mated

We created
The Three

It's fun to blend

But where will it end
And what will become
Of our coming?
Consider the mathematics
Clicked the DNA computer
Softly

One = done
Two = nothing new
Three = variety

When multiplied
10,000 forms are supplied
With fins, feathers
and all sorts of furry coverings
124 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS TIMOTHY LEARY

What is the name

Of this inexhaustibly inventive game?

We inquired as we
Lay in each others' arms.

Will it
grow tired
Will it grow tame
As we excel
In playing this game
Always cooped up
In a permeable cell?

Is it time to re-enter
The center?

What now
Great Tao?
 tSmL. , JSg*

HomAGE to The awe-fvll seer.

(1967)

In**

vs
Wjzfoifiiy*
'^S*^^^^**^^^^^*^*^^^^^,
 Leary in Millbrook, 1966.

mm*
HOMAGE TO THE AWE-FULL SEER 121

Homage to the Awe-full Seer

At each beat
in the Earth's rotating dance
"
there is born
a momentary cluster of molecules
possessing the transient ability to know-see-experience
its own place in the evolutionary spiral.

Such an organism, such an event

senses exactly where he or she is
in the billion-year-old ballet.

They are able to trace back

the history of the deoxyribonucleic thread
of which they are both conductive element and
current.

They can experience the next moment

in its million to the millionth meaning.

Exactly that.

Some divine seers are recognized for this unique

capacity.
Those that are recognized

are called and killed by various names.

Most of them are not recognized
they float through life

like a snowflake

kissing the earth.

128 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS * TIMOTHY LEARY

No one ever hears them murmur

"Ah there"
At the moment of impact.

Seers are aware of each other's existence

the way each particle in the hurtling nuclear trapeze
is aware of other particles.

They move too give names

fast to

to themselves or each other.

Such people can be described in terms

no more precise or less foolish
than the descriptive equations of nuclear physics.
They have no more or less meaning
in the cultural games of life
than electrons have in the game of chess.
They are present but cannot be perceived or
categorized.
They exist at a level beyond
the black and white squares of the game board.
" "
The function of is to teach.

Take an apple and slice it down the middle.

A thin red circle surrounds
the gleaming white meat.
In the center is a dark seed
whose function is beyond any of your games.
If you knew how to listen
the seed would hum you a seed-song.
HOMAGE TO THE AWE-FULL SEER 129

The divine incarnates teach

like a snowflake caught in the hand teaches.
Once you speak the message you haye lost it.
Once you know the message you no longer have it.

The seed becomes a dried pit, the snowflake

a film of water on your hand.

Wise seers are continually

exploding in beautiful dance.

Like a speckled fish

dying in your hand

eye looks at you unblinking.
as its

Like the virus fragmenting

divine beauty in the grasp of tissue.

Now and then the " "

sings
words beyond rational comprehension.
The message always the same
is

though the sounds, the scratched rhumba

of inkmarks is
always different.

It's like Einstein's equation felt as orgasm.

The serpent unwinds up the spine,
mushrooms like a lotus sunflare in the skull.

If I tell you that the apple seed message

hums the drone of a Hindu flute
will that stop the drone?
130 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS + TIMOTHY LEARY

" "
The secret of must always be secret.

Divine sage recognized, message lost.

Snowflake caught, pattern changed.
They dance out the pattern without being

recognized.
Caught in the act, they melt in your hand.
The message then contained in a drop of water
involves another chase for the infinite.
"
The sign of "is change and anonymity.
As soon as you try to glorify
worship, deify the seer
sanctify,

you have killed him.

Thus the Pharisees

performed a merry, holy ballet.

All praise to them!

It is the Christians who kill Christ.
As soon as you invent a symbol
"
give "a name
you assassinate the process

to serve your own ends.

To speak the name of Buddha
Christ
HOMAGE TO THE AWE-FULL SEER 13 1

Lao Tse
except as a sudden ecstatic breath

is to murder the living God

fix him with your preservative
razor him onto a microscope slide
sell him for profit in your biological house.
supply

The seers have no function

but they produce in others the ecstatic gasp
the uncontrollable visionary laugh.
Too much!
So what!
Why not!
The stark stare of wonder.
Awful!
Awe-full!
 nofES

PART I

- 1
I
Adapted fromTao Chapter 17. Elsewhere titled: "Rulers" in The
Wisdom of Lao Tse, edited by Lin Yu tang, Modern Library, New York,
1948; "The Unadulterated Influence" in The Texts of Taoism, translated

by James Legge, Dover, New York, 1962. (Hereafter, the initials LYT
designate LinYutang and the initials JL designate James Legge.)

-
I 2 Adapted fromTao Chapter 18. Elsewhere titled: "The Decline of
Tao," LYT; "The Decay of Manners," JL.

1-3 Adapted fromTao Chapter 35. Elsewhere titled: "The Peace of Tao,"
LYT; "The Attribute of Benevolence," JL.

-
I 4 Adapted fromTao Chapter 19. Elsewhere titled: "Realize the Simple
Self," LYT; "Returning to the Unadulerated Influence," JL.

- 5
I
Adapted fromTao Chapter 23. Elsewhere titled: "The Dregs and
Tumors of Virtue," LYT; "Painful Graciousness," JL.

PART II

II - 1 "On
Adapted fromTao Chapter 1. Elsewhere titled: the Absolute
Tao," LYT; "Embodying the Tao," JL.

II - 2 Adapted fromTao Chapter 4. Elsewhere titled: "The Character of

Tao," LYT; "The Fountainless,"JL.

II - 3 Adapted fromTao Chapter 5. Elsewhere titled: "Nature," LYT; "The

Use of Emptiness," JL.

II - 4 Adapted fromTao Chapter 26. Elsewhere titled: "Heaviness and

Lightness," LYT; "The Quality of Gravity," JL.

II - 5 Adapted fromTao Chapter 7. Elsewhere titled: "Living for Others,"

LYT; "Sheathing the Light," JL.
134 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS TIMOTHY LEARY

-
II 6 Adapted fromTao Chapter 14. Elsewhere titled: "Prehistoric

Origins," LYT; "The Manifestation of the Mystery," JL.

- 7
II Adapted fromTao Chapter 29. Elsewhere titled: "Warning Against
Interference," LYT; "Taking No Action," JL.

II-8 Adapted fromTao Chapter 5. Elsewhere titled: "Nature," LYT; "The

Use of Emptiness," JL.

II-9 Adapted fromTao Chapter 36. Elsewhere titled: "The Rhythm of

Life," LYT; "Minimizing the Light," JL.

PART III

III - 1 Adapted fromTao Chapter 14. Elsewhere titled: "Prehistoric

Origins," LYT; "The Manifestation of the Mystery," JL.

Ill - 2 Adapted fromTao Chapter 14. Elsewhere titled: "Prehistoric

Origins," LYT; "The Manifestation of the Mystery," JL.

Ill - 3 Adapted fromTao Chapter 15. Elsewhere titled: "The Wise Ones of
Old," LYT; "The Exhibition of the Qualities of theTao,"JL.

Ill - 4 Adapted fromTao Chapter 16. Elsewhere titled: "Knowing the

LYT; "Returning to the Root," JL.
Eternal Law,"

Ill - 5 Adapted fromTao Chapter 21. Elsewhere titled: "Manifestations of

Tao," LYT; "The Empty Heart, or theTao In its Operation," JL.

Ill - 6 Adapted fromTao Chapter 22. Elsewhere titled: "Futility of

Contention," LYT; "Returning to Simplicity," JL.

Ill - 7 Adapted fromTao Chapter 28. Elsewhere titled: "Keeping to the

Female," LYT; "Returning to Simplicity," JL.

Ill - 8 Adapted fromTao Chapter 25. Elsewhere titled: "The Four Eternal

Models," LYT; "Representations of the Mystery," JL.

Ill - 9 Adapted fromTao Chapter 34. Elsewhere titled: "The Great Tao
Flows Everywhere," LYT; "The Task of Achievement," JL.
NOTES 135

111-10 Adapted from Tao Chapter 37. Elsewhere titled: "World Peace," LYT;
"The Exercise of Government," JL.

Ill 1 1 Adapted from Tao Chapter 6. Elsewhere titled: "The Spirit of the

Valley," LYT; "The Completion of Material Forms," JL.

111-12 Adapted from Tao Chapter 36. Elsewhere titled: "The Rhythm of
Life," LYT; "Minimizing the Light," JL.

PART IV

IV 1-5 Adapted from Tao Chapter 12. Elsewhere titled: "The Senses," LYT;
"The Repression of the Desires," JL.

PARTV
V 1-6 Adapted from Tao Chapter 10. Elsewhere titled: "Embracing the
One," LYT; "Possibilities Through the Tao," JL.

PART VI
VI - 1 "The Danger of
Adapted from Tao Chapter 9. Elsewhere titled:

Overweening Success," LYT; "Fullness and Complacency Contrary

to the Tao," JL.

-
VI 2 Adapted from Tao Chapter 2. Elsewhere titled: "The Rise of Relative
Opposites," LYT; "The Nourishment of the Person," JL.

VI - 3 Adapted from Tao Chapter 3. Elsewhere titled: "Action Without

Deeds," LYT; "Keeping the People at Rest," JL.

VI - "The
4 Adapted from Tao Chapter 8. Elsewhere titled: "Water," LYT;
Placid and Contented Nature," JL.

VI - 5 "The
Adapted from Tao Chapter 8. Elsewhere titled: "Water," LYT;
Placid and Contented Nature," JL.

VI - "The
6 Adapted from Tao Chapter 1. Elsewhere titled: Utility of Not-
being," LYT; "The Use ofWhat Has No Substantive Existence," JL.
136 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS + TIMOTHY LEARY

VI - 7 Adapted fromTao Chapter 12. Elsewhere titled: "The Senses," LYT;

"The Repression of the Desires," JL.

VI - 8 Adapted fromTao Chapter 13. Elsewhere titled: "Praise and Blame,"

LYT; "Loathing Shame," JL.

VI - 9 Adapted fromTao Chapter 15. Elsewhere titled: "The Wise Ones of

Old," LYT; "The Exhibition of the Qualities of theTao,"JL.

VI-10 Adapted fromTao Chapter 20. Elsewhere titled: "The World and I,"

LYT; "Being Different from Ordinary Men,"JL.

VI-11 Adapted fromTao Chapter 23. Elsewhere titled: "Identification with

Tao,"LYT; "Absolute Vacancy," JL.

VI-12 Adapted fromTao Chapter 27. Elsewhere titled: "On Stealing the
Light," LYT; "Dexterity in Using Tao,"JL.

VI- 13 Adapted from Tao Chapter 30. Elsewhere titled "Warning Against the
Use of Force," LYT; "A Caveat Against War," JL.

VI-14 Adapted fromTao Chapter 31. Elsewhere titled: "Weapons of Evil,"

LYT; "Stilling War,"JL.

VI-15 Adapted fromTao Chapter 32. Elsewhere titled: "Tao Is Like the Sea,"

LYT; "TheTaoWithNoName,"JL.

VI-16 Adapted fromTao chapter 33. Elsewhere titled: "Knowing Oneself,"

LYT; "Discriminating Between Attributes," JL.

VI-17 Adapted fromTao Chapter 19. Elsewhere titled: "Realize the Simple
Self," LYT; "Returning to the Unadulterated Influence," JL.
NOTES 137

POEMS ON THE CONDUCT OF LIFE

1-5 Adapted fromTao Chapters 41-45.

HOMAGE TO THE AWE-FULL SEER

A tribute to Lao Tse.

mm #&*&##
 i

m
Chinese ideograms
for Tao Te Ching.
 IIIDEX ACCORDiriG TO THE ORDER OF
THE TAO TE CHiriG

TAO
CHAPTER
140 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS TIMOTHY LEARY
INDEX ACCORDING TO THE TAO TE CHING 141

33
142 PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS TIMOTHY LEARY
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 hese meditations on the art
and science of consciousness expansion
are serene, sensuous, funny and wise.
They are among the most inspired
writings by one of the outstanding
visionary geniuses of the 20th century
Ralph Me tz tier
CO-AUTHOR OF
The Psychedelic Experience

Psychedelic Prayers, Timothy Leary s only book of meditative

POETRY, IS A PRACTICAL PSYCHEDELIC MANUAL INSPIRED BY LAO Tse's
Tao Te Ching (Way of Life). Written while the author was visiting India
IN I965, IT WAS FINISHED AT THE CELEBRATED ESTATE IN MlLLBROOK, NEW
York the following year. Psychedelic Prayers is the companion volume
to Timothy Leary's High Priest, the story of 16 trips that defined the
PSYCHEDELIC REVOLUTION. ^/Jjl. .'/J21

Timothy Leary was drawn to the "psychedelic quality" of Lao Tse's

ANCIENT WORK. "My OBJECTIVE" HE WROTE, "WAS TO FIND THE SEED IDEA IN
each Sutra and rewrite it in the lingua franca of psychedelia." The result
WAS THIS HANDY TAKE-ALONG PRAYER BOOK. It IS INTENDED TO BE READ SLOWLY
DURING A SESSION AS A GUIDE TO TRANSCENDENTAL EXPERIENCES.

This edition of Psychedelic Prayers contains six newly discovered

meditations, several illustrations from prior editions, including the

cover by h.r. glger, and a never before published photograph of
Timothy Leary in India. Also included is a bibliographical preface by
Michael Horowitz, and an historical
introduction by ralph metzner who
was with Timothy Leary in India
when the book was written. i
780914171843
ISBN D- cimi71-flM-M
PSYCHEDELIC Pl^AYERJS
ISBN 0-914171-84-4
Ron n P 1 bush] n G, Inc.
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