In the early 1950s, when Huxley wrote his book, mescaline was still regarded as a research chemical rather than a drug and was listed in the Parke-Davis catalogue with no controls.

In 1947 however, the US Navy undertook Project Chatter, which examined the potential for the drug as a truth revealing agent. Most psychiatric research projects into the drug in the 1930s and early 1940s tended to look at the role of the drug in mimicking psychosis. La Barre noted that the Native American users of the cactus took it to obtain visions for prophecy, healing and inner strength. In the 1930s, an American anthropologist Weston La Barre, published The Peyote Cult, the first study of the ritual use of peyote as an entheogen drug amongst the Huichol people of western Mexico. Mescaline (peyote and San Pedro cactus) Ī peyote cactus, from which mescaline is derived. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.

If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. The metaphor was used to represent Blake's feelings about mankind's limited perception of the reality around them: The 'doors of perception' was originally a metaphor written by Blake in his 1790 book, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. William Blake (1757–1827), who inspired the book's title and writing style, was an influential English artist most notable for his paintings and poetry. Huxley himself continued to take psychedelics for the rest of his life, and the understanding he gained from them influenced his final novel Island, published in 1962.īackground William Blake While many found the argument compelling, others including German writer Thomas Mann, Vedantic monk Swami Prabhavananda, Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, and Orientalist scholar Robert Charles Zaehner countered that the effects of mescaline are subjective and should not be conflated with objective religious mysticism. The Doors of Perception provoked strong reactions for its evaluation of psychedelic drugs as facilitators of mystical insight with great potential benefits for science, art, and religion. The two works have since often been published together as one book the title of both comes from William Blake's 1793 book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

In 1956, he published Heaven and Hell, another essay which elaborates these reflections further. Huxley recalls the insights he experienced, ranging from the 'purely aesthetic' to 'sacramental vision', and reflects on their philosophical and psychological implications. Published in 1954, it elaborates on his psychedelic experience under the influence of mescaline in May 1953. The Doors of Perception is an autobiographical book written by Aldous Huxley.

Perception 6 by The Island