Fully Human Being

IF 0.1 Q2 Arts and Humanities

International Journal for the Study of New Religions Pub Date : 2020-02-20 DOI:10.1558/ijsnr.38893

Jake Poller

引用次数: 0

Abstract

In Island (1962), Aldous Huxley presents a utopian community in which theinhabitants aim to become "fully human beings" by realizing their "potentialities."I demonstrate how Huxley's notion of the "human potentialities" havebeen misrepresented, both by scholars and by the founders of the Esalen Institute.Huxley's focus on human potentialities arose from a shift in his thinkingfrom the other-worldly mysticism of The Perennial Philosophy (1945) to thelife-affirming traditions of Tantra, Zen and Mahayana Buddhism. In Island,the population attempt to realize their human potentialities and engage in anexperiential spirituality that celebrates the body and nature as sacred throughthe use of the moksha-medicine and the practice of maithuna. I argue thatwhereas Tantric adepts practised maithuna as a means to acquire supernormalpowers (siddhis), in Island the Palanese version of maithuna is quite differentand is used to valorize samsara and the acquisition of human potentialities.

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完整的人

在《岛》（1962）中，奥尔德斯·赫胥黎提出了一个乌托邦式的社区，在这个社区中，居民的目标是通过实现他们的“潜力”来成为“完全的人”。我展示了赫胥黎关于“人类潜力”的概念是如何被学者和埃萨伦研究所的创始人歪曲的。赫胥黎对人类潜能的关注源于他的思想从《百年哲学》（1945）中的另一种世俗神秘主义转变为坦陀罗、禅宗和大乘佛教的肯定生命的传统。在岛上，人们试图实现他们的人类潜力，并通过使用moksha药物和实践maithuna来从事一种经验精神，将身体和自然视为神圣。我认为，虽然密宗的修持者将修持作为获得超能力的手段（siddhis），但在岛上，Palanese版本的修持则截然不同，用于评估轮回和人类潜力的获得。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

International Journal for the Study of New Religions RELIGION-

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期刊介绍： The International Journal for the Study of New Religions considers submissions from both established scholars and research students from all over the world. Articles should be written for a general scholarly audience. All articles accepted by the editors are then peer-reviewed. International Journal for the Study of New Religions is published biannually in May and November. Each issue includes articles and a number of book reviews. The journal is published simultaneously in print and onlineThe language of publication is English, and submissions should be English.