The Doors of Perception - Composition and Development

Composition and Development

Osmond arrived at Huxley’s house in West Hollywood on May 3, and recorded his impressions of the famous author as a tolerant and kind man, although he had expected otherwise. The psychiatrist had misgivings about giving the drug to Huxley, and wrote that "I did not relish the possibility, however remote, of being the man who drove Aldous Huxley mad," but instead found him an ideal subject. Huxley was “shrewd, matter-of-fact and to the point” and his wife Maria "eminently sensible". Overall, they all liked each other, which was very important when administering the drug. The mescaline was slow to take effect, but Osmond saw that after two and a half hours the drug was working and after three hours Huxley was responding well. The experience lasted eight hours and both Osmond and Maria remained with him throughout.

The experience started in Huxley's study before the party made a seven block trip to The Owl Drug (Rexall) store, known as World's Biggest Drugstore, at the corner of Beverly and La Cienega Boulevards. Huxley was particularly fond of the shop and the large variety of products available there, (in stark contrast to the much smaller selection in English chemist's shops). There he considered a variety of paintings in art books. For one of his friends, Huxley's poor eyesight manifested in both a great desire to see and a strong interest in painting, which influenced the strong visual and artistic nature of his experience. After returning home to listen to music, eat, and walk in the garden, a friend drove the threesome to the hills overlooking the city. Photographs show Huxley standing, alternately arms on hips and out stretched with a grin on his face. Finally, they returned home and to ordinary consciousness. One of Huxley’s friends who met him on the day said that despite writing about wearing flannel trousers, he was actually wearing blue jeans. Huxley admitted to having changed the fabric as Maria thought he should be better dressed for his readers. Osmond later said he had a photo of the day that showed Huxley wearing flannels.

After Osmond’s departure, Huxley and Maria left to go on a three-week, 5,000-mile car trip around the national parks of the North West of the USA. After returning to Los Angeles, he took a month to write the book. The Doors of Perception was the first book Huxley dedicated to his wife Maria. Harold Raymond, at his publisher Chatto and Windus, said of the manuscript, “You are the most articulate guinea pig that any scientist could hope to engage.” The title was taken from William Blake's poem The Marriage of Heaven and Hell:

If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern.

Huxley had used Blake's metaphor in The Doors of Perception while discussing the paintings of Vermeer and the Nain brothers, and previously in The Perennial Philosophy, once in relation to the use of mortification as a means to remove persistent spiritual myopia and secondly to refer to the absence of separation in spiritual vision. In the early 1950s, Huxley had suffered a debilitating attack of the eye condition Iritis. This increased his concern for his already poor eyesight and much of his work in the early part of the decade had featured metaphors of vision and sight.