Product Description

In 1953, in the presence of an investigator, Aldous Huxley took four-tenths of a gramme of mescalin, sat down and waited to see what would happen. When he opened his eyes everything was transformed. Huxley described his experience in "The Doors of Perception" and its sequel "Heaven and Hell".

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #88119 in Books
• Published on: 1994-01-10
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

Customer Reviews

Read this book
This book blew my mind. Reading it was interesting, but the thoughts that it provoked were amazing - as he puts it (which seems to be the best way) it opened up an entirely new avenue of experience. Huxley's enormously wide breadth of knowledge of music, art and literature means he makes references to many works outside of mine (and I suspect most people's), and I didn't always agree with his theories, but these are tiny quibbles about a brilliant book that should be, IMHO, read by everyone.

The Doors of Perception is Huxley's account of an afternoon on which he sat down and, in a controlled experimental situation, took 0.4g of mescalin (a drug not dissimilar to lysergic acid). Heaven and Hell is his later reflections and the paths down which his thoughts went following this experience.

I generally read books simply for entertainment - this one gave me another perspective with which to look many things and left a strong, permanent and very postive effect in me.

Thought provoking
"The Doors of Perception" is an account of Huxley’s experience of taking the hallucinatory drug Mescalin under controlled conditions, and the rather rambling but vivid thoughts and sensations that resulted. Huxley’s abilities as a writer enable him to describe them much more effectively than most people could.

"Heaven and Hell" is a post experience discussion of the effects of Mescalin. Huxley considers other ways of achieving the same visionary experience as the drug induces, such as starvation or meditation, and notes work by other writers and artists that suggests they must have had similar experiences. He compares these experiences through the work produced, and also considers how these experiences might relate to people who have some form of mental disorder, such as schizophrenia.

Despite the passage of time since the book was written, it hasn’t really dated. His reflections highlight the fact that our knowledge of how the human brain works has only advanced very slowly over the last half century.

fragmented-- -- - --thoughts
Huxley goes in to great depth about the use of drugs on a micro and on a macro level. His linking with the drug culture and how they prove to manefest themselves within the arts is very well done. However, he does not seem to be greatly directive but instead a rather fagmented trail of thoughts.- maybe a path ironicaly choosen? He rather pompously seems to bring in as much knowledge of the arts that he can, proving that what he did was an intelectual "journey" and more than just a personl experience. I actually thought that his follow up- "Heaven and Hell," was a much better set out piece of writting. It seemed to be much more thought about and a lot more interesting.