Aldous Huxley- the UK version of Tim Leary??? ideas?? we are reading Brave New World in English class and some kid asked me if I thought that was true or very far from the truth. What do you think?
not at all. Both people lived pretty different lives. Aldous huxley was more into self descovery and less into turning on everyone else. Leary was in the public trying to get everyone on acid quite a bit. They are both extremely intelligent and have very different writing styles. I like huxley's writing better, but leary wasn't like an author he was more of the yogi/bodhisatva type.
I haven't read Brave New World, but I have read Island, and the two form a complementary pair of works. Huxley wrote Brave New World to show the dangerous dystopian future we might be heading to, and much later he wrote Island to show that a selfless, communal society could become a utopia. Many themes are mirrored between the two. From what I know, sex in BNW is mechanical, and drugs are used as a tool of submission. In Island, sex and drugs are essential parts of the mysticism that ties the utopia together. Sorry if that's not really on topic, I just think it's a cool concept and I keep waiting to get a chance to read Brave New World.
brave new world is already happening. think about it-- soma==prozac/antidepressants the elderly being generally discarded by the more "fit and able" society being born into a status false consciousness--the government making it appear as though we have a choice, but it entirely dictates what becomes "pop culture" and what we are exposed to. (false consciousness was a Marx theory about capitalism..)
But soma was a recreational drug in BNW - do people use prozac in that context? An exellent compilation 'Moksha' came out a few years back - it contains a lot of stuff Aldous wrote on the topic of psychedelics, including letters written to Tim Leary. It's pretty clear that Huxley was instrumental in turning Leary onto many things, hence the chapter 'Homage to Huxley' in Leary's 'Politics of Ecstacy'. Huxley was a complex character - he was of aristocratic origins, a brilliant scholar, member of the famous 'Bloomsbury Set' in the 20's and probably one of the best english novelists of the 20th c.
Even though I think BraveNewWorld is an excellent book, I just don't dig Huxley's Doors of perception...Maybe because I was never on drugs....
I read Brave New World in elementary school. My parents bid on a box of toys for me at an auction, and this was in it. Of course, i picked this book above everyting, seeing as how there were pretty geometric shapes on the cover. I loved it. But that was a side story, i guess... hmm.... I think it's fair to call Huxley the Leary of the UK, i do. At least, they were pretty close.
Aldous Huxley was of an aristocratic family in Britain. Aldous Huxley's grandfather, Thomas Huxley, was a famous biologist and humanist, a high-level Freemason, as well as a leading founder of the Rhodes Round Table groups. His brother was one of the founders, as well as the first director of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). For over 60 years UNESCO has been working to implement the global scientific dictatorship described in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Aldous Huxley and his brother Julian were tutored at Oxford by the Fabian socialist and New World Order propagandist, H.G. Wells, who was a British intelligence agent and the head of British foreign intelligence during World War I. In her book, The Aquarian Conspiracy, author Marylin Ferguson sees the 60's counterculture, spearheaded by Huxley, as being what Wells referred to as "The Open Conspiracy: Blue Prints for a World Revolution". "The open conspiracy", Wells wrote, "will appear first, I believe, as a conscious organization of intelligent and quite possibly in some cases, wealthy men, as a movement having distinct social and political aims, confessedly ignoring most of the existing apparatus of political control, or using it only as an incidental implement in the stages, a mere movement of a number of people in a certain direction who will presently discover with a sort of surprise the common object toward which they are all moving... In all sorts of ways they will be influencing and controlling the apparatus of the ostensible government." It's important to note that Brave New World isn't some work of fictitious speculation, but rather is based on insider knowledge of this long-term agenda which we now see emerging with full-force. Aldous Huxley was never against this agenda, and as a matter of fact he was all for it. The man was what you would call an elitist. If you listen to the speech he gave at Berkeley in March of 1962, he openly advocates this rise of a scientific dictatorship, and speaks of a time when man will be under the total control of a Scientific Elite with the aid of drugs and propaganda, as well as the interfacing of man with computers, creating a new kind of super-slave or automoton of sorts. This theme would later be repeated in books by Zbigniew Brzezinski in the 1970's (see Between Two Ages: America's Role in the Technetronic Era (1970)). So Aldous Huxley was very much a part of the establishment. He was largely the one behind the rise of this hippie movement in America (on orders from the British Crown), which was never a grassroots movement, but part of a much bigger agenda to destroy the moral fabric of the country, making way for this BRAVE NEW WORLD we are now living in. It was Huxley who turned people like Ken Kesey and Timothy Leary (a CIA agent) on to LSD, thus popularizing it and the then-burgeoning counter-culture. Huxley and Leary were similar in that they were both working for the government. Most people don't know that the hippie movement was a massive sham perpetrated on the youth of America by old men in white lab coats. It was never the grassroots movement they naively believe it to be. It was handed down from the top and promoted by the media to subvert American society and create a shift in consciousness towards the coming "New Age" -- the Age of Aquarius. The hippie movement was imposed on the American people by the British, and was based on the pagan cult ceremonies of the decadent Roman and British Empires. Below is a description of the cult ceremonies dating back to the Egyptian Isis priesthood of the third millenium B.C., which can be compared to a hippy "be-in" of the 1960's. "The acts or gestures that accompany the incantations constitute the rite [of Isis]. In these dances, the beating of drums and the rhythm of music and repetitive movements were helped by hallucinatory substances like hashish or mescal; these were consumed as adjuvants to create the trance and the hallucinations that were taken to he the visitation of the god. The drugs were sacred, and their knowledge was limited to the initiated... Possibly because they have the illusion of satisfied desires, and allowed the innermost feelings to escape, these rites acquired during their execution a frenzied character that is conspicuous in certain spells: "Retreat! Re is piercing thy head, slashing thy face, dividing thy head, crushing it in his hands; thy bones are shattered, thy limbs are cut to pieces!" Just as the British inundated the Chinese with drugs in the 19th Century, the 60's counterculture had the same effect of subverting American society, making it decadent and complacent, and thus easy to control.
really? Out of Huxley's books I've only read The Doors of Perception, and Heaven and Hell. I enjoyed The Doors of Perception....just so much. I dunno. I was in love with it. Still am ahahha, just the way he describes the things he sees, it reminds me of the way I think... just using better english lol. Even though I've never done drugs. It's such a beautiful way to look at the world. At one point in the book (when he was describing the flowers), I got tears in my eyes. Something that's so simple, and that we see everyday, could be so...perfect. It made sense to me, but when I tried to explain it to others, it was so hard. And my friends just figured I was mad. But it DOES make sense to me. One of the best things I've ever read In my world, Huxley is an absolute genious peace and love Jane
no. to your whole thing. Leary wasn't a CIA agent. How did the egyptians get mescal? I've only seen mescal used in reference to mescal beans, mescaline cacti, and the chemical mescaline. I'm pretty sure the first two grew only in the americas, and the last would have been pretty unsynthesizable with their technology.
He ain't talking about the Egyptians. He's making a comparison to their ceremonies and the hippie 'be-in's.
No...Just no... That statement is just sickening to even think about. Also, even if they were alike, Leary would be the American version of Huxley, not vice versa. Another big difference is that Huxley is good; Leary is shit.
I'd love to give an articulate response...but I really don't have the energy right now. So I'm just going to rant. In summary...they can't really be compared and it would be simplistic to call him the Leary of the UK or whatever you said... Huxley is one of the 20th century's most profound thinkers, not to mention a brilliant, beautiful and provocative writer. I would not hesitate at all to call him one of the greatest minds in the last hundred years. Now okay...here goes my rant: I used to take Leary really seriously, but after actually experimenting with psychedelics, and reading a lot more, I find his work to be of little depth. Some books like the Psychedelic Experience are definitely an interesting perspective (I'm sure mostly from the contributions of Ram Das) but it's just pretentious to give instructions on how one should use their minds on a psychedelic, one of the most personal experience one can have, and not one to be fucked with. But as an acid guru, he was no more than a self proclaimed false messiah. Psychedelics are a wonderful way to experiment with the depths of the psyche and spiritual experiences, and an infinite number of other things, but teaching that acid is the answer to everything and all the other statements like that is just pure...fuck...I don't even know what to call it. The "spirituality" he preached was in essence, shallow. It caused a lot of harm, as people weren't ready for it like one should be before such a huge spiritual quest. I respect him for putting some ideas into the mainstream but without him, acid wouldn't have become this illegal dangerous substance feared by society like it is today. In contrast, just consider Aldous Huxley's work, thoughts, philosophies and influence. Simply reading his writing will expand your mind, even if you don't take drugs.
