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The Doors of Perception/Heaven and Hell

Aldous Huxley

3.91 · Rating details · 39,584 ratings · 1,353 reviews

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 t

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Published September 29th 2009 by HarperCollins Publishers (first published 1956)

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Jul 12, 2008 Keith rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: pop-culture, spirituality, modern-literature, psychology, x-one-dollar, _destroyed

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 a 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. ...more

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Apr 07, 2013 Sam Quixote rated it did not like it · review of another edition

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 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! ...more

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Mar 07, 2014 Sumati rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Who want to break on through ( to the other side).

Recommended to Sumati by: Motivated to read by Jim Morrison

Shelves: almost-favorite, thought-provoking-mind-blowing, philosophy, avant-garde

'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 labe ...more

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Jul 19, 2015 Stian rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: owned-books, philosophy-and-religion, 2015

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. ...more

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Feb 24, 2011 Ian "Marvin" Graye rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: reviews

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 ...more

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Apr 06, 2008 Erik Graff rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: all interested in psychedelics or in Huxley

Recommended to Erik by: John O'Reilly

Shelves: psychology

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 dat ...more

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Jun 30, 2008 Toby rated it really liked it · review of another edition

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 ...more

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May 18, 2020 Gizem-in-Wonderland rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir

“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 “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. ...more

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Nov 02, 2016 Frona rated it liked it · review of another edition

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 e ...more

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Aug 01, 2016 Lostaccount rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: brilliance

Aldous Huxley munches on some Mescaline (four tenths of a gram, means nothing to me as a clean living soul) as a guinea pig, experimenting for a friend. He expects some kind of visionary experience, a la Blake, but as he admits, he is a “poor visualiser” and experiences less than the visions described and painted by artists, because gifted artists, according to him, have a “little pipeline to the Mind At Large which by-passes the brain valve and the ego-filter”. Unlike gifted artists, “by an eff Aldous Huxley munches on some Mescaline (four tenths of a gram, means nothing to me as a clean living soul) as a guinea pig, experimenting for a friend. He expects some kind of visionary experience, a la Blake, but as he admits, he is a “poor visualiser” and experiences less than the visions described and painted by artists, because gifted artists, according to him, have a “little pipeline to the Mind At Large which by-passes the brain valve and the ego-filter”. Unlike gifted artists, “by an effort of will I can evoke a not very vivid image” says Huxley.

What he sees are some golden lights, the intricacies of design in nature, trips out on the “Allness” and Infinity of folded cloth in his trousers (haha), is struck by lively dissonance of colours, experiences the “is-ness” of things, the Istigkeit, the “infinite value and meaningfulness of existence”, things quivering under the pressure of the significance with which they are charged, sees simple things charged with meaning and mystery of existence etc. etc., and comes to conclusion that brain is eliminative, not productive, filtering out what we don’t need in order to survive, protecting us from being overwhelmed and confused, or going insane, since we know all, remember all, about everything, everywhere in the universe. This is the finite mind, the “Mind at large".

Huxley discusses the idea that we all crave the release from Reality ("the urge to transcend is a principal appetite of the soul"), through some kind of soma/drug, to reach these (what he calls) “antipodes” of the mind, the universal and ever-present urge for self-transcendence, (Wells) the door in the wall, the need for (chemical) vacations from intolerable selfhood. He later discusses how we achieve this through religious ceremony, drug taking, etc.

In second part he discusses in more detail these antipodes of the mind, claiming that we dream in black and white, which is not true (may be true for Huxley, the “poor visualiser”), and the scintillating things we create to bring us the visionary experience, like vivid paintings, fireworks, lights, even theatre lights and costume jewellery (bit of a stretch!), and the resplendence of royal ceremonial dress (another bit of a stretch!), etc. etc. things which give us a reminder of those things we see in that “other world”, “whatever in nature or a work of art resembles one of those intensely significant inwardly flowing objects encountered at the mind’s antipodes is capable of inducing if only in partial attenuated form, the visionary experience”. He uses this to explain our “inexplicable passion” for gems, shiny objects, jewellery, vivid colours in painting, stained glass windows, glass, chrome, “the beauty of curved reflections and softly lustrous glazes” etc., things that transport the beholder, as a reminder of preternatural colours and intensity of the "other world".

He bangs on about this for page after page, but where the book gets good is where he starts discussing the numinous quality of certain works of art, like landscape painting as a vision inducing art form, the distances and propinquity in same, things isolated from their utilitarian context, medieval art, renaissance art, things seen and rendered as living jewels, things of visionary intensity, transfigured and therefore transporting.

Later he discusses schizophrenics as negative visionaries – “for a healthy person perception of the infinite in a finite particular is a revelation of divine immanence”, not so for the mentally ill. They are transfigured by their visions, but for the worse.

He also discusses religious punishments, self-flagellation, hypnosis, fasting, vitamin deficiencies, Mortification of the body etc., as a means of reaching those antipodes of the mind by increasing the CO2 to lower efficiency of the brain as a reducing valve and permit the entry into that “other world”, to experience the visionary or mystical from “out there”, also including things like prolonged shouting, praying, chanting, etc. to experience the “intense significance of things that give us God’s immanence”, because, in a nutshell, the brain is “chemically controlled and therefore can be made permeable to the superfluous aspects of mind at large by modifying the normal chemistry of the body”.

An important little book that warrants re-reading.
...more

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Apr 17, 2012 Dang Ole' Dan Can Dangle rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Those interested in altered mind-states and psychedelics

Shelves: philosophy, non-fiction

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.. 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.

...more

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Sep 17, 2016 Ned rated it really liked it · review of another edition

My first from Huxley and I imagine he represents the best of what a liberal education used to teach, a broad and deep knowledge of the humanities, art and psychology. His knowledge and visceral love of art is astonishing and made me long for all the greatness I never have known. Consequently I learned a great deal. His main thesis is that the our consciousness is absolutely stifled by the narrow window through which we learn, created by our educational system and the reductionist thinking of mod My first from Huxley and I imagine he represents the best of what a liberal education used to teach, a broad and deep knowledge of the humanities, art and psychology. His knowledge and visceral love of art is astonishing and made me long for all the greatness I never have known. Consequently I learned a great deal. His main thesis is that the our consciousness is absolutely stifled by the narrow window through which we learn, created by our educational system and the reductionist thinking of modern science. To get beyond this narrowness (the portal), he studied the ancient practices of native Americans (and others) of using hallucinogens. Huxley details his experiences after consuming peyote, and comes up with rather startling observations, primarily through the enhancement of “seeing” without preconceptions (or abstract reasoning, as we normally comprehend visual perceptions, constricted by words and ideas). He experiences people and man-made objects suddenly as ludicrous and grossly insensitive creations that pale compared to the “true” essence of matter, objects, animals and the world. Fascinating stuff. A hero for Huxley is William Blake, one of the few who naturally achieve this, almost as religiously inspired. Theology, and the conception of god is enhanced, and he comments on the purity of ascetics and mystics, who achieve “chemically induced” perception through practice and various physiological techniques to obliterate comfort and conformity.

This is one of those books that I found largely happenstance: (1) I’ve always liked the band (The Doors) who took their name from this book; (2) it was staring me down in an airport; (3) I was aware of “Brave New World”, his most popular book; and (4) a general interest in hallucinogens and how I might personally achieve transcendence.

The writing was uneven, repetitive, even rambling. But the genius shines through and the educational aspect was immense. A truly “enlightening” experience, I recommend this. He’s written broadly on many topics, and I know little about the man. It is not even clear his country or nationality, so I’ll be looking into that as well.
...more

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Dec 02, 2013 Kristiana rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Woah. First time reading anything like this.
It makes a lot of sense for the most part,
although the part where he says we like
shiny things because they take us to ''The Other World''
is a bit ''meh, no.'' it most certainly
makes you see the whole thing from a very
different angle. It also made me want to try
psychedelics even more and Mescalin is now
on my Drugs-To-Take list. I will have to re-read
it though. ...more

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Mar 23, 2017 Ammar rated it liked it · review of another edition

This book consists of two essays by Aldous Huxley.

Short philosophical essays. The main one is Huxley's description about his Mescaline trip and his reaction to various forms of pictures paintings while he is on Peyote.

Interesting counterculture book that I can see the aspect of why it was a popular book in the 1960s. ...more

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Jan 09, 2020 Matthew rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 20th-century, lit-british, non-fiction, essays, read-2020

This is the most interesting thing I've read in a while. I'll split this review into two parts. The Doors of Perception gets about 6 stars and Heaven and Hell gets 4/5, so I'll round it up to five in total.

So, 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 whol ...more

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Jul 01, 2016 Phoenix Rises rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy, sociology-and-psychology

A terrific book about perceiving things as they actually are: Kant's noumena, the thing in itself. The book is a fascinating treatise on raw perception, on an experience of seeing things in real time. The question is, can we handle understanding what is happening around us all at once in its entirety? Huxley compared the taking of the drug mescaline to the experience of schizophrenia: whereas the drug fades and you are no longer bombarded with perceiving all of existence, the schizophrenic perce ...more

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Jan 12, 2009 Pete daPixie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Open the doors, step inside and float downstream. The philosophy of chemical nirvana through mescalin and LSD.

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Jul 06, 2014 Ci rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: how-to-books, re-read-books

*** Re-read September 2016
Audio version, less structured notes.
How to experience the "other", the lives of others such as great artists and writers? Interestingly, Huxley did not have a visualization talent. Is that mental world "a poor thing"? With Mescalin, he was able to see the "being" -- the is-ness -- of flowers and things around him.

**** Notes from July 2014
This book contains Doors of Perception, which is by far the most important and best-written one among this slim collection. Heave ...more

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Dec 22, 2018 Michael Kress rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 1950s

This book narrates one of Aldous Huxley's mescaline trips. Taking this drug allows his consciousness to walk through "doors" and perceive things in a different way. When he comes back through the doors, he is enlightened and changed forever. The subject material of this book is similar to much of the Zen literature that I've been reading lately. A problem with Eastern thought is that you can understand "oneness" intellectually but still feel isolated. Huxley claims that mescaline can help the su ...more

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Nov 29, 2020 Julian Worker rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The Doors of Perception takes its title from a William Blake poem and is a classic of its kind. My version of the book also included Heaven and Hell as well as an essay on the reasons why people take intoxicants of all kinds. Reading all this information, it seems to me that mescaline is non-addictive and an alternative to both drugs and alcohol with none of the side effects. Mescaline can be created synthetically so why don't more people use it to investigate their inner minds and unconscious a ...more

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Nov 09, 2017 Ashish rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I am a big fan of Huxley, and "Brave New World" (along with the follow-up "Brave New World Revisited") is one of my favourite books in the dystopian genre and overall too. Among his lesser known works are his non-fiction writings where he explores the mind.

I came across this book when I read that the world-renowned band "The Doors" named themselves as a homage to this book by Huxley. The description seemed interesting enough for me to give it a shot and it was a good experience.

A believer in th I am a big fan of Huxley, and "Brave New World" (along with the follow-up "Brave New World Revisited") is one of my favourite books in the dystopian genre and overall too. Among his lesser known works are his non-fiction writings where he explores the mind.

I came across this book when I read that the world-renowned band "The Doors" named themselves as a homage to this book by Huxley. The description seemed interesting enough for me to give it a shot and it was a good experience.

A believer in the use of mind-altering chemicals (colloquially called "drugs") as a means to widen the mind (not literally), Huxley argues that the only way for the human mind to achieve its true potential is by seeing things above and beyond what we normally perceive. The book follows what he goes through after he experiments with a dose of mescaline, a stimulant that is well-known and has been widely-used since a very long by the Native Americans who extract it from a cactus.

In doing so, he touches upon a number of topics: religion, mysticism and history as he tries to decode how the human mind acts while "tripping". He used the brain on mescaline to describe spiritualism and epiphany, to explain trance and the religious high as he bats for the use of such products as a way for humans to think beyond the preconceived notions of ideas and conduct, and approach life through the perspective of a person high. He argues towards the benefits and relative safety compared to alcohol and tobacco, the ability of it to affect human behaviour positively and delves into the approach that religions have towards the kind of feeling that it gives.

I usually do not care much for the spiritual and mystical, but the approach of the book is interesting. A lot of arguments are what marijuana legalization activists give for its more open and free use. Since the book is quite dated, some of the science seems speculative and has been improved upon. However, it doesn't take away from what was radical thought and forward thinking for his time. All the arguments that the author pushes are geared towards the benefits of humanity and the improvement of the human race via the use of wider thought and open dialogue, something that we definitely could use in the present times. ...more

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May 28, 2018 Mehrsa rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Huxley goes on an acid trip and validates buddhist conceptions of ego. I read this because Michael Pollan kept citing to it in his new book about psychadelics. This is really well-written and fascinating. Well worth the read.

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Mar 24, 2017 Faye rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed, non-fiction, i-own-a-physical-copy

This book contained two essays Huxley wrote about the experience of taking Mescalin (LSD) and his journey to understand his inner self. I only read the first essay The Doors of Perception and to be honest I found it to be pretty boring. Huxley talks about watching flowers in a vase for hours, or studying old paintings in a new light. He does however make a few interesting concluding remarks, including my favourite quote from the essay: "Systematic reasoning is something we could not, as a specie ...more

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Jul 15, 2015 Adam rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 1900-1969, essays-essay-collections

I liked this much more when I read it a few years ago. But I am a different person now, though not different enough to not still think Huxley's writing w/r/t the infamous Chair is, alone, worth the price of admission.

The truth is that this essay is neither *woah mindblowing maan* nor stupid drug-addled drivel. Both positions reflect, I think, biases brought to the reading of the essays.

The latter species of reactionary dismisses without much consideration the possibility that certain chemical I liked this much more when I read it a few years ago. But I am a different person now, though not different enough to not still think Huxley's writing w/r/t the infamous Chair is, alone, worth the price of admission.

The truth is that this essay is neither *woah mindblowing maan* nor stupid drug-addled drivel. Both positions reflect, I think, biases brought to the reading of the essays.

The latter species of reactionary dismisses without much consideration the possibility that certain chemical substances might be useful and even important (one reviewer here compares the experience of reading Huxley's sober account of his experience with mescaline to the experience of being sober in a car full of drunks. One small problem: mescaline is not alcohol. Another problem with this general account of things, which usually makes the "lol he's chemically altered he's lost touch with reality" appeal, is that it fails to take account of how we are all a bundle of chemicals constantly being altered by our experience of the world, the food we eat, the air we breathe, the exercise we get or don't, etc. etc., and that the experiences possible through drugs are often possible without drugs and that individuals can experience reality in very, very different ways without being insane and without losing touch of some common ground on which to communicate... [I mean, as a depressive who until a couple of years ago spent much of his life mired in deep, dark, anhedonic unipolar MDD, I can assure you that the depressed person's experience of reality is absolutely and unequivocally not the not-depressed person's experience of reality]).

The former species of reactionary probably read on some website that members of the Native American Church take peyote, and somehow believes it logical to transition from that assertion to the conclusion that mescaline has some inherent profundity. This type of person reads The Doors of Perception and goes: "right on, man." Probably.

Huxley's actually not representative of either of these species, which unfortunately tend to dominate the discussion on synthetic, semi-synthetic, or naturally occurring substances in relation to the human brain. The reason why Huxley is not a member of the *woah maan* club is that he is primarily writing about potentialities and not about certainties. That's not to say he doesn't get a lot wrong and that there aren't problems with his argument in these essays. I would not present Huxley to anyone as a particularly good philosopher. I should also note that my present reading of Huxley's position probably has to do with my just having read his The Perennial Philosophy, which outlines his position on mysticism.

Huxley has a point and he has a case. Sharp prose and a dry sense of humour give the essays a bit of an edge over most things of this kind, and Huxley's Oxford education and mid-20th-century-Englishmanness make the thing quite dramatically unlike most similar things in the drug-lit canon. Most similar? Maybe DeQuincey, except DeQuincey's just way more interesting [despite writing on a seemingly less interesting drug] and has a much more sophisticated account of what constitutes (at least) reality-for-the-individual attained through sensory and perceptive and cognitive faculties. His position on altered states of consciousness also appears to be quite different than Huxley's. But that is something not to be commented on at just this moment. ...more

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Mar 27, 2015 kaelan rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: new-age-spirituality-occult, essays

If hallucinogens have any utility, then at least some of it surely stems from their capacity to shake up our belief systems, to present reality in a strange, new way—in short, to unlock the doors of our perception. Yet if this is so, why do so many hallucinogenically-minded writers (see: Huxley, Castaneda, et. al.) attempt to force the psychedelic experience through the narrow categories of "truth" and "certainty"?

The Doors of Perception is admittedly one of the better works in the drug-lit cano If hallucinogens have any utility, then at least some of it surely stems from their capacity to shake up our belief systems, to present reality in a strange, new way—in short, to unlock the doors of our perception. Yet if this is so, why do so many hallucinogenically-minded writers (see: Huxley, Castaneda, et. al.) attempt to force the psychedelic experience through the narrow categories of "truth" and "certainty"?

The Doors of Perception is admittedly one of the better works in the drug-lit canon. But even still, Huxley often falls back on the familiar "two worlds" trope. As he explains it, psychotropic vehicles like mescalin and LSD grant us access to "the other world," they transport us to "the antipodes of the mind." And just like the ordinary world in which we typically spend our days, this drug-induced realm comes complete with its own set of intrinsic principles, along with its own standard of "truth."

Hence, Huxley writes:

Every mescalin experience, every vision arising under hypnosis, is unique; but all recognizably belong to the same species. The landscapes, the architectures, the clustering gems, the brilliant and intricate patterns—these, in their atmosphere of preternatural light, preternatural color and preternatural significance, are the stuff of which the mind's antipodes are made.

This isn't problematic in itself. But Huxley also takes an almost Platonic stance regarding the ordinary and alternate worlds, with the first construed as a muted, pragmatic shadow of the second. As a result, he is led (in one lengthy section) to condemn all art as essentially a failure. Paul Cézanne, William Blake, Alban Berg—despite the awesome talent of these artists, they necessarily fall short of expressing the mystic sheen of pure being, the all-encompassing "is-ness" of "the Mind at Large."

If you think about it hard enough, reality turns out to be a pretty weird thing. And as Huxley (successfully) argues, hallucinogenics offer us one way of unlocking its inherent strangeness. In one especially sage passage, he notes that the most profound effects of mescaline were (for him) objective in nature:

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.

Yet when presented with conflicting views of reality, we can respond in one of two ways. First, we can accept that both—or neither—has a claim to "the truth." This is the way of agnosticism. Or second, we could believe that the strange, new one supersedes the old. Such is the way of dogma. For all his insight and erudition, Huxley takes the second path. ...more

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Feb 21, 2019 Laura Noggle rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, 2019, psychology-philosophy

“Familiarity breeds indifference.”

Underwhelming after Michael Pollan’s scientific approach to the same subject.

Pollan quoted this book multiple times in “How to Change Your Mind” — amping my excitement to read it, but my expectations were too high ... (heh).

This book is akin to being the sober man out, while your friend is having the time of their life.

Entertaining at points, but also kind of a rant.

Full review to come.

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Dec 12, 2007 Johnny rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy

i give doors of perception 3 stars, and heaven and hell 1. overall, there was just not much interesting material in these books. i found two ideas in "the doors" that were interesting to me.

first, the idea that the primary function of the brain is as a filter, to reduce the massive amount of incoming information that comes into a smaller set that is useful for survival and propagation. in itself, this is not much, but the implications as to what that unfiltered set looks like, is. this does not i give doors of perception 3 stars, and heaven and hell 1. overall, there was just not much interesting material in these books. i found two ideas in "the doors" that were interesting to me.

first, the idea that the primary function of the brain is as a filter, to reduce the massive amount of incoming information that comes into a smaller set that is useful for survival and propagation. in itself, this is not much, but the implications as to what that unfiltered set looks like, is. this does not mean that the data coming in from the five senses is filtered down. it means that the five senses also serve as part of the filtering mechanism, and the original source is the universe itself. this is quite agreeable to me - the bottom-up approach to consciousness taken by most western scientists is full of holes. (in western metaphysics, there seem to be two major categories of theories on this - the first agrees with that of western scientists, and the second posits a dualism, where the soul is somehow more-or-less completely separate from the physical body, but still informs conscious process. this position is, in my opinion, even more untenable than the materialist one - it is directly evident from our experience of the universe that everything is connected, and the idea of two separate but somehow-interacting universes is silly.)

the second thing that turned me on in "the doors" was his description of tripping not as a vivid hallucinogenic experience, but as an exposure the the raw, true, nature of reality - that essentially, our survival filters fail to function. this is the most sympathetic description of tripping that i have ever heard - it matches my experience to a tee. most people who describe tripping either talk about wild hallucinogenic, or imagined, experiences, which never really happened to me at all, or they talk about the experience of one-ness with the universe in terms that are more or less opaque and seemingly ingenuine. bill hicks is a prime exception here, but his trippping story basically boils down to a single run-on sentence that he used to close his shows.

both of these texts extremely annoyingly lacking in any visible structure - just one paragraph after the other, with no exposition of a thesis or anything like that. as if the thoughts that were running through this guys mind were enough, as is, to spark great insight into his readers. sorry aldous, just not there. "the doors" goes on for 70 pages without section or subsection, without a single "***" or "*****" between two paragraphs, and exactly one instance of a single blank line between two paragraphs. just awful! heaven and hell is more or less the same.

maybe i should be more interested in art, but both these texts read more as poor art criticism than anything else.

the idea that psychedelics function by cutting off oxygen to the brain seems incredibly silly and quaint here in 2007. the psychedelic experience is *not* on the order of sniffing glue or hyperventilating until we pass out. there is obviously something more going on here.

anything else? i flipped through most of the pages in heaven and hell. actually reading it would have been a big waste of my time. ...more

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Feb 20, 2021 Namista rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: biography, non-fiction

Aldous Huxley talks about his experiences under the influence of mescalin & lysergic acid. He walks past the door of reality into something more profound which, he insists, is something everyone should experience to lead a more elevated life. He talks about istigkeit - nothing is good or bad, it just is. And he talks about exploring the worlds that exist in our own, and the collective, unconscious. They are islands just waiting to be explored, doorways waiting to be opened if only one had the ke ...more

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Sep 25, 2013 Jessie rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2014, science-fiction

"The urge to escape from selfhood and the environment is in almost everyone almost all the time." Sad but somewhat undeniably true. There are so many forms of escape that people try to utilise in order to "cope" with their mundane lifestyles. I've never quite understood it myself, and I've never quite understood the need to turn to narcotics in order to feel satisfied. Even now, after having read Huxley's account of his time as a spontaneous Mescaline user, I feel no closer to understanding.

It a "The urge to escape from selfhood and the environment is in almost everyone almost all the time." Sad but somewhat undeniably true. There are so many forms of escape that people try to utilise in order to "cope" with their mundane lifestyles. I've never quite understood it myself, and I've never quite understood the need to turn to narcotics in order to feel satisfied. Even now, after having read Huxley's account of his time as a spontaneous Mescaline user, I feel no closer to understanding.

It appears to me that the most that can come out of this experience is that you become an unexpected fabric connoisseur. Seriously, Huxley was obsessed with material, both in solid and imaginary form. Apparently taking Mescaline will turn the creases into your trousers the next best thing to meeting your favourite religious deity. Other then that, all colourful objects seem to shine with an inner light and everything turns into a connection to everything else. Actually, that was my favourite thing about his account, how he described the connectivity, the oneness with every object. It would be like experiencing the ultimate form of transcendence. A surreal form of universal clarity.

That's all I gathered from The Doors of Perception, now on to Heaven and Hell............I got nothing. I kind of got sick of the long windedness after the first essay. Colours are our closest depiction of "the other world". There you go, that's what I remember. He just started waffling, so I just started skimming and then I'm sure the author and I had this weird, virtual, frustrated argument about whatever it was that he meant, then I was suddenly on the last page and I put it down. I feel slightly guilty, but I just couldn't push through. And don't get me wrong, there were some real gold mines of philosophical discussion in there which will make excellent talking points, just not with Huxley. Never with him. If he were to ever rise from his grave and choose me to talk through his experience, I would punch him in the shnozz.

It is worth a read though, despite my griping. And if you can handle his style then you may be able to gain a much more invaluable insight then I did. I will read a few more of his essays, but I think I will forever appreciate his novels much more. ...more

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May 11, 2019 Robert Day rated it liked it · review of another edition

Finished it all in a rush and was glad to rid. Much of this is speculation about the meaning of art rather than the description of transcendental experience that I had hoped for.
Some flashes of brilliance, but too rare to be of lasting effect.

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About Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley

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Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. He spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death in 1963. Best known for his novels and wide-ranging output of essays, he also published short stories, poetry, travel writing, and film stories and scripts. Through his novels and es ...more

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Brave New World / Brave New World Revisited

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Pulitzer Prize–winning literary critic Michiko Kakutani, the former chief book critic of The New York Times, is the author of the newly...

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“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. Most island universes are sufficiently like one another to Permit of inferential understanding or even of mutual empathy or "feeling into." Thus, remembering our own bereavements and humiliations, we can condole with others in analogous circumstances, can put ourselves (always, of course, in a slightly Pickwickian sense) in their places. But in certain cases communication between universes is incomplete or even nonexistent. The mind is its own place, and the Places inhabited by the insane and the exceptionally gifted are so different from the places where ordinary men and women live, that there is little or no common ground of memory to serve as a basis for understanding or fellow feeling. Words are uttered, but fail to enlighten. The things and events to which the symbols refer belong to mutually exclusive realms of experience.” — 148 likes

“The course of every intellectual, if he pursues his journey long and unflinchingly enough, ends in the obvious, from which the non-intellectuals have never stirred.” — 88 likes

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