Timothy Leary's Eight-Circuit model of the brain represents the different circuits the brain can access. Timothy Francis Leary was born in Springfield, Massachusetts on October 22 1920. He attended the United States Military Academy at West Point through the early 1940's. After being forbidden from speaking with his peers, due to an honor violation, he was adopted by the African-American cadets. Who were also forbidden from speaking due to racial discrimination in the military. At this point in his life he began to study philosophy, while writing a book based mainly on Arthur Schopenhauer.After leaving the academy he decided to become an author, in hopes of undermining the white-male structures of authority in our society. After college and returning from war in Europe, Leary found work teaching psychology at UC Berkeley. After his first wife committed suicide, he moved back to Massachusetts to teach at Harvard. In his early psychology work he developed a self-dynamic personality model. Which later evolved into the Eight-Circuit model of human consciousness. This work was influenced by Henry Stack Sullivan. Some of the other psychologists to work in the area of the evolution of consciousness were Robert Anton Wilson, and Antero Alli. Leary's first experience with hallucinogens occurred on a research trip to Mexico in 1960. The substance was the psychedelic mushroom used in traditional Latin American healing techniques. He then returned to Harvard to start the Harvard Psilocybin Project. In 1962 he is introduced to LSD and describes it as the most shattering experience of his life. Timothy Leary was essential in the shaping and promotion of the psychedelic movement. During the 1960's he was known as the "most dangerous man in America" according to President Nixon. Many knew him as the most prominent figure of the counter-culture .
revolution. After being caught crossing the Mexican border in 1966 with a small quantity of marijuana, he spent time in jail, until he escaped in 1970.
