The Doors of Perception

The Doors of Perception is a book by Aldous Huxley. Published in 1954, it details his taking mescaline in May 1953. The book takes its title from a phrase in William Blake's 1793 poem The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Huxley recalls the insights he experienced, which range from the 'purely aesthetic' to 'sacramental vision'. He also incorporates later reflections on the experience and its meaning for art and religion. (Wikipedia)

Aldous Leonard Huxley (26 July 1894 - 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher, a member of the Huxley family. The author of nearly fifty books, he wrote novels, such as Brave New World (1931), set in a dystopian future; nonfiction works, such as The Doors of Perception (1954), interpreting his psychedelic experience with mescaline; and wide-ranging essays. Huxley graduated from Balliol College, Oxford with an undergraduate degree in English literature. Early in his career, he published short stories and poetry and edited the literary magazine Oxford Poetry. He went on to publish travel writing, film stories, satire, and screenplays. He spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death. Huxley was a humanist and pacifist. He became interested in spiritual subjects such as parapsychology and philosophical mysticism, and in particular universalism. By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the pre-eminent intellectuals of his time. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times. In 1962, a year before he died, Huxley was elected Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature. (Wikipedia)