The Doors Of Perception

The Doors of Perception

The Doors of Perception

By Joe Fitzpatrick

Open your mind real wide now

Aldous Huxley penned "The doors of perception" in 1954 wherein he explores the use of mind altering substances including his very first experiences with Mescaline and the potential for drugs to be used as a consciousness raising device in the pursuit of spiritual enlightenment. Huxley was inspired by the English poet William Blake's "The marriage of heaven and hell" in which Blake muses "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 was widely known and respected as a leading intellectual and author so it should come as little surprise to any of you that thousands of people around the world quickly took to his ideas on drugs and how they could be applied to spirituality, art and religion then used them to varying degrees of success as the starting point for various counterculture movements of the 1960's. Jim Morrison named his band "The Doors" such was the influence that Huxley's "The Doors Of Perception" had upon his creative genius.

If football is like a religion to many of us, just as music was a religion to the late, great visionary Jim Morrison, perhaps we should take a leaf out of old Jimbo's book and look at ways to alter our perspective on the true nature of our reality?

Some of us are natural optimists while some of us are naturally pessimistic and that is mostly due to our genetics and resulting brain chemistry. We are all Arsenal fans who love the club dearly but our perception of reality seems to differ much beyond the classical eters of the glass half full or glass half empty syndrome. It is my opinion that the most cost effective way for Arsenal FC. of bringing all of the negative doom mongers into line is to chemically alter their natural disposition with the careful scientific application of mind bending substances. How else can we convince all of these negative Nancies that our current defence and goalkeepers are good enough to win the Premier League? How else can we convince them that all of our players are truly committed to the cause and actually want to wear the beloved red and white shirt? How can we convince them that our manager is a tactical genius and doesn't need to spend any serious money on improving his playing squad?

The truth is fellow Gooners, is that we can't. We can't convince them without slipping mescaline into their beer because of pesky little inconvenient things called facts.

Jim Morrison and The Doors of Perception | Giulietta the Muse

Jim Morrison – a rebel inspired by poets and philosophers like Nietzsche  — stumbled on “The Doors” from two related sources. The poet William Blake who wrote, “When the doors of perception are cleansed, man will see things as they truly are, infinite. And author Aldous Huxley who wrote a book called, “The Doors of Perception.” Jim suggested the name to the other three members and Voila, it fit.

Once I read that William Blake quote, I started to ponder his words — The Doors of Perception. Googled it a bit and discovered that another Doors song, “Break On Through To The Other Side” talks about breaking through the doors of perception. An anonymous commenter wrote, “We have to see through the lies and deceptions and break on through to the other side to find our own version of the truth in life.”

Where did you get your truth in life? I got mine from other older people in my life. Brainwashing basically. Their reality became my reality. You really see this with politics. Children usually take on their parents’ politics, use the same lingo, spout the same emotion. When they get older and start opening new doors, they sometimes end up in a different political space.

Here are a few doors of deception (or perception) I’ve broken through.