As Portas da Percepção

by Aldous Huxley, Paulo Faria (Translator)

As Portas da Percepção / Céu e Inferno

Numa radiosa manhã de Maio, em 1953, Aldous Huxley tomou pela primeira vez quatro décimos de grama de mescalina, dissolvidos em meio copo de água, sentou-se e aguardou os seus efeitos. Pouco depois, tudo o que o rodeava se transformou. Eis a génese de As Portas da Percepção (1954), um dos textos mais inspiradores para a contracultura americana dos anos 60. Registo minucioso de alterações sensoriais e ensaio filosófico que aborda os efeitos libertadores desta substância alucinogénica, é uma obra visionária sobre o funcionamento da mente e o desejo de transcendência do ser humano. Esta edição inclui ainda Céu e Inferno (1956), que explora a história e a índole de experiências transcendentais.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Psychology, Classics, Essays, Spirituality, Drugs

168 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1956

About the author

Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems.
Born into the prominent Huxley family, he graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, with a degree in English literature. Early in his career, he published short stories and poetry and edited the literary magazine Oxford Poetry, before going on to publish travel writing, satire, and screenplays. He spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death. By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the foremost intellectuals of his time. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times, and was elected Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 1962.
Huxley was a pacifist. He grew interested in philosophical mysticism, as well as universalism, addressing these subjects in his works such as The Perennial Philosophy (1945), which illustrates commonalities between Western and Eastern mysticism, and The Doors of Perception (1954), which interprets his own psychedelic experience with mescaline. In his most famous novel Brave New World (1932) and his final novel Island (1962), he presented his visions of dystopia and utopia, respectively.

Reviews

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Generally, I greatly prefer to read books in the dead-trees format—actual paper in my hand. This was the first I've read in a long time where I found myself desperately longing, not only for an electronic edition, but for a fully hypertextual version, rich with links. Over the two months I spent on this volume, on and off, I believe two-thirds of my time was spent on the Internet looking up references. At the very least, this book would benefit greatly from extensive illustration: the range of artistic works referenced, from Caravaggio to Millais to Vermeer, is sure to baffle most modern readers without a degree in Art History. Remember Laurent Tailhade? Yeah, me neither.

Frankly, with the state of Liberal Arts education today, I have a hard time believing that much of anyone who has read this in the last 30-40 years has understood but a fraction of it—and reading over the reviews I can find bears this out. Both essays are often seen as little more than an apologia for "drug experimentation." While that is certainly an element of both, it can hardly be taken as Huxley's central point. It was rather Dr. Leary who much later reduced the matter to such a simple and simplistic premise, and even he had more than that to say to those who were willing and able to delve beneath the surface.

Instead, while making the case for the legitimacy of drug use, Doors offers a hypothesis for the mechanism of the experience via the well known reference to Blake and the then-current state of neuro-biological research; to wit, that ordinary perception is a matter of the mind filtering data for survival, while transformed or visionary experience—whether achieved through asceticism, art, or chemistry—opens the mind to all the data available, regardless of its mere survival value, thus allowing one to see through the ordinary to a truer vision of reality. Why, after all, should one need to starve or abase oneself for months and years to achieve such states when the same experience, or a reasonable simulacrum, can be had for the cost of a drug and perhaps a mild hangover?

Heaven and Hell goes on to develop this thesis by comparing the visions induced by exogenous chemicals to the more visionary pieces of art throughout history, as well as elaborating on the religio-spiritual theme. This is where, I believe, a majority of readers are likely to get lost, and thus explains why there are far more extant reviews of the former essay than of the latter. Even with handy art references, the latter is still the more difficult read, with its several tangential appendices and textual digressions. One might almost suppose that the drugs had not yet worn off while he wrote this one. Still, for the persistent, this is a worthwhile sequel, and it is readily obvious why the two are so often packaged together. But keep your browser near at hand, because many of his points are utterly lost without knowing the art to which he refers.

Finally, it is this very lack of illustration, and internal referencing for the modern reader, that prompts me to deduct one star from what would otherwise be a truly stellar recommendation. I continue to hope that the Huxley estate, or whoever controls the copyrights, will consider reissuing this with the necessary supplemental material, perhaps even in a definitive scholarly "critical edition." Were it in the public domain, I might take on such a project myself.

[Sam Quixote · Rating 1 out of 5]

Have you ever had to be the designated driver while your buddies got wasted? Watching them laugh at nothing and behave like asses while you’re (unfortunately) stone cold sober is a pretty miserable experience as your mind hasn’t been altered by chemicals. Reading “The Doors of Perception” is like this - Aldous Huxley does mescaline and then describes it extensively to the bored reader who is probably not on mescaline. And it’s not nearly as fascinating as Huxley believes it to be - because we’re probably not on mescaline (I know I wasn’t when reading this crap). “The Doors of Perception” is a 50 page essay and it’s sequel, “Heaven and Hell”, a 33 page essay, read like far longer works because they’re so unreadable.

The point of the essays is that Huxley believes there is more to human nature than the base level of survival and that it’s because of how our species has developed that has made us forget ways in which we can perceive things beyond the ordinary. He wants to allow people to experience mescaline in order to see things he believes are there but beyond our reach without the help of hallucinogenics.

And here’s the big problem I have with this view - it’s that assuming that what you experience while high is worth more and is more real than what you experience everyday. I mean, what you’re experiencing is simulated with the aid of chemicals - why would it be more “real” than reality? A problem endemic to this book is that Huxley is talking about experiences that are purely visceral and “beyond man-made constructs” such as language and are therefore indescribable - yet he’s trying to describe them with language. Which is why you get drivel like this:

“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; or, to be still more accurate (for “I” was not involved in the case, nor in a certain sense were “they”) being my Not-self in the Not-self which was the chair.” p.10

“Confronted by a chair which looked like the Last Judgement - or, to be more accurate, by a Last Judgement which, after a long time and with considerable difficulty, I recognized as a chair - I found myself all at once on the brink of panic.” p.33

Good lord, this crap goes on and on for nearly a 100 pages and it doesn’t help that he’s not a very good writer to start with. His rambling style fused with a dry, almost academic, vernacular makes reading this book of insubstantial observations and half-formed ideas all the more insufferable. All he proves is that drugs make intelligent people sound like morons.

He feebly attempts to make the argument that researchers and scientists don’t take “spiritual” experiences seriously because they can’t see it, measure it, rationalise it, in any scientific way. Duh. He bewails methods (eg. taking mescaline) that allegedly “make you more perceptive, more intensely aware of inward and outward reality, and more open to the spirit” which constitute the “non-verbal humanities” aren’t taken more seriously. Well, when you put it like that, Aldous...

He attempts to rectify this by constantly referencing William Blake, Homer, and Goethe in an effort to make the essay appear academic and therefore substantial and worthy of consideration. It’s truly pretentious and pathetic in its ineffectiveness.

This quote basically sums up the essays:

“Those folds in the trousers - what a labyrinth of endlessly significant complexity! And the texture of the grey flannel - how rich, how deeply, mysteriously sumptuous!” p.16

Wooaaaah, Aldous got fucked up on mescaline!

[B0nnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

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

[Lisa Reads & Reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 Medicine has shown that "the human retina can transmit data at roughly 10 million bits per second."

What the brain does with this data is amazing. For one thing, it compensates for anything that prevents us from seeing things as normal. In 1896, George Stratton experimented with eyeglasses that inverted his vision. After a few days, his brain adapted and Stratton saw everything the right way up.

The brain, needing to process data rapidly, is predisposed to see a perceptual set, which means we see what we expect to see, based largely on prior experience. No wonder children look at the world with such wide eyes--they are truly looking, whereas adults are watching re-runs. All this is necessary from an evolutionary point-of-view, since survival depends on quick data interpretation and reaction--useful for escaping lions, for example.

In The Doors of Perception, (published in 1956), Huxley recounts his personal experience with mescalin and its effect on his senses and thought processes. An interesting springboard into the discussion was Huxley's admission of being quite ordinary in artistic skills, yet wanting to see the world as an artist sees it. Likewise, he wanted to see and feel about the world as would a mystic. Most of the essay described exactly that.


An interesting section, which I expect has been more thoroughly researched by now, discusses adrenochrome, a product of the decomposition of adrenalin. Huxley wrote that adrenochrome "can produce many of the symptoms observed in mescalin intoxication. But adrenochrome probably occurs spontaneously in the human body. In other words, each one of us may be capable of manufacturing a chemical, minute doses of which are known to cause profound changes in consciousness. Certain of these changes are similar to those which occur in that most characteristic plague of the twentieth century, schizophrenia."

Mescalin, it seems, along with chemicals found naturally in the body, can shake up the way the brain normally filters and manipulates data input. Huxley thought it prevented the brain from filtering input from our senses, thereby making everything intense and amazing. The end result was to make other things less important, such as the idea of the individual and our self-importance. If we have a finite capability for 'input', then it stands to reason that turning the valve on the senses will change other aspects of our world view. Huxley coined a term, Mind at Large, which I rather liked--

“Each person is at each moment capable of remembering all that has ever happened to him and of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe. 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. According to such a theory, each one of us is potentially Mind at Large."

In any case, I enjoyed this slim volume as it connects scientific inquiry with what seems to me to be a higher pursuit of our consciousness. The other edge of the sword is that one cannot operate or navigate in this world, outside a lock down mental facility, with other than a brain that functions within certain margins of filtration. While under the influence of mescalin, Huxley lost interest in relationships and all sorts of trivial pursuits necessary to sustain life in society. Seems we are as we need to be, and if one wants to pursue other avenues of consciousness, they'll have to do so within certain limitations.

Sidenote from internet search: "On his deathbed, unable to speak, Huxley made a written request to his wife for "LSD, 100 µg, intramuscular". According to her account of his death, in This Timeless Moment, she obliged with an injection at 11:45 am and another a couple of hours later. He died at 5:21 pm on 22 November 1963, aged 69."

One can't help but wonder what that trip was like.

[Lyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Leonard Gaya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception and its appendix, Heaven and Hell, offer a philosophical exploration into the effects of mind-altering substances, especially the mescaline compound found in the peyote cactus (also present in San Pedro cacti). Through his own mescaline experiments, Huxley explores the furthest frontiers of the mind and investigates the nature of visionary and mystical experience.

At the core of Huxley’s experiential report lies the concept of “Mind at Large” — an increased ability to feel and perceive, compared to which ordinary waking consciousness offers only a fragment of reality. Following Henri Bergson’s model of the brain as a filtering mechanism, Huxley posits that the nervous system functions as a “reducing valve” that limits our perception, allowing only practically useful information to make it through to our consciousness. According to Huxley, certain vision-inducing substances like mescaline and acid (let’s also add other psychedelic drugs like psilocybin and ecstasy), as well as activities like meditation and fasting, can block the inhibitory functions of the brain and provide fleeting glimpses into Mind at Large. In other words, the function of the brain might not be to understand our environment but to filter out all of the less important noise and thoughts. In this sense, consciousness is essentially a subtractive process, not an additive, and Huxley argues that these substances lower the floodgates of our experience to open your senses to everything we are usually unaware of.

Under mescaline, Huxley encountered, in his own words, a “world where everything shone with the Inner Light”, which he equates with the “mystical experience of pure Being”. He explores the “intrinsic significance of every existent”, finding divinity in objects as humble as chair legs and trouser folds. For Huxley, mescaline provides access to the “sacramental vision of reality”, showing “how things really are”. In short, it is a shortcut to a mystical experience. However, Huxley also acknowledges the downsides of prolonged visionary states, disconnecting one from practical concerns and human relations.

Huxley leverages many philosophical and spiritual traditions to contextualise his observations. He references Plato’s theory of forms, the Dharma-Body concept in Buddhism, and Emanuel Swedenborg’s spiritual cosmology, among others. The interdisciplinary synthesis reflects Huxley’s erudition and positions his insights within a complex spiritual lineage.

In Heaven and Hell, Huxley expands his analysis to assess the light and dark extremes of visionary experience and makes fascinating connections between psychedelic experiences and aesthetic judgements, drawing many examples from art’s history. He also catalogues the imagery found across world mythologies — gemstone paradises, the luminous architecture of the New Jerusalem, and brilliant flowers that constitute the “Mind’s antipodes” (see, for instance, the Mystic Rose at the end of the The Divine Comedy). Conversely, he examines disturbing visionary hellscapes, evoking the phantasmagoric worlds of Hieronymus Bosch, Dante’s Inferno, Goya’s Black Paintings and Kafka’s nightmarish stories. For Huxley, darkness and light are two sides of the same visionary coin. Even pleasurable psychedelic trips carry the latent risk of descending into a “negative transfiguration” or “infernal vision” — commonly known as a “bad trip”.

Ultimately, Huxley frames this sort of visionary experience as a “gratuitous grace” — neither necessary nor sufficient for enlightenment, but potentially opening doors to numinous realities beyond ordinary consciousness. As foreshadowed in his novel Brave The New Word with the presence of Soma (a fictional happiness-inducing drug), the author does not shy away from psychedelic utopianism, envisioning a future where chemicals provide controlled access to self-transcendence, guiding humanity towards psychological maturation.

Nearly seventy years after publication, Huxley’s work remains a visionary touchstone in studying consciousness alteration and mysticism. While some physiological hypotheses can feel dated or sketchy, the precision of Huxley’s prose reveals fantastical inner landscapes as vibrantly detailed as any hallucinogenic-induced reverie and guides us towards the farthest shores of Mind at Large.

[KamRun · Rating 2 out of 5]

درباره ی کتاب - ویرایش شد

بسیاری با آلدوس هاکسلی به واسطه کتاب دنیای قشنگ نو آشنا هستند. اما این نویسنده معروف اثر جنجالی دیگری دارد که در ایران ناشناخته است: درهای ادراک دوزخ و برزخ. هاکسلی در بخش اول این کتاب تحت عنوان درهای ادراک، تجربیات خود را از مصرف روانگردان مسکالین شرح داده است. همانطور که از نام کتاب مشخص است، پس از مصرف، جهان برای هاکسلی همان جهان است، اما کیفیت ادراک وی در مواجهه با طبیعت و همچنین صنایع دست انسان، نظیر موسیقی و نقاشی دچار تغییرات وسیعی شده است
توصیفات هاکسلی از شفافیت و درخشش مناظر و نور در این کتاب، با بخشی از توصیفات مربوط به بهشت در مسیحیت و اسلام شباهت زیادی دارد
بخش دوم کتاب، بهشت و دوزخ، علمی و به قدر کافی مستند به نظر نمی رسد.نویسنده در این بخش به تشریح قسمتی از ناخوداگاه انسان که با تجربیات عرفانی و رویابینی ها در ارتباط است می پردازد. وی تجربیات عرفانی عرفا، مرتاض ها، و پیروان ادیان ابراهیمی را معادل رویابینی حاصل از مصرف مسکالین می داند. با اینکه این رویابینی به دلیل بنیان بیوشیمیایی خود یک تجربه ی عرفانی محسوب نمی شود، اما از کیفیتی به مراتب بیشتر از تجربه عرفا برخوردار است. هرچند که هاکسلی در ادامه، تجربه عرفانی و رویابینی مذهبی را هم مردود اعلام کرده و تحت تاثیر عوامل زیست- شیمیایی بدن می داند. به عنوان مثال می گوید ریاضت، روزه، دعاهای طولانی و خودزنی های مذهبی باعث آزاد شدن مواد شیمیایی مختلف در بدن نظیر هیستامین و آدرنالین از یک سو و افزایش دی اکسید کربن در مویرگ های مغزی از سویی دیگر می شود و از این طریق کارایی مغز، به عنوان "سوپاپ کاهش دهنده" مختل شده و درهای ادراک ناخوداگاه برای فرد گشوده می شود
نظریه ارتباط بهشت و دوزخ توضیف شده در ادیان ابراهیمی و رویاهای حاصل از مسکالین جالب و درخور توجه است. در ادیان ابراهیمی، به وجود سنگ های قیمتی، طلا و جواهرات در بهشت اشارات زیادی شده است.به عنوان مثال توصیف اورشلیم آسمانی در مکاشفه یوحنا بدین صورت است:

آنگاه مرا در روح، به كوهي بزرگ بلند برد و شهر مقدس اورشليم را به من نمود كه از آسمان از جانب خدا نازل مي شود و جلال خدا را دارد و نورش مانند جواهر گرانبها، چون يشم بلورين. بناي ديوار آن از يشم بود و شهر از زر خالص چون شيشه مصفي بود و بنياد ديوار شهر به هر نوع جواهر گرانبها مزين بود كه بنياد اول، يشم و دوم، ياقوت كبود و سوم، عقيق سفيد و چهارم، زمرد و پنجم ، جزع عقيقي و ششم، عقيق و هفتم، زبرجد و هشتم، زمرد سِلقي و نهم، طوپاز و دهم، عقيق اخضر و يازدهم، آسمانجوني و دوازدهم، ياقوت بود. و دوازده دروازه، دوازده مرواريد بود، هر دروازه از يک مرواريد و شارع عام شهر، از زر خالص چون شيشه شفاف. و در آن هيچ قدس نديدم زيرا خداوند خداي قادر مطلق و بره قدس آن است و شهر احتياج ندارد كه آفتاب يا ماه آن را روشنايي دهد زيرا كه جلال خدا آن را منور مي سازد و چراغش بره است و امت ها در نورش سالک خواهند بود و پادشاهان جهان، جلال و اكرام خود را به آن خواهند درآورد

در بهشت توصیف شده توسط هاکسلی نیز همه چیز بشدت درخشان اند و رنگ ها شفافیت زیادی دارند. اما چرا باید برای توصیف سرزمینی که پول در آن معنایی ندارد، از این سنگ های گرانبها و نایاب استفاده کرد؟ علت های زیادی برای این موضوع وجود دارد، اما هاکسلی مشخصا به این اشاره می کند که علت، جادوی نور و شفافیت جادویی رنگ و تاثیری است که انسان در رویابینی از ناخوداگاه خویش می گیرد



درباره مسکالین

کاکتوس سن پدرو یا پیوت ، گیاهی خودرو در نواحی بیابانی و کوهستانی آمریکای جنوبی است که خواص روانگردانی دارد. مصرف آن به سه هزار و ششصد سال قبل از میلاد مسیح باز می گردد. بومیان آمریکای جنوبی و سرخپوست ها برای مصارف درمانی و یا آیین های مذهبی و پیشگویی از پیوت به صورت تدخینی و خوراکی(معجون) استفاده می کردند. قوانین قضایی در ارتباط با پیوت در کشورهای مختلف متفاوت است،اما بر اساس طبقه بندی سازمان مبارزه با موادمخدر آمریکا، مسکالین جز مواد مخدر روانگردان کلاس یک (مواد مخدری که در حال حاضر استفاده ی پزشکی نداشته، قابلیت سومصرف زیادی داشته و پتانسیل ایجاد وابستگی شدید روانی یا جسمی دارند) قرار دارد
دوز کشنده ی مسکالین (ال دی پنجاه) 315 میلی گرم بر کیلوگرم وزن است. هرچند گزارش مرگ مستقیم در اثر سومصرف این روانگردان تا کنون نادر است


تجربه ی شخصی من

هاکسلی با مسکالین، بهشت رویایی خویش را تجربه کرد. اما همانگونه که هاکسلی هم هشدار داده، بخشی از مصرف کنندگان مسکالین، به جای بهشت، وارد شاهراه شیزوفرن دوزخی می شوند.وی در این باره می گوید

شیزوفرن، بهشت خود را در کنار برزخ و دوزخ هایش دارد. بیشتر مصرف کنندگان مسکالین تنها بخش آسمانی شیزوفرن را تجربه می کنند. دارو برزخ و دوزخ را فقط برای کسانی که اخیرا مواردی از کج بینی داشته یا دچار افسردگی و اضطراب مزمن بوده اند به همراه می آورد. بنابراین اگر در راه غلط قدم برداری، تمام وقایعی که رخ می دهد، مدرکی از توطئه علیه تو خواهد بود. اگر به سمت پایین جاده دوزخی عازم شوی، هرگز نمی توانی توقف کنی
در یک رویای دوزخی، رویابین با نوری بدون سایه که تهدید آمیز است روبرو شده، سپس وحشت لایتناهی فرا می رسد. مکانیسم هستی بی رحمانه آشکار می شود و تنها چیزی را که به یاد می آورد، گناهان، دردها و تنهایی کیهانی است. جهان تغییر شکل می دهد، اما به بدترین وضعیت ممکن. هرچیز درون آن از ستارگان تا گرد و خاک زیر پایشان به طور غیرقابل توصیفی شوم و منزجز کننده است. هر سوژه ای حضور یک وحشت ساکن بی نهایت قدرتمند ابدی را معنی می کند

تجربه من هم سفری دوزخی بود. دروازه ای که از آن عبور کردم، مطمئنا دروازه بهشت نبود. چیز زیادی از آن چند ساعت را به خاطر نمی آورم. طی چند هفته بعد از مصرف، به صورت آنی چیزهایی از آن شب به خاطرم آمد که همه را مکتوب کردم. این نوشته ها گسسته اند، مانند رویای شان. جزئیات بیشتری به خاطر نمی آورم

افزایش ضربان قلب (168) و فشار خون ( فشار دیاستولی 11، فشار سیستولی 19)، احساس گرگرفتگی، سبکی سر، اختلال دید، گیجی و تهوع (در اثر مشکلات ریوی پیشین) چند دقیقه بعد از مصرف. به تصور خودم،مصرف مسکالین در دقایق ابتدایی تاثیری بر من نداشت. پرسید خوبی؟ متوجه شدم قادر به تکلم نیستم. به صورت بریده بریده بعد از تلاشی نسبتا طولانی به زبانی بیگانه توانستم بگویم خوبم

شروع شد. قلب بیرون از سینه می تپد. در تاریکی شب ، درخشش و شفافیتی عجیب. برگ های درختان در نور چراغ ،ابعاد را نمی بینم، لمس می کنم.
سگ به نزدیکم آمد، مرا بویید و رفت. زن قرمز پوش وحشت زده فرار کرد.گم می شوم، بی هدف به راه می افتم، رفتن، بدون تصمیم گیری. ناخوداگاهم کنترل را بدست گرفته. می خواهد مجازاتم کند؟ درهای جهنم را برایشان باز کرده ام
ترسی الیم، بدون علت. به عمق وجودم رخنه کرده و به هرچیزی که می نگرم سرایت می کد. شخص رداپوشی در تعقیبم است. نه اینکه صرفا حس باشد، از تمام جنبه ها عین واقعیت است. از گوشه چشم می بینم، صدای کشیده شدن کفش هایش روی زمین را می شنوم. به محض اینکه برمی گردم و عقب را نگاه می کنم، ناپدید می شود. دچار بی مکانی و بی زمانی شده ام. ناگهان در آبادان م، زیر نور مشعل های پالایشگاه. دو دقیقه گذشت، ساعت را نگاه می کنم، عقربه های ساعت نشان می دهند که حدودا دو ساعت گذشته است. با سردرگمی تمام چند بار مسیری طولانی را می روم و بازمی گردم
آدم ها را می بینم، صورت ها مثل نقاب، زیر نقاب ها تنها تاریکی. با مردی روبرو می شوم که دهانش لب ندارد. اسکلتی که رویش پوست کشیده اند. صورتک با دهانی بدون لب به طور وحشتناکی خندان به من خیره شده. سعی می کنم از نگاهش فرار کنم، اما راهی نیست. خودم را پشت یکی از عابرین پنهان می کنم و دور می شوم. دندان ها از شدن سرما به هم می خورد. بدنم زیر فشار قرار دارد. توصیف دقیقی از جهنم، فشار دندان بر دندان. می فهمم که سرما نیست که بدن را می لرزاند، خودم هستم. لرزش متوقف می شود و حس سرما و فشار می رود
اکنون با شروع این قطعه موسیقی ، وارد سطح بالاتری از آگاهی می شوم. ترس می رود و جایش را سکون و حزن می گیرد.دیگر من نیستم، فاعل نیستم، تنها یک نظاره گرم. ابدیت بر من مکشوف می شود. تنهایی مان را می بینم، زمینی سترون، وسیع و تاریک.سایه است یا گودال؟نمی توانم تشخصی دهم. اندوه و غم را می بینم (تداخل احساسات و ادراک) . از لای درزها به بیرون می خزند. غم رنگ دارد، نارنجی و سرخ و بنفش. هیچ را می بینم،یک نقطه است، سطح می شود و حالا دارد حجم پیدا می کند.ای هیچ عظیم! بر من ترحم فرما! تطهیرم کن! باید گریست.پر از هیچ، اینچنین. تمام ناراحتی های دنیا را می بینم، هرچه می بینم، هرچه که می شناسیم، حقیقت اندوه، یک کوه یخ است. قسمت بزرگترش آن زیر پنهان شده و هنوز با آن روبرو نشده ایم. دست آویزی نیست، امیدی نیست، رهایی ممکن نیست
به کالبد دیگری می خزم. خودم را با نگاهی جدید می بینم. از چشم هایش می بینم و از دهانش حرف می زنم.از درون او بی رحمانه به خودم حمله می کنم. حیوانی حقیر و به دام افتاده. ظهور این خویشتن مهلک من! رحم نمی کنم، تازیانه کلمات یکی پس از دیگری. تمام منظومه ی شخصیتی ام فرو می ریزد. به گریه می افتم. تنها می مانم و به تابلویی که می چرخد نگاه می کنم. کز می کنم درون خود
به هرچه که نگاه می کنم، قبل از اینکه تصمیم به فکر کردن بگیرم، طوفان ذهنی شروع می شود. ابدیت هرچیزی در همان چیز است،در همان لحظه، همان آن.می بینمش
خودم را می بینم، با قامتی راست. موهایم به سرعت سفید می شود. پیر می شوم. نزدیک تر می روم، این پیر شدن نیست، این سفید شدن مو نیست، دارم از سر می سوزم. تبدیل به یک کبریت بزرگ می شوم، سرم شعله گرفته و دارد به پایین سرایت می کند، خمیده و چروک می شوم، خاکستری رنگ. شعله خاموش می شود. ضربه ای وارد می شود و تبدیل به توده ای خاکستر می شوم.ستونی از نمک
دختری از ماشین پیاده می شود. بندهای کفشش را روی جوراب و قسمتی از پایش گره زده. ترکیب جوراب و بند کفش روی پوست سفیدش تبدیل به یک پنجره می شود. از پنجره به درون نگاه می کنم.پنجره ای به درون زندگی دختر. تمام زندگی دختر را می بینم، شادی و ناراحتی اش، لذت و درد اش، تمام زندگی اش در کسری از ثانیه از جلوی چشم هایم می گذرد
او را می بینم. کوتاه. یک تلائلو. رایحه ی عطری گرم و غریب. دستش را می گیرم، محو می شود.عمیق ترین رویاهای این خویشتن بی خرد. پروازی بی بال از این من درون.اکنون سرزمینم ناپدید گشته و زندگی آزاد شده است

[P.E. · Rating 5 out of 5]

“...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

[Ian "Marvin" Graye · Rating 4 out of 5]

Teenage Kicks

I read this book in the early 70's in my early teenage years.
The first thing about "The Doors of Perception" is that it was the source of the name of the band, "The Doors".
The second is that it shaped the views of many people about drugs for 20 years.
Aldous Huxley came from a scientific as well as a creative background. For me, it gave him some level of credibility when assessing the merits of psychedelic drugs.
Basically, (I think) he argued that the psychedelic experience could open the doors of additional powers of perception, over and above the rational.
I can't remember anything about Heaven and Hell, but in retrospect you could build an argument that drugs opened the door to Hell, just as much as anyone could have argued that they opened the door to Heaven.
No matter what your views about drugs, you have to acknowledge that the drugs of that period are different to today.
In those days, they were probably more natural, but more impure.
Nowadays, they are industrial, concentrated, focussed, powerful, dangerous, unless it suits someone in the supply chain to introduce impurities, in which case they are even more dangerous.
You can't afford to be romantic about some back to nature experience.
Nowadays, you are wrestling with a whole other beast.

[Reading · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

It was a thought-provoking and interesting read, but it felt dated.

[Fernando · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Si las puertas de la percepción quedaran depuradas, el hombre vería las cosas tal cual son: infinitas.”

Esta frase de William Blake, de la cual Jim Morrison, que era un lector realmente excepcional, tomó una parte para llamar a su banda “The Doors”, sirvió, de la misisma manera, para que Aldous Huxley le diera el nombre a este libro que en realidad es un ensayo basado en una experiencia a la que se prestó para anotar sus impresiones y obviamente, percepciones, sobre los efectos de la mescalina, principio activo del peyote, la denominación mexicana del cactus y que fuera utilizado durante mucho tiempo por los indios de México y del sudeste de los Estados Unidos.
Los resultados alucinatorios y de exacerbación de los sentidos son descriptos con vivacidad cuando la mescalina hace efecto en Huxley lo cual por momentos resulta hilarante cuando comienza a distinguir la iridiscencia y vivacidad de todo lo que ve, desde los lomos de los libros de su biblioteca, pasando por los pliegues de sus pantalones, las patas de una silla bañada por el sol y la sombra y especialmente su reacción con al ver las flores. También detalla lo que le produce en su mente, ya disociada de su cuerpo, al escuchar música clásica o mirar cuadros de los más renombrados pintores.
Aunque es un ensayo orientado a lo científico, no podemos dejar de mencionar el costado literario que Huxley le impone a esta experiencia y que asocia a una explicación sobre la utilización de distintas sustancias que involucran, además de la mescalina, al tabaco, el opio, el alcohol, los barbitúricos, la marihuana y varias sustancias más.
Huxley afirma que gustosamente se ofreció como conejito de Indias para realizar esta experiencia y quedó más que conforme con el resultado final. Prueba de esto se corrobora cuando afirma:
“El mundo exterior es aquello a lo que nos despertamos cada mañana de nuestras vidas, es el lugar donde, nos guste o no, tenemos que esforzarnos por vivir. En el mundo interior no hay en cambio ni trabajo ni monotonía. Lo visitamos únicamente en sueños o en la meditación, y su maravilla es tal que nunca encontramos el mismo mundo en dos sucesivas ocasiones. ¿Cómo puede extrañar entonces que los seres humanos, en busca de lo divino, hayan preferido generalmente mirar hacia adentro?”
Este libro sí que es todo un viaje.

[J.L. Sutton · Rating 3 out of 5]

“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.”

[Stian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Men go abroad to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty billows of the sea, the broad tides of rivers, the compass of the ocean, and the circuits of the stars, and pass themselves by.

- St. Augustine, from Confessions

If you are like me, you have some reservations about trying drugs -- even psychedelic ones. I know one of the people that I look up to -- Carl Sagan -- was a fairly regular marijuana smoker. I know Richard Feynman, another one of my 'heroes', tried some drugs, but stopped at some point as he grew afraid of damaging his brain somehow and losing his abilities in mathematics and physics. But the allure is there. Like Ishmael in Moby Dick I have an "everlasting itch for things remote", but for me it's not remote, but rather quite the opposite: it's an itch to explore my own mind. It's an enticing idea, you must admit: to fully delve into your own consciousnes, to see everything everywhere at once without even moving; to feel at peace with everything; quite possibly to feel that you've figured out the riddle that is human existence. I can't help but think that it would be a mistake never to have such an experience during this very short and most likely only experience of consciousness I'll have. Huxley, in his Doors of Perception essay doesn't make it seem like any less of a mistake.

Early in May 1953, Aldous Huxley volunteered to trip on mescaline in the name of science. The Doors of Perception consists, in its first part, of Huxley recounting his experiences on the drug, and in its second, shorter half of an argument for the usage of psychedelic drugs in order to "ooze past the reducing valve of brain and ego, into consciousness."

It's an incredibly fascinating essay. There is in particular one remarkably cool idea brought up, quoting the philosopher C.D. Broad,

"that we should do well to consider much more seriously than we have hitherto been inclined to do the type of theory which [Henri] Bergson put forward in connection with memory and sense perception. The suggestion is that the function of the brain and nervous system and sense organs is in the main eliminative and not productive. Each person is at each moment capable of remembering all that has ever happened to him and of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe. The function of the brain and the 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 very small and special selection which is likely to be practically useful."

As such, the consciousness we experience has gone through a "reducing valve", so that our experience of consciousness does not overwhelm us. However, with drugs, you can let some more consciousness seep through the no longer watertight valve of the brain and nervous system. It is then that there is an "obscure knowledge that All is in all -- that All is actually each." And this is, writes Huxley, just about "as near, I take it, as a finite mind can ever come to "perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe.""

This essay was extremely fascinating. I'll skip writing anything about Heaven and Hell, as, honestly, I found it to be pretty boring. But read The Doors of Perception. It's brilliant.

[Sumati · Rating 4 out of 5]

'There are things known
and there are things unknown
and in between are the doors'; The Doors of Perception.

Why should you read it?

1. If you want to question the mind.
2. If you want an insight into psychedelics. (i.e. if you haven't already tried any form of hallucinogens yet)
3. If you want to know about the 'unknown' and its difference with the 'known'.
4. If you want to know what is the difference between a deranged ( schizophrenic) and a normal brain and what defines a brain, normal and labels a visionary, mad?
5. If you want to read the richness of the text used to describe the philosophical treatment of the mystical experience.
6. If you are a Morrison fan.
7. Lastly, If you want to BREAK ON THROUGH (TO THE OTHER SIDE) ; Please use the DOORS OF PERCEPTION

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

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. A book that will change your perception of perception!

[Jason Koivu · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Dang Ole' Dan Can Dangle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Going into this I had very high hopes, which were somewhat let down. A book about hallucinogenic drugs and altered mind-states written by author of famed science fiction novel Brave New World (which, as of writing, I have yet to read). Being that I have dabbled in the use of psychedelics and studied countless writings on hallucinogens and alteration of mind-states, a topic that greatly fascinates me, not to mention my love for sci-fi, I really expected more from this.

I was deeply disappointed... mostly. Contained within the book are two parts: The Doors of Perception and Heaven & Hell, as the title informs. The Doors of Perception focuses on the author's experience with mescaline. I did not like it.

It comes off as preachy and even pretentious. Pretentious being a word I don't use loosely, seeing as how I feel it is often misused/misinterpreted and wrongly attributed to some truly great artistic and intellectual people. There's not even much psychology in here, and even less science. The author just goes on about there being a correct way of seeing the world and a layman's way. The former only achieved by a special certain few, such as artists or those who achieve said "vision" through drug-use. It's all boring and, to simply put it, fairly stupid.

Psychedelics, or drugs in general for that matter, do not unlock or expand parts of your mind. They merely allow you to look at things in a new, different way. They do not make you any smarter, save for the things learned through the experience of taking them. This is why many great musicians or artists are greatly, even directly, influenced by drugs, because with drugs they see things in a new light that many people never noticed before due to the routine of conventional thinking, which makes their art appear to be fresh and unique. Artistic even.

The second part is basically the same. However, what makes this book worth reading is the forty or so pages at the end of Heaven and Hell, entitled "Appendices". I found these pages to be the best and most fascinating. The author talks about pattern inducing stroboscopic lamps (something I was not very knowledgeable on), potential affects hallucinations had on religions in the past, the affect technology has had on art, and schizophrenia, among other things.

So yes, the appendices are better than the actual book. There wasn't really much in here that I wasn't already aware of, but even with the bulk of it being mediocre with the rest really shining, I can easily recommend this. Especially to those interested in altered mind-states or psychedelics, or even surrealism.

[Carlos De Eguiluz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a happy hippie trip in Huxley's words...

Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) fue uno de los autores de su tiempo que se dedicó a tratar con sustancias psicotrópicas para su estudio psicológico y espiritual. Sus anotaciones, que fueron reconocidas, admiradas y estudiadas, tuvieron éxito; en ellas dilucidaba lo que pensaba que era realmente importante, y alcanzaba en su mente las puertas de la percepción. Este es uno de sus estudios, su primera vez bajo la influencia de la Mescalina —Sustancia alucinógena obtenida a partir de las flores de algunas especies de cactus originarios de México, cuyo consumo provoca cambios en la percepción, en especial visión de colores irreales—.

El origen de su titulo se encuentra en la célebre cita del poeta y pintor William Blake en "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell":

"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite."

Huxley pretendía expandir su mente, alcanzar esas puertas, observar las cosas en su estado más puro, y tal vez, conectar con la infinitud.

La delicadeza con la que Huxley narra cada momento de su "viaje", es divina. Y su habilidad para mantener tu atención y divagar sin realmente hacerlo, ni se diga.

Es la primera vez que un autor casi me convence de rendirme a esta clase de situaciones.

Una joya que no tiene el reconocimiento que merece.

[Erik Graff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Towards the end of his life Aldous Huxley was introduced to psychedelics, still legal at that time. His analyses of the phenomenon are detailed in these two essays here combined in one volume. For further reading about his relationship to such drugs see, of course, the various biographies about Huxley, particularly Huxley in Hollywood, and his wife's collection of essays by and about him and these drugs entitled Moksha. For his use of his experiences in literature see his novel Island.

Though dated, much of what Huxley surmises about the way psychedelics work still corresponds in a general way with contemporary theory and all of what he writes in describing the psychedelic experience is quite well done.

Note that Huxley was legally blind throughout most of his life--a reason for his fascination with his pelucid inner vision?

[Flybyreader · Rating 4 out of 5]

“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.”

On a beautiful day in May, just like today, Huxley embarked upon a journey to the gates of perception in a controlled environment. As part of an experiment on the effects of psychedelic drugs and in an attempt to feel the revelation of the whole universe, he takes mescaline under supervision and his experiences are recorded.
Imagine a philosopher/writer taking drugs to open his “doors of perception”, to see some kind of eternal connection between everything on the universe, well you can be sure he will talk. A lot. A one-time experiment turns into a miraculous voyage by the eloquent author. Just like a small kid, as soon as he takes the mescaline he expects miracles to happen but all he gets is disillusionment as he writes:

“I had expected to lie with my eyes shut, looking at visions of many-coloured geometries, of animated architectures, rich wit gems and fabulously lovely, of landscapes with heroic figures, of symbolic dramas trembling perpetually on the verge of the ultimate revelation.”
Oh, what a drama-queen, hell just wait a second for the drug to kick in!
This is only the beginning, he gets higher on words than drugs I guess. He is so bewildered by the “Mind at Large” (which is like the movie Limitless, when you start to see everything connected), he is both elated and scared:
“The function of the brain and nervous system is to protect us from being overwhelmed and confused by this mass of 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.”
The argument that in order for us to survive and adapt to earth, our brain has given us limited access to observe the universe never gets old. He says: “To make biological survival possible, Mind at Large has to be funneled through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system. What comes out 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.”

However, we want more. We are curious as beings, we want more than this reduced awareness and we create artificial inducers to open up the narrowed tiers of our brains: “The need for frequent chemical vacations from intolerable selfhood and repulsive surroundings will undoubtedly remain.” An escape from self. Yes, that’s why the use of psychedelic drugs goes back as much as the history of mankind. It’s not a brand new concept.

He describes his experience as “interest in space is diminished and interest in time falls almost to zero.” Well the space-time continuum down the drain, there left no worry whatsoever. However, at this state, he says humans become completely disinterested in anything else other than observing, so he cautions by asking: “How could one reconcile this timeless bliss of seeing as one ought to see with the temporal duties of doing what one ought to do and feeling as one ought to feel?”

My only problem with this personal account is that Huxley pretends to be more than he actually is. He is not a psychiatrist, not a doctor, not a medical researcher or chemist but he freely throws claims, hypothesizes and exaggerates his one-time trial of drugs as a reference to generalize his subjective views. It’s a great personal account but should not be taken as an objective reference.

[William Strasse · Rating 5 out of 5]

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...

[Théo d'Or]

- Hi, Mr. Huxley. Sorry to disturb your eternal sleep, but lately I have the feeling that I am a cat, and this affect my some deeply human obligations...You know...
Your book revealed certain similarities to me. Can we talk about it ?

- Ask away, my dear cat. Uhh
... friend.. I'm happy to discuss my experiences with psychedelics and their effects on the human nervous system.

- Well.. I was a bit surprised to read how strongly you emphasize the usefulness of psychedelics. Didn't you worry about their potential harmfulness ?

- Of course I did ! But as a writer and philosopher I felt it was necessary to explore the boundaries of human consciousness and expand our understanding of reality. As I wrote in my book, " there are things known, and there are things unknown. And in between are the doors of perception ". Psychedelics can certainly open those doors, but they are not without their risks.

- Right. And you definitely didn't hold back on describing those risks. You wrote about how it can affect the nervous system, and you even mentioned how it can lead to mental illness..

- Yes, it's true that psychedelics can be harmful if not used responsibly. In fact, I once had a friend who became convinced he was a glass of orange juice, after taking LSD. He spent weeks in a mental hospital !

- Well.... better cat than a glass of...Whatever.. But can't you argue that psychedelics also have some positive long term effects, like increasing creativity and open- mindedness ?

- Absolutely ! When used correctly psychedelics can be a powerful tool for self -discovery and personal growth. But I would never recommend them to someone who's not psychologically stable enough to handle the intense experience..

- Well , it certainly seems like there's a lot to consider when it comes to this term, " correctly ".
But at least, I agree that The Doors of Perception is a fascinating read.

- Glad you found it entertaining, my c... friend. Just remember, the doors of perception are always open, whether or not we choose to explore them. It's up to us to decide how far we want to go.

- Just one more question, Mr. Huxley... Why did you die ?

- I'd have liked to die out of emotion, my cat... Uhh... I meant friend...Unfortunately, it was something much more.. ordinary.

[Frona · Rating 3 out of 5]

Based on his own experience with mescalin, Huxley informs us about the true nature of reality, that is, the sheer scope of it. He doesn't stop at great works of art, shizophrenia or religion, but freely connects his intake of this drug to an ambitious bundle of themes in order to supplement them all and to prescribe some more of the same, or at least similar, medicine. Drugs and transcendence/life in general had always have much in common, but his way of preaching is exactly like what his drug encounter warns him against.

The description of his adventure would be much more revealing, if it hadn't elevate into a lecture about two ancient categories of being, one experienced through our everyday life, where language represents a barrier between us and the world, and the other one of true essence that can be reached only through some transcendental activity such as taking drugs. Although his expedition to the sphere of pure perception shows him the limitations of words and all of our classifications, it seems he identifies his trip with as many concepts and theories as he possibly can. He makes a paradigm of pure being out of it, which selfless as it is, is based on one sole experiment of his humble self. Little is left of this experiment but widespread doctrines, which just fit too neatly. I wonder how much previous knowledge affected his experience or how much posterior interpretations transversed it and I got the feeling he didn't quite catch its uniqness, or as he would said, suchness.

Or perhaps it was just his forceful implications I have troubles with. When he doesn't generalize, he does his best; his charachterisation of draperies in the baroque paintings is just beautiful.

[Toby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Doors of Perception is a deeply interesting short essay by the famous author Aldous Huxley. In 1953 he was involved in a controlled experiment into the psychological effects of the drug mescalin.
What he describes is less a mere hallucinatory experience and more an opening of his ability to percieve, and to see himself as part of the Oneness of the universe. He argues (quite correctly) that a massive part of the function of the brain is to selectively discard sensory input, keeping only what is important in the here and now and relates to our immediate survival ability. The effect of mescalin, as also felt through sensory deprivation, oxygen starvation, hypnosis, and other sources, is to bypass the "brain valve" and receive more of the "useless information". And it is through that that we can perceive ourselves as we truly are, part of the All.

In Heaven and Hell, the follow up essay to Doors of Perception, Aldous Huxley revisits the topic of visions in the context of the social and spiritual import of these experiences. Through the essay (which is a considerably tougher read than Doors of Perception) Huxley discusses the history of vision-creating stimulus and how as time has progressed we have become desensitised to a lot of the vision-inspiring beauty that was used to such great extent in the religions of the past.

[Майя Ставитская · Rating 4 out of 5]

What you wanted to know about the "Doors of Perception", but were too shy to ask:
1. Yes, it's about the drug.
2. Yes, in contrast to the absolute majority of authors, Huxley did not consider lysergic acid derivatives evil.
3. Yes, Jim Morrison named his band "The Doors", inspired by this essay. (although his fate serves more as an anti-advertisement).

So, the book has three undoubted advantages: 1 It was written by a genius; 2. It is wonderfully translated by Maxim Nemtsov, who has a little more haters than fans, but I am among the second; 3. The audio version is perfectly read by Igor Knyazev, in whose performance I listen to everything. The book has one, but the fundamental flaw is the apology of a narcotic substance.

An adept of experiments on the expansion of consciousness through LSD, Aldous Huxley made considerable efforts to popularize it. I must say that in his own life he is. a person who was physically very unhealthy found great solace in preparations based on lysergic acid, in which he partly saw the embodiment of the soma predicted by himself in the "Brave New World". He also passed away under the influence of an intramuscular injection of 400 micrograms of this substance, which helped to avoid excruciating agony.

The problem is that the writer fell into the trap of extrapolation, from Russian to understandable - others are not judged by themselves. His own psyche, prepared by serious concentration exercises and meditation, unique intelligence, level of responsibility, tendency to aggression differ significantly from the same parameters of another person. The fact that for a Buddhist, an intellectual, who also went through a difficult experience of disability, which he managed to overcome thanks to self-discipline - that for him an interesting cognitive experience of escapism, then another will finally crack an already weak psyche and can serve as an impetus to very unpleasant complications.

In general, an interesting and informative experience of visionary, combined with deep discussions about the nature of man, about the possible structure of the world, about ways to overcome the problems facing the human race.

Под небом голубым есть Город Золотой
А что, если наша Земля - ад какой-то другой планеты?
То, что вы хотели знать о "Дверях восприятия", но стеснялись спросить:
1. Да, это о наркотике.
2. Да, в противоположность абсолютному большинству авторов, Хаксли не считал производные лизергиновой кислоты злом.
3. Да, Джим Моррисон назвал свою группу "The Doors", вдохновившись именно этим эссе. (хотя его судьба служит скорее антирекламой).

Итак, у книги три несомненных достоинства: 1 Она написана гением; 2. Она замечательно переведена Максимом Немцовым, у которого ненавистников чуть больше, чем поклонников, но я из числа вторых; 3. Аудиоверсия превосходно прочитана Игорем Князевым, в чьем исполнении слушаю все. У книги один, но основополагающий недостаток - это апология наркотического вещества.

Адепт опытов по расширению сознания посредством ЛСД, Олдос Хаксли приложил значительные усилия к его популяризации. Надо сказать, что в собственной жизни он. человек физически очень нездоровый, находил большое утешение в препаратах на основе лизергиновой кислоты, в которой отчасти видел воплощение предсказанной им самим в "Дивном новом мире" сомы. Он и из жизни ушел под воздействием внутримышечного укола 400 мкг этого вещества, который помог избежать мучительной агонии.

Проблема в том, что писатель попал в ловушку экстраполяции, с русского на понятный - по себе других не судят. Его собственная, подготовленная серьезными упражнениями на концентрацию и медитацией психика, уникальный интеллект, уровень ответственности, склонность к агрессии существенно отличаются от тех же параметров другого человека. То, что для буддиста, интеллектуала, к тому же прошедшего через тяжелый опыт инвалидности, которую сумел преодолеть, благодаря самодисциплине - что для него интересный познавательный опыт эскапизма, то другому окончательно взломает без того некрепкую психику и может послужить толчком к очень неприятным осложнениям.

В целом интересный и познавательный опыт визионерства, соединенный с глубокими рассуждениями о природе человека, о возможном строении мира, о путях преодоления проблем, стоящих перед человеческой расой.
Во вселенной есть только один уголок, который ты можешь уверенно взять в кандидаты на улучшение, это ты сам...

[André · Rating 5 out of 5]

"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

[Liepa · Rating 3 out of 5]

,,Mažai tikėtina, kad žmonija kada nors pajėgs verstis be Dirbtinių Rojų. Daugumos žmonių gyvenimai blogiausiu atveju teikia tiek daug skausmo, o geriausiu- yra tokie monotoniški, skurdūs bei riboti, kad postūmis pabėgti, ilgesys išeiti iš savęs bent kelioms akimirkoms visada buvo vienas pagrindinių sielos troškimų."

Labai intrigavo, tačiau skaitėsi ganėtinai sunkiai.  "Suvokimo duryse"  autorius aprašo savo patirtį pavartojus kvaituliniame pejotlyje esančio meskalino, o kita esė "Dangus ir pragaras" yra tęsinys. Surinkta ir apibendrinta nemažai medžiagos, Naujųjų pasaulių paieškos mene, gamtoje. Paanalizuota, kaip stipriai žmogui reikia nušvitimo, savo pasąmonės atradimo ir aptarti metodai, nuo visai nekaltų, pvz kvėpavimas, meditacija,iki psichotropinių medžiagų, kaip tą pasiekti.
Skaičiau dėl įdomumo, mano požiūrio į kvaišalus, kad ir lengvuosius, ši apybraiža nepakeitė ir noro patirti tą patį, ką autorius, nesukėlė. Juolab, kad jis pats pripažįsta, kad tam tikrais atvejais tai, kas turėtų sukelti rojų, nuveda į pragarą, tai būtų streso būsena, kepenų pažeidimai ir t.t., plius ir dar neištirti veiksniai, tad rizikuoti neverta.

[Andreea Toader · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5 ⭐️

[Reading · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Wanda Pedersen · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.