Nested hermeneutics: Mind at Large as a curated trope of psychedelic experience

ABSTRACT

Aldous Huxley’s work The Doors of Perception introduced the phrase ‘Mind at Large’ to the lexicon of psychedelic experience in 1954. I argue that its original presentation requires re-evaluation. I present evidence that Huxley manipulates the construction of the discourse he uses to present this phrase as a philosophically legitimate term. His choice of a pivotal quotation implies support from the conclusions of philosophers C. D. Broad and Henri Bergson. A hermeneutic analysis of this discourse highlights problems with this implication and shows that a reinterpretation of Huxley’s methods and intentions is warranted. An increase in references to Mind at Large and related terms in studies of the effects of psychedelics motivates this re-evaluation of its implied philosophical value.

KEYWORDS:

• Psychedelic studies
• psychedelics
• Aldous Huxley
• C. D. Broad
• Henri Bergson
• The Doors of Perception
• Filtration theory
• H. P. Grice

Acknowledgements

I thank the editors of the Special Issue, especially Claudia Gertraud Schwarz and the anonymous reviewers whose detailed suggestions helped me to improve this article. Also, Sevi Webb who often checked my spelling and grammar in their own time. I am grateful to all my colleagues in the interdisciplinary research group for philosophy and psychedelics at the University of Exeter, UK (EX) and those who participated in my presentations during various colloquia for their encouragement – especially Mark Shunemann and Eirini Argyri Ketzitzdou. Throughout, Dr Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes and Joseph Crickmore of the University of Exeter provided regular critiques of my research. Finally, I thank Prof Christine Hauskeller who believed that I had spotted something worth writing more about and guided me as it developed.

Disclosure statement

No new data has been created in this research.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Mind at Large remains capitalised throughout, reflecting Huxley’s use as a noun phrase.

2 ‘ …  encouraged by the persuasive recommendation of the famous author, many young [men] will try the experiment. For the book sells like hot cakes. It is, however, completely … irresponsible book … ’. Thomas Mann, quoted in Aldous Huxley-The Critical Heritage, Ed. Donald Watt (London: Taylor & Francis, 2013), 395.

3 ‘Mind at Large’, Wikiwand, May 18, 2023, https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Mind_at_Large.

4 John Derbyshire, ‘What Happened to Aldous Huxley?’ John Derbyshire, May 18, 2023, https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Reviews/Considerations/huxley.html.

5 ‘At Large: etymology and usage’, Oxford English Dictionary, accessed 24 May 2023. https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/105843.

6 For a full review of the effect of low blood glucose on the brain, cf. McNay and Cotero (2010).

7 ‘It would not be at all surprising if perceptions of the organs of our senses, useful perceptions, were the result of a selection or of a canalization worked by the organs of our senses in the interest of our action … ’. Summary from page 11 of The Times, Thursday 29 May 1913, on the occasion of Henri Bergson’s Presidential Address to the Society for Psychical Research.

8 A Google constrained (i.e. exact match) search for the verbatim misquotation in Doors versus a search for the exact text as per the original C. D. Broad paper, carried out on 16 May 2023. Results: Huxley verbatim = 1,530; Broad’s original quotation = 5.

9 Compare Huxley (1974, 12) against Broad (1949, 306).

10 cf. Oltean (1993) for a full discussion of the problems associated with reference.

11 cf. Cooren and Sandler (2014) for a discussion of polyphony and ventriloquism in discourse.

12 The Soal-Shackleton card reading experiments were exposed as methodologically fraudulent due to the manipulation of the cards, results and data by Soal in Betty Markwick’s (1985) paper.

13 An overview of the Duke parapsychology project is available in ‘Parapsychology Laboratory records, 1893–1984’, Duke University Libraries. Accessed 18 May 2023, https://archives.lib.duke.edu/catalog/paralab.

14 See a detailed analysis by Roe, C. 2023. ‘Fraud in Science and Parapsychology’. Psi Encyclopedia. London: The Society for Psychical Research. Accessed 14 May 2023. https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/fraud-science-and-parapsychology

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Adrian Webb

Adrian Webb is a Masters student in Philosophy at the University of Exeter, UK. He holds a BA(hons) in Philosophy from the University of Nottingham, UK, gained in 1987. For 35 years between BA and MA, Adrian worked in senior and Board Director roles in business. Between 2018 and 2021, as Chairman of the London digital group, LAB, he was sponsor and a lead researcher of a project to investigate the psychokinetic markers of problem gambling, supported by a grant from the UK’s Gambling Commission. His academic interests include the philosophy of mind, especially mental fictionalism as it relates to psychedelic experience.