On a May morning in Los Angeles, Aldous Huxley swallowed 'four-tenths of a gramme of mescaline dissolved in half a glass of water and sat down to wait for the results.' Psychoactive drugs are rarely spoken about. And when they are, they are clubbed with heroine or alcohol. That desired hallucinations have a special place in human history is easily ignored. It is an unsettling fact. We wish to, time and again, escape our routine sensations, subvert our grand, yet petty obsessions, in order to focus on the 'such-ness' of things. The life of the present, the tremendous, burning energy of the moment, requires either deep meditation, or chemical aides. Battered in our urban desolations we often desire the latter.
'The Doors of Perception' is an essay not just on Huxley's trip, but also on the very idea that mescaline (Peyotl, as the Mexicans originally called it) or LSD serve an important human need. More, they may tell us something about our selves we do not yet realize, or haven't yet discovered using our sterile sciences. Huxley's essay is, in this light, a journey into our minds. Into those parts of our mind, which seem to have no clear evolutionary purpose, yet have no doubt survived and are reflected in the genius of painters and poets.
Huxley finds himself lost in the colors of flowers, in the fascinating folds of his trousers, considering the marvelous arrangement of a chair in his room, and towards the end, turning the pages of a book on Art, realizing the power of drapery. He finds his sense of space and time recede, before the wonder and power of countless shades of the colors that engage him. Again and again he wonders, why we ignore these landscapes of our mind.
'A small typing table stood in the center of the room; beyond it, from my point of view, was a wicker chair and beyond that a desk. The three pieces formed an intricate pattern of horizontals, uprights and diagonals - a pattern all the more interesting for not being interpreted in terms of spatial relationships. Table, chair and desk came together in a composition that was like something by Braque or Juan Gris, a still life recognizably related to the objective world, but rendered without depth, without any attempt at photographic realism. I was looking at my furniture, not as the utilitarian who has to sit on chairs, to write at desks and tables, and not as the camera-man or scientific recorder, but as the pure aesthete whose concern is only with forms and their relationships within the field of vision or the picture space.'
One may ask, can we not form our conception of paradise from what we have. Barring the immediate objection - what do we have - one can sympathise with this idea of normalcy. It would, indeed, be ideal if the aesthetics of religion or the consolation of action kept us gratified throughout our time. Yet, neither is, by itself, eternally satisfying. When we try to make it so, we make them more fragile. A more serious question can be, can there not be an experience of paradise more salubrious? For that, I suppose, we must look forward to the future. Finally, one may object that unbearable times and existential suffering are an important part of the human experience, and must not be burnt away in drugged stupor. Well, even if true, one may be forgiven, nay encouraged, for spending some time at least, happily away from these dogmas.
Ultimately, Aldous Huxley, like most others, is at his most profound, not when he is pondering over serious matters, but during a gentle flight in poetry.
'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. Sensation, feelings, insights, fancies - all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable. We can pool information about experiences, but the never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes.'
Might we not, then, ease this burden of loneliness, with an occasional journey, beyond the doors of perception?
'The Doors of Perception' is an essay not just on Huxley's trip, but also on the very idea that mescaline (Peyotl, as the Mexicans originally called it) or LSD serve an important human need. More, they may tell us something about our selves we do not yet realize, or haven't yet discovered using our sterile sciences. Huxley's essay is, in this light, a journey into our minds. Into those parts of our mind, which seem to have no clear evolutionary purpose, yet have no doubt survived and are reflected in the genius of painters and poets.
Huxley finds himself lost in the colors of flowers, in the fascinating folds of his trousers, considering the marvelous arrangement of a chair in his room, and towards the end, turning the pages of a book on Art, realizing the power of drapery. He finds his sense of space and time recede, before the wonder and power of countless shades of the colors that engage him. Again and again he wonders, why we ignore these landscapes of our mind.
'A small typing table stood in the center of the room; beyond it, from my point of view, was a wicker chair and beyond that a desk. The three pieces formed an intricate pattern of horizontals, uprights and diagonals - a pattern all the more interesting for not being interpreted in terms of spatial relationships. Table, chair and desk came together in a composition that was like something by Braque or Juan Gris, a still life recognizably related to the objective world, but rendered without depth, without any attempt at photographic realism. I was looking at my furniture, not as the utilitarian who has to sit on chairs, to write at desks and tables, and not as the camera-man or scientific recorder, but as the pure aesthete whose concern is only with forms and their relationships within the field of vision or the picture space.'
One may ask, can we not form our conception of paradise from what we have. Barring the immediate objection - what do we have - one can sympathise with this idea of normalcy. It would, indeed, be ideal if the aesthetics of religion or the consolation of action kept us gratified throughout our time. Yet, neither is, by itself, eternally satisfying. When we try to make it so, we make them more fragile. A more serious question can be, can there not be an experience of paradise more salubrious? For that, I suppose, we must look forward to the future. Finally, one may object that unbearable times and existential suffering are an important part of the human experience, and must not be burnt away in drugged stupor. Well, even if true, one may be forgiven, nay encouraged, for spending some time at least, happily away from these dogmas.
Ultimately, Aldous Huxley, like most others, is at his most profound, not when he is pondering over serious matters, but during a gentle flight in poetry.
'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. Sensation, feelings, insights, fancies - all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable. We can pool information about experiences, but the never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes.'
Might we not, then, ease this burden of loneliness, with an occasional journey, beyond the doors of perception?
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