X-Message-Number: 6296
Date: Fri, 31 May 1996 18:16:26 -0400 (EDT)
From: Charles Platt <>
Subject: Leary and Barlow

John Perry Barlow was close to Timothy Leary and was often present at the
house during the last few weeks of Leary's life. Barlow posted an obituary
online today, following news of Leary's death shortly before 1 AM PST.
Those who are looking for reasons why Leary turned against cryonics should
note the relevant passage below. Personally I don't think Mr. Barlow
should be blamed for "changing Timothy Leary's mind," because I don't
think anyone was really capable of doing that. I am posting the following
excerpt merely to substantiate my previous claim that people near Leary
were hostile to cryonics. This was indeed so. 

>>  ***Long Live Timothy Leary by John Perry Barlow
>>
>>  A couple of hours ago, at 12:45 am Beverly Hills time, my old friend and
>>  the corrupter of my youth Timothy Leary made good on his promise to
>>  "give death a better name or die trying." Willingly, peacefully, and
>>  unafraid, he headed off on his last trip.
>>
>>  He spoke his last words a few hours before. On the phone to the mordant
>>  William S. Burroughs he said, "I hope that someday I'm as funny as you
>>  are."
>>
>>  He didn't, as threatened, commit suicide on the Net. Or have his head
>>  cut off and frozen. Or engage in any other the other spectacles of
>>  departure I had dreaded. In the end, he surrounded himself with the
>>  angelic band of twenty-somethings who have been uploading him into
>>  the Web these last few months and drifted peacefully out of here.
....

>>  But Timmy beat me to the barricades. He flat died. And he died, without
>>  pretending that he was "really going to get well any day now," without
>>  permitting himself to become a ghoulish and futile medical
>>  experiment, without contributing to the stupefying mass denial
>>  that causes almost 80% of America's health care dollars to be blown on
>>  the last six months of life.

Personally I don't regard cryonics as a "spectacle of departure." But 
opinions differ.

--CP


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