Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 8, No. 2, 2009, Page 50
―Manichees‖ (dualists) practice in the main Western religions. As the novel progresses, we
read the treatise along with Will Farnaby. It offers important distinctions between faith and
belief, with the latter taking ―unanalyzed words too seriously.‖ Faith is ―the empirically
justified confidence in our capacity to know who in fact we are…‖ The empirical justification
comes not only from practical application of life skills, but also from the ritual use of a drug
called ―moksha medicine.‖
Dr. Robert explains it this way:
You‘re not being asked to believe it ...The real thing isn‘t a proposition it‘s a
state of being. We don‘t teach our children creeds or get them worked up
over emotionally charged symbols. When it‘s time for them to learn the
deepest truths of religion, we set them to climb a precipice and then give
them four hundred milligrams of revelation. Two firsthand experiences of
reality, from which any reasonably intelligent boy or girl can derive a very
good idea of what‘s what. (162-3)
If philosophical soliloquies bore you, I suggest you avoid this novel. The abundance of
didactic passages reflects the author‘s thinly disguised spiritual and social prejudices.
Farnaby is Huxley‘s foil through whom he deigns to teach and transform the reader.
Farnaby transforms from cynic to believer as he progressively experiences the kindness,
openness, and practical values of the islanders. His spiritual eyes open when he finally
consumes the moksha medicine toward the end of the novel. Farnaby is ―born again‖ sixties‘
style but, alas, Pala and its harmonious culture are doomed to takeover. It was too good to
last because the world around it is so spiritually dense and corrupt.
Island is Huxley‘s personal legacy, his testament and model for a better future. A few
people have taken up the banner, including the Island Web, a non-profit corporation
dedicated to the creation of a psychedelic culture (www.island.org). My interest in this book
comes primarily from Island’s influence on late 20th-century cults or intentional
communities. Timothy Leary, the high priest of LSD fame, specifically modeled his quasi-
religious social experiment that he called International Federation of Internal Freedom (IFIF)
on ideas in Island that reflect Huxley‘s belief in transformational drugs.
Timothy Leary (1920–1996) and Richard Alpert (born 1931, a.k.a. Ram Dass) originally
established IFIF in 1962 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They soon moved the social
experiment to the infamous mansion at Millbrook, New York, near Poughkeepsie, to create a
better ―setting‖ for tripping on LSD. New laws by the FDA scheduled to take effect in June
1963 threatened the licentious LSD ―research‖ of Leary and others. To better implement an
all-important setting for psychedelic experience, the IFIF found a temporary home during
the summer of 1962. An old resort, the Hotel Catalina north of Acapulco near Zihuatanejo,
Mexico, served as the residence called Freedom House. There, Leary and a loose company
of several dozen followers implemented LSD-inspired ideas while taking notes during self-
observation. Huxley‘s Pala culture provided a rough blueprint for the IFIF experience.
Leary and his motley collection of professionals and Harvard students wanted a place apart
in a relatively pristine environment to scale what Jay Stevens called ―an Everest expedition
of the mind.‖
i Leary envisioned IFIF as a core ―cell‖ or a ―small transpersonative [sic] band of evolutionary
pioneers‖ that would train ―guides‖ for other cells of folks learning to expand consciousness
with psychedelic drugs. Thus, IFIF would spread exponentially around the globe to
transform all of mankind. Predictably, the Hotel Catalina experiment and IFIF went the way
of most poorly conceived utopias and totalistic social movements. Personality disorders
disguised as inner freedom or enlightenment surfaced among the grandiose leaders in short
―Manichees‖ (dualists) practice in the main Western religions. As the novel progresses, we
read the treatise along with Will Farnaby. It offers important distinctions between faith and
belief, with the latter taking ―unanalyzed words too seriously.‖ Faith is ―the empirically
justified confidence in our capacity to know who in fact we are…‖ The empirical justification
comes not only from practical application of life skills, but also from the ritual use of a drug
called ―moksha medicine.‖
Dr. Robert explains it this way:
You‘re not being asked to believe it ...The real thing isn‘t a proposition it‘s a
state of being. We don‘t teach our children creeds or get them worked up
over emotionally charged symbols. When it‘s time for them to learn the
deepest truths of religion, we set them to climb a precipice and then give
them four hundred milligrams of revelation. Two firsthand experiences of
reality, from which any reasonably intelligent boy or girl can derive a very
good idea of what‘s what. (162-3)
If philosophical soliloquies bore you, I suggest you avoid this novel. The abundance of
didactic passages reflects the author‘s thinly disguised spiritual and social prejudices.
Farnaby is Huxley‘s foil through whom he deigns to teach and transform the reader.
Farnaby transforms from cynic to believer as he progressively experiences the kindness,
openness, and practical values of the islanders. His spiritual eyes open when he finally
consumes the moksha medicine toward the end of the novel. Farnaby is ―born again‖ sixties‘
style but, alas, Pala and its harmonious culture are doomed to takeover. It was too good to
last because the world around it is so spiritually dense and corrupt.
Island is Huxley‘s personal legacy, his testament and model for a better future. A few
people have taken up the banner, including the Island Web, a non-profit corporation
dedicated to the creation of a psychedelic culture (www.island.org). My interest in this book
comes primarily from Island’s influence on late 20th-century cults or intentional
communities. Timothy Leary, the high priest of LSD fame, specifically modeled his quasi-
religious social experiment that he called International Federation of Internal Freedom (IFIF)
on ideas in Island that reflect Huxley‘s belief in transformational drugs.
Timothy Leary (1920–1996) and Richard Alpert (born 1931, a.k.a. Ram Dass) originally
established IFIF in 1962 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They soon moved the social
experiment to the infamous mansion at Millbrook, New York, near Poughkeepsie, to create a
better ―setting‖ for tripping on LSD. New laws by the FDA scheduled to take effect in June
1963 threatened the licentious LSD ―research‖ of Leary and others. To better implement an
all-important setting for psychedelic experience, the IFIF found a temporary home during
the summer of 1962. An old resort, the Hotel Catalina north of Acapulco near Zihuatanejo,
Mexico, served as the residence called Freedom House. There, Leary and a loose company
of several dozen followers implemented LSD-inspired ideas while taking notes during self-
observation. Huxley‘s Pala culture provided a rough blueprint for the IFIF experience.
Leary and his motley collection of professionals and Harvard students wanted a place apart
in a relatively pristine environment to scale what Jay Stevens called ―an Everest expedition
of the mind.‖
i Leary envisioned IFIF as a core ―cell‖ or a ―small transpersonative [sic] band of evolutionary
pioneers‖ that would train ―guides‖ for other cells of folks learning to expand consciousness
with psychedelic drugs. Thus, IFIF would spread exponentially around the globe to
transform all of mankind. Predictably, the Hotel Catalina experiment and IFIF went the way
of most poorly conceived utopias and totalistic social movements. Personality disorders
disguised as inner freedom or enlightenment surfaced among the grandiose leaders in short
