John C. Lilly
| John Lilly | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
January 6, 1915 Saint Paul, Minnesota U.S. |
| Died | September 30, 2001 (aged 86) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
John Cunningham Lilly (January 6, 1915 – September 30, 2001) was an American physician, neuroscientist, psychoanalyst, psychonaut, philosopher, writer and inventor.
He was a researcher of the nature of consciousness using mainly isolation tanks,dolphin communication, and psychedelic drugs, sometimes in combination.
John Lilly was born to a wealthy family on January 6, 1915, in Saint Paul, Minnesota. His father was Richard Coyle Lilly, president of the First National Bank of St. Paul. His mother was Rachel Lenor Cunningham, whose family owned the Cunningham & Haas Company, a large stockyards company in St. Paul. Lilly had an older brother, Richard Lilly Jr., and a younger brother, David Maher Lilly. A fourth child, Mary Catherine Lilly, died in infancy.
Lilly showed an interest in science at an early age. At thirteen years old, he was an avid chemistry hobbyist, supplementing his makeshift basement laboratory with chemicals given to him by a pharmacist friend. Students at his parochial Catholic grade school referred to him as "Einstein Jr." At age 14 he enrolled at St. Paul Academy, a college preparatory academy for boys, where his teachers encouraged him to pursue science further and conduct his own experiments in the school laboratory after hours.
While at St. Paul, Lilly also further developed his interest in philosophy. He studied the works of many of the great philosophers, finding himself especially attracted to the subjective idealism of Anglo-Irish theologian and philosopher George Berkeley.
Despite his father's wishes for him to go to an eastern Ivy-league college to become a banker, Lilly accepted a scholarship at the California Institute of Technology to study science. He enrolled in 1933 and began studying physics under such notable scientists as Robert Andrews Millikan, Paul Dirac, and Carl David Anderson. Lilly was a member of Blacker House. After his first year, Caltech administration learned that Lilly was from a wealthy family and cancelled his scholarship, forcing him to go to his father for help. Dick Lilly set up a trust fund to pay the tuition and eventually became a benefactor of the college. Lilly would continue to draw on his family wealth as a means to fund his scientific pursuits throughout the course of his life.
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