Past Events
Aldous Huxley and the Psychedelic Sixties
- Venue: Newcastle City Library
- Start: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 17:15:00 GMT
- End: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 18:00:00 GMT
GRG Evening Lecture Series at City Library: “Aldous Huxley and the Psychedelic Sixties” – Reanne Crane (Newcastle University) Wednesday 26 November, 5.15-6.00pm
In the shadow of Brave New World (1932), Huxley’s final literary works are often undervalued. His late enthusiasm for psychedelics drugs was a great influence on the counter-cultural ‘hippie’ movement in the 1960s – an association that somewhat tarnished his scholarly reputation. However, my talk will explain how this influence was based on a grand misunderstanding. Huxley, along with a community of scientists, saw enormous scientific and philosophical potential within psychedelic drugs. I will discuss Huxley’s essays Doors of Perception (1954) and Heaven and Hell (1956) in their original context – before psychedelics had been branded as ‘drugs’. I will also use these works to explain why LSD and mescaline were incompatible with dominant scientific methods, and how a refusal to conform transformed these substances from medical marvels into social demons.