Timothy Leary's 1964 manual 'The Psychedelic Experience' adapted the Tibetan Buddhist concept of the bardo—the intermediate realm after death—to guide and regulate psychedelic trips. Although Leary's appropriation was problematic, this essay argues that his use of these Tibetan materials creatively reframed the intense, phantasmagoric experiences common to strong psychedelics. Drawing on comparative religion and secular psychology, Leary constructed a model of psychological transformation that rejected religious or transcendental meaning while expanding the bardo concept already present in Tibetan Buddhism.
The 1971 'Experiment at La Chorrera' in Colombia, conducted by Terence and Dennis McKenna, became a legendary event in psychedelic culture. This paper analyzes the intellectual matrix of Jungian alchemy, Marshall McLuhan's media theory, and science fiction that shaped the experiment's protocols and concepts. It introduces McKenna's early unpublished text 'Crypto-Rap' as an example of 'weird naturalism.' The authors argue that the McKennas 'esotericized' media theory into an occult framework of resonance, sympathy, and apocalyptic ontology.