Turn on, tune in, drop out

History of the phrase

In a 1988 interview with Neil Strauss, Leary said the slogan was "given to him" by Marshall McLuhan during a lunch in New York City. Leary added McLuhan "was very much-interested in ideas and marketing, and he started singing something like, 'Psychedelics hit the spot / Five hundred micrograms, that's a lot,' to the tune of a Pepsi commercial of the time. Then he started going, 'Tune in, turn on, and drop out. The phrase was used by Leary in a speech he delivered at the opening of a press conference in New York City on September 19, 1966. It urged people to embrace cultural changes through the use of psychedelics by detaching from the existing conventions and hierarchies in society. It was also the motto of his League for Spiritual Discovery.

In his speech, Leary said:

Leary explains in his 1983 autobiography Flashbacks:

Tune in meant interact harmoniously with the world around you—externalize, materialize, express your new internal perspectives.

Drop out suggested an active, selective, graceful process of detachment from involuntary or unconscious commitments. Drop Out meant self-reliance, a discovery of one's singularity, a commitment to mobility, choice, and change.

In public statements I stressed that the Turn On-Tune In-Drop Out process must be continually repeated if one wished to live a life of growth.

Unhappily my explanations of this sequence of personal development are often misinterpreted to mean "get stoned and abandon all constructive activity".}}

Turn on, Tune in, Drop out is also the title of a book () of essays by Timothy Leary, covering topics ranging from religion, education, and politics to Aldous Huxley, neurology, and psychedelic drugs.

In 1967, Leary (during the salon known as the Houseboat Summit) announced his agreement with a new ordering of the phrase as he said, "I would agree to change the slogan to 'Drop out. Turn on. Drop in.

By the early 1980s, while on a speaking tour with G. Gordon Liddy, the phrase had transformed to "turn on, tune in, take over."

During his last decade, Leary proclaimed the "PC is the LSD of the 1990s" and re-worked the phrase into "turn on, boot up, jack in" to suggest joining the cyberdelic counterculture.

References

References

1. Strauss, Neil. (2011). "Everyone Loves You When You're Dead: Journeys into Fame and Madness". [[HarperCollins]].
2. Ray, Oakley. (1983). "Drugs, Society, & Human Behavior". Mosby.
3. (2007-03-14). "Transcript". [[Public Broadcasting Service.
4. Leary, Timothy. (1990). "[[Flashbacks: A Personal and Cultural History of an Era]]". Putnam Books.
5. Hagerty, Lorenzo. (1967). "Psychedelic Salon 193-WattsLearyHsbtSumit67".
6. Molenoar, David. (November 18, 1982). "Guru Debates Macho Burglar". Kalamazoo News.
7. Ruthofer, Arno. (1997). "Think for Yourself; Question Authority".