What do you think?
Rate this book
The essential Colin Wilson
. 1985, bright clean copy, with dustjacket, no markings
248 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1986
2 people are currently reading
219 people want to read
About the author
Colin Wilson
403 books1,291 followersLibrarian 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.
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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
August 28, 2018
A great overview of the progression of the ideas of Colin Wilson. You get to appreciate the common themes of all his work, but also its evolution in to a clear practical guide for others who want to pursue this path of transcending everyday consciousness into a deeper understanding of the self and the true purpose and meaning of our lives.
It was also interesting for me to see for the first time how he presents some of his ideas in his fictional works. The various metaphors he uses, from Faculty X to the Ladder of Selves to Laurel and Hardy theory of consciousness to 3 D consciousness all can aid your own appreciation of this process.
The basic truth here is that we need tension in our lives in order for horizons of meaning to emerge in our lives. All spirituality at all times has realised this. The modern world, in trying to remove all suffering from life, as good intentioned as this pursuit may be, also removes all tension in our life. And so the sense of meaninglessness and boredom sets in. Colin Wilson does not pursue this insight much into the social, cultural and political domain. But we are seeing now political consequences of the failure of a kind of moral value system in its application to our lives.
People desire and require a tension in their lives for meaning to emerge, we must first agree on this once and for all, forget about vain utopian projects of ending all "suffering" and get back to a more longer term practical solution/project for the future generations.
It was also interesting for me to see for the first time how he presents some of his ideas in his fictional works. The various metaphors he uses, from Faculty X to the Ladder of Selves to Laurel and Hardy theory of consciousness to 3 D consciousness all can aid your own appreciation of this process.
The basic truth here is that we need tension in our lives in order for horizons of meaning to emerge in our lives. All spirituality at all times has realised this. The modern world, in trying to remove all suffering from life, as good intentioned as this pursuit may be, also removes all tension in our life. And so the sense of meaninglessness and boredom sets in. Colin Wilson does not pursue this insight much into the social, cultural and political domain. But we are seeing now political consequences of the failure of a kind of moral value system in its application to our lives.
People desire and require a tension in their lives for meaning to emerge, we must first agree on this once and for all, forget about vain utopian projects of ending all "suffering" and get back to a more longer term practical solution/project for the future generations.
February 20, 2022
Enjoyed reading someone just theorising about humans and what makes them happy for a whole book. I think people should do that more. Went a bit off piste at points and I liked the earlier bits more. His optimism was very good.
December 12, 2019
I had no idea who this guy is when I started reading this book.
It said writings on Mysticism, Consciousness, and Existentialism on the cover, so I was really curious to see what's up with that. Did he make some kind of synthesis of these areas or what?
At first, I was very disappointed. It starts like the pompous rambling about his achievements and whatnot, but as I kept going and it grew on me.
One of the great things about this book is that it's like a museum of obscure ideas from philosophy, psychology, parapsychology, fringe science... He writes about Russian mystics like Gurdjieff, about completely forgotten or not known in the first place continental philosophers, he mentions scientific theories from the 60s and 70s that have been debunked for a long time, but in spite of that, it's still written in simple and down-to-earth language.
His main idea is that there must be more to life and human beings than what pessimistic philosophers(Sartre, Schopenhauer, Heidegger)assumed and that these things if taken into consideration can produce an optimistic version of existentialism.
In the search for these overlooked elements, he will go from batshit crazy parapsychological theories about the afterlife, telepathy, ghosts to more conventional stuff like Maslow's peak experiences.
One of the problems with this book is that it's just a bunch of essays that were put together, and many ideas and stories will be mentioned too many times. Like, Prust and the story about the cookie that triggered a flood of memories that caused him to write his magnum opus is mentioned around six times in the same manner during the course of the book.
Other than that, this is a great read that broadened my perspective and my reading list.
It said writings on Mysticism, Consciousness, and Existentialism on the cover, so I was really curious to see what's up with that. Did he make some kind of synthesis of these areas or what?
At first, I was very disappointed. It starts like the pompous rambling about his achievements and whatnot, but as I kept going and it grew on me.
One of the great things about this book is that it's like a museum of obscure ideas from philosophy, psychology, parapsychology, fringe science... He writes about Russian mystics like Gurdjieff, about completely forgotten or not known in the first place continental philosophers, he mentions scientific theories from the 60s and 70s that have been debunked for a long time, but in spite of that, it's still written in simple and down-to-earth language.
His main idea is that there must be more to life and human beings than what pessimistic philosophers(Sartre, Schopenhauer, Heidegger)assumed and that these things if taken into consideration can produce an optimistic version of existentialism.
In the search for these overlooked elements, he will go from batshit crazy parapsychological theories about the afterlife, telepathy, ghosts to more conventional stuff like Maslow's peak experiences.
One of the problems with this book is that it's just a bunch of essays that were put together, and many ideas and stories will be mentioned too many times. Like, Prust and the story about the cookie that triggered a flood of memories that caused him to write his magnum opus is mentioned around six times in the same manner during the course of the book.
Other than that, this is a great read that broadened my perspective and my reading list.
August 27, 2016
Colin Wilson for me is one of the most brilliant intellectuals around the world. In this book he discussed a lot of issues related to Existential Psychology and Peak Experience such as , self image and the outer world , imagination and how it affects reality, the relation between meaningfulness life and the power of will, how the nihilistic person react with bad news, masturbation and drinking from a psychological point of view, the obstacles that give us the meaningfulness and alertness, mysticism as core happiness component and other ideas that Colin works on his books. this book is already in Youtube you can listen to it as Audiobook.
February 23, 2014
I've been in love with Colin Wilson's The Outsider for many years. This collection helped me dip my toes into some of his other work. Of particular interest is his desire to merge Maslow's psychology of 'peak experience' with existentialism / the problem of nihilism.
A great primer on Wilson's thought which has definitely added a few more of his books to my reading list.
A great primer on Wilson's thought which has definitely added a few more of his books to my reading list.
March 10, 2021
This is a wonderful book to dip into, as it's a collection of essays extracted from Colin Wilson's amazing output. It covers a wide range of subjects - psychology, with a focus on peak experiences and consciousness, criminality/evil, parapsychology and ESP, for instance – and there are also extracts from his fiction. Wilson is famous for his book 'The Outsider' which inspired many on its publication in the 1960s and it is interesting to read about the story behind the book and dip into his personal story. The main thing for me is that he writes so well and even where the material is difficult and challenging, it is always a pleasure to read! If you wanted to get into his 50-plus books body of work, this would be a great way to start.
July 21, 2021
Wilson's " The Outsiders" was an important book for me when I was in College. I have read other works by Wilson, such as "The Personality Surgeon", which I thought were very illuminating. I happened to see this book at Half Price Books, so I thought it might be nice to revisit my old existential musings. There are some things in the book which are dated and, because it is an updated anthology, some anecdotes are repeated from one chapter to the next. However, it's a pretty good read.
April 5, 2023
A short introduction to the style and ideas of Colin Wilson.
March 3, 2024
Fascinating ideas! These selected excerpts from Colin Wilson are thought provoking and entertaining.
March 30, 2013
Interesting existential musings on philosophy, psychology, and the human condition.
September 10, 2016
A collection of essays taken from other books by the author.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews