The art of seeing

Historical Significance: Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894 - 1963) was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. He spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death. Best known for his novels and wide-ranging output of essays, he also published short stories, poetry, travel writing, and film stories and scripts. Huxley was a humanist but was also interested towards the end of his life in spiritual subjects such as parapsychology and philosophical mysticism. By the end of his life Huxley was considered, in some academic circles, a leader of modern thought and an intellectual of the highest rank. He was well known for advocating and taking LSD, including on his death bed.This book is about the Bates Method of better eyesight without glasses See Cat Nos 98, 250, 475 for Bates books) . Huxley was nearly blind because of a childhood illness (despite the partial recovery which had enabled him to study at Oxford). In 1939, he encountered the Bates Method. A year later he claimed his sight improved dramatically and that he was able to read without glasses and drive a car along the dirt road beside his ranch. While he believed his vision had improved, other evidence suggests that Huxley may have been fooling himself. In 1952, Bennett Cerf reported that Huxley pretended to read his talks but in fact had learned them by heart.(Second copy cat No 699)