TIMOTHY LEARY: DR. TIM'S LAST TRIP

Tune in. it's Sunday afternoon, St. Patrick's Day, and traditional Celtic music is wafting through the air outside a Benedict Canyon ranch home high above Beverly Hills. Inside, musicians are serenading an Irish philosopher as he lies dying in bed among linens that depict cartoon rocket ships zooming over planets. Throughout the afternoon and well into the night, visitors come to pay their respects: a grandchild, Rastas, filmmaker Oliver Stone, slackers, alternative rocker Perry Farrell, Webheads. "I run a salon," says Timothy Leary. "Throughout human history, the salon has always been a fermenting place where creative people meet."

Indeed, Leary's recent...