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| Moksha: Aldous Huxley's Classic Writings on Psychedelics and the Visionary Experience | 
| Author: Aldous Huxley
Creators: Michael Horowitz, Cynthia Palmer
Publisher: Park Street Press
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
Buy New: $10.42
You Save: $6.53 (39%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 138864
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.9
ISBN: 0892817585
Dewey Decimal Number: 154.4
EAN: 9780892817580
ASIN: 0892817585
Publication Date: April 1, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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Product Description
Selected writings from the author of Brave New World and The Doors of Perception on the role of psychedelics in society.
• Includes letters and lectures by Huxley never published elsewhere.
In May 1953 Aldous Huxley took four-tenths of a gram of mescaline. The mystical and transcendent experience that followed set him off on an exploration that was to produce a revolutionary body of work about the inner reaches of the human mind. Huxley was decades ahead of his time in his anticipation of the dangers modern culture was creating through explosive population increase, headlong technological advance, and militant nationalism, and he saw psychedelics as the greatest means at our disposal to "remind adults that the real world is very different from the misshapen universe they have created for themselves by means of their culture-conditioned prejudices." Much of Huxley's writings following his 1953 mescaline experiment can be seen as his attempt to reveal the power of these substances to awaken a sense of the sacred in people living in a technological society hostile to mystical revelations.
Moksha, a Sanskrit word meaning "liberation," is a collection of the prophetic and visionary writings of Aldous Huxley. It includes selections from his acclaimed novels Brave New World and Island, both of which envision societies centered around the use of psychedelics as stabilizing forces, as well as pieces from The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell, his famous works on consciousness expansion.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 Good collection of Huxley's writings October 24, 2006
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
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.
A great visionary September 21, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
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.
Highly Educational March 19, 2006
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
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.
Drop Acid, Not Bombs September 16, 2005
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 book has truly opened up my mind July 3, 2004
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
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.
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