aldous huxley the doors of perception and heaven and hell

But in certain cases communication between universes is incomplete or even nonexistent. Most island universes are sufficiently like one another to Permit of inferential understanding or even of mutual empathy or 'feeling into.' Thus, remembering our own bereavements and humiliations, we can condole with others in analogous circumstances, can put ourselves (always, of course, in a slightly Pickwickian sense) in their places. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes. We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves.

Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies - all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable. By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. Embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstasies into a single self-transcendence in vain. The martyrs go hand in hand into the arena they are crucified alone. Huxley died in California on 22 November 1963.“We live together, we act on, and react to, one another but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. His beliefs found expression in both fiction ( Time Must Have a Stop,1944, and Island, 1962) and non-fiction ( The Perennial Philosophy, 1945 Grey Eminence, 1941 and the account of his first mescaline experience, The Doors of Perception, 1954). The exploration of the inner life through mysticism and hallucinogenic drugs was to dominate his work for the rest of his life. As the West braced itself for war, Huxley came increasingly to believe that the key to solving the world's problems lay in changing the individual through mystical enlightenment. In 1937, at the height of his fame, Huxley left Europe to live in California, working for a time as a screenwriter in Hollywood. The great novels of ideas, including his most famous work Brave New World (published in 1932, this warned against the dehumanising aspects of scientific and material 'progress') and the pacifist novel Eyeless in Gaza (1936) were accompanied by a series of wise and brilliant essays, collected in volume form under titles such as Music at Night (1931) and Ends and Means (1937). For most of the 1920s Huxley lived in Italy and an account of his experiences there can be found in Along the Road (1925). This was swiftly followed by Antic Hay (1923), Those Barren Leaves (1925) and Point Counter Point (1928) – bright, brilliant satires in which Huxley wittily but ruthlessly passed judgement on the shortcomings of contemporary society. He began writing poetry and short stories in his early 20s, but it was his first novel, Crome Yellow (1921), which established his literary reputation. Aldous Huxley was born on 26 July 1894 near Godalming, Surrey.

Aldous huxley the doors of perception and heaven and hell