The Doors Of Perception

By Aldous Huxley

Long before Tom Wolf’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test or Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Aldous Huxley wrote about his mind-bending experiences taking mescaline in his essay The Doors of Perception. Written largely from the first-person perspective, The Doors of Perception blends Eastern mysticism with scientific experimentation in equal parts, and what results is one of the most influential meditations on the effects of hallucinatory drugs on the human psyche ever written in the Western canon.

Huxley’s Doors of Perception ushered in a whole new generation of counter-culture icons such as Jackson Pollock, John Cage, and Timothy Leary, and inspired Jim Morrison and the naming of his band, The Doors.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Jan 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781443434386

Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) was a prominent and successful English writer. Throughout his career he wrote over fifty books, and was nominated seven times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Huxley wrote his first book, Crome Yellow, when he was seventeen years old, which was described by critics as a complex social satire. Huxley was both an avid humanist and pacifist and many of these ideals are reflected in his writing. Often controversial, Huxley’s views were most evident in the best-selling dystopian novel, Brave New World. The publication of Brave New Worldin 1931 rattled many who read it. However, the novel inspired many writers, Kurt Vonnegut in particular, to describe the book’s characters as foundational to the genre of science fiction. With much of his work attempting to bridge the gap between Eastern and Western beliefs, Aldous Huxley has been hailed as a writer ahead of his time.

Reviews for The Doors Of Perception

[peterjameswest · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I bought this book a long time ago and only recently started reading it. Initially it caught my eye as something that might be interesting from a psychology perspective. Doors of Perception is difficult to define in terms of who will like it. It deals with how we perceive images, colour and the reality around us, and tries to analyse what makes this perception vivid or lacking in different people. It covers the use of drugs such as Mescalin and the effects that these drugs have on our perception. He takes the drug as part of an experiment and undergoes an interview and practical session to see how it has affected his vision and thinking.

The book also covers many aspects of different paintings by various artists and touches on spiritual experiences. It talks about a valve that filters the world so that our brains can cope with the level of input, and how to open that valve to allow more input into our brains so that we experience beyond the normal reality.

Large parts of the book are rambling and lack focus. It uses the word 'preternatural' more times than you will find anywhere else on earth.
Probably a more oppressive editor would have done wonders for this book. There is some good content, largely in the latter sections of the book and the appendices, but you need a fair amount of stamina to dig them out of Huxley's clearly intelligent but rambling discourse. If he'd found someone to help shape his thoughts into a more concise and structured book it would be easier to chew. Still, if you have an interest in perception, hallucinations, or mind altering substances and experiences, you may well find some insight here. Artists with an edge in how we perceive and render colours and objects may also enjoy this book.

[sashame-485567 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

most interesting part is def the connections made bw (1) various mystical (non)conceptions of splendorous emptiness, (2) the xp of mescaline, and (3) the aesthetic meanings of material ornaments in religious art

[jasoncomely-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Incredible. The Doors of Perception is like a zen haiku turned up to 11! Heaven and Hell is equally as fascinating (and scholarly). Wish I'd read this years ago.

[joeydag · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I think I read this when I was in college years ago. I don't remember much but it was interesting material.

[nicholas_floyd-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

When I first read The Doors of Perception / Heaven and Hell, most of it was lost on me, and I assumed this was because at the time I lacked any experience with psychedelics. The second time I read the book — many years and many psychedelics later — I still found myself struggling to follow along. I generally don't write negative reviews, but I think this book offers at least two valuable lessons to writers.Lesson One: don't alienate the reader.I'm not sure who Huxley's intended audience might have been, but it certainly was not the casual reader, regardless of psychedelic experience. Below is a list of the names that Huxley casually references without any explanation, seemingly under the assumption that the reader is already well familiar with each:Pickwick, Sir John Falstaff, Joe Louis, Lungarno, Meister Eckhart, Suzuki, Braque, Juan Gris, Bergson, Wordsworth, St. John of the Cross, Hakuin, Hui-neng, William Law, Laurent Tailhade, Botticelli, Ruskin, Piero, El Greco, Cosimo Tura, Watteau, Cythera, Ingres, Mme. Moitessier, Cezanne, Arnold Bennett, Vermeer, The Le Nain brothers, VuillardThat's just from the first forty pages or so. I gave up and stopped writing them down after that.Lesson Two: be clear and concise.In the passage below, Huxley describes a chair that caught his attention during his mescaline experience:--------------------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.--------------------Under the influence of psychedelics, I too have felt entranced by common household objects, toiled over the distinction between self & not-self, etc., so I can relate to the sentiment, but the passage above (along with many others) struck me as rather confusing.Huxley was clearly a pretty smart dude, and the book contains interesting ideas (some more believable than others), but overall the book simply left me scratching my head.

[jakebornheimer · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Doors of Perception is very interesting, but Heaven and Hell is complete nonsense. The former is fascinating for being a trip report by a person born pre-1900. In addition, Huxley was definitely an excellent writer who was able to accurately relay his experience. And his experience was remarkably similar to mine! I especially enjoyed the kind of 'literary criticism' he performed during and after the experience, in which he discussed the similarities between the psychedelic experience and Buddhist notions of the dharmakāya & Buddha nature, as well as its relations to art and literature. An interesting fact that I just stumbled upon when writing this: at the time of the book, Huxley was if not blind, then quite visually impaired. This calls into question the intensely visual aspect of his experience. In the book he described with what seemed to be perfect clarity his visual experiences. How much of this was his experience, how much was mescalin, and how much was his experience with the aforementioned literature of art and visionary writers? Overall though, The Doors of Perception was compelling and well worth reading.The latter piece is a bunch of hogwash, written 2-3 years after his mescalin experience, that largely attempts to rationally explain psychedelic phenomena. Huxley seems to have drunk the Jungian Kool-Aid and sincerely believes that the chemical changes in the brain due to mescalin have the effect of allowing us to access sense-data from the collective unconscious - in his words "the Mind-at-Large". There are many similarly foolish claims here too. One could give the excuse that he lived long enough ago to make these ideas plausible, but Huxley himself opened Heaven and Hell by remarking that at that point in time (1953) the study of the mind was in the naturalist/collector stage of scientific progress, and that they were not yet ready for classification, analysis, and theory. He knew what he was doing was likely to be without merit, but he did it anyway. Skip Heaven and Hell.

[rajivc_18 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the second time that I read this book. The first time was when I was in college, and we were very open to all things psychedelic. At that time we were all reading the books of Carlos Castaneda, and were fascinated by anything and everything that had to do with mescalin and peyote.When I read the book at that time, I read it as an endorsement for the use of mescalin. However, times changed, and when I read it again, I read it as a rather erudite writing on the use of the drug, as well as the experience. Some of that earlier, innocent, magic was missing in this re-reading of the book.Having said that, it is a very good book. The appendices are well worth the read, and while he does reduce some mystical experiences to the level of an increased amount of carbon dioxide in the body, I don't think that he debunks the actual experience. This is a remarkable book, by a remarkable author.

[felixelhombre · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read this around the time I first experienced hallucinogens for myself in the late 60s. This book had a profound effect on my thinking at the time. I really should re-read it and find out if I see it differently all these years later. What do you think? Ha!

[curtisclennon · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Reads like no other book - mesmerising! The title incidently, is where the band 'The Doors' took their name from.

[hectigo · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was an interesting read, especially in the reference frame of more modern research on human perception. Our knowledge of the inner workings of the brain has expanded considerably since Huxley's days, but he's got the basic idea narrowed down surprisingly well. It's quite a testament to how reality can be explored by looking into within.What especially stands out in this book is the quality of the writing. Huxley has extraordinary ability to convey exotic internal experiences in text, and it's no wonder the book gained quite a following during the rise of the hippie movement. I disagree with the spiritual implications Huxley drew from his experiences, but the parallels to how artists perceive the world are doubly interesting. Transporting, indeed!

[uh8myzen_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Aldous Huxley will always be one of my favourite writers as he has a way of capturing my imagination in a unique way. I read Brave New World when I was about fourteen years old and was blown away. I have since reread it a few times, and each time I am equally amazed.I found this book in my dad's library when I was eighteen, and took to it immediately. I could not help but be swept up by Huxley's writing style, his intellectual examination of the drugs effects and the theories he applies to his observations. There is no doubt that his experiences had a profound effect on him as it did many other intellectuals and doctors of the time, and his arguments are profoundly compelling.As an aside, when I discussed the book with my father, I learned that he had worked with the psychiatrist Humphry Osmond at the Weyburn Mental Hospital in Saskatchewan during early experimentation with LSD. At the time, Dr. Osmond believed that the mescaline "trip" was similar to the early stages of schizophrenia and so was given research grants by the Saskatchewan government to conduct trials (not to be confused with the CIA funded experimentation of the same time that were conducted in Montreal). My father was a Doctor and he assisted in the research.Here's the interesting part and why my dad had a copy of the book. Dr. Osmond administered the mescaline to Aldous Huxley at the Weyburn Mental Hospital that he writes about in the book... my dad actually met one of my literary heros and had an incidental role in the writing of one of the most important books of the 20th century.Cool huh?

[guhlitz · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This particular reading had my mind space cornered in several areas of subjective reality. Huxley's illucidating writing was defined and very subjective of course from his own experience with the ontological experiences of perception. Subjectivity begets subjectivity, and the beauty which is invoked within this text is provacative beyond reasonable doubt, and in my opinion unparralled by any other pschedellic laureate from this particular era. Huxley was well into his fifties when Albert Hoffman's LSD came to market; leading me to believe Aldous had quite the foundation of intellect and knowledge to extrapolate upon. And the greatest Door of Perception...Huxley's wife administering LSD directly into his blood, while he lay dying in the hospital, sending him to the heavens on Nov. 22, 1963....the day John F. Kennedy was assasinated...."People are strange, when you're a Stranger"

[andyray_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

As did AA co-founder Bill Wilson and former senator Eugene MacCarthy and Ram Doss and manyh others, Huxley writes of the experience of ingesting mescalinl, also known as peyote, a drug that southwest American natives have used for eons as a spiritual aid. he explained things that put its proper use into place for me. When I was raging and thinking hurtful things, if I had dropped that or LSD then I would have had a "bad trip," but now that I have a serene heart and a loving soul, I want to have some; i want the experience.

[carlym_35 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Huxley's theory is that the mind takes in all sorts of incredible experiences but that it then filters those (through what he calls the "reducing valve") into what we're conscious of. In the first part of the book, The Doors of Perception, he experiments with peyote. He has a psychiatrist present and records everything he says, so the account of his actions and experiences is presumably reliable. This part of the book was highly entertaining. He is fascinated by details like chair legs, and he sees cosmic significance in them. He also advocates allowing the use of peyote over alcohol and tobacco because he thinks it has fewer downsides (and because he thinks people will always seek some kind of drug-induced escape from their lives). In the second part of the book, Heaven and Hell, he talks about "transporting" artwork--stained glass, jewels, and certain kinds of paintings. He thinks that the colors and ways of representing landscapes are similar to what people experience when they have visions of an "other world" or heaven, and we like these because they give us a glimpse of that world. He also argues that while for most visionaries the visions are blissful, for some, like schizophrenics, visions of this other world are terrifying and hellish. At the end, he includes a couple of short sections on the various ways to have visions--carbon dioxide, strobe lights, fasting, etc. I thought his comments on fasting were really interesting. He speculates that people in earlier times had more religious visions because they were malnourished and engaged in more religious fasting, and the lack of vitamins affects brain chemistry enough that the "reducing valve" is opened to allow for visionary experiences. I read the more scientific sections with skepticism because I'm not sure Huxley is a reliable source, but the book is nonetheless interesting and often entertaining.

[tony_landis_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Some very deep and though provoking ideas and observations.

[juliana_t_10 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed Huxley's perspective as a research subject experiencing the effects of mescalin for the first time. Also enjoyed the description of art/artists and how Huxley sees art history as connected to the visionary experience of a 'mescalin taker.'

[sarahtakash · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It was good- but pretty matter-of-fact. I felt as though he was just recounting what he did. It was interesting, but nothing novel or inspirational for me- probably because I had already known.

[jwcs81 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Huxley's "The Doors of Perception" is one of the most interesting books i've encountered. Obviously, its notable for its account of an experiment with the drug mescalin, found in peyote. The fundamental notion of the work is that the mind acts, in its most normal and evolved state, as a "reducing valve." The world of perception is way too intense for one mind to encounter so it seeks to reduce experiences as a need for survival. A drug induced experience allows for the opening of said "reducing valve" ushering in opportunities to see things "isness" and "suchness." I found it particularly interesting that Huxleys suggested that the increase in drug use is in direct relationship to the lack of "transcendance" provided by organized religion. A shortcoming Huxley thinks the church should be addressing. I found this book to be interesting, informative, and challenging. All symptoms of a good read.

[drwhy_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Huxley's fascinating account of LSD experimentation in the early 1950's.......Title of his book was taken as a nameby the Rock group, "The Doors of Perception"

[takeitorleaveit_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

anyone who has interest in the future and everyone who has experimented with acid or psychedelic drugs in general must this book (preferably before the drugs)

[autumnc_12 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Careful- the Doors of Perception is a life-changer.

[janepriceestrada · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This small book is extraordinary. It made me see the world in a new way. Although the main plot is about drug use the idea that artists see the world in a different way and are able to express that through their medium is beautiful and true.

[hennis_4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Interesting read about how a great writer experiences mescalin. Second part (heaven and hell), I found less interesting. Appendices are interesting again..

[vvilliam_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An interesting read, although very lacking in parts. I enjoyed Doors of Perception quite a bit, and found Huxley's insights onto mystic visions and their relation to religion insightful. He also does a nice job giving the feeling of experiencing mescalin with him. Heave and Hell, however, was very dissappointing. I felt that most of his claims were ill founded and that he made several leaps in logic that weren't valid (like religious singing's purpose is to expel oxygen to create visions). Huxley is also very much an art scholar, so familiarity with various art styles is a must. The appendixes are worth a read as well. I would recommend this book to someone interested in how visions/drug experiences are reflected in art and the social conscience.

[vyode_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"the doors..." changed the way i look at things [ like black moon (movie) ]. "heaven hell" brings to mind jewels. i am thankful for the former.

[pancakekiller · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

could huxley get any better? i think not.