The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell (Perennial Classics)

by Aldous Huxley

Paperback, 192 pages

English language

Published May 4, 2004 by Harper Perennial Modern Classics.

ISBN:: 978-0-06-059518-0

(41 reviews)

The Doors of Perception is an autobiographical book written by Aldous Huxley. Published in 1954, it elaborates on his psychedelic experience under the influence of mescaline in May 1953. Huxley recalls the insights he experienced, ranging from the "purely aesthetic" to "sacramental vision", and reflects on their philosophical and psychological implications. In 1956, he published Heaven and Hell, another essay which elaborates these reflections further. The two works have since often been published together as one book; the title of both comes from William Blake's 1793 book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.The Doors of Perception provoked strong reactions for its evaluation of psychedelic drugs as facilitators of mystical insight with great potential benefits for science, art, and religion. While many found the argument compelling, others including writer Thomas Mann, Vedantic monk Swami Prabhavananda, philosopher Martin Buber and scholar Robert Charles Zaehner countered that the effects of mescaline are subjective …

18 editions

RexLegendi reviewed The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell (Perennial Classics) by Aldous Huxley

Review of 'The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell (Perennial Classics)' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Last month I accidentally ended up at the exhibition Shamanic visions. Ayahuasca arts in the Peruvian Amazon at Musée du quai Branly. Although the subject didn’t particularly interest me – I cannot think of ayahuasca without thinking of recreational drug tourism – it apparently did appeal to the imagination of many others, given the unusual large crowds in the museum. I assume this is also the reason why The Doors of Perception, which was available in the gift shop, still enjoys such popularity today. I read it consecutively with two other cult classics: [b:On the Road|2552|On the Road|Jack Kerouac|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1605112490l/2552.SY75.jpg|1701188] and [b:Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas|7747|Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas|Hunter S. Thompson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1643996213l/7747.SY75.jpg|1309111].

A rose is a rose is a rose. But these chair legs were chair legs were St Michael and all angels.

Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) is of course best known for his …

A rose is a rose is a rose. But these chair legs were chair legs were St Michael and all angels.

Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) is of course best known for his dystopian novel [b:Brave New World|3180338|Brave New World|Aldous Huxley|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1551151249l/3180338.SY75.jpg|3204877]. Long after moving to Los Angeles, he became interested in mescaline, a psychedelic drug that occurs naturally in cacti such as the Mexican peyote cactus. In 1953, he decided to use it under supervision. The Doors of Perception is his essay about this experience. (The sequel Heaven and Hell is added in most editions.)

Huxley observes that while his intellect was ‘little if at all’ reduced, his visual impressions were greatly intensified: ‘the eye recovers some of the perceptual innocence of childhood, when the sensum was not immediately and automatically subordinated to the concept’. In sum, he elaborates on the contrast between our consciousness or conceptual perception of the world, in which systematic reasoning, speech and symbols play an important role, and the enhanced visual perception he experienced, leading to an entirely different perception of reality which, according to Huxley, can lead to a better understanding of ourselves.

Though the intellect remains unimpaired and though perception is enormously improved, the will suffers a profound change for the worse. The mescalin taker sees no reason for doing anything in particular and finds most of the causes for which, at ordinary times, he was prepared to act and suffer, profoundly uninteresting. He can’t be bothered with them, for the good reason that he has better things to think about.
[…] These better things may be experienced (as I experienced them) ‘out there,’ or ‘in here,’ or in both worlds, the inner and the outer, simultaneously or successively. That they are better seems to be self-evident to all mescalin takers who come to the drug with a sound liver and an untroubled mind.

Huxley’s essays are interesting to read, especially when you realise they were written in the early 1950s. The author does attempt to approach his experience from a certain scientific angle, although in the end it is mainly self-examination. I understand why this plea for mescaline could become so influential among artists like Jim Morrison.

The universal and ever-present urge to self-transcendence is not to be abolished by slamming the currently popular Doors in the Wall. The only reasonable policy is to open other, better doors in the hope of inducing men and women to exchange their old bad habit for new and less harmful ones.

Lucie Rage-Reading reviewed The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell (Perennial Classics) by Aldous Huxley

Interesting insights

3 stars

An interesting extended essay on the relationship between pyschedelics and the spiritual or mystic, informed by Huxley's first hand experience of mescaline use. He documents in detail the progression of his experiences, the fascination with pattern and detail and bending of time and emotion, and used this to explain his perspective on how psychedelics could be used to enhance one's insight.

I haven't tried psychedelics but this does relate to something else that I experienced, so it's interesting to see Huxley's perspective on this and his active promotion of mescaline as a tool in this way. Obviously this book is old as hell now (and sometimes that is quite plainly apparent) so it's an avenue for which it's probably worth looking into more modern literature, esp as modern substances such as LSD etc weren't even created until decades later.

Eduardo Santiago reviewed The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell (Perennial Classics) by Aldous Huxley

Review of 'The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell (Perennial Classics)' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Surprisingly insightful for the time; much holds true today. I loved this:

But 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 cocksure, 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.

Surprisingly insightful for the time; much holds true today. I loved this:

But 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 cocksure, 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.