Aldous Huxley

From The SpiritWiki

Aldous Huxley was an English writer and philosopher who became heavily involved in psychedelic research in the 1950s and 1960s. ,

Huxley Terms

Aldous Huxley > Applied Mysticism, Final Revolution, Mind at Large, Minimum Working Hypothesis, Normal Self

Key Figures

Key Figure > A. L. Kitselman, Abraham Maslow, Albert Einstein, Albert Hofmann, Aldous Huxley, Eugene Ruyle, Jean Anyon, Johan Galtung, Louis Althusser, Timothy Leary, Vannevar Bush, William James

Key Letters

Huxley to Osmond - Smith 623

1958 Drugs that Shape Men’s Minds

Notes

AH is a key figure in the areas of Connection Practice, Connection Experience, and Human Development

Biography

"Aldous Leonard Huxley was born on July 26, 1894, into a notable literary and scientific family. He was the third son of Dr. Leonard Huxley—teacher, editor, man of letters—and of Julia Arnold, niece of the poet Matthew Arnold and sister of the novelist, Mrs. Humphrey Ward. He was the grandson of T. H. Huxley, the scientist, and the great-grandson of a formidable moralist, Dr. Thomas Arnold. His eldest brother, Julian, died February 21, 1975, ending that generation of world-recognized Huxleys."[1] He became best known for his novel Brave New World but was heavily involved in shaping psychedelic research in the 1950s.

The book Moksha contains interesting biographical and professional commentary by such luminaries as Humphry Osmond, Albert Hofmann, and Alexander Shulgin and is a great place to look for more information on this legendary figure.

Education and Human Development

In 1953, called for the development of a more advanced education system, one more in line with advancing the true potentials of humans. One that would make the best of both worlds.

"Disease, mescaline, emotional shock, aesthetic experience and mystical enlightenment have the power, each in its different way and in varying degrees, to inhibit the functions of the normal self and its ordinary brain activity, thus permitting the “other world” to rise into consciousness. The basic problem of education is, How to make the best of both worlds-the world of biological utility and common sense, and the world of unlimited experience underlying it. I suspect that the complete solution of the problem can come only to those who have learned to establish themselves in the third and ultimate world of ‘the spirit’, the world which subtends and interpenetrates both of the other worlds. But short of this ultimate solution, there may be partial solutions, by means of which the growing child may be taught to preserve his “intimations of immortality” into adult life. Under the current dispensation the vast majority of individuals lose, in the course of education, all the openness to inspiration, all the capacity to be aware of other things than those enumerated in the Sears-Roebuck catalogue which constitutes the conventionally “real” world.[2] That this is not the necessary and inevitable price extorted for biological survival and civilized efficiency is demonstrated by the existence of the few men and women who retain their contact with the other world, even while going about their business in this. Is it too much to hope that a system of education may some day be devised, which shall give results, in terms of human development, commensurate with the time, money, energy and devotion expended? In such a system of education it may be that mescaline or some other chemical substance may play a part by making it possible for young people to ‘taste and see’ what they have learned about at second hand, or directly but at a lower level of intensity, in the writings of the religious, or the works of poets, painters and musicians."[3]

Quotes

Speaking about the difficulty of being in a connected state for any length of time

“You couldn’t be in it all the time…. The world becomes so extraordinary and so absorbing that you can’t cross the street without considerable risk of being run over… .”[4]

Speaking about the possibility of zenith and nadir experiences...

“It varies. On the whole, no. Statistically about 70% get a good and positive and happy result from it, a certain percentage get no results, and a certain percentage get very unpleasant and hell-like results out of it. They get very frightened.””[5]

He was quite positive on the potential of Connection Supplements to transform human consciousness.

"It is without any question the most extraordinary and significant experience available to human beings this side of the Beatific Vision; and it opens up a host of philosophical problems, throws intense light and raises all manner of questions in the fields of aesthetics, religion, theory of knowledge. The most extraordinary fact about mescalin—the active principle in the peyotl cactus used by the North American Indians in their religious ceremonies, and now synthesized—is that it is almost completely non-toxic. No unpleasant physical results, except a faint seasickish feeling at the beginning, no lowering of intellectual capacity, and absolutely no hangover—just transformation of consciousness so that one knows exactly what Blake meant when he said, “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear as it is, infinite and holy” The schizophrenic gets this kind of consciousness sometimes; but since he starts with fear and since the fact of not knowing when and how he is to emerge from this condition of changed consciousness tends to increase that fear, his commonest experiences are of an Other World, not heavenly but infernal and purgatorial. What these young men in Canada are on the track of is immensely important—a bio-chemical element in the causation of schizophrenia." [6]

"While one is under the drug one has penetrating insights into the people around one, and also into one’s own life. Many people get tremendous recalls of buried material. A process which may take six years of psychoanalysis happens in an hour—and considerably cheaper! And the experience can be very liberating and widening in other ways. It shows that the world one habitually lives in is merely a creation of this conventional, closely conditioned being which one is, and that there are quite other kinds of worlds outside. "[7]

He wrote briefly about Levels of Consciousness

"Obviously we have to think of the mind in terms of a stratified Neapolitan ice, with a peculiar flavour of consciousness at each level. Pharmacology may permit us to go precisely to the level we want and no further."[8]

A stranger writes from Seattle that he had produced extraordinary changes of consciousness-which he doesn’t describe—by fasting and going without sleep over a weekend. This, of course, is what so many mystics, East and West, have done. Asceticism is only partially motivated by a sense of sin and a desire for expiation, and only partly, on the subconscious level, by masochism. It is also motivated by the desire to get in touch with the Other World, and the knowledge, personal or vicarious, that “mortification” leads through the door in the wall."[9]

" Three interesting things have turned up recently. My old friend Naomi Mitchison writes from Scotland, after reading the Doors, that she had an almost identical experience of the transfiguration of the outer world during her various pregnancies. Could this be due to a temporary upset in the sugar supply to the brain? (Also, a strange woman writes that she has had a mescalin-like experience during attacks of hypoglycaemia" [10]

"Terror is an extremely wasteful, stupid and inefficient method of controlling people. The Romans discovered this many years ago. As far as possible they tried to rule their empire by consent and not by mere coercion. And we are now in a position to do far better than the Romans, because we have this enormous armory of techniques which will permit the rulers to make their subjects actually like their slavery."[11]

He had some interesting things to say about education

"If I had the control of education I would start pointing out to children, of quite small age, that the fundamental rule of morality, the golden rule, begins on the sub-human level, even the sub-biological level. If you want nature to treat you well, you must treat nature well. If you start destroying nature, nature will destroy you, and this basic moral precept is fundamental in our present knowledge of ecology and conservation. What we know now about ecology points to the fact that nature exists in the most delicate balance, and that anything which tends to upset the balance will produce consequences of the most unexpected character and often of the most disastrous character."[12]

On Nomenclature Confusion

"Our problem is to adapt a language which is not now suitable to describing the continuum of mind and body, a universe of complete continuity. Somehow or other we have to invent the means of talking about these problems in an artistically varied way which shall make them accessible to the general public. Ideally, for example, we ought to be able to talk about a mystical experience simultaneously in terms of theology, of psychology and of biochemistry. This is a pretty tall order, but unless we can do something of the kind, it will remain extraordinarily difficult for people to think about this continuous web of life, to think about it as a continuum, and not in terms of the old Platonic and Cartesian dualism which so extraordinarily falsifies our picture of the world. How we are going to do this, how the literary men are going to achieve this miracle of language, I don’t know, but I think it has to be achieved. And maybe we shall. Maybe some future Shakespeare will arise with an immense command of language, able to take our existing English, and somehow, by some miracle of poetry or miracle of poetic prose, render this picture of a continuum. This is something I myself have thought about a great deal, and frankly I do not have enough talent for the task."[13]


Footnotes

  1. ↑ Editor's introduction in Huxley, Aldous. Moksha. Vermont: Park St. Press, 1999.
  2. ↑ He is talking about how Toxic Socialization damages and disconnects us.
  3. ↑ Aldous Huxley, Psychedelic Prophets: The Letters of Aldous Huxley and Humphry Osmond. Edited by Cynthia Bisbeer Carson, Paul Bisbee, Erika Dyck, Patrick Farrell, James Sexton, and James W. Spisak. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018. p. 6
  4. ↑ Aldous Huxley, “Chapter Thirty-Two: 1961 Letters,” in Moksha (Rochester, Vermont: Park Street Press, 1999).
  5. ↑ Aldous Huxley, “Chapter Thirty-Two: 1961 Letters,” in Moksha (Rochester, Vermont: Park Street Press, 1999).
  6. ↑ Aldous Huxley, “Chapter Nine: 1953 Letters,” in Moksha (Rochester, Vermont: Park Street Press, 1999).
  7. ↑ Aldous Huxley, “Chapter Twenty-Eight: 1960 Letters,” in Moksha (Rochester, Vermont: Park Street Press, 1999).
  8. ↑ Aldous Huxley, “Chapter Nine: 1953 Letters,” in Moksha (Rochester, Vermont: Park Street Press, 1999).
  9. ↑ Aldous Huxley, “Chapter Elevan: 1953 Letters,” in Moksha (Rochester, Vermont: Park Street Press, 1999).
  10. ↑ Aldous Huxley, “Chapter Elevan: 1953 Letters,” in Moksha (Rochester, Vermont: Park Street Press, 1999).
  11. ↑ Aldous Huxley, “Chapter Twenty-Six: 1959 Letters,” in Moksha (Rochester, Vermont: Park Street Press, 1999).
  12. ↑ Aldous Huxley, “Chapter Twenty-Six: 1959 Letters,” in Moksha (Rochester, Vermont: Park Street Press, 1999).
  13. ↑ Aldous Huxley, “Chapter Twenty-Six: 1959 Letters,” in Moksha (Rochester, Vermont: Park Street Press, 1999).



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