English 11 Honors
Mrs. Siegfried
Perception of reality seems crystal clear, although
observing the unexplainable phenomena of this world, one must wonder what the
cause of these things are. There is more
to life than meets the eye. Drugs alter the
user’s perception of reality, yet few have documented their exploration of what
sort of value this altered state of perception might hold from a scientific,
philosophical, and spiritual viewpoint.
In The Doors of Perception,
Aldous Huxley describes his experiences using the drug mescaline as a key to deepen
his perception of reality.
Aldous Huxley belongs to a family of geniuses;
his great grandfather was a biology professor who helped develop the theory of
evolution, his aunt a novelist, etc. He
himself was an extraordinarily unique and paradoxical intellectual who had a
heavy taste for mysticism:
While repudiating
the Gods and Goods, Huxley implicitly continued to search for them, applying to
the task an integrity that bit like acid through illusion, sentimentality and
convention. All his work is a quest for values in the face of skepticism.’
Jocelyn Brooke (1954) found Huxley, ‘despite the homogeneity of his writings …,
a strangely paradoxical figure: an intellectual who profoundly distrusts the
intellect, a sensualist with an innate loathing for the body, a naturally
religious man who remains an impenitent rationalist. (“Aldous Leonard Huxley”
74)
Huxley often quested through religious things for
value, looking at them from an intellectual standpoint. Part
of this quest was to try the
ritualistic, religious cactus peyote, containing the psychedelic chemical
mescaline. Originally, Native Americans took
the mescaline containing peyote-cactus for their spiritual rituals.
A man named Dr. Slotkin
lived with the Peyotist Indians to learn more of their reason for use and notes
that, “It is amazing to hear the fantastic stories about the effects of Peyote
and the nature of the ritual, which are told by the white and Catholic Indian
officials in the Menomini Reservation” (Huxley 66). This piqued Huxley’s interest in mescaline’s
ability to portray a spiritual experience.
Huxley tried mescaline because he saw that the Peyotist Indians used it
to travel on spiritual journeys, and he wanted to deepen his view of reality by
traveling into psychedelia as the Indians do using mescaline.
Indians used mescaline
spiritually. Huxley took a fond interest
in trying mescaline because of its widespread use by shamans. His reason for
trying this psychedelic was largely influenced by his positive disposition
towards mysticism, “always fascinated by the ideas of consciousness and sanity,
in the last ten years of his life Huxley experimented with mysticism,
parapsychology, and, under the supervision of a physician friend, the
hallucinogenic drugs mescaline and LSD. He wrote of his drug experiences in the
book The Doors of Perception (1954)”
("Brave New World" 53). He saw
that many of the Indians were able to use this as a spiritually beneficial
experience, and so he wanted to try this out on his own and then document his
findings in a book; all of which he did.
He tried mescaline under the supervision of a friend, and then wrote The Doors of Perception.
He saw mysticism to have potential for teaching
him things that others cannot tell him, but rather things that only the
experience can teach, and giving him core realizations about reality from what
he believed mescaline to put him in a deep state of.
Mysticism is “consciousness of transcendent
reality or of God through deep meditation or contemplation” (“Mysticism” 552).
Huxley was interested in transcendental
understanding, and in his pursuit of truth through transcendence, he dabbled in
mysticism, “gradually, Huxley came to see value in an inward, mystical state of
mind, however produced, and regardless of what caused it. His
novels record the progress of his
conversion” (Daiches 1137).
Mysticism was something Huxley didn’t fully
understand, but he recorded his experiment with mescaline after going into that
drug with a mystical state of mind by writing The Doors of Perception.
Huxley constantly speaks of spiritual, mystical things throughout The Doors of Perception, and feels that
mescaline has the ability to put one in a very mystical state, allowing him to
see more of reality.
The American government, and majority
of the public’s moral codes, say no to nearly every sort of drug use except “for
unrestricted use the West has permitted only alcohol and tobacco” (Huxley 63), “Aldous
Huxley and Evelyn Waugh were setting aside traditional moral codes” (Neill 309)
and Huxley was not a man who would be easily swayed away from any sort of
substance use due to traditional moral codes. He believes
mescaline to give the user people
powerful revelations about the nature of the world, and thinks that the public
would benefit, however, they are often simply closed to the idea, “I’ve started
with this brief philosophic preamble because here is a curious and somewhat
depressing thing: a cultural history of magic mushrooms with the rigidly
anti-psychedelic (not to say anti-philosophic) bias of current reductionist
thought” (Denny 64). Despite the
public’s rejection of psychedelics, the chance for Huxley to deepen his
perception of reality as the Peyotist Indians had was too great for him to pass
up simply because of a dreary public opinion.
Huxley showed interest in this foreign ritual and “all along, of course,
Huxley had shown interest in any means of liberation from the bondage of the
ego, and his The Doors of Perception (1954), dealing with the drug mescaline,
can be seen as an interesting anticipation of the interest more than a decade
later in the psychedelic experience” (“Aldous Leonard Huxley” 74).
About 10 years after Huxley’s experiment with
psychedelics in this “rigidly anti-psychedelic” (Denny 64) society many more
people decided to start trying psychedelics as the hippie movement was
blooming. They were starting to realize
the altered sense of reality and believed it to be a deepened reality they
enjoyed experiencing— just like Huxley.
Aldous Huxley used mescaline to
embark on a religious, scientific, mystic, and philosophical quest to find
truths that may lie in the altered state of reality mescaline places one in. The heightened state of awareness being under
the influence of a psychedelic drug places one into forces upon them
realization of the grandeur beauty in every aspect of nature’s beauty,
Mescaline places the user into a state where his awareness is heightened and
where “all things are perceived as infinite and holy” (Huxley 43).
This altered state of consciousness is an
expanded perception of reality which Huxley appreciates and feels creates a
benevolence in people: “what motive can we have for covetousness or
self-assertion, for the pursuit of power or the drearier forms of pleasure”
(Huxley 43). This is an expanded state
of perception which is good-hearted that Huxley says psychedelics impose upon
the user.
Huxley talks about what he believes
America’s perfect substance should be and notes that “on the positive side, it
should produce changes in consciousness more interesting, more intrinsically
valuable than mere sedation or dreaminess, delusions of omnipotence or release
from inhibition" (Huxley 65). Huxley
is implying that alcohol and other drugs commonly used by Americans have no
deeper value than to simply inebriate and allow one to escape, but that
psychedelics impose a higher, more valuable state of consciousness, because
they expand one’s perception of reality.
The mescaline user’s appetite for entertainment is altered in that it may
be satisfied by simply observing nature, “visual impressions are greatly
intensified and the eye recovers some of the perceptual innocence of childhood,
when the sensum was not immediately and automatically subordinated to the
concept” (Huxley 25) the taker is satisfied and fascinated greatly but the
subtle details of things around him, because he is in a state of deeper
perception of reality. In searching for
a drug that allows one to beneficially step away from reality “the
contemplative whose perception has been cleansed does not have to stay in his
room. He can go about his business, so
completely satisfied, to see and be a part of the divine Order of Things”
(Huxley 43). This is one aspect that
differs between alcohol and psychedelics.
With alcohol one becomes quite impaired physically and verbally, however
with psychedelics, the user can still go about his business functioning unimpaired. Although, he may be distracted more easily,
because it is incredibly easy for the psychedelic user to find grandeur in the
smallest details, but this is miniscule compared to the inhibited decision
making skills alcohol causes. Huxley is saying that
psychedelics are better
for America to use than alcohol because psychedelics place the user into an
expanded state of perception rather than a state without good judgement or
inhibitions. Huxley is like a scientist,
having such an analytical mind, “the novels, short stories, and essays of the
English author Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894-1963) explore crucial questions of
science, religion, and philosophy” (“Aldous Leonard Huxley” 74).
Huxley speaks like a philosopher with his
contingent questions and intentions to deeper understand this world,
scientifically. His reasoning for using
mescaline was much deeper than to have a good time or being able to relate to
people, but it was instead deeply introspective and meaningful.
Huxley does not believe mescaline to
be a substance that should “equate what happens under the influence of
mescaline or of any other drug… with the realization of the end and ultimate
purpose of human life” (Huxley 73). But
he does believe it to be something that can invigorate a person’s desire to
strive in life and carbonate one’s life energy, because:
To be shaken out
of the ruts of ordinary perception, to be shown for a few timeless hours the
outer and inner world, not as they appear to an animal obsessed with survival
or to a human being obsessed with words and notions, but as they are
apprehended, directly and unconditionally, by Mind at Large— this is an
experience of inestimable value to everyone and especially to the intellectual
(Huxley 73).
This is a deepened sense for reality mescaline puts
one into, “the intellect remains unimpaired and though perception is enormously
improved” (Huxley 25) he says that psychedelics improve one’s perception of
reality and Huxley sees much value in that.
Huxley
speaks of his quest with mescaline as a doorway into new perceptions of our
reality, his mysticism piques him to search for deeper purpose in life, and
with his newfound knowledge he desires for others to have seen what he has
seen, and for psychedelics even to replace alcohol, because it allow people to
escape more beneficially. Psychedelics change
what our brain senses, which allows us to see reality quite differently, with a
less of a utilitarian instinct, and more of an open appreciation for nature and
simplicity type mindset. Using his
experiences with mescaline, Huxley writes about how psychedelic drugs expand
one’s perception and awareness of reality.
Works
Cited
“Aldous
Leonard Huxley.” Encyclopedia of World
Biography. 2nd ed. Vol.
8. 2004.
74-75. Gale Group Databases. Web. 22 Oct. 2010.
"Brave
New World." Novels for Students.
Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski and Deborah A. Stanley.
Vol. 6. 1999. 53. Print.
Daiches,
David. A Critical History of English
Literature. New York: The Ronald Press Company, 1960. Print.
Denny,
Ned. "Life’s weird majesty.” New Statesman. 1996. 28 Oct. 2010. Print.
“Mysticism.”
The American Heritage Dictionary. New York: Dell Publishing. 734. 1994. Print.
Huxley, Aldous. The Doors of Perception. New York: Harper & Brothers,
Publishers, 1954. Print.
Neill,
S. Diana. A Short History of the English
Novel. New York: Collier Books, 1951. Print.