Colin Wilson's 'Occult Trilogy': A Guide for Students (3 page)

“…a happy, open state of mind….
It is a sense of the marvellous
interestingness
of the world.
We still use the word ‘magic’ in this sense—talking about ‘the magic of summer nights’, ‘magic moments’ and so on.
This is not a misuse of language; that is what real magic is about.”
(239)

Sections are devoted to studies of the Magi, Orphism, the Essenes, the worship of the god Dionysius, alchemy, the Mystical Kabbalah and Gnosticism.
The life and work of Pythagoras: “…the first ‘great initiate’ of recorded history” (248), Apollonius of Tyana, Albertus Magnus, Cornelius Agrippa, Nostradamus, Paracelsus and many others are considered.

At the beginning of Chapter 5, ‘Adepts and Impostors’, Wilson writes: “After the great sixteenth century there is a falling off in the quality of magic” (345).
In it he considers the life and work of Dr.
John Dee, Giacomo Casanova, Count Alessandro di Cagliostro, the Count of Saint-Germain and “the greatest occultist of the eighteenth century” (358) Emanuel Swedenborg.

In Chapter 6, ‘The Nineteenth Century—Magic and Romanticism’, we move into more familiar Wilson territory: “The romantics were driven by the spirit of magic, which is the evolutionary spirit of the human race” (420) but “wrapped in
self-pity, they fail to stay the course” (422) ending in pessimism and despair: “with the exception of Goethe, the romantics seem unaware of that other form that ecstasy takes: the violent raging appetite for more life” (422).
However, the romantic revival brought with it a revival of interest in magic: Madame Blavatsky and theosophy, W.B.
Yeats, MacGregor Mathers and the Order of the Golden Dawn.

‘The Beast Himself’, Aleister Crowley, is the subject of Chapter 7.
Wilson had previously based a character—Caradoc Cunningham—in his novel
Man Without A Shadow: the diary of an existentialist
(London: Arthur Barker, 1963) on Crowley and would go on to write a short biography
Aleister Crowley: the nature of the Beast
(Wellingborough: Aquarian Press, 1987).
Chapter 8 is shared between Grigori Rasputin and the philosopher/mystic G.I.
Gurdjieff.
Wilson had already written a biography of Rasputin,
Rasputin and the Fall of the Romanovs
(London: Arthur Barker, 1964) and would write a novel based on his life,
The Magician From Siberia
(London: Robert Hale, 1988).
But it is Gurdjieff whom he describes as “the most interesting of all magicians….
There can be no doubt that he achieved a large degree of Faculty X” (502).
Again, he had written about Gurdjieff before, most notably in his
Outsider Cycle**
and would go on to write a short biography,
The War Against Sleep: the philosophy of Gurdjieff
(Wellingborough: Aquarian Press, 1980).
Clearly Gurdjieff’s message resonates with Wilson and, to a great extent, correlates with his own ideas about the inadequacy of human consciousness:

“In the moments of ‘higher consciousness’ there is always a feeling of ‘But
of course
!’
Life is infinitely meaningful; its possibilities are suddenly endless, and ‘normal consciousness’ is seen as being no better than sleep.
For, like sleep, it separates man from
reality
.”
(508)

Following his assessment of Gurdjieff, Wilson moves
The Occult
forward to its third and final part: ‘Man’s Latent Powers’.
In Chapter 1 he presents a history of witchcraft including vampirism and lycanthropy.
Chapter 2, ‘The Realm of Spirits’, contains accounts of spiritualism, ghosts, reincarnation and clairvoyance.
In Chapter 3, ‘Glimpses’, he attempts “to suggest a general theory that might impose some order on the bewildering mass of occult phenomena already examined”.
(703).
Wilson is convinced that, if can we learn to raise our consciousness above the ‘everyday norm’ we could re-acquaint ourselves with “various powers and faculties that at present are ‘occult’ (latent, hidden) and would discover that they are perfectly natural after all” (703).
He recounts documented instances of telepathy, precognition and mystical experiences seeing these as evidence that we can, albeit fleetingly, tune into higher levels of consciousness.
But why only ‘fleetingly’?

“The answer is of fundamental importance.
Because the ‘muscles’ that could hold it are flabby and undeveloped.
We only make use of these muscles
involuntarily
, when suddenly stirred by beauty or a sense of crisis….
We possess the muscles for compressing consciousness and producing states of intensity, but we use them so seldom that we are hardly aware of their existence.”
(744).

Wilson asserts that the next stage in human evolution will be the “deliberate development of this ‘muscle’ of the will, and a corresponding development of the sense of meaning” (745).
He goes on to explain how concentration can be employed to convulse the ‘muscle’.
Whilst listening to a favourite piece of music:

“Instead of allowing the aesthetic experience to operate upon passive sensibilities, I made an effort to accelerate the process by concentration….
I convulsed the muscle of concentration in
an all-out effort, and the result was a glimpse of the kind of control over the body that
will
be possible at the next stage of human evolution.”
(748)

He later devised a method of inducing these ‘peak’ experiences using a concentration and relaxation method which he named the ‘pen-trick’.
This technique is explained in his book
Access to Inner Worlds
(London: Rider, 1983) and was taught, with a degree of success, to students at the Viittakivi Institute in Finland.

In conclusion Wilson writes:

“I do not regard myself as an ‘occultist’ because I am more interested in the mechanisms of everyday consciousness.
In the past, man’s chief characteristic has been his ‘defeat proneness’; even the giants of the nineteenth century were inclined to believe that insanity is a valid refuge from the ‘triviality of everydayness’.
But the answer lies in understanding the mechanisms.
Once they are understood, they can be altered to admit more reality.
The operation requires concentration and precision, the virtues of a skilled watchmaker.

We return to the assertion of the opening chapter: man’s future lies in the cultivation of ‘Faculty X’.”
(763)

The critical response to this book was mostly good although, as with all of Wilson’s work, responses were extreme: either enthusiastically positive or over-critical.
But over all, reviews were lengthy and:

“…had a serious and respectful tone that I hadn’t heard since
The Outsider
….
As if conveying the blessing of England’s literary establishment, Cyril Connolly and Philip Toynbee…produced lengthy and thoughtful reviews….
Apparently all was forgiven.”
(Wilson (2); 18)

Alan Hull Walton, writing in
Books and Bookmen
, declared:

“…in an age of talented mediocrity, [Colin Wilson] is blessed with far more than talent—he is blessed with insight, sincerity, humility, an extraordinarily wide learning (comparable to that of the ‘universal man’ of the Renaissance), and also manifests something of the breadth of genius of a Goethe….
His new book…is by far and away his best work to date, and worthy to be placed on the same shelf alongside William James, F.W.H.
Myers’
Human Personality …
, and Frazer’s
Golden Bough…
.
A review of a thousand words…cannot do justice to a book of this calibre….
The Occult
is a valuable ‘must’ for anyone with the remotest interest in the future of civilised man.”
(Walton, 50-51)

However, E.
Geoffrey Parrinder, in the
Times Literary Supplement
, was less effusive calling it a “hotchpotch of magic, witchcraft, spiritualism and the like”, but admitting that:

“Mr.
Wilson’s theory that man has evolved so far outwardly that progress is in danger unless accompanied by inward development is a serious problem.
[He should] take the thirty odd pages on Faculty X and develop a coherent theory without the occult allies….
Comparison with Frazer’s
Golden Bough
is misconceived….”
(Parrinder, 1471)

James Blish advised that “…anyone wishing to begin reading in this field might well begin with this book (which also contains a good bibliography)”, with the proviso that “he retains a good grip on his scepticism”.
(Blish, 654)

In the U.S., Joyce Carol Oates praised the work as a “book of wonders”, recommending it as: “one of those rich, strange, perplexing, infinitely surprising works that repay many readings.
Though it contains a great deal of history it is really,
like most of Colin Wilson’s books, about the future.”
(Oates, 8-9)

Clifford P.
Bendau wrote:

“
The Occult
establishes that Wilson has the ability to research and interpret vast quantities of information.
It is apparent that he is able to convey consistent and challenging ideas that prod those who are most comfortable with their established beliefs.”
(Bendau, 53)

“With the publication of
The Occult
”, wrote Howard F.
Dossor:

“…many readers believed that Wilson had redirected his interest to a new field….
Many thought he had abandoned his principles and settled for the acclaim of a more receptive press.
For many, this suspicion was fuelled by his admission that he had been attracted to write the book as a means of solving his financial problems…[however] it is inconceivable that the author of
The Outsider Cycle
would not have proceeded to an investigation of the mysterious world that lies beyond the boundaries of our established sciences and our intellectual preconceptions.
The very term
Outsider
implies an incapacity to remain restricted within such parameters.
The Outsider is outside the prevailing myths of his age, no matter how respectable the form in which they present themselves.”
(Dossor, 178)

In a recent assessment of all three of Wilson’s ‘Occult Trilogy’ books, Will Parker concludes:

“Through his reading of the occult and the paranormal—leavened with a reasonable knowledge of depth psychology and the neurosciences—Wilson offers a provisional set of working assumptions which point the way towards …promising new vistas of psychic evolution….
Wilson is at his
best when bringing this esoteric conceptual framework to bear on his own special interest, the cultivation of the ‘peak experience’ as an antidote to the ‘nausea’ of modern man.”
(Parker, 25)

*All page references are from the Mayflower Books Ltd paperback edition of
The Occult
.
St Albans: Mayflower Books Ltd., 1973 (1976 reprint).

** The
Outsider Cycle
is as follows:

The Outsider
(1956)

Religion and the Rebel
(1957)

The Age of Defeat
(
The Stature of Man
in the U.S.) (1959)

The Strength to Dream: literature and the imagination
(1962)

Origins of the Sexual Impulse
(1963)

Beyond the Outsider: the philosophy of the future
(1965)

Introduction to the New Existentialism
(1966)

References:

Bendau, Clifford P.
Colin Wilson: the Outsider and beyond
.
San Bernardino: The Borgo Press, 1979.

Blish, James.
‘Eclectic Occultism’ in
The Spectator
227, (Nov.
6, 1971) p.
654.

Dossor, Howard F.
Colin Wilson: the man and his mind
.
Shaftesbury, Dorset: Element Books, 1990.

Oates, Joyce Carol.
Review of
The Occult
in
The American Poetry Journal
II (January/February, 1973), p.
8-9.

Parker, Will.
‘Colin Wilson on the Occult’ in
The Gnostic
, Issue 2 (Autumn 2009), p.
17-26.

Parrinder, E.
Geoffrey.
‘What we need is Faculty X’,
Times Literary Supplement
(Nov.
26, 1971), p.
1471.

Walton, Alan Hull.
‘Wilson’s occult’ in
Books and Bookmen
, 17, (Dec.
1971), p.
50-51.

Wilson, Colin (1).
New Introduction to
The Occult
.
London:
Watkins Publishing, 2003.

Wilson, Colin (2).
‘Introduction:
The Outsider
, twenty years on’ in
The Outsider
.
London: Pan (Picador) Books, 1978.

Bibliographical details:

The Occult.

a.
London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1971, 601 p., cloth.

b.
New York: Random House, 1971, 603 p., cloth.

c.
New York: Random House, 1972?, 603 p., cloth, [book club edition].

d.
St.
Albans: Mayflower, 1973, 795 p., paper.

e.
as:
The Occult: A History
.
New York: Vintage Books, 1973, 601 p., paper.

f.
as:
L’Occulte
.
Paris: Albin Michel, 1973, 425 p., paper.
Translated by Robert Genin.
[French]

g.
as:
Lo Oculto: La Facultad X del Hombre
.
Barcelona: Editorial Noguer, 1974, 476 p., cloth.
Translated by Carmen Criado.
[Spanish]

h.
as:
L’Occulto
.
Roma: Astrolabio, 1975, 623 p., cloth (?).
Translated by Paolo Valli.
[Italian]

i.
as:
Den Hemmelighedsfulde Videnskab
.
Viby: Strube, 1978, 372 p., cloth (?).
Translated by Benjamin Saxe.
[Danish]