The Doors of Perception

In 1953, in the presence of an investigator, he took four-tenths of a gramme of mescalin, sat down and waited to see what would happen. When he opened his eyes everything, from the flowers in a vase to the folds in his grey flannel trousers, was transformed. "Red books like rubies, emerald books, books of agate and aquamarien. I was not looking now at an unusual flower arrangement. I was seeing what Adam had seen on the morning of his creation - the miracle, moment by moment, of naked existence." Huxley described his new "sacramental vision of reality" and the liberating potential of hallucinogenic drugs in his 1954 essay, "The Doors of Perception" and its 1956 sequel, "Heaven and Hell". These writings were crucial to the brave new dawn of the psychedelic 1960s.