As I expected Aldous Huxley wrote a book that is very meaningful to me about different methods of getting thru doors to see what is real. I had not known that he had used mescaline as one of those methods, but he did; and what he wrote about that experience was enlightening. ( )

I found the first section of this book a little bland and boring on par with The Joyous Cosmology: Adventures in the Chemistry of Consciousness by Alan Watts. In fact, they seem to mirror each other a little in what they say about the drug experience. However, I found the second half of the book, Heaven & Hell, much more enjoyable and interesting. In particular, the idea of a 'visionary' as opposed to a 'negative visionary'. I'm still mulling that over in my head as I write this. Bad trips and hell lie in the concentrated idea of individualism and the opposite laying in ego death and the destruction of self makes sense to me and is plainly engaging to my mind. I have had some experience with drugs especially cannabis and alcohol and with some hard drugs and hallucinogens as well. I've never seen heaven or hell while under the influence as Huxley and Alan Watts seem to have, save for spinning, vomiting, and really bad hangovers/mush-brain.
I would recommend this book, not so much the first part (The Doors of Perception), but for the second, (Heaven & Hell) and the included essay Drugs that Shape Men's Minds particularly because the line, "...others embark upon their course of slow suicide as a result of mere intimation and good fellowship because they have made such an "excellent adjustment to their group" - a process which, if the group happens to be criminal, idiotic or merely ignorant, can bring only disaster to the well-adjusted individual." Which really connected with me (a sort of unpleasant flashback to my youth). ( )

I really wanted to like this book because I am reading book about the history of the psychedelic movement. I got it as an audiobook, but the speaker has a weird voice and I find the book impossible to follow. The book sounds like it was written while someone was high. ( )

This is 79 pages and I could not be more bored if I tried. This book recounts the time the author took mescalin. One would think it would be a very mesmerizing read but it's actually dull as tombs.

Huxley's experience is described in the most boring and numbing words possible. This is frankly an absolute shock since I am quite fond of Brave New World. The telling is in some ways a stream of consciousness but also telling from the outside looking in while looking out from the inside...if that makes any sort of sense. Huxley seems to simultaneously describe the mescalin trip as it's happening to him and as he's being watched while having it. And this should be a very unique understanding but it just isn't. This brought me to:

DNF'd after 40 pages.

This will be leaving my collection.

**All thoughts and opinions are my own.** ( )

most interesting part is def the connections made bw (1) various mystical (non)conceptions of splendorous emptiness, (2) the xp of mescaline, and (3) the aesthetic meanings of material ornaments in religious art ( )