Fol­low­ing Nature’s review of Albion Dream­ing—a book on the his­tory of LSD in Britain—Mind Hacks pro­vides us with a wealth of inter­est­ing resources on the his­tory of LSD in the UK, includ­ing this great quote from Stephen Fry:

I don’t know if you have ever taken LSD, but when you do so the doors of per­cep­tion, as Aldous Hux­ley, Jim Mor­ri­son and their adher­ents cease­lessly remind us, swing open wide. That is actu­ally the sort of phrase, unless you are William Blake that only makes sense when there is some LSD swim­ming about inside you. In the cold light of the cup of cof­fee and banana sand­wich that are beside me now it appears to be non­sense, but I expect you know what it is taken to mean.

LSD reveals the what­ness of things, their quid­dity, their essence. The water­i­ness of water is sud­denly revealed to you, the car­pet­ness of car­pets, the wood­ness of wood, the yel­low­ness of yel­low, the fin­ger­nail­ness of fin­ger­nails, the all­ness of all, the noth­ing­ness of all, the all­ness of noth­ing. For me music gives access to every one of these essences of exis­tence, but at a frac­tion of the social or finan­cial cost of a drug and with­out the need to cry ‘Wow!’ all the time, which is one of LSD’s most dis­tress­ing and least endear­ing side-effects.