A Public Education--Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley

In the mid-1960s, the University of Oregon was trying very hard to bring  education to the campus and to its neighboring communities, like Florence.  One of its techniques was to bring public figures to the campus to talk to the students at free public events. 

 The earliest I remember was the UofO's bringing in Aldous Huxley (1898-1963).  I wasn’t in college yet, but my high school classmates and I were reading Huxley’s Brave New World, together with Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm, so we were intrigued.  We convinced Dad (Vake) to drive a carload of us to Eugene to hear Huxley speak.

Huxley spoke about mind-altering experiences.  He started with talking about the similarity of perceptions in people who had suffered near-death experiences, how they all had seen bright lights and faced a change that held no fear for them.  He implied that they had seen another dimension of existence.“That’s just deprivation of oxygen to the brain,” Vake said.

Huxley spoke about the sensory phenomenon experienced by people taking drugs.   He implied that they had glimpsed a new reality. “That’s just deprivation of oxygen to the brain,” Vake said.

In short order, educators on campuses everywhere would be horrified at Huxley, Timothy Leary, and their ilk, touting the use of drugs for mind-altering experiences.  What could the U of O administrators have been thinking of when they brought in an advocate for using recreational drugs as a key speaker?  Vake must have thought it was oxygen deprivation to their brains.