The Doors of Perception

3.5 stars. I'm sure I would have enjoyed it more if I read it like right after my first experience with hallucinogens. Some of it is very poignant and some of it is a reach, sounds like a very educated man's first experience with tripping. Then again, I've never done mescaline.

Appreciate that he is essentially advocating for the legalization of all drugs in the 50s, though the middle part of the book is just his random stoner thoughts on the art he's looking at and the music he's listening to.

After hearing for several years in the internet about this boom I gave it a go.

So glad I did.

Aldous was one of Britain’s brightest. He tried mescaline as a research project, and oh my, I wish I had at least 1% of his eloquent speech and highly accurate descriptive language of intrinsic and extrinsic phenomenon that happen in ineffable experiences.

Its like reliving a small hit when you read. Very interesting.

Oof, this read like a white paper that paid for word count.

Surprisingly insightful for the time; much holds true today. I loved this:

But the man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less cocksure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable Mystery which it tries, forever vainly, to comprehend.

A very interesting read.