STONES OF FIRE
from The Doors of Perception:
"But the need for frequent chemical vacations from intolerable selfhood and repulsive surroundings will undoubtedly remain. What is needed is a new drug which will relieve and console our suffering species without doing more harm in the long run than it does in the short."(pp64-65)
[Huxley describes the mescaline experience]
"From the French window I walked out under a kind
of pergola covered in part by a climbing rose tree, in part
by laths, one inch wide with half an inch of space
between them. The sun was shining and the shadows of the laths made
a zebra-like pattern on the ground and across the
seat and back of the garden chair, which was standing at this end
of the pergola. That chair- shall I ever forget it?
Where the shadows fell on the canvas upholstry, stripes of a deep
but glowing indigo alternated with stripes of an incandescence so
intensely bright that it was hard to believe that they could be made of anything but blue fire.
For what seemed an immensely long time I gazed without knowing, even without
wishing to know, what it was that confronted me...It was inexpressibly wonderful,
wonderful to the point, almost, of being terrifying." (pp 53-54)
from The Doors of Perception, by Aldous Huxley, Perennial Library; Harper and Row, Publishers, New York, 1990. Originally published in 1954.
from Heaven and Hell:
"Uttarakuru, we see, resembles the landscapes of the mescalin
experience in being rich with precious stones.
And this characteristic is common to virtually all the Other
Worlds of religious tradition. Every
paradise abounds in gems, or at least in gemlike objects
resembled, as Weir Mitchell puts it, "transparent fruit." Here,
for example, is Ezekiel's version of the Garden of Eden.
"Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God. Every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius,
topaz and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx and the jasper, the
sapphire, the emerald and the carbuncle, and gold...Thou art
the anointed cherub that covereth...thou hast walked up and
down in the midst of the stones of fire." The Buddhist paradises
are adorned with similar "stones of fire." Thus, the Western Paradise of the
Pure Land Sect is walled with silver, gold and beryl; has lakes with
jeweled banks and a profusion of glowing lotuses, within which
the Bodhisattvas sit enthroned."
from Heaven and Hell, by Aldous Huxley, Perennial Library; Harper and Row,
Publishers, New York, 1990. Originally published in
1954.
"If the DOORS of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite."
(William Blake)
"The Negroes in the forest are saying: "Forget the night! Come and live with us in forests of azure; for out here, on the perimeter, we is stoned - immaculate!" (Jim Morrison)