Sarandon leads Burning Man memorial for LSD guru Leary

Wccb Charlotte Sept 2025 Icon 512x512

RENO, Nev. (AP) β€” LSD guru Timothy Leary died nearly 20 years ago, but some of his remains apparently made a trip to the Burning Man counter-culture festival in Nevada’s desert.

Long-time friend and actress Susan Sarandon says she brought some of Leary’s ashes with her to be burned as part of last week’s celebration 100 miles north of Reno.

The former Harvard professor urged people to alter their consciousness with psychedelic drugs during the 1960s.

Most of his ashes were blasted into space after he died in 1996. But Sarandon told the Reno Gazette-Journal (http://tinyurl.com/ppy5mu5 ) she kept some and decided last year he would have loved the “chaos” of Burning Man.

She led a procession to a temporary church built as an art installation called the “Totem of Confessions” before it was set on fire early Sunday.

___

Information from: Reno Gazette-Journal, http://www.rgj.com