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Dying of laryngeal cancer and unable to speak, Aldous Huxley requested, by note, that his wife inject him with LSD; she administered two doses an hour apart, and he died that day.In 1960, Huxley was diagnosed with oral cancer and over the next three years, his health dramatically declined. Huxley himself was never the picture of health, having famously struggled with his eyesight for nearly his entire life. However, by 1963, Huxley was fully bedridden and, what’s more, unable to talk. What happened over the last few days of his life was written out by his wife, Laura, in a letter to Julian, and to this day is still a moving remembrance that speaks to their loving relationship.Laura begins by saying that the last thing that Aldous Huxley wanted to do was stop working. Despite his decreased mobility and ability to communicate, his faculties never left him, and the two of them read and wrote together in the weeks leading up to his passing. On November 22nd, the very night that John F Kennedy was shot in Dallas, Huxley made a written request for “LSD, 100 μg, intramuscular.” Laura administered the shot, and in the letter, Laura elaborated on what happened next.She wrote, “After half an hour, the expression on his face began to change a little, and I asked him if he felt the effect of LSD, and he indicated no. Yet, I think that something had taken place already. This was one of Aldous’ characteristics. He would always delay acknowledging the effect of any medicine, even when the effect was quite certainly there, unless the effect was very, very strong, he would say no. Now, the expression of his face was beginning to look as it did every time that he had the moksha medicine, when this immense expression of complete bliss and love would come over him.”From then on, it’s clear that Huxley’s time was up and that he would pass away on this trip. Laura was with him every step of the way, encouraging him to “let go, darling; forward and up. You are going forward and up; you are going towards the light.” Within a few more hours, Aldous Huxley peacefully and serenely breathed his last, his love by his side, on a trip that will remain entirely his own.