Ram Dass

In 1963, Richard Alpert ended one life and launched a new one: Ousted from Harvard University’s faculty with co-merrymaker Timothy Leary for giving hallucinogenic drugs to students, he became a point man for the psychedelic movement of the ’60s. Many drug-fueled highs later, Alpert’s second, and most lasting, transformation occurred. He went on sojourn in India and in 1968 returned as Ram Dass, a name that became synonymous with another of that era’s social and psychological explosions. As Ram Dass, Alpert spread the word that turning inward was far more powerful than just turning on. A nimble communicator who was articulate, funny and self-effacing, he became a central figure in the movement to make Eastern mysticism understandable to Western minds. He described his metamorphoses in “Be Here Now” (1971), a counterculture classic still in print almost four decades and millions of copies later.