American psychologist, writer and self-help guru Ram Dass was BOTD in 1931. Born Richard Alpert in Boston, Massachusetts, he had a middle-class upbringing, studying psychology at Tufts, Wesleyan and Stanford Universities. After graduation, he taught at Harvard, becoming (in)famous for his experiments with colleague Timothy Leary on the use of psychedelic drugs. Dismissed from his position in 1963, he moved to New York where he set up a commune and continued his adventures in LSD. Later in the 1960s, he travelled to India where he studied with Hindu teacher Neem Karoli Baba, who renamed him Ram Dass (“servant of God”). Returning to the United States, he published an account of his spiritual journey, Be Here Now in 1971. The book became an international bestseller, and is widely credited with popularising Eastern philosophy, yogic practice and meditation in Anglo-American culture. Dass continued teaching and writing throughout the 1970s, becoming the spiritual guru of the counterculture movement and influencing everyone from the Beatles to Steve Jobs. He also established the Living/Dying Project, encouraging Western culture to provide support to the dying, and advocating compassion for HIV/AIDS patients. After a stroke in 1997, he moved to Hawaii, describing his post-illness disability as an “act of grace”. In his 1991 memoir Compassion in Action, he discussed his bisexuality, revealing thousands of youthful sexual encounters with men and a long-term relationship with an unnamed man. He died in 2019 aged 88.