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Ram Dass, 1970s Guru and LSD Pioneer, Dies at 88

Spiritual teacher dies at 88

Ram Dass, the American spiritual teacher, academic, and clinical psychologist who did much to popularize LSD in the 1960s and ’70s, has died at the age of 88. Born Richard Alpert, he was a colleague of Timothy Leary in Harvard University’s psychology department, and the two later lived together in Millbrook, New York, where they pushed the limits of psychedelic experimentation. In 1967, Alpert, traveled to India, met his guru, the Hindu sadhu Neem Karoli Baba, known as Maharaj-ji, and returned renamed Ram Dass, or Servant of God. In 1974, turning away from psychedelics, he started a new life based on meditation, and his own synthesis of Buddhist, Hindu, Advaita, and Sufi teachings, and later, Jewish mysticism. His most famous book, Be Here Now, has sold over 2 million copies since publication in 1971.