“ ‘Science?’….’Yes,’ Mustapha Mond was saying, ‘that’s another item in the cost of stability. It isn’t only art that’s incompatible with happiness; it’s also science. Science is dangerous; we have to keep it most carefully chained and muzzled…I’m interested in truth, I like science. But truth’s a menace, science is a public danger. As dangerous as it’s been beneficent. It has given us the stablest equilibrium in history…But we can’t allow science to undo its own good work. That’s why we so carefully limit the scope of its researchers…We don’t allow it to deal with any but the most immediate problems of the moment. All other enquiries are most sedulously discouraged…Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasis from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness…
It might be a Herculean task, but I am wondering if it would be worth exploring and/or connecting the work from Who Paid The Piper to this work you have been doing(?) The time period (1950/60s) of that work coincides nicely.
Could it be that the methods used by Cultural Congress to engage the non communist left were also to used to promote the ideas and spiritual perspective (if there is such a thing) that you are discussing? Could it be the 1960s counter culture was engineered in some respect? A kinda Great Reset gen 1? Which in turn, in a kinda bait and switch, segued into the hyper-consumerism of recent decades? If that is true, how do we segue way out of hyperconsumerism, with social economic consequences, etc.? Do we use the same methods for different ends? Like maybe a hyper exaggeration of a very minor crisis that can be used to control....
Okay, I am going off the rails here...nuff said...
Yes, I completely agree, Francis Stonor Saunders is up there on my reading list. I will hopefully have time to tackle the subject in December (I already have a list of articles I would like to write on before then). I will keep your insightful questions in mind when I do end up writing something on the subject. Thanks!
Ironically I was looking for a film version of Brave New World today when your email article post arrived. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series. Fascinating territory indeed.
Cynthia - This is fabulous! I wish I could take a pill to quickly digest all the books and articles you referenced, ha ha. Three main thoughts. First, the mind-altering drugs issue. LSD gave people such a wild ride that it took a lot of time to supervise and to recover from. Some experimenters started using music to give some general direction to the experience. Then Helen Bonny started using music alone, without any drugs, and found that she could guide people through meaningful and useful inner mind exploration that could be easily integrated into the person's ordinary waking consciousness. I trained in this technique years ago at the Canadian Institute of Psychosynthesis in Montreal (where you and Matt live I believe.) Beginning with a question to oneself like "May I have an experience that is meaningful to me" it is always astounding how much inner wisdom pours forth. And it is not hypnotism, the person can get up and walk of their own free will at any point. I have started guiding people through this even while on the telephone, calling this work "psychonaut explorations."
Two - on religion. The Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) contain a clear Jubilee Justice tradition in order to maintain a fair economic system. Basically, against usury, for debt cancellation, against land monopoly, for fair land access. This was lost when Christianity became the religion of the Roman empire and instead of "thou shalt not kill" we got "just war theory" known today as "humanitarian intervention". and attitudes like "kill a commie for Christ." I presented a paper years ago on this at a conference at Sanford Theological Seminary. Charles Avila's book Ownership: Early Christian Teachings is a classic. BTW, Charles is a good friend and he is now in New York if you would like to talk with him let me know.
Third, the whole Malthus thing. Henry George, who Charles and others of us view as being in line with the early Christian (Patristic period) teachings on economics, and who is the great American political economist whose ideas and populist movement became a threat to the elite rule system (and why they invented neoliberal two-factor economics of labor and capital, conveniently placing the factor Land (the Earth!) as a mere subset of capital) wrote and lectured strongly AGAINST Malthus who he viewed as an apologist for the status quo elite rule system. George saw that the issue was JUSTICE and POWER not overpopulation.
If anyone wants to go further along the lines of Henry George (movement growing again today) I can refer you to a lot of resources (including the Henry George School of Social Science) and also a free pdf of my award-winning book The Earth Belongs to Everyone.
Hi Alanna, I for one would be interested in your Henry George links/resources. I know very little about him, but I know he proposed a system of taxation based on land ownership as an alternative to income tax. That alone would make him an enemy if the (capitalist) state.
Huxley is referring to a fictional future where first humanity went through a dark age during and after the nine years war before they reached their present day society of A Brave New World. Thus, it is a fictional war of the past in a story that is set in the future. Hope that clarifies things.
Very learned piece! Julian Huxley was a notorious atheist and was almost nihilistic about humanity..He believed in a mechanistic universe and evolutionary path...the problem being that natural selection has gaping mathematical holes in it, and the actual universe doesn't behave the way the Big Bangers think it should...Aldous Huxley had a more sophisticated and complex view of things, perhaps from his experiences with psychedelics...As Eddington said, the Universe is stranger than we imagine, or can imagine...So predictions about the fate of humanity are just that...speculation..It could be Dune, with humanity farflung in the stars, or extinction...
Dear Cynthia, I think all these SCI-FI books (having been an enormous science ficcion reader) were political projects thrown out as politicians do news balloons.
The other thing that has me interested in is the lack of information about the importance of the importance of the Horsley family in this group, One of them ran away from them, lives here in Galicia
in a tiny house near a Shrine, writing book with different names.
Fascinating! I'm the one who discovered the link between H.G. Wells' "Open Conspiracy" and A. Huxley &al, while researching these connections for the LaRouche group -- from whom you've "re-purposed" much of this material. Aldous's brother, Julian, took the other path -- founding UNESCO as an expression of Wells's agenda. Fun to see it taking on a new life . . . !!
Exogenous, hate to shatter your ego but it is indeed possible for one to make discoveries on their own. All of my references are cited within this series. I have no idea who you are and what work you are referencing. Though the LaRouche group has done some very good research, you are not at the center of the universe and not everything is in reference to you.
Hi Cynthia, Nicely written, as always.
It might be a Herculean task, but I am wondering if it would be worth exploring and/or connecting the work from Who Paid The Piper to this work you have been doing(?) The time period (1950/60s) of that work coincides nicely.
Could it be that the methods used by Cultural Congress to engage the non communist left were also to used to promote the ideas and spiritual perspective (if there is such a thing) that you are discussing? Could it be the 1960s counter culture was engineered in some respect? A kinda Great Reset gen 1? Which in turn, in a kinda bait and switch, segued into the hyper-consumerism of recent decades? If that is true, how do we segue way out of hyperconsumerism, with social economic consequences, etc.? Do we use the same methods for different ends? Like maybe a hyper exaggeration of a very minor crisis that can be used to control....
Okay, I am going off the rails here...nuff said...
Yes, I completely agree, Francis Stonor Saunders is up there on my reading list. I will hopefully have time to tackle the subject in December (I already have a list of articles I would like to write on before then). I will keep your insightful questions in mind when I do end up writing something on the subject. Thanks!
An amazing composition! Looking forward to part two
Ironically I was looking for a film version of Brave New World today when your email article post arrived. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series. Fascinating territory indeed.
Google made you do it.
Thanks for this. Look forward to reading the next parts
Brilliant
Excellent synthesis!
Cynthia - This is fabulous! I wish I could take a pill to quickly digest all the books and articles you referenced, ha ha. Three main thoughts. First, the mind-altering drugs issue. LSD gave people such a wild ride that it took a lot of time to supervise and to recover from. Some experimenters started using music to give some general direction to the experience. Then Helen Bonny started using music alone, without any drugs, and found that she could guide people through meaningful and useful inner mind exploration that could be easily integrated into the person's ordinary waking consciousness. I trained in this technique years ago at the Canadian Institute of Psychosynthesis in Montreal (where you and Matt live I believe.) Beginning with a question to oneself like "May I have an experience that is meaningful to me" it is always astounding how much inner wisdom pours forth. And it is not hypnotism, the person can get up and walk of their own free will at any point. I have started guiding people through this even while on the telephone, calling this work "psychonaut explorations."
Two - on religion. The Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) contain a clear Jubilee Justice tradition in order to maintain a fair economic system. Basically, against usury, for debt cancellation, against land monopoly, for fair land access. This was lost when Christianity became the religion of the Roman empire and instead of "thou shalt not kill" we got "just war theory" known today as "humanitarian intervention". and attitudes like "kill a commie for Christ." I presented a paper years ago on this at a conference at Sanford Theological Seminary. Charles Avila's book Ownership: Early Christian Teachings is a classic. BTW, Charles is a good friend and he is now in New York if you would like to talk with him let me know.
Third, the whole Malthus thing. Henry George, who Charles and others of us view as being in line with the early Christian (Patristic period) teachings on economics, and who is the great American political economist whose ideas and populist movement became a threat to the elite rule system (and why they invented neoliberal two-factor economics of labor and capital, conveniently placing the factor Land (the Earth!) as a mere subset of capital) wrote and lectured strongly AGAINST Malthus who he viewed as an apologist for the status quo elite rule system. George saw that the issue was JUSTICE and POWER not overpopulation.
If anyone wants to go further along the lines of Henry George (movement growing again today) I can refer you to a lot of resources (including the Henry George School of Social Science) and also a free pdf of my award-winning book The Earth Belongs to Everyone.
Thanks again Cynthia for your brilliant essay!
Hi Alanna, I for one would be interested in your Henry George links/resources. I know very little about him, but I know he proposed a system of taxation based on land ownership as an alternative to income tax. That alone would make him an enemy if the (capitalist) state.
Hello Cynthia, before I dive into the text, my question which 9 year war is meant, the history knows 3.
Huxley is referring to a fictional future where first humanity went through a dark age during and after the nine years war before they reached their present day society of A Brave New World. Thus, it is a fictional war of the past in a story that is set in the future. Hope that clarifies things.
brave newworld + 1984. we are here
Very learned piece! Julian Huxley was a notorious atheist and was almost nihilistic about humanity..He believed in a mechanistic universe and evolutionary path...the problem being that natural selection has gaping mathematical holes in it, and the actual universe doesn't behave the way the Big Bangers think it should...Aldous Huxley had a more sophisticated and complex view of things, perhaps from his experiences with psychedelics...As Eddington said, the Universe is stranger than we imagine, or can imagine...So predictions about the fate of humanity are just that...speculation..It could be Dune, with humanity farflung in the stars, or extinction...
Yes, Where do you think I can find more about them? thank you so much for your work and the quick answer you gave me
Dear Cynthia, I think all these SCI-FI books (having been an enormous science ficcion reader) were political projects thrown out as politicians do news balloons.
The other thing that has me interested in is the lack of information about the importance of the importance of the Horsley family in this group, One of them ran away from them, lives here in Galicia
in a tiny house near a Shrine, writing book with different names.
Are you referring to Jasun Horsley? I think he wrote something about his family in one of his auto-biographical books?
It seems POTUS 47 delivers on his promises.
Fascinating! I'm the one who discovered the link between H.G. Wells' "Open Conspiracy" and A. Huxley &al, while researching these connections for the LaRouche group -- from whom you've "re-purposed" much of this material. Aldous's brother, Julian, took the other path -- founding UNESCO as an expression of Wells's agenda. Fun to see it taking on a new life . . . !!
Exogenous, hate to shatter your ego but it is indeed possible for one to make discoveries on their own. All of my references are cited within this series. I have no idea who you are and what work you are referencing. Though the LaRouche group has done some very good research, you are not at the center of the universe and not everything is in reference to you.