During the radical 1960s, the late Leary and Richard Alpert did extensive
research on LSD and other psychedelic elements—in collaboration with
Aldous Huxley, Allen Ginsberg and others. The pair escaped to a mansion in
upstate New York. While Leary continued to ride naked on horses, Richard
Alpert, after six years or so of getting high, went to India in 1967 and met
his spiritual teacher—Neem Karoli Baba. There he met a 23-year-old man
named Bhagwan Dass. Eventually, after fasting, yoga and meditation, Alpert was
introduced to Dass' s guru—Maharaji. He returned to the U.S. with a new
name—Baba Ram Dass ("servant of God") and wrote Be Here Now. He
then began teaching Kali-worship (goddess of thieves) to Harvard students.
When he became Ram Dass, he forsook his Jewish upbringing and was estranged
from his family. His never-named father was a wealthy lawyer, President of the
New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad and founder of Brandeis University.
The recently sick Ram Dass is said to be known and loved all over the world as
the self-described "HinJew." Dismissed from Harvard with Leary in 1963,
Dass was involved with the Zihuatanejo Project, the IFIF (The International
Foundation for Internal Freedom) and the Castalia Organization at Millbrook,
all of which were attempts to realize a psychedelic utopia as presented in
Island by Aldous Huxley, and Glass Bead Game by Herrman Hesse.
