aldous huxley the doors of perception and heaven and hell

True, they stopped short at a point well this side of idolatry but all concurred in assigning to mescalin a position among drugs of unique distinction. Why they should have venerated it as a deity became apparent when such eminent psychologists as Jaensch, Havelock Ellis and Weir Mitchell began their experiments with mescalin, the active principle of peyote. In the words of one of the early Spanish visitors to the New World, they eat a root which they call peyote, and which they venerate as though it were a deity. To primitive religion and the Indians of Mexico and the American Southwest it was a friend of immemorially long standing. It was in 1886 that the German pharmacologist, Louis Lewin, published the first systematic study of the cactus, to which his own name was subsequently given. ' If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.'Ībout the Publisher The DOORS of PERCEPTION The Doors of Perception & Heaven and Hell 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.

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 thought his comments on fasting were really interesting. At the end, he includes a couple of short sections on the various ways to have visions-carbon dioxide, strobe lights, fasting, etc. 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. 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. In the second part of the book, Heaven and Hell, he talks about 'transporting' artwork-stained glass, jewels, and certain kinds of paintings. 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). He is fascinated by details like chair legs, and he sees cosmic significance in them.

This part of the book was highly entertaining. He has a psychiatrist present and records everything he says, so the account of his actions and experiences is presumably reliable. In the first part of the book, The Doors of Perception, he experiments with peyote. 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.

Aldous huxley the doors of perception and heaven and hell