This Timeless Moment: A Personal View of Aldous Huxley

by Laura Archera Huxley

Long before "turn on, tune in, drop out" became the credo of the American counterculture, Aldous Huxley was using mescaline and LSD in controlled, carefully documented experiments. Accounts of those psychedelic experiences, along with his interest in Eastern mystical religions, accompany the moving story of Aldous Huxley's later years with his wife, Laura. Huxley's fascination with the spiritual world remained with him throughout his life and never wavered through his final illness in 1963. THIS TIMELESS MOMENT takes the reader into the lively mind of one of the most profound thinkers of any generation.

Genres: Biography, Memoir, Nonfiction, History, Philosophy, Biography Memoir

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Laura Archera was a musician, documentary filmmaker, and psychological counselor. following her marriage to Aldous Huxley in 1956, a year after the death of his first wife, she published as Laura Archera Huxley.

Reviews

[JJ W · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned a little about the art of seeing, a lot about loving, and some great insights into the personal life of one of my favorite figures.

[E.p. · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a huge Huxley fan, I had been looking forward to reading this book for some time. Based on Island and other of Aldous's works, I really hoped to read about lifestyle, relationships, dating, daily life, habits that he believed in, that type of mundane thing that makes up the majority of someone's life. Instead, this book was very much about Aldous's influence on Laura's life and about Laura's lifestyle. In defense of the book, she did try to clear the air about some common misconceptions about Aldous. I really enjoyed the chapters on The Art of Seeing and about his belief in small doses of psychedelics, taken with a sober sherpa. I also enjoyed the chapters about his approach to the end of life and how to assist someone with the end of life. This is some of the most useful and practical information that I have ever read about approaching this topic. The Tibetan Book of the Dead is something that I will reference in the future.

A really interesting aspect to this book is that it captures a the attitude of a time period between the Beat's a la Burroughs and the anything goes, decadent 60's a la Ken Kesey. Huxley had a scientific approach to life and to expansion of consciousness that was free of the rigidity of the hipster Beats, filled with modern scientific intellect, but devoid of the reckless abandon and "free love" hippy excuses for mindless self indulgence.

Again, I do wish that Laura had covered the beginning of her and Aldous's relationship more and his approach and attitude about dating and loving. I realize that this is probably a touchy topic, and based on the amount of time that she spent covering the death of Aldous's first wife, Maria, there may have been some interest in Aldous before the proper grieving period, or maybe a crush a little earlier. Yes, it is a personal topic, but it is also a universal topic that I would have been interested to hear.

Additionally, I really didn't care to read so much about Laura. Did we really need to know that she kept letters from her copious former lovers and that Aldous had been sitting at a desk filled with them? The layout of this book is not chronological and not traditional. She breaks the book up into chapters covering topics of Aldous's life that she wanted to clarify or highlight. Therefore, the book is more like a collection of essays than a cohesive novel. It reads like that was written the way, in chunks, by topic. There was almost a whole chapter of copies of letter that Aldous had sent to Laura that really didn't have any purpose, it was difficult to read through them.

Overall, I do appreciate the insight from this book, it was worth a read, but I will probably not read this book again.

[Reading · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are a fan of Aldous Huxley or simply enjoy an insightful biography then you will enjoy this book. The author sets the record straight (from her perspective) regarding the final years of Mr Huxley's life though most today will not appreciate the controversy that surrounded his death and his later life fascination with psychedelic drugs and Eastern philosophy.

There were segments that I lost interest in - hence the 3 stars - but I carried on and was rewarded with the last quarter. Was a bit bothered by the last chapter that details the authors encounter with a medium and how she was convinced by their... "information" that there is something to the idea of contact with the spirit world. Some concerns I had with their 'proof' - Seemed to me that it would have been rather simple for the medium to have placed the books in the room given that nobody had ever seen the books before, they were in the house previously and despite the author's being convinced they had not been alone the possibility exists that they could have skipped away.

Anyway - sort of derails what otherwise is a clear sighted recollection of two special individuals and their relationship.

[D · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars, but only if you want a window on Aldous Huxley's last ten years. It's a very intimate tribute with plenty of personal letters and transcribed recordings, no doubt to forestall accusations of biased interpretation by an adoring wife, who, in fact, had a significant life of her own. This book will be most appealing to those who are already Huxley fans and/or interested in his personal life.

[Chet Taranowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is both a rather dull record of daily life with Aldous and at other times a profound reflection on his philosophy and writing. The sections on his experiences with LSD here are almost better than Huxley's own book on the topic The Doors of Perception.

[Traci · Rating 5 out of 5]

This beautiful book made me cry big fat tears. I'm going to adopt Aldous's belief of a general "all-righness" in the world.

[Aria · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. If you've read the bio.'s on Huxley there's nothing to be gained here.

[Joel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good... Quite fascinating for me, as someone who's always admired Huxley. The man who’d moved on from his youth as a sardonic, scathing scrutinizer of the self-indulgent, the incompetent, the obtuse, the superficial — being the observer of the deadlocked, at some remove — to sensing the intriguing ‘beyond’ and taking in the genuine bright side of life.

Murray's biography of Aldous Huxley is excellent. Laura's diary-like record & perspective add a different dimension for appreciating the nature of this 20th-century paragon who was a prophet of the challenges, as well as the positive potentials, of human life in the near-future — i.e., well beyond his own lifetime.

[Francisca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it

[Anthony O'Connor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting and heart-felt account of the life and death of Aldous Huxley by his second wife who was with him throughout his final days. I don't think he was the profound thinker that he is acclaimed to be. Much of what he said was derivative. But he said it all and organized it all very well. And some of the things he had to say cannot be said often enough. His was the life of a consummate public literary intellectual. ( All that much easier if one is born to privilege and never actually has to work for a living. But I suppose that's not his fault. ) He scored a big hit with Brave New World and it surely is a great novel. Through such books as The Doors of Perception he was cast as the prophet of enlightenment through drugs which became very popular in the decade following his death. And this was his view, though as this book makes clear his was always a sane and sobre approach falling far short of the obsessive narcissistic hysteria soon to follow. As he died he took a mild dose of LSD. One thing this book made very clear is that his final novel 'Island' was very much an attempt to express his final view of the world. A focus on the centrality of ever deeper 'love and awareness', moksha, and a clear headed look at all of the destructive forces conspiring to prevent this. For such an idealist ( in the very best sense ) it might seem odd that earlier on he wrote so many brilliant but bitterly cynical novels. However these can be seen as chronicling some of the difficulties of attaining and maintaining the ideal. And there is always the underlying sense of grasping for a deeper truth.

[Tova T · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this intimate glimpse of the end of Huxley's life. In particular, I liked the last chapter/epilogue which I honestly think may have been the reason she felt compelled to write the touching, cathartic text.

[Cherie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting memoir of Laura Huxley's experiences as Aldous's second wife, but also, upon those psychedelic explorations. His pasing was incredibly interesting...

[Nick Black]

Amazon 2008-12-12. I've meant to read this for about two years now, but was finally motivated to by this article from arts&letters daily.