One of my favourite parts of the film The Doors starring Val Kilmer, was when Morrison came up with the name for the band, dancing around and quoting from Huxley’s book.
The quotation The Doors of Perception was from William Blake – the famous English poet, visionary and possibly slightly insane author, in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Here it was re-used by Huxley to describe a Mescalin fuelled trip he undertook in 1953.
If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern
Huxley believed that the brain is a reducing valve that restricts consciousness and hoping mescaline might help access a greater degree of awareness (an idea he later included in the book). As a result, he volunteered to be an experimental subject for Humphrey Osmond, an English psychiatrist who was researching the effects of Mescalin.
Here we offer a very early American Edition in a nice dust wrapper. (the book is dated 1954 – the same year as the first issue – but doesn’t have the edition statement to the printing information page).
So what did he think of his experiment? Well he was keen, and found the experience opened his eyes to beauty and colour in a way he had not previously experienced. He was later to describe much of his trip in Buddhist terms. However, he also felt that he had touched the edge of madness, and felt that some of the experiences threatened to overwhelm him His conclusion was that although less harmful than alcohol and tobacco, great care should be taken in using Mescalin. So as Gerry Springer would say – Look after yourselves
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