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How does a drug, any drug, liberate the mind?

Aldous Huxley (wrote: "the doors of perception") believed the explanation must be sought in a theory advanced by Henry Bergson, and later elaborated by the Cambridge philosopher, Professor C. D. Broad. The original function of the brain, Broad thought, was basically not productive, but eliminative. It was designed 'to protect us from being overwhelmed and confused by the mass of largely useless and irrelevant knowledge, by shutting out most of what we should otherwise perceive or remember at any moment, and leaving only that very small and special selection which is likely to be practically useful'.
This, huxley decided, would explain what had happened to him, and to others who had similar drug experiences. Ordinarily we get only a 'measly trickle' from the mind's vast resources. But a few individuals have a by-pass mechanism, enabling them to open the doors of perception; others construct one withe the help of spiritual exercises; and others can utilise drugs.
On this hypothesis, the vision-inducing drug could be described as a password to open doors which, for most people, are ordinarily closed. There is no single password; each individual may have his own - or none. Only one drug in common use has rarely been employed for the purpose:
Alcohol Produces a downward transcendence, peyotl an upward one - the difference between levelling up and levelling down. Alcohol allows one to relate to others by being more sure of one's self. This, in small doses, is much better than not being able to relate at all, but it is a very precarious business, and selfishness may soon end in brawling and ill-temper. Peyotl acts not by emphasizing one's own self but by expanding it into the selves of others, with a deepening empathy or in-feeling. The self is dissolved, and, in being dissolved, enriched...

Another theory was thought up by William James in his Varieties of Religious Experience , where he recalled the effect nitrous oxide (laughing gas) had on him. He found no reason, he wrote, to change the impression he had formed at the time.
It is that our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the flimsiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all their completeness...How to regard them is the question - for they are so discontinuous with ordinary consciousness. Yet they may determine attitudes though they cannot furnish formulas, and open a region though they fail to give a map. At any rate, they forbid a premature closing of our accounts with reality.

Of course the existence of unusual or abnormal states of consciousness has been recognized since man emerged as a species. Sleep, unconsciousness, confused states, insanity are departures from normal consciousness of which everyone has some knowledge. Trance states, possession and hypnosis are recognized as unusual states even if many people have never witnessed them personally. And it is well known that drugs can alter behaviour and subjective experience in various ways and varying degrees.

The difference is that such states -except for sleep perhaps- have been regarded as abnormalities and,in general, undesirable. How do such states relate to 'mind'? Can we infer anything about mind from them?
The founder of Methodism, John Wesley, carefully recorded several. Thus he writes in his Journal for 6 march 1758, when he was at Everton, that he 'talked largely with Ann Thorn and two others who had been several times in trances'. Then he was told that the fifteen-year-old Alice Miller had fallen into a trance. 'I went down immediately and found her sitting on a stool and leaning against the wall with her eyes open and fixed upward. I made a motion as if going to strike, but they continued unmovable.
Her face showed an unspeakable mixture of reverence and love, while silent tears stole down her cheeks. Her lips were a little open and sometimes moved; but not enough to cause any sound...Her pulse was quite regular.' In about half an hour her face changed into fear and pity. 'Dear lord, they will all be dammed!' Wesley heard her exclaim.

About seven o'clock her senses returned.'I asked her, "Where have you been?" "I have been with my Saviour." "In heaven or on earth?" "I cannot tell; but I was in glory."'

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