Page "The Doors of Perception" Paragraph 21

Psychiatric responses included those of William Sargant, the controversial British psychiatrist, who reviewed the book for The British Medical Journal and particularly focused on Huxley's reflections on schizophrenia.

He wrote that the book brought to life the mental suffering of schizophrenics, which should make psychiatrists uneasy about their failure to relieve this.

Also, he hoped that the book would encourage the investigation of the physiological, rather than psychological, aspects of psychiatry.

Other medical researchers questioned the validity of Huxley's account.

The book contained " 99 percent Aldous Huxley and only one half gram mescaline " according to Ronald Fisher.

While Joost A. M. Meerloo found Huxley's reactions " not necessarily the same as ... other people's experiences.

" For Steven J. Novak, The Doors Of Perception ( and Heaven and Hell ) redefined taking mescaline ( and LSD, although Huxley had not taken it until after he had written both books ) as a mystical experience with possible psychotherapeutic benefits, where physicians had previously thought of the drug in terms of mimicking a psychotic episode, known as psychotomimetic.

The popularity of the book also affected research into these drugs, because researchers needed a random sample of subjects with no preconceptions about the drug in order to conduct experiments, and these became very difficult to find.