The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell
The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell
Aldous Huxley
Dr. Andrew Weil
Came first [in terms of my interests]. - Dr. Andrew Weil
Ryan Shea
Ryan Shea recommended this book on his website.
Michael Pollan
A very famous book about what were not then known as psychedelics. - Michael Pollan
Douglas Murray
About something really interesting and dangerous. - Douglas Murray
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The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell

The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell

Aldous Huxley
By
Aldous Huxley
3.9
2080
ratings on Goodreads

In "The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell," Aldous Huxley embarks on a mesmerizing journey into the depths of human consciousness, guided by the transformative power of psychedelic substances. With his masterful prose and insightful observations, Huxley not only maps the rich and unknown territories of the mind but also explores the profound implications of these experiences on perception, art, and religion. Through the vivid recounting of his own ventures with mescaline, Huxley opens a door to a world where the mundane becomes magnificent, revealing the extraordinary potential of the human psyche to transcend the limitations of the sensory world. This seminal work, paired with the introspective exploration of "Heaven and Hell," offers a compelling argument for the potential of psychedelics to illuminate the ineffable aspects of existence, inviting readers to reconsider the constructs of society and self. Huxley's eloquent inquiry into the nature of mind and matter, enhanced by the addition of his essay "Drugs That Shape Men's Minds," stands as a pivotal piece in the discourse on human consciousness. It challenges the reader to question the very fabric of reality, making "The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell" an indispensable treasure for those seeking to understand the vast landscapes of human consciousness and the intricate interplay between our inner and outer worlds.

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Released
1956
1 Jan
Length
210
Pages

4

recommendations

recommendation

About something really interesting and dangerous. - Douglas Murray
Ryan Shea recommended this book on his website.
Came first [in terms of my interests]. - Dr. Andrew Weil
A very famous book about what were not then known as psychedelics. - Michael Pollan
We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand into the arena; they are crucified alone. Embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstasies into a single self-transcendence; in vain. By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies - all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable. We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes. Most island universes are sufficiently like one another to Permit of inferential understanding or even of mutual empathy or "feeling into." Thus, remembering our own bereavements and humiliations, we can condole with others in analogous circumstances, can put ourselves (always, of course, in a slightly Pickwickian sense) in their places. But in certain cases communication between universes is incomplete or even nonexistent. The mind is its own place, and the Places inhabited by the insane and the exceptionally gifted are so different from the places where ordinary men and women live, that there is little or no common ground of memory to serve as a basis for understanding or fellow feeling. Words are uttered, but fail to enlighten. The things and events to which the symbols refer belong to mutually exclusive realms of experience.
— Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell

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