Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out

Just make sure you stay alert. Keep close watch over yourselves. Don't forget anything of what you've seen. Don't let your heart wander off. Stay vigilant as long as you live. Teach what you've seen and heard to your children and grandchildren. - Deuteronomy 4:9 (The Message)

Ok so we are a month into the challenges of a new administration. We have been assaulted on many fronts and the rumors and rhetoric are swirling around like a tornado. There have been marches, protests, letters, petitions, calls to elected officials, and all sorts of actions taken. We have prayed for immigrants, Muslims, Jews, militants, refugees, people of color, women, and even the President and his administration. And for the most part things are still turbulent and chaotic with no end to this ride in sight. I am beginning to hear people say things that make me think they are tired and ready to just pull back and cover up like a turtle retreating into its shell. I get it. I feel that way at times too. I have been remembering a slogan from my youth: “Turn on, tune in, drop out.” I have been feeling the temptation to follow this advice.

So, I had to remind myself of where that phrase came from and what it meant to see if I really want to live by its intent. It came from the late great Timothy Leary in 1966 when he said it at a press conference. Here is the quote: Like every great religion of the past we seek to find the divinity within and to express this revelation in a life of glorification and the worship of God. These ancient goals we define in the metaphor of the present — turn on, tune in, drop out. ("Transcript". American Experience documentary on the Summer of Love. PBS and WGBH. 2007-03-14.)

He later explained what it meant in his 1983 autobiography: "Turn on" meant go within to activate your neural and genetic equipment. Become sensitive to the many and various levels of consciousness and the specific triggers that engage them. Drugs were one way to accomplish this end. "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. Unhappily my explanations of this sequence of personal development were often misinterpreted to mean "Get stoned and abandon all constructive activity". (Timothy Leary, Flashbacks: A Personal and Cultural History of an Era pg. 253)

Given what Timothy Leary said it meant I think I can safely quote it and adopt it as part of my way of coping with things. In order to survive and thrive in the present situation I must “turn on” my spiritual connections with God, Christ, creation and other people. I should pay attention to my soul and my psyche keeping both engaged and exercised so that they are functioning at their peak. Doing this will help me “tune in.” That is find and become active in the places and programs, actions and activities that externalize, make manifest, and show to the world my connection to God and God’s values. And of course, I can then “drop out.” I can commit to choice and change and discover how combining my connection with God to those of others we can mobilize and alter the world. In “dropping out” I can comfortably forgo giving the present leadership a chance, waiting for things to shake out, and shutting out all that makes me uneasy because I am coming at the world from my connections with God, self and others and know that what I am saying and doing comes from God.

I am fearful that many kind, caring, progressive people who want to protect others, save the planet, and make things right will get too tired and apathic and adopt that misinterpretation of this quote and just “get stoned and abandon all constructive activity.” We cannot let that happen. We cannot fall into that trap. For once we give up. Once we stop calling for change. Once we halt our marches and stop signing petitions and sending our elected officials emails, and demanding they address our issues at town hall meetings evil wins. We must remain vigilant so that our children and grandchildren, neighbors and friends, strangers and enemies all know what is right and good and decent. So as combat troops say to one another, “Stay frosty my friends.”

Dear God, help me to remain vigilant. Help me to stay connected to you, creation, myself and others. Help us all to stay frosty. And help those most traumatized by what is happening in our nation and world. Amen.