The Doors of Perception: With a Foreword by J. G. Ballard (Flamingo Modern Classics) - Softcover

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Aldous Huxley was born in 1894 near Godalming, Surrey. He began writing poetry and short stories in his early twenties, but it was his first novel, ‘Crome Yellow’ (1921), which established his literary reputation. This was swiftly followed by ‘Antic Hay (1923), ‘Those Barren Leaves’ (1925) and ‘Point Counter Point ‘(1928) – bright, brilliant satires in which Huxley wittily passed judgement on the shortcomings of contemporary society.

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One bright May morning in 1953, Aldous Huxley took four-tenths of a gramme of mescaline, sat down and waited to see what would happen. When he opened his eyes, everything, from the flowers in a vase to the creases in his grey flannel trousers, was completely transformed. 'A bunch of flowers shining with their own inner light. Those folds – what a labyrinth of endlessly significant complexity! I was seeing what Adam had seen on the morning of his own creation – the miracle, moment by moment, of naked existence.'

With an astonishing immediacy, Aldous Huxley described his first experience of this new 'sacramental vision of reality' in his famous 1954 essay 'The Doors of Perception'. In its 1956 sequel, 'Heaven and Hell', Huxley, reflecting on his earlier mescaline experience, went on to explore the history and nature of mystics and mysticism. Hugely influential, still bristling with a sense of excitement and discovery, these intense and illuminating writings remain the most extraordinary accounts of the visionary experience ever written.

"There is nothing the pen of Huxley touches which it does not illuminate, and as the record of a highly civilised, brilliantly articulate man under the influence of an astonishing drug. 'The Doors of Perception' is a tour de force."
DAILY TELEGRAPH