Customer Reviews

Moksha: Writings on psychedelics and the visionary experience (1931-1963)

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This volume brings together selections from Huxley's Brave New World, Doors Of Perception, Heaven And Hell and Island, as well as magazine articles, letters, lectures and scientific papers. It also includes writings by Timothy Leary, Laura Huxley and Dr. Humphry Osmond. Leary's interesting account of a 1960 meeting with Huxley at Cambridge is titled Mushrooms For Lunch, whilst the same year's Harvard Sessions is a report of a psylocybin session where Huxley took part in a group experiment. Other very thought provoking chapters include Dr. Humphry Osmond's May Morning In Hollywood and Huxley's own Disregarded In The Darkness, Doors, Mescalin, Heaven And Hell and Brave New World Revisited. But the highlights of the book are Laura Huxley's 1962 account of her husband in a psychedelic state and especially her moving account of his illness and death, titled Nobly Born. The appendix is titled Instruments For Use During A Psychedelic Experience and the book concludes with an index. This is a brilliant collection of this refined author's best work and an insightful investigation into the use of entheogenic substances for the expansion of consciousness. I also recommend Huston Smith's Cleansing The Doors Of Perception: The Religious Significance of Entheogentic Plants and Chemicals, William James' Varieties Of Religious Experience the title Chaos, Creativity and Cosmic Consciousness by Ralph Abraham, Terence McKenna and Rupert Sheldrake.

Moksha is a word in Sanskrit which means "liberation", and liberation is probably the best word to describe Aldous Huxley and his writings. Liberation from external forces, from norms and views of reality that the authority figures of the West have told you are "real" and "true", liberation from everything that stops you from finding your own path in life and the creation of your own truth.

In the world of fiction, Huxley is perhaps best known for his novel Brave New World, in which he painted a rather gloomy picture of a not-too distant future where the people are controlled by the use of Soma, a synthetic drug enabling everyone some time-out from their own miserable existence. This theme was continued in the later book Island, where the name of the drug has been changed to Moksha and is seen as a positive thing, a way for the individual to find his or her own means of evolution instead of a cheap escape from the dreaded reality. However, Huxley was more than just a writer of fiction, and in Moksha the reader is treated to a glimpse of this man's amazing intellect. Besides some of the many letters he wrote during his lifetime, you'll also find excerpts from different lectures held all over the world, interviews, and important sections from some of this best fictional writing, such as Brave New World, The Doors of Perception, Island, and Heaven and Hell.

The larger bulk of the text is about psychedelic drugs and their beneficial use in different sorts of therapy as well as their ability to help mankind in the expansion of human consciousness, and it's quite a pleasure to experience Huxley's fascinating ideas about these types of drugs, especially since they in later years came to be treated as a total menace to society. Even in these alleged times research on their beneficial use is still considered a crime more or less everywhere, which actually is nothing but bizarre since they've been proven to be very useful when administered correctly by professionals. But not everything in the books deals with this, because Huxley had tons of interesting views and things to say about such topics as art, literature, religion, psychology, and ecology.

From time to time it's a very demanding book, but if you just take your time and explore the often complicated thoughts and ideas, then Moksha will give you not only a good insight in the mystery that is human perception of reality, but also a splendid presentation of one of the most progressive thinkers in modern times.

Aldous Huxley was clearly a man ahead of his time: imagine an English intellectual in the 1940's writing about mecaline and LSD, how they relate to psychology, sociology and religion in modern times.
This was not a cult leader or an Edgar Cayce/Aleister Crowley sort of philosopher: his essays were published in periodicals as varied as the Saturday Evening Post and Playboy Magazine (!). He was one of the ultimate explorers of the mind. Many of his thoughts from the 40's and the 50's still sound as relevant today as the day they were written.
His timeless thoughts are his genius. I recommend this book highly.

Alduos Huxley is a brilliant man. This book has made me think about things in a whole new way. I love the letters he writes. The book is divided into 40 chapters. I read it slowly, a chapter or two at a time over a period of a few months. It wasn't one of those books you, like his novels, that you'd want to read in a week or a day. It is something you want to read and then think about it for a while. His ideas on psychedelics are very enlightening. I am thankful for this work.

New Age, Self Help, Cults. While you might think that some of these things are 'new'.
you can find through this book that the human condition appears to have established
itself quite a long time ago and has not changed a great deal in aggregate over time.

It is really unfortunate that so little is understood about the workings of the human
mind and that so little of our collective time is spent in pursuit of a deeper cognition.

Well worth the investment in both time and money for anyone interested in knowing
more about themselves.

Entheogens (psychedelics) through the eyes of an articulate and cultured man of letters. We get to see through this series of essays why Huxley turned to psychedelics as a tool for spiritual exploration. It also raises important questions that need to be addressed by those of us using entheogens (psychedelics) as a means of expanding consciousness.

Thomas Seay

If you like Huxley, especially his writings on psychedelics and the visionary experience, then obtain this book. It can be redundant at times, but it gives you a personal look at Huxley's interest in self-trancendance and the potential helpfulness of "psychodelics" through letters written to friends, lectures, and other mystical treats. If you've never read Huxley's opinions on psychedelics than I suggest you read Doors of Perception first just to tread the surface of what Huxley envisioned

This volume brings together selections from Huxley's Brave New World, Doors Of Perception, Heaven And Hell and Island, as well as magazine articles, letters, lectures and scientific papers. It includes writings by Timothy Leary, Laura Huxley and Dr. Humphry Osmond. Leary's interesting account of a 1960 meeting with Huxley at Cambridge is titled Mushrooms for Lunch, whilst the same year's Harvard Sessions is a report on a psylocybin session where Huxley took part in a group experiment.

Other thought-provoking chapters include Dr. Humphry Osmond's May Morning in Hollywood and Huxley's own Disregarded in the Darkness, Doors, Mescalin, Heaven And Hell and Brave New World Revisited. But the highlights of the book are Laura Huxley's 1962 account of her husband in a psychedelic state and Nobly Born, her moving account of Huxley's illness and death. The appendix is titled Instruments for use During A Psychedelic Experience; the book concludes with an index.

This is a brilliant collection of this refined author's best work and an insightful investigation into the use of entheogenic substances for the expansion of consciousness. Informative books on related aspects of this field of research include Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind by Graham Hancock, Plants of the Gods by Richard Schultes & DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor's Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences by Rick Strassman. I also recommend Huston Smith's Cleansing the Doors of Perception: The Religious Significance of Entheogenic Plants and Chemicals.

Do not be fooled by the table of contents. Even though it says the book contains "The Doors of Perception" and "Heaven and Hell," it in fact only contains a few brief pages of abridgement. That warning to the buyer aside, the book does contain an interesting array of letters regarding the same experience recounted in "Doors of Perception" and many other trips that Huxley took. Particularly useful are the historical introductions to the letters collected in this volume. It allows the casual reader to know what events are being discussed in the letter.

The book was in the condition that the seller stated it was in. The price was right and it arrived in a timely manor. This is all that mattered to me.