After Many a Summer Dies a Swan is perhaps best remembered today for having been mentioned in Christopher Isherwood's A Single Man, but it's definitely worth reading. The 1950s saw a number of British ex-pats in Los Angles writing novels about their experiences. Isherwood's novel is another classic of the genre although the best of the lot, in my opinion, is Evelyn Waugh's The Loved One (just skip the atrocious movie of the same title which was so bad, Waugh stipulated that Hollywood would never again get to film his work).
This time in Los Angeles's history from the 20s to the 70s or so is just absurd when you read about all the goings on at the time. Culturally the city was, and still is in many ways, remarkably supernatural. Psychics everywhere, theosophists colonizing the beachwood canyon hoping to form their own utopia, the rise of the self realization fellowship, many cults including Charles Manson's, the early rise of scientology in Pasadena which roped in everyone from movie stars to astrophysicists at JPL. It was all happening at the same time, and most of these groups were taking a lot of psychedelic drugs, often with very wealthy and influential benefactors such as actors or business leaders. And to this day these cults, supernatural groups, psychics, etc, are all still there operating. It is startling how common I come across people in this city who actively see a psychic, or deeply believe in astrology, or are lining up for some meeting at a scientology center, even today.
One wonders if he had not been stricken with cancer and lived longer, if Huxley would have had the opportunity to interact with fellow Southern Californian resident Philip K. Dick. Imagine Huxley consulting on a Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? adaptation...
As an aside, C.S. Lewis also passed away the same day as Huxley and J.F.K.
LA is a big place. There are so many other authors that he might've interacted with such as Ray Bradbury, Larry Niven, and Philip K. Dick. That said, it just so happens that the apartment building he lived in on Crescent Heights just south of Sunset Blvd. also housed many other famous writers including Earnest Hemingway, William Faulkner, and Raymond Chandler. I lived directly across the street from it for two years.
Huxley frequented Orange County. The monastery I regularly attend (Ramakrishna Monastery in Trabuco Canyon) was previously a college (The Trabuco College of Prayer), as mentioned in the piece, for prayer and study of mysticism to which Huxley was a part of the construction of, alongside Gerald Heard and others [1]. The college only lasted 7 years (1942-1949) when the land was handed over to the Vedanta Society.
> in his home [in 1963] the British author, psychedelic pioneer and visionary thinker Aldous Huxley lost his three-year battle with cancer. Per his written request, Huxley’s second wife, Laura, injected him with a dose of liquid LSD as the end drew near.
> She later described his passing as “the most serene, the most beautiful death."
A psychedelic trip while passing sounds like a beautiful death experience.
Depending on your state of mind this could go either way. I think you'd need to have totally accepted death and not fear it in order to expire at peace, with or without LSD. But yeah, I imagine it would have been quite a profound final experience before going into the void.
