---
title: Aldous Huxley
aliases:
  - Aldous Huxley
  - Aldous Leonard Huxley
created: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-05-18
category: "Authors & Journalists"
tags:
  - Person
  - Author
  - Parapsychology
  - Psychedelics
  - UnitedKingdom
summary: "Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) was a British author and philosopher whose interest in consciousness and psi led him to document his mescaline experiences in The Doors of Perception (1954) and to visit Andrija Puharich's Round Table Foundation parapsychology research group in 1955."
born: 1894-07-26
died: 1963-11-22
location: "Godalming, Surrey, England"
---

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) was a renowned English writer and philosopher, best known for his dystopian novel *Brave New World*. He had a keen interest in the [[Consciousness|trance state]] and its potential as a means of gathering unseen information about the natural world, a fascination that led him to experiment with psychedelic substances and observe the work of [[Andrija Puharich]][^1].

Huxley's personal experiences with mescaline, the principal hallucinogenic agent in peyote, were documented in his 1954 book, *The Doors of Perception*. This work explored the expansion of consciousness through drug use and met with both controversy and widespread readership, influencing counterculture movements[^1].

In August 1955, Huxley visited [[Andrija Puharich]] at the [[Round Table Foundation]] in Maine. He was intrigued by the diverse group of individuals assembled by Puharich, including various psychics and researchers. Huxley noted the presence of [[Harry Stump]], the Dutch sculptor, who would go into trances in the [[Faraday Cage]] and produce automatic scripts in Egyptian hieroglyphics[^1].

Huxley was present when Puharich attempted to drug [[Harry Stump]] with the *teonanáctl* mushroom. He observed Stump's confused and intoxicated state and insisted that Puharich administer an antidote. Huxley expressed ethical concerns about drugging Stump without his knowledge[^1].

Huxley's interest in the sixth sense stemmed from a childhood eye infection that left him partially blind for nearly three years, making him keenly aware of perception beyond the five known senses[^1].

### Publications
*   *Brave New World* (1932)
*   *The Doors of Perception* (1954)

### Footnotes
[^1]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis*. Little, Brown and Company, 2017.