Giant Book of the Supernatural

by Colin Wilson

The complete survey of all psychic phenomena from primitive man to the present day. From ghosts , poltergeists and precognition to psychic detection, reincarnation, Factor X, alternative earth history and expanded consciousness, this extraordinary collection will give you the full stories from the entire spectrum of the paranormal. Real-life vampires, doppelgangers, elemental theory, witchcraft, magicians and Odic forces are described, analysed and explained, alongside the mysteris of Atlantis, ley lines, standing stones and voodoo curses. Colin Wilson also tells amazing but true case histories of paranormal phenomena, including the phantom drummer of Tedworth, Guy Playfair and psychic surgery, Nostradamus, Aleister Crowley, Rasputin and many more...

Genres: Paranormal

Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Colin Henry Wilson was born and raised in Leicester, England, U.K. He left school at 16, worked in factories and various occupations, and read in his spare time. When Wilson was 24, Gollancz published The Outsider (1956) which examines the role of the social 'outsider' in seminal works of various key literary and cultural figures. These include Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ernest Hemingway, Hermann Hesse, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, William James, T. E. Lawrence, Vaslav Nijinsky and Vincent Van Gogh and Wilson discusses his perception of Social alienation in their work. The book was a best seller and helped popularize existentialism in Britain. Critical praise though, was short-lived and Wilson was soon widely criticized.

Wilson's works after The Outsider focused on positive aspects of human psychology, such as peak experiences and the narrowness of consciousness. He admired the humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow and corresponded with him. Wilson wrote The War Against Sleep: The Philosophy of Gurdjieff on the life, work and philosophy of G. I. Gurdjieff and an accessible introduction to the Greek-Armenian mystic in 1980. He argues throughout his work that the existentialist focus on defeat or nausea is only a partial representation of reality and that there is no particular reason for accepting it. Wilson views normal, everyday consciousness buffeted by the moment, as "blinkered" and argues that it should not be accepted as showing us the truth about reality. This blinkering has some evolutionary advantages in that it stops us from being completely immersed in wonder, or in the huge stream of events, and hence unable to act. However, to live properly we need to access more than this everyday consciousness. Wilson believes that our peak experiences of joy and meaningfulness are as real as our experiences of angst and, since we are more fully alive at these moments, they are more real. These experiences can be cultivated through concentration, paying attention, relaxation and certain types of work.

Reviews

[Chander · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic book that covers most of the supernatural phenomenon, debunked, disproved or otherwise in detailed, modular chapters, from Mesmerism, to Clairvoyants, to Poltergeists, to Possession, witches, vampires, and werewolves. An excellent read.

[Barry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book in a £1 shop around 1994 and it took me ages to get through and something I absolutely devoured. The book is incredibly broad covering all sorts of stuff and for my teenage brain it was quite deep at times trying to look into how or why people beleived stuff. I still remember it well and kind of regret not keeping it when I decluttered following a house move. I can still remember some of the key arguments and themes. A better book than some basic 'shock horror' coverage of the supernatural.

I learnt today that the author wasn't a compilist, rather he wrote mountains of books about the occult, crime, existensialism, philosophy. The kind of author who I assume made acolytes and enemies.

I can see i can get a second hand copy of this for not very much but the book shelves are creaking with the unread so let's leave this in the past. Maybe....

[Friendlybookworm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Completely unexpected and exhilarating. Pretty hard to go through though because it had a lot of information for me to process. But I did NOT except this. Go Colin Wilson, making me believe in the supernatural and stuff.