Aldous Huxley- The Doors of Perception

Fantastic.

"We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves."

"Who cares what his feelings are? Can't he pay attention to something else?" (His reaction to a composer's work while on mescalin)

"The fear...was of being overwhelmed, of distinegrating under a pressure of reality greater than a mind, accustomed to living most of the time in a cozy world of symbols, could possibly bear."

(He writes about the Mind at Large, which means that our senses are attuned to all things that are happening in the world at once, but since we are animals our survival instincts kick in and we are no longer a mind at large, but we see reality through a tunnel, only the necessary information is recieved by our brains, in order for us to function in the world. He believes mescalin opens up that tunnel and allows us to use our senses in a way closer to the original Mind at Large.)

"...But it is actually we, the rich and highly educated whites, who have left ourselves bare behind. We cover our anterior nakedness with some philosophy- christian, marxian, freudo-physicalist- but abaft we remain uncovered, at the mercy of all the winds of circumstance."

"...supplementing the fig leaf of a theology with the breechclout of transcendental experience."

(of the Indians who used Peyote as religion rather than churches and theology. Looked down upon by most of society and other religions, but Huxley writes that they are EXPERIENCING a religion, through mescalin and the doors it opens and the refinement of perception, rather than having knowledge about a theology without any experience behind it.)

The beginning of the essay is mostly a guide through his experience with mescalin and the different ways he saw things or thought about things, but I especially liked the end when he started talking about how people are constantly striving to find something to get them into a deeper level of "reality" or something to give them a different perspective. In this country that escape is mostly found with alcohol and tobacco. It's really interesting to me that in the 50's when he wrote this essay he was trying to communicate that mescalin is a safer and more socially beneficial way of reaching a higher level of perspective than alcohol or tobacco.

Overall, my favorite thing about this essay and Aldous Huxley is that he was a man who wanted to transcend into a more spiritual way of living as well as still being a functioning, healthy member of a social system.