John Lilly
John Cunningham Lilly was a CIA agent, who played a role in the mind control experiments with LSD and other drugs with Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, Allen Ginsberg, Werner Erhard during the counterculture of the 60's (the New Age Church). He was educated at Caltech (school of Jack Parsons), Geisel School of Medicine of Dartmouth College and University of Pennsylvania (founded by Benjamin Franklin, worked with Eric Trist of Tavistock). |
He was influenced by Aldous Huxley (family who helped creating the UN) and a friend of Charles Mayo, connected to the UN. He worked with Cuthbert Bazett, a student of Marxist and Darwinist JBS Haldane (Dragon School, Cambridge).
To experiment with sensory deprivation he designed isolation tanks at the National Institute of Mental Health in 1954. He experimented with LSD (book Center of the Cyclone) and dissociative drug ketamine. He did research in Coconut Grove in Florida.
His work was the inspiration for Dolphin Island of Arthur C Clarke and Day of the Dolphin of Mike Nichols (related to Albert Einstein, married to Diane Sawyer, who interviewed Charles Manson) with George C Scott (Kubrick's Dr Strangelove).
Leary played a role in the Summer of Love media ritual in San Francisco, a year after Anton LaVey founded his Church of Satan.
In 1980 Warner Bros released movie Altered States of Ken Russell with William Hurt (as Columbia University professor, based on Lilly), Bob Balaban and Drew Barrymore and screenplay of Paddy Chayefsky (CCNY, friend of Ruth Gordon of Rosemary's Baby). The movie was developed by Daniel Melnick (MGM). Russell worked for the BBC and made a movie with Vanessa Redgrave, a movie with Michael Caine and a movie about Aleister Crowley's friend Isadora Duncan.
In 2016 Netflix produced Stranger Things wit Winona Ryder (Leary as godfather) and sensory deprivation tank scene and references to Project Montauk.
born 1/6/1915.
died 9/30/2001.