Timothy Leary Trivia Quiz Questions and Answers

Trivia quiz questions with answers about Dr. Timothy Leary.

Timothy Leary Trivia Quiz Questions and Answers

Who was Timothy Leary?
A: Timothy Francis Leary was an American psychologist and writer known for advocating the exploration of the therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs under controlled conditions.

As a clinical psychologist at Harvard University, Leary conducted experiments under what project?
A: The Harvard Psilocybin Project in 1960–62 (LSD and psilocybin were still legal in the United States at the time), resulting in the Concord Prison Experiment and the Marsh Chapel Experiment.

The scientific legitimacy and ethics of his research were questioned by whom?
A: Other Harvard faculty because he took psychedelics together with research subjects and pressured students in his class to take psychedelics in the research studies.

When were Leary and his colleague, Richard Alpert (who later became known as Ram Dass fired from Harvard University?
A: In May 1963.

National illumination as to the effects of psychedelics did not occur until after what?
A: The Harvard scandal.

Leary believed that LSD showed potential for what?
A: Therapeutic use in psychiatry.

He used LSD himself and developed a philosophy of what?
A: Mind expansion and personal truth through LSD.

After leaving Harvard, he continued to publicly do what?
A: Promote the use of psychedelic drugs and became a well-known figure of the counterculture of the 1960s.

He popularized catchphrases that promoted his philosophy, such as what?
A: "turn on, tune in, drop out", "set and setting", and "think for yourself and question authority".

He gave lectures, occasionally billing himself as a what?
A: "performing philosopher".

During the 1960s and 1970s, he was arrested often enough to see the inside of how many prisons?
A: 36 prisons worldwide.

President Richard Nixon once described Leary as what?
A: "The most dangerous man in America".

Where was Timothy Leary born?
A: In Springfield, Massachusetts, the only child in an Irish Catholic household.

His father, Timothy "Tote" Leary, was a what?
A: A dentist who left his wife Abigail Ferris when Leary was 14.

What college did he attend?
A: He attended the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts from September 1938 to June 1940.

Under pressure from his father, he then accepted what?
A: An appointment as a cadet in the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.

In the first months as a "plebe", he was given numerous demerits for what?
A: For rule infractions.

He then got into serious trouble for failing to do what?
A: Report infractions by other cadets when on supervisory duty.

He was alleged to have gone on a drinking binge and to have failed to what?
A: "come clean" about it.

He was asked by the Honor Committee to do what?
A: To resign for violating the Academy's honor code.

He refused and was "silenced"—that is, shunned and ignored by whom?
A: His fellow cadets as a tactic to pressure him to resign.

He was acquitted by a court-martial, but the silencing measures what?
A: Continued in full force, as well as the onslaught of demerits for small rule infractions.

The treatment continued in his sophomore year, and what did his mother do?
A: She appealed to a family friend, United States Senator David I. Walsh, head of the Senate Naval Affairs Committee, who conducted a personal investigation.

Behind the scenes what did the Honor Committee do?
A: It revised its position and announced that it would abide by the court-martial verdict.

What did Leary then do?
A: He resigned and was honorably discharged by the Army.

Almost 50 years later, what did he say about it?
A: That it was "the only fair trial I've had in a court of law".

To the chagrin of his family, Leary elected to transfer to where?
A: The University of Alabama in late 1941 because of the institution's expeditious response to his application.

He enrolled in the university's ROTC program, maintained top grades, and began to cultivate academic interests in what?
A: Psychology (under the aegis of the Middlebury and Harvard-educated Donald Ramsdell) and biology.

He was expelled a year later for doing what?
A: Spending a night in the female dormitory.

This caused him to lose what?
A: His student draft deferment in the midst of World War II.

Leary was drafted into the United States Army and reported for basic training where?
A: At Fort Eustis in January 1943.

He remained in the non-commissioned track while enrolled in the psychology subsection of the Army Specialized Training Program, including what?
A: Three months of study at Georgetown University and six months at Ohio State University.

With no urgent need for officers at the late juncture in the war, Leary was briefly assigned as a what?
A: A private first class to the Pacific War-bound 2d Combat Cargo Group at Syracuse Army Air Base in Mattydale, New York.

After a fateful reunion with Ramsdell (who was assigned to Deshon General Hospital in Butler, Pennsylvania as chief psychologist) in Buffalo, New York, he was promptly what?
A: Promoted to corporal and reassigned to his mentor's command as a staff psychometrician.

He remained in Deshon's deaf rehabilitation clinic for how long?
A: For the remainder of the war.

While stationed in Butler, Leary began to court whom?
A: Marianne Busch.

When did they marry?
A: In April 1945.

Leary was formally discharged at the rank of sergeant in January 1946, having earned what?
A: The Good Conduct Medal, the American Defense Service Medal, the American Campaign Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal.

Following retroactive suspension, Leary was reinstated where?
A: At the University of Alabama and received credit for his Ohio State psychology coursework.

He completed his degree via what?
A: Correspondence courses and graduated on August 23, 1945.

Upon receiving his undergraduate degree, Leary decided to pursue what?
A: An academic career.

In 1946, he received an M.S. in psychology at what University?
A: Washington State University, where he studied under noted educational psychologist Lee Cronbach.

His M.S. thesis was a study of what?
A: The clinical applications of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale.

In 1947 what did Marianne do?
A: She gave birth to their first child, Susan.

A son, Jack, was born when?
A: Two years later.

In 1950, Leary received a Ph.D. in what?
A: Clinical psychology from the University of California, Berkeley.

In 1952, the Leary family spent a year in Spain, subsisting on what?
A: A research grant.

Despite his nascent professional success, his marriage was strained by what?
A: By multiple infidelities and mutual alcohol abuse.

When did Marianne commit suicide?
A: In 1955, leaving him to raise their son and daughter alone.

How did he describe himself during this period?
A: As "an anonymous institutional employee who drove to work each morning in a long line of commuter cars and drove home each night and drank martinis ... like several million middle-class, liberal, intellectual robots."

From 1954 or 1955 to 1958, Leary was what?
A: Director of psychiatric research at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

In 1957, Leary's The Interpersonal Diagnosis of Personality was published and was hailed as what?
A: The 'most important book on psychotherapy of the year' by the Annual Review of Psychology.