“To live on a day-to-day basis is insufficient for human beings; we need to transcend, transport, escape… We need freedom (or, at least, the illusion of freedom) to get beyond ourselves,” wrote the late neurologist and naturalist Oliver Sacks, a man who devoted his life to marvels of the human mind. This passage served as an opener to Sacks’ account in The New Yorker of his own experience using psychedelics—tools, he believed, for seeing the world differently and opening the mind.

Shifting perspective was appreciated long before Sacks ingested lysergic acid, however. In the 18th and 19th centuries, scientists fascinated by the connection between vision and perception developed devices known as “philosophical toys,” contraptions that allowed users to experience optical marvels. Through them, adults tilted their perception of time and space, and just for a moment, saw new worlds.

The kaleidoscope, invented by David Brewster in 1816, was one such gadget. Peter Mark Roget (of thesaurus fame!) glowingly described the device in 1818: “In the memory of man, no invention, and no work, whether addressed to the imagination or to the understanding, ever produced such an effect.”

In the two centuries since their creation, we’ve seen the birth of electronics, of photography, television, and the internet. But kaleidoscopes haven’t lost their magic. These little tubes are portals to worlds alongside our own. The reality we know, tumbled and turned, reconfigured to show us something new.

“To live on a day-to-day basis is insufficient for human beings; we need to transcend, transport, escape… We need freedom (or, at least, the illusion of freedom) to get beyond ourselves,” wrote the late neurologist and naturalist Oliver Sacks, a man who devoted his life to marvels of the human mind. This passage served as an opener to Sacks’ account in The New Yorker of his own experience using psychedelics—tools, he believed, for seeing the world differently and opening the mind.

Shifting perspective was appreciated long before Sacks ingested lysergic acid, however. In the 18th and 19th centuries, scientists fascinated by the connection between vision and perception developed devices known as “philosophical toys,” contraptions that allowed users to experience optical marvels. Through them, adults tilted their perception of time and space, and just for a moment, saw new worlds.

The kaleidoscope, invented by David Brewster in 1816, was one such gadget. Peter Mark Roget (of thesaurus fame!) glowingly described the device in 1818: “In the memory of man, no invention, and no work, whether addressed to the imagination or to the understanding, ever produced such an effect.”

In the two centuries since their creation, we’ve seen the birth of electronics, of photography, television, and the internet. But kaleidoscopes haven’t lost their magic. These little tubes are portals to worlds alongside our own. The reality we know, tumbled and turned, reconfigured to show us something new.