Oldos Leonard Khaksli

Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer.

On both his father’s and mother’s sides, Huxley belonged to the British cultural elite, which produced a number of distinguished scientists, writers, and artists. His father was the writer Leonard Huxley, and his paternal grandfather was the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley; on his mother’s side, Huxley was the great-grandson of the historian and educator Thomas Arnold and the grand-nephew of the writer Matthew Arnold. Huxley’s brother Julian and half-brother Andrew were famous biologists.

Huxley’s mother died when Aldous was 13. Three years later he developed eye inflammation and his eyesight subsequently deteriorated significantly. Because of this, he was exempted from military service during the First World War.

Huxley wrote his first novel, which was never published, at the age of 17. He studied literature at Balliol College, Oxford. By the age of twenty, Huxley had decided to make writing his profession.

His novels deal with the loss of humanity by society in the course of technological progress (the dystopia Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited). He also addressed pacifist themes.

In 1937, Huxley moved to Los Angeles, California, together with his guru Gerald Heard, hoping that the Californian climate would improve his worsening eyesight. It was here that his main creative period began, marked by a new emphasis on a more detailed examination of human nature. Huxley met Jiddu Krishnamurti in 1938. Under the latter’s influence, he turned to various wisdom teachings and became involved in mysticism.

In 1953, he agreed to take part in an experiment conducted by Humphry Osmond. The aim of this experiment was to study the effect of mescaline on human consciousness. It was subsequently in correspondence with Osmond that the word “psychedelic” was first used to describe the effects of mescaline.

The essays The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell describe the observations and course of the experiment, which the author repeated about ten times up until his