The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell Paperback – 28 July 2009
by Aldous Huxley (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars 2,318 ratings
A genuine spiritual quest. . . . Extraordinary. -- New York Times
Among the most profound and influential explorations of mind-expanding psychedelic drugs ever written, here are two complete classic books--The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell--in which Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World, reveals the mind's remote frontiers and the unmapped areas of human consciousness. This edition also features an additional essay, Drugs That Shape Men's Minds, now included for the first time.
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208 pages
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"A genuine spiritual quest. . . . Extraordinary."--New York Times
"Evocative, wise and, above all, humane, The Doors of Perception is a masterpiece"--Sunday Times (London)
"The book that launched a thousand trips."--Daily Telegraph (London)
"Wonderfully entertaining."--The New Yorker
From the Back Cover
Half an hour after swallowing the drug I became aware of a slow dance of golden lights . . .
Among the most profound explorations of the effects of mind-expanding drugs ever written, here are two complete classic books--The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell--in which Aldous Huxley, author of the bestselling Brave New World, reveals the mind's remote frontiers and the unmapped areas of human consciousness. This new edition also features an additional essay, Drugs That Shape Men's Minds, which is now included for the first time.
About the Author
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) is the author of the classic novels Brave New World, Island, Eyeless in Gaza, and The Genius and the Goddess, as well as such critically acclaimed nonfiction works as The Perennial Philosophy and The Doors of Perception. Born in Surrey, England, and educated at Oxford, he died in Los Angeles, California.
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Paperback : 208 pages
ISBN-10 : 0061729078
ISBN-13 : 978-0061729072
Dimensions : 13.49 x 1.19 x 20.32 cm
Best Sellers Rank: 143,836 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
105 in Pain Medicine Pharmacol
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) is the author of the classic novels Island, Eyeless in Gaza, and The Genius and the Goddess, as well as such critically acclaimed nonfiction works as The Devils of Loudun, The Doors of Perception, and The Perennial Philosophy. Born in Surrey, England, and educated at Oxford, he died in Los Angeles.
Michael Patterson
5.0 out of 5 stars Huxley's Timeless InsightReviewed in Australia on 15 May 2015
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I loved Huxley's insight into the inner space of the drug experience. He brings a deep insight of a philosophical and spiritual dimension, expressed in careful and modest terms. This remains an inspirational and moving piece of writing that makes lucid sense 35 years after my own experiences. It was a gem when it was written and it is still gold now.
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sheree Emery
5.0 out of 5 stars ArrivedReviewed in Australia on 8 May 2020
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Great book. Arrived in reasonable time
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Besitz Belastet
4.0 out of 5 stars Has evolution distorted our perceptions of reality?Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 May 2019
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One afternoon in Los Angeles in 1953, Aldous Huxley took mescalin, the active hallucinogen from a sacred cactus known to Mexicans as peyotl. The Doors of Perception is his account of his experience that day.
Perhaps best known for Brave New World, which sits alongside George Orwell's 1984 as two of the great dystopian novels written in English, Huxley took a keen interest in the human species, evolution and neuroscience. In particular, it was his belief that the workings of the brain, which had evolved over many millions of years with the primary instinct to ensure survival, mitigated against the true experience of the world around us. Thus it is not psychoactive substances that distort our perceptions of reality; rather, it is evolution that has, for perfectly sound reasons, eliminated elements of reality that we do not need for survival. It is the human mind as a filter of reality.
In Huxley's telling, mescalin opened doors that otherwise block our view of the richness of the boundless plains of reality all around us. In that afternoon in LA, he experienced the suspension of time and space, and the melting away of the ego. He talks about artists and their heightened ability to perceive things. He talks about the experiences of schizophrenics, portraying their moments not only of despair, but also of unadulterated joy. He talks about the profundity of religious experience, in particular of the philosophical divergence between the Eastern and Western views of the world. In each case, they provide access to a reality we do not otherwise perceive or need for any practical purpose.
Not the easiest read, perhaps because of a certain grandiosity in Huxley’s prose, but it is worthwhile to end with a quote: "The function of the brain and nervous system is to protect us from being overwhelmed and confused by this mass of largely useless and irrelevant knowledge, by shutting out most of what we should otherwise perceive or remember at any moment, and leaving only that very small and special selection which is likely to be practically useful."
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Cameron Cullen
5.0 out of 5 stars Aldous Huxley's name might well have faded into history but for one event.Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 April 2020
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Aldous Huxley's name might well have faded into history but for one event. This short book charts that turning point. The significance and experience he recorded taking the psychoactive chemical mescaline. His aim being to expand his consciousness and record the result. It became an experiment as important as early investigations into anaesthesia. And like those, something of a risk given that he used an obscure drug. The effect on him came as a series of labile progressive revelations. The importance of what he experienced came not with his impression, but the effect on others. A respectable writer became influential as a pioneer. He became a key figure for those who would follow a path to inner enlightenment. This flourished into the sixties with the emergence of psychedelic art and music. Never before had such experimentation become rife as a mass subculture. It venerated Huxley as a visionary. Yet his warnings about addiction and other associated problems went unheeded. The very act of taking mescaline lifted Huxley into the timeless cultural pantheon. The augments against Huxley came with the criticism that his experiences were unique. Personal only to him and about as important as dreams. And furthermore that they had little significance. The book remains interesting because it freezes a time and a moment. It gives us a lucid and readable viewpoint on a subject on the verge of becoming part of mainstream culture. It will remain an essential book.
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Liam J Madden
4.0 out of 5 stars Yes Indeed,Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 September 2018
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To have had the thought at different points in my life, that I should read 'The Doors of Perception', it's a good thing to have finally gotten hold of the book. What surprised me was how short it is. It took about 2 hours to read it and yet although it seems more like an essay written around 1953, Aldous Huxley's writing is so intellectual and astute, that I have to say it made me laugh out loud and also I liked the fact that part of it becomes a good footnote to how ahead of his time, Mr. Huxley was. However I would not say it's essential reading, not as much as Brave New World is, which is a far superior novel. Still worth reading 'The Doors of Perception' if you want to know more about Mescalin and it's effects on the mind.
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Daniel Davinci
5.0 out of 5 stars Isness!Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 December 2018
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A very intriguing read in which Huxley discusses the psychedelic experience. The book is very wordy and profound, yet manages to capture meaning which I could relate to. He communicates his visions and feelings whilst 'tripping' on substances and introduces the term 'isness' to decribe that which just is! Recommended!
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Marco Cuttin
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent bookReviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 February 2019
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It takes you through the the psychedelics "experience" based on the "trips" of Huxley.
Great reference if you are interested in understanding the experience without going through it
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The Doors of Perception
by
Aldous Huxley
3.92 · Rating details · 15,773 ratings · 1,033 reviews
The Doors of Perception is a philosophical essay, released as a book, by Aldous Huxley. First published in 1954, it details his experiences when taking mescaline. The book takes the form of Huxley's recollection of a mescaline trip that took place over the course of an afternoon in May 1953. The book takes its title from a phrase in William Blake's 1793 poem 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell'. Huxley recalls the insights he experienced, which range from the "purely aesthetic" to "sacramental vision". He also incorporates later reflections on the experience and its meaning for art and religion. (less)
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Hardcover, First Edition (U.K.), 208 pages
Published 1954 by Chatto & Windus
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one of the most important books I have ever read
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Ed here here. a seminal read
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Is there other books that are similar to this, I mean Ive been looking for a book as creative and realistic as this but couldn't find any. Whats great about this book, its not a huge book in terms of pages but the content is huge (not letter count)?
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Carl Macki Anything by Rumi, Cosmic Consciousness by Richard Maurice Bucke, True Hallucinations by Terence McKenna, The politics of Experience by R.D. Laing, and…more
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Oct 17, 2012B0nnie rated it it was amazing
November 22, 1963. That fateful day. Yes, the day Huxley died. His last words were “LSD, 100 micrograms I.M.” He took psychedelic drugs less than a dozen times in his life, but he always did so with a deep spiritual purpose, never casually. The Doors of Perception is a detailed account of the first time. The title comes from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern."
Huxley attempted to open up that door and find the perfect state of grace that he believed was possible for all. The session was recorded and he was able to reconstruct "the trip" and his thoughts very thoroughly. It is quite evident the man truly had a beautiful mind. He is erudite, witty and full of good will toward men.
Ironically, part of the trip occurs at "the world's biggest drugstore", where, browsing through some art books, he waxes eloquent on art and culture. His thoughts on drapery make you believe that folds in a piece of cloth are the most important thing in the world. And I would have to agree.
In the average Madonna or Apostle the strictly human, fully representational element accounts for about ten per cent of the whole. All the rest consists of many colored variations on the inexhaustible theme of crumpled wool or linen. And these non-representational nine-tenths of a Madonna or an Apostle may be just as important qualitatively as they are in quantity.
They had seen the Istigkeit, the Allness and Infinity of folded cloth and had done their best to render it in paint or stone. Necessarily, of course, without success. For the glory and the wonder of pure existence belong to another order, beyond the Power of even the highest art to express. But in Judith's skirt I could clearly see what, if I had been a painter of genius, I might have made of my old gray flannels.
Timothy Leary read Huxley’s book, and they had met at Harvard. However Huxley was dismayed that Doors had been used in the launch of the counterculture of the 1960s. That he ends up on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's was not exactly what he intended. But if he inspired Within You Without You (rather than "come on baby, light my fire") I think he would not have minded.
"We were talking - about the space between us all
And the people - who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion
Never glimpse of truth - then it's far too late - when they pass away." -George Harrison
Huxley, second last row, third from the left
Some of Huxley's stoner thoughts:
On Cézanne's self portrait - "What pretensions!" I kept repeating. "Who on earth does he think he is?" The question was not addressed to Cezanne in particular, but to the human species at large. Who did they all think they were? …It's like Arnold Bennett in the Dolomites."
An hilarious art anecdote - "One day towards the end of his life, Blake met Constable at Hampstead and was shown one of the younger artist's sketches. In spite of his contempt for naturalistic art, the old visionary knew a good thing when he saw it- except of course, when it was by Rubens. "This is not drawing," he cried, "this is inspiration!" "I had meant it to be drawing," was Constable's characteristic answer."
Vermeer - "For that mysterious artist was truly gifted-with the vision that perceives the Dharma-Body as the hedge at the bottom of the garden, with the talent to render as much of that vision as the limitations of human capacity permit, and with the prudence to confine himself in his paintings to
the more manageable."
The Le Nain brothers - "They set out, I suppose, to be genre painters; but what they actually produced was a series of human still lives, in which their cleansed perception of the infinite significance of all things is rendered not, as with Vermeer, by subtle enrichment of color and texture, but by a heightened clarity, an obsessive distinctness of form, within an austere, almost monochromatic tonality. "
The schizophrenic - "...a soul not merely unregenerate, but desperately sick into the bargain. His sickness consists in the inability to take refuge from inner and outer reality (as the sane person habitually does) in the homemade universe of common sense - the strictly human world of useful notions, shared symbols and socially acceptable conventions. The schizophrenic is like a man permanently under the influence of mescalin, and therefore unable to shut off the experience of a reality which he is not holy enough to live with, which he cannot explain away because it is the most stubborn of primary facts, and which, because it never permits him to look at the world with merely human eyes, scares him into interpreting its unremitting strangeness, its burning intensity of significance, as the manifestations of human or even cosmic malevolence, calling for the most desperate countermeasures, from murderous violence at one end of the scale to catatonia, or psychological suicide, at the other.
5/5 µg's
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Jan 04, 2017Lyn rated it liked it · review of another edition
An erudite artist and scholar tripping on mescaline.
Decades before other drug culture manifestos and hippy folios cool cat Aldous Huxley first published his Doors of Perception in 1954 ( the same year as Poul Anderson’s The Broken Sword and Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend). The initial part is a first person narrative about his experiences taking peyote and his descriptions of the insight.
Of course what makes this stand out from the legion of trip and tells is his intellectual observations. Huxley’s heightened appreciation for art, music, psychology and philosophy is the antithesis to the Homer Simpson “doh!” or Cheech and Chong weed humor. His drug-induced musings reminded me of the The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick.
The second part, though, is what really hooked me. Huxely’s essay for the promotion of mescaline is all the more timely as we enter the beginning stages of our growing social acceptance of marijuana and the approaching end to that ridiculous prohibition. Huxley, speaking from the early 50s does the green libertarians one better by advocating for mescaline. Like the persuasive argument today about how tobacco and alcohol are far more harmful than illegal pot, Huxley goes on to articulate how mescaline is the more spiritual and beneficial for society and even for religion.
A surprisingly entertaining and illuminating essay.
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Mar 19, 2013Lisa Reads & Reviews rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: non-fiction, philosophical, owned-paper
Increasingly, I'm learning that perception is far more complicated than I ever imagined. Sight, as an example, isn't simply eyes acting like cameras, sending image data to the brain for interpretation. An article in the online journal, Nature, described the mechanism by which the brain "sees" what our eyes are going to see before our eyes see it. This is why we don't view the world through what would otherwise look like a hand-held camera. Research at the University of Pennsylvania School of Med ...more
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Nov 23, 2020P.E. rated it it was amazing
Shelves: drugs, ideology, mind-games, transcendentalism, psychology, reenchanter-le-monde, audiobook, essay
“...we were back at home, and I had returned to that reassuring but profoundly unsatisfactory state known as 'being in one's right mind.”
Main themes:
Perception, conceptualization, expression
Art
Escapism
Syncretism
Transcendance and immanence
Selfhood and selflessness
More excerpts :
“Most men and women lead lives at the worst so painful, at the best so monotonous, poor and limited that the urge to escape, the longing to transcend themselves if only for a few moments, is and has always been one of the principal appetites of the soul.”
“To see ourselves as others see us is a most salutary gift. Hardly less important is the capacity to see others as they see themselves. But what if these others belong to a different species and inhabit a radically alien universe? For example, how can the sane get to know what it actually feels like to be mad?”
"Every individual is at once the beneficiary and the victim of the linguistic tradition into which he has been born—the beneficiary inasmuch as language gives access to the accumulated records of other people’s experience, the victim in so far as it confirms him in the belief that reduced awareness is the only awareness and as it bedevils his sense of reality, so that he is all too apt to take his concepts for data, his words for actual things. That which, in the language of religion, is called "this world" is the universe of reduced awareness, expressed, and, as it were, petrified by language."
“I am not so foolish as to equate what happens under the influence of mescalin or of any other drug, prepared or in the future preparable, with the realization of the end and ultimate purpose of human life: Enlightenment, the Beatific Vision. All I am suggesting is that the mescalin experience is what Catholic theologians call "a gratuitous grace," not necessary to salvation but potentially helpful and to be accepted thankfully, if made available. To be shaken out of the ruts of ordinary perception, to be shown for a few timeless hours the outer and the inner world, not as they appear to an animal obsessed with survival or to a human being obsessed with words and notions, but as they are apprehended, directly and unconditionally, by Mind at Large—this is an experience of inestimable value to everyone and especially to the intellectual.”
“For Persons are selves and, in one respect at least, I was now a Not-self, simultaneously perceiving and being the Not-self of the things around me. To this new-born Not-self, the behavior, the appearance, the very thought of the self it had momentarily ceased to be, and of
other selves, its one-time fellows, seemed not indeed distasteful (for distastefulness was not one of the categories in terms of which I was thinking), but enormously irrelevant.”
“From the French window I walked out under a kind of pergola covered in part by a climbing rose tree, in part by laths, one inch wide with half an inch of space between them. The sun was shining and the shadows of the laths made a zebra-like pattern on the ground and across the seat and back of a garden chair, which was standing at this end of the pergola. That chair--shall I ever forget it? Where the shadows fell on the canvas upholstery, stripes of a deep but glowing indigo alternated with stripes of incandescence so intensely bright that it was hard to believe that they could be made of anything but blue fire. For what seemed an immensely long time I gazed without knowing, even without wishing to know, what it was that confronted me. At any other time I would have seen a chair barred with alternate light and shade. Today the precept swallowed up the concept. I was so completely absorbed in looking, so thunderstruck by what I actually saw, that I could not be aware of anything else. Garden furniture, laths, sunlight, shadow--these were no more than names and notions, mere verbalization, for utilitarian or scientific purposes, after the event. The even was this succession of azure furnace doors separated by gulfs of unfathomable gentian. It was wonderful, wonderful to the point, almost, of being terrifying.”
“The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less sure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable mystery which it tries, forever vainly, to comprehend”
Kindred mirages:
Les Paradis artificiels
Radio Free Albemuth
Ubik
A Scanner Darkly
Trainspotting
Froth on the Daydream
Junky
Under The Volcano
Steppenwolf
The Daodejing of Laozi
The Bandersnatch episode from the Black Mirror series
Easy Rider - Henry Fonda
Apocalypse Now - Francis Ford Coppola
A Scanner Darkly - Richard Linklater
Enter the Void - Gaspar Noé
SOUNDTRACK:
Alan's psychedelic breakfast - Pink Floyd
Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun - Pink Floyd
Just a Poke - Sweet Smoke
Heart of the Sunrise - Yes
Shangri La - The Kinks
In Search of the Lost Chord - The Moody Blues (especially House of Four Doors)
Aubade & The Tale of Taliesin - Soft Machine
The Errand - Wario Land 4 OST
A Day in the Life - The Beatles (less)
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Oct 28, 2021Michael || TheNeverendingTBR rated it liked it
A classic from the Psychedelic Era.
Huxley goes into detail about his fascinating experiences with the mind expanding substance, mescalin.
This is basically the whole premise of this essay, him describing the results of mescalin ingestion on himself.
A thought-provoking and interesting read.
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Feb 11, 2022J.L. Sutton rated it liked it
“The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out.”
In The Doors of Perception, Aldous Huxley's approach to using mescaline (to open the doors of perception) is markedly different from mystics like Carlos Castaneda. Like Castaneda, Huxley explores both ritual and states of non-ordinary reality (to use a term from Castaneda); however, Huxley opens the doors wider as he makes comparisons to experiences of painters and writers, global spiritual traditions, schizophrenia, madness as well as the effects of other drugs.
I liked, for instance, how Huxley compares mescaline use to Cezanne's approach to an idealized 'not-self' that does not covet anything around itself (apparently something Cezanne was aiming for in his paintings). This more philosophical approach is apparent even when Huxley crosses Sunset Boulevard while describing his trip before (coming down) returning to "being in one's right mind." He is also more philosophical as he analyzes the urge to escape/transcend. Written in 1954, Huxley compares society's acceptance of alcohol/alcoholism and addiction to cigarettes along with the negative consequences while arguing for mescaline as less harmful to the individual user and society. For such a short work, Doors of Perception started out painfully slow, but got much more interesting especially after the first half.
"To be shaken out of the ruts of ordinary perception, to be shown for a few timeless hours the outer and the inner world, not as they appear to an animal obsessed with survival or to a human being obsessed with words and notions, but as they are apprehended, directly and unconditionally, by Mind at Large—this is an experience of inestimable value to everyone and especially to the intellectual.”
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Dec 13, 2016Jason Koivu rated it liked it
Shelves: non-fiction
This must've blown minds when it came out. Now though, it's lost its edge.
Full disclosure, I'm here because of The Doors...of the Jim Morrison sort. Being a HUGE fan of him and the band, I absorbed all I could of them back during my teens. I even read his poetry. Hell, I even read William Blake's poetry, simply because it apparently influenced Morrison. However, I never did get around to reading Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception , the book title from which the band was named. WHAT THE HELL KIND OF A FAN AM I?!?!?!
Well, the reasons for me not getting to it until now are even more boring and inconsequential than this sentence. The point is, I've finally read the damn book. I needn't have bothered. It's pretty much what I figured it would be and there's nothing within it I needed to know.
Backstory: Bookish brainiac Huxley decided to try out the cactus drug peyote. In The Doors... he describes his trip. It's not half as interesting or entering as I'd hoped. (Here's a more entertaining, though less enlightening example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrIPL...)
Nowadays this stuff is so commonplace as to make this book almost quaint. And the parts that aren't outdated, are just not interesting enough to make this a winner in my book. In fact, Huxley spends so much time, too many pages imo, on art and artists that I began to doubt the need for a book on the topic. I mean, if you've got to use filler in a 60 page novette, the book probably could've just been a lengthy article or pamphlet. I get the connection he's trying to make between the artist mind and that of one on mind-altering drugs, it's just that I don't find it all that enthralling.
Still and all, this has its value. Some of the points Huxley makes herein are still valid. He was clearly an intelligent, well-read man. I guess I just didn't have the same mind-expanding experience as Morrison had when reading this. (less)
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Jun 10, 2009William Strasse rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
I need to read more Huxley...maybe I'll finally dig in to the copy of "The Perennial Philosophy" that I've started on several times (although probably not until after "A Brief History Of Everything"...those two at the same time would be just masochistic.)
Although I did get a lot out of this book, the single thing that really made an impact was the discussion of our brain as a sensory-limiting mechanism which is concerned most of the time with filtering out all but what we need for survival at any given moment. That is how our brain has evolved and how we have risen to the top of the food chain (but look at what we eat!) We have a little more leeway these days, but what do we do with it? Watch "Rock Of Love"? We are at a point in history where we have the capability to evolve and create things beyond our wildest dreams, but we've generally made life so meaningless that most of us just consume increasingly more/"better" (more expensive) products in an attempt to fill the void staring us in the face...that is, the void that was always there, and the one we've created to forget that one. He doesn't get into all that...that's more or less my depressing rant, but perception and consciousness are important words for me...they are the keys to any kind of meaningful life and our collective future.
Part of the reason this made such an impression is that right before reading this part of the book, I was waiting on a bus, thinking that I must be getting old because I was actually early for something...it seems like not that long ago it was a small miracle if I was on time. I thought about how old people always want to be ridiculously early for everything. Then I theorized that most people go through their lives gradually concerning themselves more and more with only the mechanics of life..."Birth, School, Work, Death" in the words of The Godfathers. I'd add bills, doctors appointments, etc...
Then I opened the book and...vee-ola!
So even just in the course of an individual life, the brain gradually imposes tighter limits on itself until all you have is bills and doctors appointments. Of course, it doesn't have to be this way... (less)
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Feb 05, 2019André rated it it was amazing
Shelves: philosophy, classics, nonfiction, psychology
"If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.” - William Blake
Aldous Huxley, a renowned writer, mainly famous for his great dystopian work, Brave New World (1931), blasts to the world his transcendental essay: The Doors of Perception, published in 1954.
In this philosophical essay, Huxley describes his spiritual experience with mescaline, taken one day in May 1953. The author makes a detailed description of his experience with 4/10 of a gram of this psychedelic plant. The essay elucidates his visual and spiritual awareness in spatial/time analysis, Art, Nature, Music, Religion, Sociology, Education, Philosophy and Psychology.
Huxley got acquainted about the use of peyote after coming to the United States in 1937. He first became conscious about the cactuses' use after reading an essay written by Humphry Osmond.
After having read Osmond's essay, he got curious about this psychedelic substance and decided to make his experiment with mescaline. Osmond arrives at Huxley's house to accompany him during his spiritual experience. After that, the author's experience was so intense that he decided to tell the tale:
Spatial/time analysis: "Place and distance cease to be of much interest. The mind does its perceiving in terms of intensity of existence, the profundity of significance, relationships within a pattern. I saw the books but was not at all concerned with their positions in space. What I noticed, what impressed itself upon my mind was the fact that all of them glowed with living light and that in some the glory was more manifest than in others. In this context position and the three dimensions were beside the point. Not, of course, that the category of space had been abolished."
Initially, Huxley was expecting to picture brightly colours, but as he stated, he was a "bad visualiser", however, he experiences a more detailed perception of the outer world. The "being" is not separated from "becoming" and the living moment becomes timeless like a neverending present. Colours from the outer world become more vivid and therefore visual impressions are intensified.
"I was looking at my furniture, not as the utilitarian who has to sit on chairs, to write at desks and tables, and not as the cameraman or scientific recorder, but as the pure aesthete whose concern is only with forms and their relationships within the field of vision or the picture space. But as I looked, this purely aesthetic, Cubist's-eye view gave place to what I can only describe as the sacramental vision of reality." The symbolism of the chair is destroyed, and it's perceived beyond a simple object.
Philosophy: "We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances, we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand into the arena; they are crucified alone. Embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstasies into a single self-transcendence; in vain. By its very nature, every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies—all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable. We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes."
During Huxley's experience, the ego disappears (egolessness), thus the perception about others begins to be more lucid. Every pattern becomes one and therefore the words and symbols are removed:
"...there is an 'obscure knowledge' that All is in all—that All is each. This is as near, I take it, as a finite mind can ever come to 'perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe. "
The author quotes the eminent Cambridge philosopher, Dr C. D. Broad by saying: "to enable us to live, the brain and nervous system eliminate unessential information from the totality of the 'Mind at Large". This idea explores that the human mind filters reality, and as a result of that, psychedelic drugs are an important element to remove this filter.
"We walked out into the street. A large pale blue automobile was standing at the curb. At the sight of it, I was suddenly overcome by enormous merriment. What complacency, what an absurd self-satisfaction beamed from those bulging surfaces of glossiest enamel! Men had created the thing in his own image - or rather in the image of his favourite character in fiction. I laughed till the tears ran down my cheeks."
Art: Huxley reflected the following statement about the Milkmaid by Johannes Vermeer: "That mysterious artist was truly gifted with the vision that perceives the Dharma-Body as the hedge at the bottom of the garden". He states that Vermeer's paintings are magnificent examples of life within. In another hand, Cézanne's Self-portrait with a straw hat seems incredibly pretentious. These experiences prove that even by being a bad visualiser, Huxley managed to feel vivid emotions from those paintings.
Music: "Instrumental music, oddly enough, left me rather cold. Mozart's C-Minor Piano Concerto was interrupted after the first movement, and a recording of some madrigals by Gesualdo took its place...But, as it turned out, I was wrong. Actually, the music sounded rather funny"
Once again, Huxley's auditory perception is changed, becoming more vivid and thus his initial perception about those music works has changed.
Psychology: "The schizophrenic is a soul not merely unregenerate, but desperately sick into the bargain. His sickness consists in the inability to take refuge from inner and outer reality (as the sane person habitually does) in the homemade universe of common sense - the strictly human world of useful notions shared symbols and socially acceptable conventions."
The author elucidates that Schizophrenia can be heaven and hell because those who suffer this pathology doesn't distinguish the inner world from the outer world. It's also stated that those who suffer from anxiety and periodical depression might have different experiences under the influence of mescaline.
"Most takers of mescalin experience only the heavenly part of schizophrenia."
Nature: "We drove on, and so long as we remained in the hills, with view succeeding distant view, significance was at its everyday level, well below transfiguration point."
The view from the hills became abruptly lucid, just like the perspective described from those landscape painters.
Sociology: "Equally unsurprising is the current attitude towards drink and smoke. In spite of the growing army of hopeless alcoholics, in spite of the hundreds of thousands of persons annually maimed or killed by drunken drivers, popular comedians still crack jokes about alcohol and its addicts... The only reasonable policy is to open other, better doors in the hope of inducing men and women to exchange their old bad habits for new and less harmful ones."
Religion : "Christianity and mescalin seem to be much more compatible. This has been demonstrated by many tribes of Indians, from Texas to as far north as Wisconsin. Among these tribes are to be found groups affiliated with the Native American Church, a sect whose principal rite is a kind of Early Christian agape, or love feast, where slices of peyote take the place of the sacramental bread and wine."
Self-transcendence can be found in religion and therefore, Christianity and mescaline are well-suited for each other, however, it is unlikely to happen as Huxley stated in his essay.
"All I am suggesting is that the mescalin experience is what Catholic theologians call "a gratuitous grace," not necessary to salvation but potentially helpful and to be accepted thankfully, if made available...a human being obsessed with words and notions, but as they are apprehended, directly and unconditionally."
Education: "In a world where education is predominantly verbal, highly educated people find it all but impossible to pay serious attention to anything but words and notions. The non-verbal humanities, the arts of being directly aware of the given facts of our existence, are almost completely ignored."
Aldous Huxley managed to describe his experience in an enlightened way. He elucidated his experience in such an illuminating way that it was impossible not to quote his standpoints. The author's universalism is highly depicted in his philosophical and religious points of view. It's asserted in the essay that spiritual experiences will transform anyone for the better, and I couldn't agree more! I just personally don't agree that psychedelic drugs are well-suited for Christianity or to any religion whatsoever. Words, prayers, slogans are notions and symbols intrinsically correlated to Religion in general. Psychedelic drugs are still seen with disregard and therefore it will not be intrinsically connected to Religion. I personally believe that spirituality can be separated from Religion, but that would be a more detailed topic to discuss...
I do practice meditation, and I was tremendously curious to read this book. I found very elucidative, mind-blowing and inspiring how the details were depicted throughout the text. When I was younger, I was very sceptic about these spiritual experiences, but when I became older, I realized that these transcendental experiences are quite relevant for self-fulfilment (either with psychedelic drugs or through meditation). I recommend anyone to read this book (even to sceptics). It's undoubtedly, a mind-bending book that questions our reality and gives new paths to our general perception of the world.
No wonder Jim Morrison baptised his band's name "The Doors"...
Rating: 4.5/5 Stars (less)
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Aug 21, 2021Wanda Pedersen rated it liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: read-in-2021, public-library, biography-memoirs, non-fiction
I listen to CBC radio a lot, one of the side effects of not owning a television. One of the by-products of all this radio time is the addition of many books of different subject areas added to my TBR. This is one of those books. The radio show that I listened to was called High Culture, about the therapeutic use of the psychedelic drugs. If you are interested, Part One (of three) can be found here: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/high-c...
This book is apparently where The Doors got the name of their band, not surprising in the swinging sixties when psychedelics were prevalent. What I found intriguing was the use of mescaline by an author that I was familiar with and with a Canadian connection. His dose of the drug was supplied by a doctor at a Canadian hospital and that same doctor supervised his first experience. (Dr. Humphrey Osmond, a British doctor working at the Weyburn Mental Hospital in Weyburn, Saskatchewan).
I found it interesting that in his Brave New World (1932) Huxley wrote about a drug called Soma which the people in his world used to escape unpleasantness. It was written well before this mescaline experiment (1953) but it informs his willingness to try the drug. Until reading this, I was unaware of Huxley's interest in Eastern religions. That background too would make his desire to experiment understandable.
Subjective experiences like these are difficult to measure or quantify, so this attempt to observe his own mystic experience scientifically is interesting. Perhaps it was motivated by the influence of his grandfather Thomas Henry Huxley and two siblings who were all involved in the biological sciences.
I've never had any inclination towards any kind of drug use, but after reading this book and listening to the 3 radio programs, I wouldn't hesitate to try psilocybin if I was offered a serene environment and an experienced supervisor. (But, as both Huxley and one of the interviewed psychologists say, without those two conditions the trip can go drastically wrong.) The aboriginal people who use peyote do so in supportive groups and they have been using it successfully for hundreds of years.
A fascinating glimpse into our collective unconscious.
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Mar 30, 2022Kevin rated it liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: science, non-fiction, classics, reviewed, philosophy, psychology
“…Christianity and alcohol do not and cannot mix. Christianity and mescalin seem to be much more compatible.”
An interesting but very unscientific survey of one; Huxley’s mescaline (peyote) experiment, May 1953, had him contemplating the fabric of space/time whilst entranced by the folds of his trousers.
Okay, I’ll concede that narcotics and hallucinogens may have inspired a few great works of art and literature but I remain highly skeptical of the scientific value of any anecdotal accounting of drug-induced euphoria. There are good reasons why many outspoken proponents of “expanded perceptions” had tormented and/or shortened lives (Jim Morrison, Philip Dick, Jack Kerouac, etc.). 3 stars.
“Reality is just a crutch for people who can’t handle drugs.” ~Robin Williams (less)
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Oct 18, 2011Lindu Pindu rated it really liked it
Shelves: religion-spirituality, non-fiction
Huxley. Not on my list of great writers, but an interesting person with ideas.
There are more illuminating books on psychoactive substances, but this would perform well as a primer for those completely brainwashed into thinking that drug-takers are dazed hippies. I see them/us as *seekers*, people seeking to believe in something they can see and experience in an age where we don't take words like mind, soul, reason for granted anymore. This is exactly the point of view Huxley uses here. Also, imagining the guy hunching next to the bamboo legs of a chair whilst gazing at them with childlike delight is a nice little visual.
Read it, it'll only take you one evening. Keep an art book/laptop at hand- there are quite a few references to works of art that you might want to see.
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Mar 22, 2020Liam rated it it was amazing
Shelves: on-spirituality, on-art, on-psychiatry, on-philosophy
My 5th best read of 2020.
Best book to convince someone that (hallucinogenic) drugs could improve or at least add new detail to one's perception of objective reality. It's difficult to agree with or understand all of it, but the form of them is very unique and make this phenomenal reading. Who knows whether this is fiction or non-fiction!
As a neuroscientist studying psychiatry I find many of the ideas here theoretically visionary but lacking clear experimental evidence but in a way these ideas always will. This feels a bit like reading psychoanalysis or art theory. I should have read this earlier, for anyone who is interested in mind it's concise and worth your time. (less)
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Mar 24, 2014Mike rated it did not like it
Huxley's writing is brilliant and a joy to read. The work is littered throughout with so much religious and philosophical allusions, which adds to the thoughtful depth. I found it to be quite fascinating.
However, his conclusions leave empty. Essentially, it's religion achieved through chemistry. And his conception of religion focuses purely on the subjective. It's no surprise that he refers to Eckhart, Boehme, and eastern philosophy so often; he looks only at the "inner light" rather than considering an external objectivism. (less)
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Jul 11, 2018Quiver rated it it was ok · review of another edition
Shelves: a-english, n-non-fiction, t-art
Thus it came about that, one bright May morning, four-tenths of a gram of mescaline dissolved in half a glass of water and sat down to wait for the results.
What ensues is a description of the experience written retroactively, with the help of taped conversations taken at the time, and interspersed with commentary on art, philosophy, and the usefulness (and abuse) of drugs in reaching altered states. Some themes: mind as a valve that regulates how much the chaos and infinity of the universe we can access (without the valve we'd be swamped); perception of time and space; mind and body separation; exploration of visual changes brought upon by mescaline (less so the other senses); art and what it means to be a visionary; specific references to painters (Van Gogh chiefly), the attraction of draperies, patterns and colours.
Ultimately, it felt rather broken up, mystical, and chaotic—a little like the high he describes and perhaps deliberately so. To the detriment of the reader, however. (less)
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Mar 09, 2017Avishek Das rated it really liked it
This has opened some aspects & still some are in mirage. I would read again and again over the ages & believe will be able to decode more...
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Dec 17, 2018Peter rated it really liked it
Huxley is a great thinker and philosopher. Here he examines what the element of pure art is. As a background he deals with mescalin and its impact on body and mind. I was especially fond of his mentioning of Vermeer and why we still love his paintings. Also the reference to Plato's mistake was remarkable. Great essay and absolute reading recommendation! (less)
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Aug 23, 2016Jon Nakapalau rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: philosophy, classics, psychology, favorites, pop-culture
Aldous Huxley takes us through doors that we may never have gone through. I will never forget the "luminous books" that seemed to pulse and glow with their own aura of differing colors. Not to mention that one of my favorite bands of all time took their name after this book. (less)
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May 31, 2019Czarny Pies rated it did not like it
Recommends it for: Fans of Jimmy Morrison and the Doors
Shelves: english-lit
I read this because I had a friend who owned several Doors albums and was curious to learn more about the book that had inspired the name of the band. I had also enjoyed "Brave New World."
It's not the worst thing that I have read but it has nothing to recommend itself. (less)
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Apr 30, 2020Matthew Ted rated it it was amazing
Shelves: 20th-century, lit-british, non-fiction, essays
This is the review copied from my review of The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell which I read earlier this year, both combined in one book - that review can be found here. Otherwise, below is solely for The Doors of Perception.
Huxley takes 4/10 of a gram of mescaline and writes about the experience. Mescalin is comparable with LSD. I wasn't expecting much from the writings of his 'experience' but I found it fascinating. Of course, the world is more desensitised to drugs now; on the whole, we are more familiar with them, their effects, but I still found Huxley's work insightful, even humorous at times, as he stares fascinated at the folds in his clothes, or at flowers. These are the best bits, I think.
Visual impressions are greatly intensified and the eye recovers some of the perceptual innocence of childhood, when the sensum was not immediately and automatically subordinated to the concept. Interest in space is diminished and interest in time falls almost to zero.
Though the intellect remains unimpaired and though perception is enormously improved, the will suffers a profound change for the worse. The mescalin taker sees no reason for doing anything in particular and finds most of the causes for which, at ordinary times, he was prepared to act and suffer, profoundly uninteresting. He can't be bothered with them, for the good reason that he has better things to think about.
Man's highly developed colour sense is a biological luxury- inestimably precious to him as an intellectual and spiritual being, but unnecessary to his survival as an animal.
Huxley has the recordings of his conversations with the investigator. He kept saying, over and over, 'This is how one ought to see.'
These are my favourite two observations from Huxley -
The legs, for example of that chair- how miraculous their tubularity, how supernatural their polished smoothness! I spent several minutes- or was it several centuries?- not merely gazing at those bamboo legs, but actually being them- or rather being myself in them
At this stage in the proceedings I was handed a large coloured reproduction of the well-known self portrait by Cezanne- the head and shoulders of a man in a large straw hat, red-cheeked, red-lipped, with rich black whiskers and a dark unfriendly eye. It is a magnificent painting; but it was not as a painting that I now saw it. For the head promptly took on a third dimension and came to life as a small goblin-like man looking out through a window in the page before me. I started to laugh. And when they asked me why, 'What pretensions!' I kept repeating. 'Who on earth does he think he is?' The question was not addressed to Cezanne in particular, but to the human species at large. Who did they all think they were? (less)
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Dec 15, 2020Michael rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
After enduring moves across the country with me more than a few times, boxed and unboxed, over the past 35+ years, my slightly yellowed, still tightly-bound, thin 95-cent paperback of Huxley's DOORS OF PERCEPTION was due a fresh read. And it was a joy to be wrapped once again in Huxley's thoughts and prose. He was one of my early literary idols, yet he's been absent from my readings of late, sadly neglected.
Most people are familiar with the premise of this book – Huxley ingests mescalin, under supervision, and records his experiences, interspersed with frequent digressions and speculations on brain science, hallucinogens in other cultures and religions, and the possible links between psychedelic states and illnesses such as schizophrenia. Written in that comfortable yet erudite prose of Huxley's, it is a joy to read.
To Huxley's surprise, the expected alteration to his inner experience caused by the mescalin did not happen.
“The other world to which mescalin admitted me was not the world of visions; it existed out there, in what I could see with my eyes open. The great change was in the realm of objective fact. What had happened to my subjective universe was relatively unimportant.” [16]
But that world of 'objective fact' did not disappoint. Huxley describes colors brought “to a higher power,” objects shining with an “Inner Light,” table legs “supernatural” in their polished smoothness – flowers, furniture, textiles, works of art – Botticelli, Van Gogh, Cezanne – all bathed in “grace” and “transfiguration,” viewed now by his “Mind-at-Large” unencumbered by the brain's “reducing valve” which filters out the storm of sensory data which would otherwise overwhelm. At least that's his theory.
“What comes out at the other end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive on the surface of this particular planet. To formulate and express the contents of this reduced awareness, man has invented and endlessly elaborated those symbol-systems and implicit philosophies which we call languages.” [23]
He directs particular attention to his perception of fabrics, the folds in his trousers, the draperies, all the textiles within his view:
“Those folds in the trousers – what a labyrinth of endlessly significant complexity! And the texture of the gray flannel – how rich, how deeply, mysteriously sumptuous!” [30]
Ultimately Huxley declares, “This is how one ought to see, how things really are.” But is that the way things are? Does the psychedelic reveal reality or distort it? It would be easy to assume that Huxley's book, written over 60 years ago by a non-scientist, is woefully outdated and unreliable in general neurological understanding. Perhaps he takes his epigraph too literally:
“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.” – William Blake
As it turns out, Huxley may be right after all. Doing some casual reading in this area, I stumbled upon an article from Scientific American, May of 2012, by Adam Halberstadt, Mark Geyer: Do Psychedelics Expand the Mind by Reducing Brain Activity? Here's the money quote:
“Based on their findings, the authors of the study concluded that hallucinogens reduce activity in specific “hub” regions of the brain, potentially diminishing their ability to coordinate activity in downstream brain regions. In effect, psilocybin appears to inhibit brain regions that are responsible for constraining consciousness within the narrow boundaries of the normal waking state, an interpretation that is remarkably similar to what Huxley proposed over half a century ago.”
This is an extremely slim volume, only 79 pages in my copy, yet there is a lot there to digest, much to encourage further research and reading. It's as fascinating and timely now, as when Huxley wrote it in 1954. Perhaps more so.
As I may have hinted at earlier, THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION has a very personal significance for me. It was the mid-seventies and I was going through an extended fascination with altered states of consciousness, absorbed in books like THE CENTER OF THE CYLONE and THE DEEP SELF by John C. Lilly, any general literature on sensory-deprivation tanks, the books by Carlos Casteneda, beginning with THE TEACHINGS OF DON JUAN: A YAQUI WAY OF KNOWLEDGE. Of all these, it was Huxley's book that was most influential. I was to carry out my own experiment, imitating Huxley. I procured some “Window-Pane” (Lysergic acid diethylamide) from a very reliable source, in other words I was confident of its purity, and, with my girlfriend as supervision, ingested a very moderate amount prior to attending a viewing of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey at the local theater.
As with Huxley's experience, I became mesmerized by fabrics, the textures – deep, sinuous folds, velvety lush or coarse and fibrous. The curtains that flanked the movie screen pulsed a deep red, alive with color, and though we were seated near the center of the theater my vision extended into the very folds of the fabric, as if I were there, in them – objective distance and space was obliterated. I could not look away. The film, what I recall of it, was an enormous canvas of shifting colors and shapes. The drive home was a discovery of the beauty in traffic lights. For the final few hours before the drug relinquished its hold on the 5-HT2A receptors in my brain, I found enjoyment in my kitchen table and chairs, my plants, and the folds in my own pants. My assessment? I enjoyed it, but did I believe when I examined the “supernatural smoothness” of my kitchen table leg that I was seeing the Ding an Sich, the “thing-in-itself.”? I'd like to think so, but no. (less)
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Feb 01, 2019Anima rated it liked it
- a thought-provoking book worth reading
‘“O nobly born, let not thy mind be distracted.” That was the problem—to remain undistracted. Undistracted by the memory of past sins, by imagined pleasure, by the bitter aftertaste of old wrongs and humiliations, by all the fears and hates and cravings that ordinarily eclipse the Light’
‘The urge to transcend self-conscious selfhood is, as I have said, a principal appetite of the soul. When, for whatever reason, men and women fail to transcend themselves by means of worship, good works and spiritual exercises, they are apt to resort to religion’s chemical surrogates—alcohol and “goof pills” in the modern West, alcohol and opium in the East, hashish in the Mohammedan world, alcohol and marijuana in Central America, alcohol and coca in the Andes, alcohol and the barbiturates in the more up-to-date regions of South America. In Poisons Sacrés, Ivresses Divines Philippe de Félice has written at length and with a wealth of documentation on the immemorial connection between religion and the taking of drugs. Here, in summary or in direct quotation, are his conclusions. The employment for religious purposes of toxic substances is “extraordinarily widespread. . . .The practices studied in this volume can be observed in every region of the earth, among primitives no less than among those who have reached a high pitch of civilization. We are therefore dealing not with exceptional facts, which might justifiably be overlooked, but with a general and, in the widest sense of the word, a human phenomenon, the kind of phenomenon which cannot be disregarded by anyone who is trying to discover what religion is, and what are the deep needs which it must satisfy.” (less)
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May 15, 2018Walter Schutjens rated it it was amazing
Shelves: a-little-bit-radical, philosophy, philosophy-theory, reviewed, favorites, non-fiction, neuroscience
The best book I have ever read.
Everything that I have ever tried to understand about symbology, transcendence, consciousness, linguistics, and the self has all been tied together in this book. Huxley's vivid description of the hallucinatory effects that he experiences under mescaline are not only entertaining to read, but also provide the reader with an alternate account of subjective reality that has now been made illegal. Many of the experiences that he describes relating to self awareness and the realisation of the ego are similar to the effects I have experienced through meditation, making it an interesting read.
For the readers convinced that psychedelics are bad for you and have no interest in them, this book also provides many links between the effects of psychedelics and practices in modern nature. The links between theology and drug use, the philosophy of western and eastern cultures. The purposeful neglect of non verbal learning and practice of increased perception are all discussed.
This is a quick read, (50 pages) and every second is worth your time. (less)
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Jun 28, 2019Scot Parker rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: psychedelics
This account offered fascinating insights into what it must have been like to be among the first to try psychedelics during the western discovery of these drugs during the 1950s. Although dated (this was published in 1954 after all) The Doors of Perception reveals many of the core aspects of the psychedelic experience, and Huxley's philosophical brilliance shines through in his interpretation of the experience and of its value and potential deeper meaning. I found this well worth my time, both for the historical perspective and timeless insights it provides. (less)
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Jan 06, 201711811 (Eleven) rated it really liked it · review of another edition
I've never tried mescaline but always hoped that the opportunity would knock someday. The idea has only become more attractive after pondering this author's thoughts on his experience with the famous mystical medication and the brief history he presents on the value of peyote.
Short book but well worth the read. (less)
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Jun 15, 2011Nick Allen rated it it was ok
Shelves: non-fiction
My hopes were partially fulfilled in the second half of the essay, in which Huxley examined the natural human urge to experience the world through the lens of any kind of drug or alcohol, and how this relates to current legal policy and common conceptions of mental well-being. However, most of the essay carried the kind of underlying tone of semi-religious reverence for the effects of drugs that I hear all too much of from the kids at college. The idea that the human brain can have knowledge of the entire universe, and the restriction of glucose to the brain keeps the mind from suppressing this knowledge, well I just don't buy it. (less)
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Apr 08, 2020Mihnea rated it really liked it
Listened to the audiobook. Would recommend, probably some parts I missed.
Will probably read/listen to again in the future.
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Apr 20, 2012Cecilia rated it it was ok
My friend Amanda who dated & married this guy based on their shared obsession with Nick Cave said I had to read this book in Oz. They even got it out for me at the library. I read it. It was alright. My genuine reaction was that this is a lazy short-cut...everything he described, you could achieve drug-free from mind-training and meditation....so if my tibetan meditation teacher had to spend 30 yrs in some cave up in the Himalayas doing this and lazy people want to pay $30 and take a short-cut.....
Well....lets face it.....maybe you are taking it all down the "exit" and not the "entrance"....
So they said,"What about the Shaman's and all the other spiritual use of hallucinogen?"
So I emailed my other friend Amanda who was studying at a Peublo and she asked her teacher and he goes," Our tradition is a sacred experience, done according to a person's inner journey....not a joke to support spoilt white kid's life-destructive habits."
So maybe just stop being so lazy and REALLY learn something...then you wouldn't have to worry about using "short-cuts" to chase your Creative visions?
Anyway Amandas x 2 both did their Ph.Ds and got "over" the silly fascination with that "undergraduate phase".
www.ceciliayu.com (less)
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Jun 21, 2021Tim rated it it was amazing
Why did it take me this long! Mescaline and the more ritualistic or "classic" psychedelics have always intrigued me. I've never tried a guided experience but certainly would like to in the right setting. What I didn't realize before was how attuned Huxley was at this point to the mystics of the wisdom traditions through his own meditative practice. The questions he raises about the meaning, perception or role of what we consider "drugs" (more like "herbs" in this case) to our increased spiritual and conscious awareness still applies. There was a band named after it too. (less)
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Nov 23, 2021Ross Blocher rated it really liked it
This is a joyously quick read, and an interesting reflection on Aldous Huxley's experience with mescaline, the psychedelic active agent in peyote. It's fun to listen to someone so erudite and articulate convey the pulsating colors, emotional extremes and altered perceptions of a drug trip. From all I had heard of the book, I think I expected a thorough run-down of many drugs, but Huxley's experience is tied to a few afternoons on mescaline in 1953. He does address LSD and other substances, but the real PSA is for mescaline. He lets us know that it can be synthesized, so there's no danger of driving rare cacti to extinction. It's not habit-forming, and not what one might characterize as "recreational". It doesn't lead to anything like the danger of alcohol, and he rightly points to our upside-down societal response to the dangers of various substances... which unfortunately has not improved much in the subsequent 67 years. He draws from references literary, dramatic and musical, comparing the disjointed chorus of mental images to the musical discontinuities of "the madrigals" (which were fun to listen to after learning about), and the beatific visions and emotions to the writings and art of William Blake and others (the title The Doors of Perception comes from Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: "If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern."). I'm glad to have added this to my "read" list. (less)
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