Aldous Huxley and Alternative Spirituality

Erscheinungsjahr 2019
ISBN: 978-90-04-40689-6
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 27, 358 Seiten, Format (B × H): 160 mm x 236 mm, Gewicht: 680 g

Reihe: Aries Book Series

Aldous Huxley and Alternative Spirituality offers an incisive analysis of the full range of Huxley’s spiritual interests, spanning both mysticism (neo-Vedanta, Taoism, Mahayana and Zen Buddhism) and Western esotericism (mesmerism, spiritualism, the paranormal). Jake Poller examines how Huxley’s shifting spiritual convictions influenced his fiction, such as his depiction of the body and sex, and reveals how Huxley’s use of psychedelic substances affected his spiritual convictions, resulting in a Tantric turn in his work. Poller demonstrates how Huxley’s vision of a new alternative spirituality in Island, in which the Palanese select their beliefs from different religious traditions, anticipates the New Age spiritual supermarket and traces the profound influence of Huxley’s ideas on the spiritual seekers of the twentieth century and beyond.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Poller, Jake

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft: Prosa, Erzählung, Roman, Prosaautoren
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Einzelne Autoren: Monographien & Biographien
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Englische Literatur
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Alternative Glaubensformen Eklektizismus, Esoterik, Anthroposophie, Theosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Sonstige Religionen Sonstige Religionen: Spiritualität, Mystik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)

2Science, Alternative Spirituality and Psychical Research

Idealism, the New Physics and Perspectivism

D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930), William Blake (1757–1827) and Life Worship

H.G. Wells (1866–1946), the World State and Brave New World

Science and Psychical Research

3The Perennial Philosophy

The Ancient Wisdom Tradition: From the Prisca Theologia to Traditionalism

Neo-Vedanta: The Brahmo Samaj, Sri Ramakrishna (1836–1886) and Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902)

Varieties of Perennialism: William James (1842–1910), Rudolf Otto (1869–1937), W.T. Stace (1886–1967)

Steven Katz, Contextualism and Its Critics

4Mysticism and Pacifism

Henry Fitzgerald Heard (1889–1971)

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986)

5Sex and Alternative Spirituality

The Romantic Phase: From Denis Stone to Brian Foxe

The Ascetic Phase: Eyeless in GazatoTime Must Have a Stop

The Tantric Phase: Island

6Huxley’s Legacy

Human Potentialities

Psychedelic Drugs and Spiritual Experience

Huxley’s Influence on the New Age and Deep Ecology Movements

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Jake Poller, Ph.D. (2010), Queen Mary University of London, is the editor of Altered Consciousness in the Twentieth Century (Routledge, 2019). His chapters and articles have appeared in The Occult Imagination in Britain (Routledge, 2018), Aries and Aldous Huxley Annual.