|
c2ee12a
|
Mind is not really 'inside' us in the same sense that our intestines are. Our individuality is a kind of eddy in the sea of mind, a reflection of the total identity of the universal humanity.
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
eb6a045
|
It leads to a realization that man is not a constant, unchanging being: he is one person one day, another person the next. He forgets easily, lives in the moment, seldom exerts will-power, and even when he does, gives up the effort after a short time, or forgets his original aim and turns to something else. No wonder that poets feel such despair when they seem to catch a glimpse of some intenser state of consciousness, and know with absolut..
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
a25171d
|
lqd ntb lnsn sh`wr mndh lqrn lthmn `shr wb`d Srkh@ nytshh lm`rwf@, b'nWh turika wHydan fy hdh l`lm lkhwy. whw bhdh yshbh lTfl ldhy styqZ ltwh dht SbH, lyjd mn ykhbrh 'nW 'bh qd twfy w'nWh ynbGy `lyh 'n ytHml msw'wly@ l'sr@. nW hdh lHss blHrmn mn l'b nWm hw mn '`Zm lSdmt lnfsy@ lty ymkn llmr 'n yqsyh.
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
4743a4e
|
There can be no doubt that the chief fault we have developed, through the long course of human evolution, is a certain basic passivity. When provoked by challenges, human beings are magnificent. When life is quiet and even, we take the path of least resistance, and then wonder why we feel bored. A man who is determined and active doesn't pay much attention to 'luck'. If things go badly, he takes a deep breath and redoubles his effort. And h..
|
|
fate
willpower
sartre
luck
|
Colin Wilson |
|
f65afad
|
Oh . . . I'd been getting pretty sick of the office. It made me feel dead inside. Finally, the week-ends weren't long enough to get it out of my system. I couldn't read poetry or listen to music. It was like being constipated. Well, I got a holiday and went to Kent for a week's hiking. And for the first two days I felt nothing at all, just a sort of deadness inside. And one day I went into a pub in a place called Marden and had a couple of ..
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
3fe4e62
|
Reade drew a deep breath. He said with resignation, "All right. I'll try to explain. But it's rather difficult. You see, I've devoted my life to the problem of why certain men see visions. Men like Blake and Boehme and Thomas Traherne. A psychologist once suggested that it's a chemical in the bloodstream--the same sort of thing that makes a dipsomaniac see pink elephants. Now obviously, I can't accept this view. But I've spent a certain amo..
|
|
consciousness-expansion
|
Colin Wilson |
|
1261a24
|
Human beings have a deeply ingrained habit of passivity, which is strengthened by the relatively long period that we spend under the control of parents and schoolmasters. Moments of intensity are also moments of power and control; yet we have so little understanding of this that we wait passively for some chance to galvanize the muscle that created the intensity. But whether you use the negative methods of relaxation (which is fundamentally..
|
|
peak-experience
maslow
|
Colin Wilson |
|
c3723e0
|
Un tomer jus parnem divaina tuksuma sajuta -- lai ko jus daritu, nekam nav nozimes. Tiesi tas noteikti ir divdesmita gadsimta "morala bankrota" celonis."
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
fa14667
|
But the main trouble with human beings is their tendency to become trapped in the 'triviality of everydayness' (to borrow Heidegger's phrase), in the suffocating world of their personal preoccupations. And every time they do this, they forget the immense world of broader significance that stretches around them. And since man needs a sense of meaning to release his hidden energies, this forgetfulness pushes him deeper into depression and bor..
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
b0b67d6
|
At this point, I must describe an important study carried out by Clare W. Graves of Union College, Schenectady, N.Y. on deterioration of work standards. Professor Graves starts from the Maslow-McGregor assumption that work standards deteriorate when people react against workcontrol systems with boredom, inertia, cynicism... A fourteen-year study led to the conclusion that, for practical purposes, we may divide people up into seven groups, s..
|
|
spiral-dynamics
maslow
|
Colin Wilson |
|
6b2e9a4
|
The civilized man and the wolf-man live at enmity most of the time, and it would seem that Harry Haller is bound to spend his days divided by their squabbling. But sometimes, as in the tavern, they make peace, and then a strange state ensues; for Harry finds that a combination of the two makes him akin to the gods. In these moments of vision, he is no longer envious of the bourgeois who finds life so straightforward, for his own conflicts a..
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
0cfdaf0
|
Modern man has the possibility of understanding the mechanism of consciousness, and marching directly towards his objective, with the will flexed to its maximum efficiency.
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
fb3d940
|
With the use of a map, I could walk from Paris to Calcutta; without a map, I might find myself in Odessa. Well, if we had a similar 'map' of the human mind, a man could explore all the territory that lies between death and mystical vision, between catatonia and genius.
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
7871f70
|
If you say that everything--chaos, darkness, anathema-- can be reduced to mathematical formulae--then man will go insane on purpose to have no judgement, and to behave as he likes. I believe this because it appears that man's whole business is to prove that he is a man and not a cog-wheel... And perhaps, who knows, the striving of man on earth may consist in this uninterrupted striving for something ahead, that is, in life itself rather tha..
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
910ab25
|
l'mrD l`Sby@ hy l'mrD lty tnsh' mn lyqZ@ l'kthr mm hw mTlwb.
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
6c23fec
|
I've read Joyce and Sartre and Beckett and the rest, and every atom in me rejects what they say. They strike me as liars and fools. I don't think they're dishonest so much as hopelessly tired and defeated.
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
3bee110
|
mn lmstHyl `l~ mn kn fy lsds@ `shr@ mn `mrh 'n ytbyn 'nh fy GDwn khms snwt ln ykwn fy lwHd@ wl`shryn, wnm fy lthlthyn. thm fy lkhms@ wlthlthyn b`d `m wHd. thm fy l'rb`yn b`d st@ 'shhr. n sr`@ lzmn ttzyd ldrj@ tkhd`n.
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
bb341d0
|
nTlqt l~ lHy@ mthl rjl l jld lh, mrt`shan mn lshmy'zz klm kn `ly 'n 'Htk bwHd mn lns.
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
1779d59
|
Imagine that a tribe of ignorant natives find a motor-car, and decide that it makes an ideal storage room for food. So when they set out on a journey, they load it with food, attach ropes to it, and pull it through the jungle as if it was a cart. One of them fiddling about inside it, discovers the hand brake and releases it. Immediately, they find the car much easier to pull. They congratulate the discoverer, tell him he is a genius, and co..
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
c183a16
|
nhm y`yshwn wymwtwn mHSwryn kly@an dkhl 'whm l Hqyq@ lh. tmman mthlm `sh wmt hw nfsh.
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
d984267
|
She admitted that his nerves were ragged. 'But why?' asked Reich. Surely things were going excellently for the company. 'Oh yes,' she said. 'But when a man is President of a concern as big as A.I.U., he gets into the habit of worrying, and sometimes can't stop.
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
ec7005f
|
Thinking about such a situation, one becomes aware of the human lack of detachment; our inexperience and immaturity in the complex problems of the human condition. But it should not be so. We have the 'breathing spaces' when we can take a detached point of view. If it was of life-or-death importance that we learned by these moments of insight, men would quickly become something closer to being godlike. But most of us can drift through life ..
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
893e10f
|
nHn l n`rf sw~ lqlyl jdan `n lrwH lnsny@. wl n`rf m ldhy yHdth `ndm ywld lnsn 'w `ndm ymwt. km 'nWn l nfhm `lq@ lnsn blzmn wlmkn.
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
ac16a41
|
It is the sheer weight of the robot that makes us feel we are living in a 'wooden world'. We can see for example that the moment Ouspensky or Ward returned from the mystical realm of perfect freedom and found themselves 'back in the body' they once again found themselves saddled with all their boring old habits and worries and neuroses, all their old sense of identity built up from the reactions of other people, and above all the dreary old..
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
9bc2a62
|
And so is another question that Sanderson's experience leads him to discuss: whether the mind is identical with the brain. He mentions a case of a man who died in a New York hospital, and who an autopsy revealed to have no brain, only "half a cupful of dirty water". This sounds, admittedly, like another of those absurd stories that are not worth discussing. But in the early 1980s Professor John Lourber of Sheffield University discovered a s..
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
9ab8c97
|
l shy 'kthr md`@ llkhTr `l~ ljns lbshry mn l`tqd 'nW shw'wnh 'SbHt fy 'ydy ky'nt mn Trz lswbrmn.
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
6ed3cc7
|
You've a perfect right to call me as impractical as a dormouse, and to feel I'm out of touch with life. But this is the point where we simply can't see eye to eye. We've nothing whatever in common. Don't you see. . . it's not an accident that's drawn me from Blake to Whitehead, it's a certain line of thought which is fundamental to my whole approach. You see, there's something about them both. . . They trusted the universe. You say I don't ..
|
|
meaning
phenomenological-existentialism
whitehead
existentialism
|
Colin Wilson |
|
15f2aba
|
A young farm labourer passed me. I suddenly understood what Traherne meant when he said that men looked to him like angels. Again, it was a matter of seeing through to the inward vitality, the essence--what Boehme called the 'signature'. I smiled at the farm labourer, and he smiled back and said: 'Mornin' sir.' I felt suddenly very happy.
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
f338a52
|
'tkwn Hrwb lqrn l`shryn hy n`ks lHtyj l~ alh@?
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
da147d8
|
Hy@ 'kthr lns lyst sw~ hzym@ Twyl@ l'md.
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
8dadf53
|
l`bd@ hy lmwqf lSHyH z lHqyq@.
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
d6a454b
|
bd ly 'n lmthqfyn 'nfshm yHmlwn mylan sryan l~ ltmt` bmbhj lmHkmt "llynshy@" lty kn yqwm bh lGwG."
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
67ceabe
|
n rdty lHr@ lyst sw~ ntyj@ lwjwd mthyr 'w dwf` mn lkhrj.
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
353755c
|
The vitality of the ordinary members of society is dependent on its Outsiders. Many Outsiders unify themselves, realize themselves as poets or saints. Others remain tragically divided and unproductive, but even they supply soul-energy to society; it is their strenuousness that purifies thought and prevents the bourgeois world from foundering under its own dead-weight; they are society's spiritual dynamos.
|
|
outsider
|
Colin Wilson |
|
f3c3623
|
Now, although hypertension is accentuated by modern civilisation, it is not specifically a disease of civilisation. It is a disease of consciousness--that is, of being human. The farm labourer going to work is as likely to ignore his surroundings as the harassed car salesman. And if the inhabitants of some Amazon village are 'closer to nature' than New Yorkers, this is usually at the cost of dirt and ignorance and inconvenience. Hypertensio..
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
13da697
|
n `ql lnsn lw`y yrqb lkwn Tyl@ lwqt, whw yshbh `lim lflk ldhy yrqb lsmwt bHthan `n kwkb jdyd@. wlywm yktshf `limu lflk lkwkb ljdyd, mn khll lmqrn@ byn Swr lnjm lqdym@ wlSwr ljdyd@, fdh tHrk njm mn lnjwm `ndy'dhin l ykwn njman bl kwkban. whkdh njd `qwln wmsh`rn mshGwl@ dwman b`mly@ mrqb@ lkwn bHthan `n lm`ny. wytkshWf lm`n~ `ndm nqrn byn nw`yn mn ltjrb wndrk fj'@ m yt`lq bhm, mthl `l~ dhlk tjrb@ lTfl l'wl~ m` lnr dh qd twlWd ldyh lnTb` 'n ln..
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
e24c774
|
bmknk tSwr msh`ry fym lw tkhylt 'nk tsh`r blHr wlt`b fy Hyn ysyr kl shy 'mmk fy ltjh lm`ks. ffy kl mr@ tHwl fyh `bwr lTryq tjd Hfl@W `l~ wshk 'n tdhsk. wtsh`r k'nW lkwn b'jm`h 'SbH m`dyan lk. nW Hssk blTm'nyn@ ytbdd wyGdw klW m lh `lq@ bHytk qblan lltdmyr wlzwl, my`Tyk fkr@an `n lmnH~ ldhy ytWkhdhh hdh lhjwm, fy lmDy, knt 'z`m 'nW hdhh lhjmt mhy lW hjmt ltshw'm wlshfq `l~ ldht, wknt 'jidu ly sry`an 'mran 'qlq bsh'nh bHyth ybdw l'mr mqbwlan...
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
8fbc61c
|
Steppenwolf knows well enough why he is unhappy and drifting, bored and tired; it is because he will not recognize his purpose and follow it with his whole being. 'He is resolved to forget that the desperate clinging to the self, and the desperate clinging to life are the surest way to eternal death.' Haller knows that even when the Outsider is a universally acknowledged man of genius, it is due to 'his immense powers of surrender and suffe..
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
53c0e6a
|
Faculty X is the ability to grasp the reality not simply of other times and places, but of the present moment as well.
|
|
present
reality
x
places
|
Colin Wilson |
|
dca6866
|
Yet it is the Outsider's belief that life aims at more life, at higher forms of life, something for which the Superman is an inexact poetic symbol (as Dante's description of the beatific vision is expressed in terms of a poetic symbol); so that, in a sense, Urizen is the most important of the three functions. The fall was necessary, as Hesse realized. Urizen must go forward alone. The other two must follow him. And as soon as Urizen has go..
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
700a88e
|
I love life and I want to live, to cry but cannot--I feel such a pain in my soul--a pain which frightens me. My soul is ill. My soul, not my mind. The doctors do not understand my illness.... Everybody who reads these lines will suffer.... My body is not ill, it is my soul that is ill.
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
c6ad718
|
the final revelation comes when you look at these City-men on the train; for you realize that for them, the business of escaping is complicated by the fact that they think they are the prison. An astounding situation! Imagine a large castle on an island, with almost inescapable dungeons. The jailor has installed every device to prevent the prisoners escaping, and he has taken one final precaution: that of hypnotizing the prisoners, and then..
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
f508c19
|
We have not begun to live', Yeats writes, 'until we conceive life as a tragedy.' Newman confessed that he considered most men to be irretrievably damned, although he spent his life 'trying to make that truth less terrible to human reason'. Goethe could call his life 'the perpetual rolling of a rock that must be raised up again forever'. Martin Luther told a woman who wished him a long life: 'Madam, rather than live forty more years, I would..
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |
|
e11166d
|
It is important to understand that an enormous amount of our human experience is really a response to symbols. I speak in Origins of the Sexual Impulse of an underwear fetichist who stopped the car when he was driving with his wife, went into a garden, and removed a brassiere and panties from a clothesline; he laid these on the ground, and proceeded to go through the motions of copulation with them. Response to the symbol of 'forbidden-ness..
|
|
|
Colin Wilson |