Aldous Huxley’s capacity to enter — at will — the dissociated state he called “deep reflection” is of value because Huxley was a painstaking self-observer. Anyone who cut his novelistic teeth (as I did) on such brilliant books as “Antic Hay” or “Point Counter Point” will share my admiration of Huxley’s wit, his literary elegance, and above all, his interest in interpersonal relationships. He is a very special kind of expert witness to his own unusual states of consciousness, which he actively cultivated in the service of his writing. Because Huxley’s interest in the vicissitudes of altered states extended to mysticism and to psychedelic drugs, he is an ideal contributor to our inquiry into the Dream Drugstore. One final point: Huxley was so open that he was willing to collaborate with the hypnosis expert Milton Erickson, despite having his own biases. Erickson’s involvement provides a valuable and welcome degree of objectivity.
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/aldous-huxleys-deep-reflection/
Aldous Huxley’s capacity to enter — at will — the dissociated state he called “deep reflection” is of value because Huxley was a painstaking self-observer. Anyone who cut his novelistic teeth (as I did) on such brilliant books as “Antic Hay” or “Point Counter Point” will share my admiration of Huxley’s wit, his literary elegance, and above all, his interest in interpersonal relationships. He is a very special kind of expert witness to his own unusual states of consciousness, which he actively cultivated in the service of his writing. Because Huxley’s interest in the vicissitudes of altered states extended to mysticism and to psychedelic drugs, he is an ideal contributor to our inquiry into the Dream Drugstore. One final point: Huxley was so open that he was willing to collaborate with the hypnosis expert Milton Erickson, despite having his own biases. Erickson’s involvement provides a valuable and welcome degree of objectivity.