This chapter first traces the most relevant biographical events of Huxley’s final years from the 1950s to 1963. While the previous chapter focused on his continued warnings of the trends that curb freedom and democracy, this chapter instead focuses on his campaign to protect and increase individual freedom and exploit its creative and ethical potentialities. In 1953, Huxley first tried mescaline in a controlled setting, and thence psychoactive substances (or entheogens) became central to his political and educational programme. His final political statement, the utopia Island, forms the centre piece of this chapter. In connection with this, two final aspects central to Huxley’s political theory will be discussed. The first is education, which had been a core concern since the beginning in the 1920s, and the second is ecology, an economico-political dimension he began to emphasise in the 1940s.
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