Richard Alpert was an eminent Harvard psychologist on the fast track to success when he fell in with fellow Harvard professor Timothy Leary who turned him on to LSD. Harvard University did not appreciate their ardent research on the psychological and spiritual potentials unleashed by LSD and other psychedelic drugs, and in 1963 Alpert and Leary were tossed out of academia. Leary continued to bask in his iconic status in the psychedelic counter-culture, but for Alpert, mind expansion via chemical substances became a catalyst for spiritual seeking.