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In 1960 Leary went with his family to Cuernavaca, Mexico. It was on this trip that Leary had his fist experience with mushrooms. Three others joined him on his first trip and two friends observed. According to Leary, when the mushrooms first began to take effect, he had sudden revelations about how ignorant his way of thinking had always been. "We discover abruptly that we have been programmed all these years, that everything we accept as reality is just social fabrication." His experience with the mushrooms led him to believe that the brain was an underused biocomputer of which we humans do not fully access. (Leary 33) .
Upon his return to Harvard, Leary began his exploration of vision-inducing drugs. He was encouraged when he discovered that other professors in the psychology department had already been studying the effects of them. In October of 1960 Leary and his colleagues began planning experiments with psylocybin, which they had obtained by a company in New York that claimed they had produced the chemical synthetically for use by qualified researchers. Their sessions with the drug excited them and encouraged them further. The sessions also created new questions about how to use the mind expanding drugs and how it could be taught to others. Eventually, the researchers came to a conclusion that intelligent use of psychedelic drugs required a "brain guide" of some sort. As it seems, Leary felt that he was a worthy candidate for the job. After one of their experiments, in which Leary presided while two friends took the drug, Leary and his colleagues sat around and discussed the changes they wished to make in the world such as world peace and nuclear disarmament. They wished to end conformity and ignorance, as well as unhappiness. They felt that the worst problems were caused by narrow-minded social conditioning. It was after this discussion that the pioneers began planning a neurological revolution.
