HUXLEY, ALDOUS LEONARD

(1894–1963)

English author, poet, and philosopher, perhaps most famous for his utopian novelBraveNew World(1932b) and such important nonfiction asThe Art of Seeing(1932a),The Perennial Philosophy(1946), andThe Devils ofLoudon(1952); grandson of Thomas Huxley and brother of Julian Huxley. An account of Huxley’s experiments with the drug mescaline is published inThe Doors of Perception(1954), with rich and celebratory descriptions of the hallucinations and detailed analysis of the mystical and social implications of his experiences. The follow-up volumeHeaven and Hell(1956) balances the positive experiences with what have since been termed “bad trips” and contributes descriptions of the effects of LSD. InBrave New World, the drug “soma” serves as a major tool of the totalitarian state, while inIsland(1962), Huxley’s last major work, the drug “moksha” is central to the doomed utopia of Pala—and both of these novels likely draw on Huxley’s own experiments withentheogens. Huxley’s work has had a major impact on psychedelic audiences—JimMorrison’s band the Doors took its name from Huxley’s 1954 book—and his work continues to have an influence on manyneo-shamans. The fact that Huxley requested an injection of LSD on his deathbed lends greater weight to his status as avisionaryand shaman among neo-shamans.