The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell

Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World, pairs two essays on drugs that alter the mind and on the remote, unmapped regions of human consciousness. In The Doors of Perception he describes how he volunteered as a guinea pig for mescaline, and uses that experience to examine the limits of ordinary perception. Heaven and Hell carries the inquiry further, explaining how such drugs can lead the person taking them into an uncharted part of the mind that can resemble heaven, while negative emotions can turn the same place into hell. Along the way, both essays bring in art and mysticism as Huxley considers how little of reality people normally see.

CBlocks co-founder Auston Bunsen said he really loved The Doors of Perception.