The Doors of Perception and Heaven
and Hell (P.S.) by Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley's Investigations Into The Human Mind.
Sometimes a writer has to revisit the classics, and here we find that gonzo
journalism--gutsy first-person accounts wherein the author is part of the
story--didnt originate with Hunter S. Thompson or Tom Wolfe. Aldous
Huxley took some mescaline and wrote about it some 10 or 12 years
earlier than those others. The book he came up with is part bemused
essay and part mystical treatise--suchness is everywhere to be found
while under the influence. This is a good example of essay writing, journal
keeping, and the value of controversy--always--in ones work.
Personal Review: The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell
(P.S.) by Aldous Huxley
If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man
as it is, infinite. - William Blake.

This book, _The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell_, first published
in 1954, consists of two books written by Aldous Huxley which reveal his
investigations into the human mind and human consciousness as well as
his experiences with psychedelic substances. Huxley delves deeply into
the experiences of the artists and the mystics as well as the experience of
madness and schizophrenia (mimicked he believed by certain states
induced through hallucinogens such as mescaline or LSD-25). This book
was particularly popular during the 1960s and with the counter-culture.
Aldous Huxley (1894 - 1963) was a British born author and thinker who
explored regions of human consciousness, and examined spiritual and
mystical experience. Huxley is perhaps best known for his novel _Brave
New World_ which examined the rise of the modern totalitarian and
scientifically managed state. Huxley lived for a time in the United States in
southern California where he had dealings with the American Indians there
and in New Mexico. This book offers a study of some of his own
experiences with altered states of consciousness induced partially by
hallucinogenic drugs and their relationship to the experiences of the artists
and mystics.
The first book included in this book is _The Doors of Perception_ (1954)
which details Huxley's experiences with the psychedelic and
consciousness altering drug mescaline. The title for this book comes from
the poem by William Blake. To begin with Huxley notes that in 1886, the
German pharmacologist Louis Lewin published his study on the cactus
Anhalonium Lewinii which has been used extensively by the Indians of the
American Southwest. Huxley relates the experience of the drug to that of
schizophrenia and madness as understood by the "alienists". Huxley then
relates how in 1953 he came to take mescaline and explains the altered
states of consciousness it induced. Huxley relates these experiences to
those of the mystics such as Meister Eckhart, the Buddhist concept of the
Dharma-Body and Zen Buddhism, Platonic philosophy, as well as the
notion of the "Mind at Large". Huxley also relates his experiences to those
of the artists, such as Vermeer and Cezanne, and to those of musicians
such as Mozart. Huxley explains how the ability to "think straight" is not
altered under the influence of the drug, but how visualization and visual
imagery is greatly improved. Huxley ends by relating his experiences to
those of some of the other drugs and the peyote cultists, as well as the
angelology of for example St. Thomas Aquinas.
The second book included in this book is _Heaven and Hell_ (1956) which
is a philosophical work detailing the relationship between bright colors and
the artists as well as psychoactive substances and mystical philosophy.
Huxley examines the "antipodes" or regions of the mind that can be
reached through the use of psychoactive substances, vitamin deficiencies,
meditation, self-flagellation, or fasting. Huxley begins by relating the vast
regions of the human mind to be discovered to those of the zoologist and
the geographer. He notes that the mind still has its dark continents like
Africa which have yet been discovered. Huxley relates mystical
experiences within Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam to bright

colors found amongst the artists. In particular, Huxley notes the influence
of the Platonic philosophy. Huxley relates much of this to art, ranging from
medieval cathedrals to Rembrandts to Chinese paintings. The book ends
relating this to madness and schizophrenia as well as mystical experience
and modern spiritualism. The book follows by several appendices focusing
on such things as visionary experience induced through carbon dioxide
and the stroboscopic lamp, medieval Christian theology and the
importance of mystical experience in the life of the medieval individual, the
"Mind at Large", the importance of art in various forms and the importance
of color, painting in particular and the Renaissance use of fireworks, the
use of mescaline and LSD-25, schizophrenia and madness, and the novel
_Sartor Resartus_ by Carlyle.
This book offers two interesting and beautifully written essays in the study
of human consciousness and the human mind. Indeed, Huxley's work was
to have an important influence on later explorers of the human mind
particularly with the rise of the counter-culture. Huxley's experiments in
mysticism and with psychoactive substances were to prove highly detailed
and interesting for the study of the relationship of the human being to God
and the spiritual nature of man.
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