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An interesting extended essay on the relationship between pyschedelics and the spiritual or mystic, informed by Huxley's first hand experience of mescaline use. He documents in detail the progression of his experiences, the fascination with pattern and detail and bending of time and emotion, and used this to explain his perspective on how psychedelics could be used to enhance one's insight.

I haven't tried psychedelics but this does relate to something else that I experienced, so it's interesting to see Huxley's perspective on this and his active promotion of mescaline as a tool in this way. Obviously this book is old as hell now (and sometimes that is quite plainly apparent) so it's an avenue for which it's probably worth looking into more modern literature, esp as modern substances such as LSD etc weren't even created until decades later.

An interesting extended essay on the relationship between pyschedelics and the spiritual or mystic, informed by Huxley's first hand experience of mescaline use. He documents in detail the progression of his experiences, the fascination with pattern and detail and bending of time and emotion, and used this to explain his perspective on how psychedelics could be used to enhance one's insight.

I haven't tried psychedelics but this does relate to something else that I experienced, so it's interesting to see Huxley's perspective on this and his active promotion of mescaline as a tool in this way. Obviously this book is old as hell now (and sometimes that is quite plainly apparent) so it's an avenue for which it's probably worth looking into more modern literature, esp as modern substances such as LSD etc weren't even created until decades later.

Pretty good stuff. I read this because Atomic Shrimp mentioned the author as one of his heroes, and I get it. It's about clear thinking and problem solving as a habit and mindset. Also about applying this in team settings, or in an organisational sense. It feels a bit repetitive at times but it's just thorough. The language feels deliberately simple to prevent overcomplications and unnecessary jargon. Worth at least a skim to try and grasp the basic ideas (it makes a lot of reference to his other systems, which I'm not familiar with, so I guess it explains in enough detail that it doesn't matter).

I enjoyed this book. It starts very strong and finishes reasonably well, but there's simply not enough triffid action, it's more about a bleak societal decline due to a catastrophe. The prose is solid throughout, and the worldbuilding and characterisation is good. Just give me more killer plant moments plx.