«THE PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY» BY ALDOUS HUXLEY: Consequences for Humanity in the Event of Abandoning Mysticism
Yan Camille. The Future is Here, 2014 / Facebook, Facebook, «Sil-sol». Art design: huxley.media via Photoshop
Once, the great French writer Marcel Proust wrote: «Do not be afraid to go as far as possible in search of the truth, for the truth is even farther». Aldous Huxley was one of the few humanists of the 20th century who dared to go as far as he could and even further.
Having analyzed the traps and horrors of the future in the novel «Brave New World» (the almost prophetic accuracy of which we can observe today), Huxley asked himself one single question: why will the future be so dreadful?
His quest for an answer to this question led him to an unusual area, and the publication of «The Perennial Philosophy» sparked significant interest in the intellectual establishment — a testament to the enduring relevance of Huxley’s work.
In «The Perennial Philosophy», Huxley embarked on a journey to the origins of the human mind. Exploring its beginnings and referring to various thinkers and cultures, Huxley discovered that the nature of the human mind traces back to the Absolute Foundation of the entire universe.
To that very mysticism, the triumph over which has become a banner of progress. Ancient and Indian philosophers, medieval theologians, Taoist and Buddhist sages — all of them, according to Huxley’s observations, persistently spoke about the same thing.
That human consciousness is not limited to the body and extends beyond the life confined by the body. That there are no phenomena or things independent of consciousness. The rejection of mysticism almost always leads to dire consequences — for the individual, for society, and for civilization as a whole, underlining the gravity of this potential outcome.
Frightened by the monstrous events of the 20th century, humanity rushed towards the clear and rigid boundaries of positivist scientific reason. Most people chose attempts to fit the world into a narrow, simple, and understandable scheme as the only guarantee against falling into bloody chaos.
Clear, understandable, controlled — this is the banner of the new order. But wasn’t the 20th century — the century of progress — started under these same banners? And weren’t totalitarian states the ones that proclaimed the slogans of fighting «mysticism and superstition»?
Japanese Emperor Hirohito declared the motto of his reign to be the «era of science», but this era became infamous for the monstrous human experiments of «Unit 731».
The entire course of post-war history, up to our time, has been a period of the increasing transformation of human personality into the «one-dimensional man» (in the words of philosopher Marcuse): flat, rational, and devoid of mystery.
The fashionable «neurosciences» of today aim to finally reduce the mystery of consciousness to the movement of electrons through neural networks. But Huxley warned that behind such attempts lies only the fear of the uncontrolled reality of the mind’s nature.
The attempt to control it will end in a fall into barbarism and the «dark ages». Humanity, fascinated by the idea of all-encompassing control promised by modern technologies, recoils from metaphysics but ultimately ends up not in a technological paradise but in the «new territories of hell» (Huxley’s words).
Therefore, Huxley repeatedly emphasized: «The foundation of our mind and life is a metaphysical mystery, and the rejection of mystery in favor of practicality and control does not lead to an improvement in life, but to the collapse of all human reality».
Do we really need another global catastrophe to heed the voices of the philosophers and mystics that Aldous Huxley tried to convey to us?
