Wednesday, August 9, 2023

Recent Reading: Island (published 1962), by Aldous Huxley

Give us this day our daily Faith, but deliver us, dear God, from Belief. (Chapter 7)

If you'd been shown how to do things with the minimum of strain and the maximum of awareness, you'd enjoy even honest toil. (Chapter 9)

[A] talent for manipulating symbols tempts its possessors into habitual symbol manipulation, and habitual symbol manipulation is an obstacle in the way of concrete experiencing and the reception of gratuitous graces. (Chapter 11)

Start by being fully aware of what you think you are. It'll help you to become aware of what you are in fact. (Chapter 14)

Gratitude is heaven itself . . . . Pure gibberish! But now I see that Blake was just recording a simple fact. It is heaven itself. (Chapter 15)