"I don't want to talk about politics, I prefer to talk about premature ejaculation," Jerry Rubin, former Yippie leader and political activist, said yesterday.

Rubin, who was in Cambridge to promote his new book, said he believes a "psychic transformation" of the individual must precede political change. "I hope be a consciousness-sharer, not a leader," he said, "acting as a bridge between the political radical left and the spiritual consciousness movement."

Dressed in a flowered shirt and striped bell-bottoms, Rubin looks very different from the bearded, long-haired Yippie who took the stand as a defendant in the 1968 "Chicago Seven" trials. He says he is now bitter about the hostility he feels from his former followers.

"The moment you put someone on a pedestal, you want that person destroyed," he said. "I built up such an image that people had to dump on it."

"People keep thinking that because we didn't have a revolution we failed. We didn't fail. We're taking over the system from within," he said, adding, "the old leaders have lost the will to resist."

Rubin said his new approach to social change starts with individual growth. "In the '60s, we were totally out there; in the '70s, people need to take a breather, to turn inside for a while," he said.

Since he left politics five years ago, Rubin has been in California practising yoga, zen, and several forms of gestalt therapy.

"If I held a political meeting now," he said, "I'd start with half an hour of yoga, then some gestalt exercises, then start the meeting but say, 'What are you really saying?'''

But Rubin said his approach only applies to the middle class of America. "The haves need therapy," he said, "the have-nots need power."

Rubin said he does not have a specific program for social change, but said if he had one, it would be "to give tons and tons of money to the poor people to build their communities up."

He said he plans to spend the next three months touring the country to promote his book, "Growing (Up) at 37," and then to "go back into obscurity."

"I'm really thankful to my parents for fucking me up," Rubin said. "They helped me empathize with oppressed peoples everywhere. They're oppressed physically, I'm oppressed emotionally.