Super Consiousness: The Quest for the Peak Experience [Kindle Edition]

The trouble with reading a book by Colin Wilson is that he pushes the infinitely curious reader into making yet another list of further books to read. In offering his life-long idea that all of us are only minutes away from achieving the positive state of mind called a 'peak experience,' his quotes range from Aristotle to H G Wells, from William Blake to W B Yeats, even to the wonderful Zen poet, Ikkyu. Essentially this book is an overview, or precis, of his 50 years of reading and writing, highlighting his core notion that the majority of us have an untapped energy resource to hand. As is his usual style, personal anecdotes and stories abound to reinforce this, and on every page, it becomes clearer, that all we need to do is cultivate a life-affirming attitude. Only then we will we be capable of fulfiling the potential of the billions of cells and synapses waiting unused in the brain. He berates Schopenhauer, Samuel Beckett and Sartre for particular views that mostly close off ideas and opportunities for opening up the creative mind, whereas writers such as William James and Walt Whitman are shown to open up infinite possibilities, which, as he suggests we ought to be intent on. This is not another in the great wall of 'self-help' books that abound, but an invitation for you to open a door - and pass through it - all's there and waiting...
I'll add that Mr Wilson is perhaps like a Detective Colombo, for if you doubt he's on the right track, or that he has anything useful to say, he'll get you with that "one last question, if you don't mind -", and then he's got ya wonderin'!

When the writer-philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre died in 1980, thousands of mourners followed the cortege through the streets of Paris. It is impossible to believe that here in England the death of any writer would inspire the same reaction. Perhaps we simply lack that intellectual turn of mind that appreciates writers of ideas. This explains the sad neglect of a great writer in Colin Wilson. He is much more popular abroad and has regularly lectured all over America.

He burst onto the literary scene with his first book of ideas "The Outsider" in 1956 which was universally received by the establishment as a work of genius. His second book was universally panned and despite a large body of substantial work since he has been ignored. It almost seems to be a tacit agreement between reviewers to neglect him.

Why then is Colin Wilson important? He has one central idea. He has always instinctively felt that the quality of our daily consciousness is very limited. It leads us to feel passive and vunerable and the victim of circumstances. The artists of the Romantic movement and the early 20th century were says Wilson the classic victims of this contradiction of an awareness of man's potential and the contrast of his everyday experiences.

In his works he has analysed the history of literature philosophy music and the arts against the backdrop of his philosophy. To use his terminology he has used an existential critique to examine all previous ideas expressed in artistic or literary forms to ascertain whether they raise or lower man's status in the universe. If this sounds abstract and dry do not be deceived. Reading a book by Colin Wilson is an extremely positive and exciting experience. His thirst for ideas is infectious and even if you disagree with him he will leave you a new and fascinating perspective.

It is Colin Wilson's research into the sciences that has supported his theories and pointed the way forward. In rare moments we are all capable of "peak experiences" ( a term coined by the American Abraham Maslow)which are indicative of the the vast scope of our mental potentiality. This potentiality is evident in many phenomena ie second sight, synchronicity, idiot savants and the occult.

Also scientists have demonstrated the existence of the "right" and left" sides of the brain which perform quite separate functions. We are compelled to live our daily lives in the left side which controls our reason and logic whilst the right side is associated with the more subliminal levels. It is the understanding of the linkage of the two sides of the brain and how to use it to induce peak experiences that Mr Wilson feels will lead to Super Consciousness. This book neatly summarises many of his central insights.

To call Colin Wilson "well read" is an understatement and he can be enjoyed on the simplest level as an educator in the fields of literature science philosophy and art.

He has also written many novels which are well crafted and fascinating reads and which illustrate his ideas. He has created many memorable characters which will live in the readers memories.

Buy this Book!

I have been reading Colin Wilson for more than thirty years, and his work is one of the central reasons why I became a writer. Anyone unfamiliar with his brilliant analysis of the problems of human consciousness is sadly uninformed, and is missing out on the inimitable excitement about ourselves and our potential that reading one of his books invariably triggers. It is a shame that this acute philosophical thinker too often gets placed in the "new age" or "mind, body, spirit" sections of bookshops, if he is stocked there at all. He is much more a member of that company of greats, like Plato, Goethe, and Shaw, than he is a "self-help" or "spiritual writer," and he is probably the only existential philosopher of the late 20th and early 21st centuries worthy of that name. Practically every page of Wilson crackles with ideas, and reading one of his books is a more certain and lasting stimulus to "higher consciousness" than any number of hallucinogens or meditative techniques. Buy this one. Read it. Then read the others.