Susannah Cahalan on the Psychedelic Pioneer Rosemary Woodruff Leary

Rosemary Woodruff Leary is remembered—if she’s remembered at all—as a muse, fugitive, and heavily indicted co-conspirator in Timothy Leary’s psychedelic revolution of the 1960s and ’70s. But her story is far more complex than that. A true believer in the mind-expanding potential of LSD, a master of the elusive art of “set and setting,” and a woman determined to live a remarkable life, Rosemary was a countercultural icon in her own right.

Susannah Cahalan is the author, most recently, of The Acid Queen: The Psychedelic Life and Countercultural Rebellion of Rosemary Woodruff Leary. In June, Cahalan joined The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie to discuss Woodruff—what drove her to begin experimenting with psychedelics, what she saw in the tumult of postwar America, and why her legacy deserves more than a footnote in someone else’s story.

Q: Who was Rosemary Woodruff Leary?

A: As much as I hate to start with Timothy Leary, we are starting with him—she was [his] third or fourth wife, depending on who you ask. She was a seeker. She was a behind-the-scenes character who was propping up Leary, working with him on his speeches, sewing his clothing, helping him create an image.

She was also very much a true believer in the role that psychedelics could play in not only expanding consciousness but actually making society better. She was called the Queen of Set and Setting—the mindset that you bring into a trip, and the environment. Rosemary was very good at making people feel grounded and supported.

Q: What drove her to move to New York and start experimenting with drugs? What was she seeking that she wasn’t getting in her hometown of St. Louis?

A: She had always talked about herself in these mythic terms. She saw herself as someone who was going to live a great life—with a capital G, Great. She wasn’t going to find that in St. Louis. She was attracted to “great men”—these genius archetypes. That’s what she found in New York. Through being in this scene, she was able to express some of those sides of herself.

Q: What was going on in postwar America
where this type of thing was even taking place?

A: I think there’s a lot of overlap with today. There was a sense of insecurity. Some people responded to that insecurity and fear by having a lot of children, being very family focused. And other people started questioning the nature of their reality and the role of society.

They were still kind of caught up. Rosemary described how Timothy—despite all of his talk of revolution of the mind and [how he] was going to upend society—was the kind of man who put his hand out and expected to have a martini glass put in it.

Q: And that was part of the function that she served, right? She kept the rooms clean, helped organize, fed people.

A: It’s been an interesting thing, talking about Rosemary in today’s culture, where there seems to be this idea that either you have to be a tradwife or a girlboss. She wasn’t either of those. Yes, she was stuck with a position that oftentimes she resented. But she actually did really enjoy taking care of other people. She was genuinely really good at taking care of people and beautifying spaces, too.

Q: What is the message that you might bring to a contemporary person reading this?

A: The thing I hope people take away from it is that she was complicated. She doesn’t fit into these ideas of what a woman should be or how she should use her power. She was more like all of us, who are complicated. We sometimes pick people who aren’t great for us. Or we love people who are damaged and damaging. And that doesn’t make her any less worthy of a biography.

This interview has been condensed and edited for style and clarity.