aldous huxley

“There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.” — Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley loved the Monarch butterflies at Esalen.

Michael Murphy met Aldous Huxley only once, during the author’s January 1962 visit to Big Sur. When Huxley died on November 22, 1963 — the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated — his passing was largely overshadowed. His intellectual and personal influence on Esalen, however, was only beginning. Michael recalls Huxley in an interview from November 2022:

“We had this beautiful property filled with magic. People came our way whose language was helpful. Aldous Huxley was one of them. My primary intellectual influences involved terms and language that were hard for many people to understand in the late 1950s. We needed help toning down the fancy language into something more generally understandable.

Huxley was writing essays in which his worldview was shifting away from a negative view about human nature, like in Brave New World. Huxley’s shift toward Indian philosophy influenced Dick Price and I. He was using the term human potentialities. He was discussing people we hadn’t heard of like Fritz Perls and Charlotte Selver, who would soon be coming to Esalen and forming part of our programming. He framed it in this broad, clear, non-dogmatic way to a worldwide audience.

When we started publishing brochures, they were entitled ‘Human Potentialities.’ That came straight from Aldous. He was only here for only two days. We did correspond after. He was fascinated with our butterflies. He was intent to see them and of course this coastline.

Michael Murphy met Aldous Huxley only once, in January of 1962 when the author visited Big Sur shortly before his death onNovember 22, 1963. His intellectual and personal influence on Esalen was immense.

“Aldous Huxley was writing essays in which his worldview was shifting away from a negative view of human nature, like in his novel, Brave New World, to an ecstatic one as featured in, Island. He was using the term human potentialities and discussing people we hadn’t heard of, such as Fritz Perls and Charlotte Selver. It was through Huxley that they would come to Esalen and form part of our programming. He framed these ideas to a worldwide audience in a broad, clear, non-dogmatic way. When we started publishing brochures, they were entitled “Human Potentialities.”

Aldous Huxley loved the Monarch butterflies at Esalen.

Cover of Aldous Huxleys book "The Doors of Perception"

Pictured here with Chungliang Al Huang, Huxley’s second wife, Laura, became a long-time friend of Esalen who led many workshops over the decades. She also acted as a “sitter” for one of Michael’s psychedelic sessions.

For my first psychedelics trip, he gave me LSD. His wife, Laura, was my sitter. Laura continued to lead programs here at Esalen for more than 20 years. She influenced us — her methods of expanding consciousness and the depths of our moral commitments. This greater human nature was coming up through the floorboards, so to speak. It becomes apparent in the damnedest ways. People are not even aware of it. Laura wrote books, developed practices to elicit this. And of course, it’s part of this broad embrace of our common life as a venue, an arena of transcendence and transformation.

You don’t have to be in a monastery. You don’t have to be some 180 IQ genius. All aspects of human nature have these seeds of emerging divinity in them. Huxley was writing about that in his novel Island. He really laid out a kind of utopian vision, the opposite of Brave New World. He was part of a larger exploration that was breaking out and is still underway 60 years later.”

Jeffrey Kripal writes about Aldous Huxley’s influence on Esalen in his book, Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion:

“Aldous Huxley’s writings on the mystical dimensions of psychedelics and on what he called the perennial philosophy were foundational. Moreover, his call for an institution that could teach the ‘nonverbal humanities’ and the development of the ‘human potentialities’ functioned as the working mission statement of early Esalen. Indeed, the very first Esalen brochures actually bore the Huxley-inspired title, ‘the human potentiality.’ This same phrase would later morph in a midnight brainstorming session between Michael Murphy and George Leonard into the now well-known ‘human potential movement.’

When developing the early brochures for Esalen, Murphy was searching for a language that could mediate between his own Aurobindonian evolutionary mysticism and the more secular and psychological language of American culture. It was Huxley who helped him to create such a new hybrid language. This should not surprise us, as Huxley had been experimenting for decades on how to translate Indian ideas into Western literary and intellectual culture.”

Carl Rogers leading in the meeting room named after Huxley.

* Photo, top: Aldous Huxley and Michael Murphy.