The Doors took their name (at least in part) from this William Blake line -- "When the doors of perception are cleansed, things will appear as they truly are...infinite.". And a heaven in a wild flower, The psychedelic proselytiser Timothy Leary was given the book by a colleague soon after returning from Mexico where he had first taken psilocybin mushrooms in the summer of 1960. (eds) Blake, Modernity and Popular Culture. [31] The Doors of Perception was the first book Huxley dedicated to his wife Maria. The book met with a variety of responses, both positive and negative,[21] from writers in the fields of literature, psychiatry, philosophy and religion. Lower Pecos and Coahuila peyote: new radiocarbon dates. Acknowledging that personality, preparation and environment all play a role in the effects of the drugs, Huston Smith draws attention to evidence that suggests that a religious outcome of the experience may not be restricted to one of Huxley's temperament. So the experience may not be the same for others who take the drug and do not have this background, although they will undoubtedly experience a transformation of sensation. Jim Morrison wasn’t the first celebrity to like this quote. Contrary to Zaehner, Huston Smith draws attention to evidence suggesting that these drugs can facilitate theistic mystical experience. In 1954, Zaehner published an article called The Menace of Mescaline, in which he asserted that "artificial interference with consciousness" could have nothing to do with the Christian "Beatific Vision". The title refers to William Blake's poem The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. The mescaline was slow to take effect, but Osmond saw that after two and a half hours the drug was working and after three hours Huxley was responding well. Horowitz, Michael and Palmer, Cynthia, Letter to Humphry Osmond, 24 October 1955. in Achera Huxley, Laura (1969). Firstly, the urge to transcend one's self is universal through times and cultures (and was characterised by H. G. Wells as The Door in the Wall). Blake finds a way to create poetry that actively seeks to alter both how we understand and how we experience the world. A blockbuster show at Tate Britain gives William Blake his due. I remember telling my tutor that I found his poems “mind-boggling”. He found that The Doors of Perception corroborated what he had experienced 'and more too'. "The Doors of Perception" by Aldous Huxley is a challenging plunge into the unpredictable zone of what we perceive.The author begins with a description of Lewis Levin's 1886 study of the cactus plant.An interesting story is told of mescaline experiments arising from an active ingredient in peyote. I first read Blake at university. It is also one that postulates a goodwill – the choice once more of the nobler hypothesis. Holding that there are similarities between the experience on mescaline, the mania in a manic-depressive psychosis and the visions of God of a mystical saint suggests, for Zaehner, that the saint's visions must be the same as those of a lunatic. I was this fact; or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that this fact occupied the place where I had been. Huxley concludes that mescaline is not enlightenment or the Beatific vision, but a "gratuitous grace" (a term taken from Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica). One of the major stumbling blocks to changing perceptions and awareness of the “truths” that we’ve manufactured is that we do not want to recognize that we are wrong or mistaken. And this means no longer at things, but looking through them: What it will be Questiond When the Sun rises do you not see a round Disk of fire somewhat like a Guinea O no no I see an Innumerable company of the Heavenly host crying Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty I question not my Corporeal or Vegetative Eye any more than I would Question a Window concerning a Sight I look thro it & not with it. [32] Harold Raymond, at his publisher Chatto and Windus, said of the manuscript, "You are the most articulate guinea pig that any scientist could hope to engage. [57] Other medical researchers questioned the validity of Huxley's account. Huxley was "shrewd, matter-of-fact and to the point" and his wife Maria "eminently sensible". Energy is Eternal Delight. [37], By 12:30 pm, a vase of flowers becomes the "miracle, moment by moment, of naked existence". Jay, Mike (2010) High Society: The Central Role of Mind-Altering Drugs in History, Science, and Culture p. 103 Park Street Press. 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