Pages

Oh, This Old Thing?


A .Pee Dee Eff of Huxley's Heaven And Hell


In "Heaven and Hell" the companion essay to
"The Doors ofPerception"the famous sojourner
of the psyche, Aldous Huxley, refers to the
antipodes of the mind. The metaphor refers to
the regions not normally occupied during "normal"
states of consciousness by the statistically normal
person, so-called. Bringing on the "non-ordinary" states
can be achieved by meditation, mold (taken deliberately
or inadvertently) or by other drugs with psychotropic
effects or an incidental organic imbalance
of the physiology of unknown origin etc (e.g. schizophrenia).
These antipodes can be cast in a brilliant effulgence and
perhaps make manifest nirvana (heaven?) or the ersatz feeling
of the self-realized mind state, or contrariwise, a visit to
these nether regions can, in the case of a "bum trip",
make one feel as though they have entered into hell,
depending on various factors regarding the apprehension
of the inhabitants and objects, according to one's given
perception.~K.

The Gold Pants Dance