Colin Wilson | On The St Neot Margin and Peak Experience

Описание: Colin Henry Wilson (26 June 1931 – 5 December 2013) was an English writer, philosopher and novelist. He also wrote widely on true crime, mysticism and the paranormal, eventually writing more than a hundred books. Wilson called his philosophy "new existentialism" or "phenomenological existentialism" and maintained his life work was "that of a philosopher, and his purpose to create a new and optimistic existentialism"

Gollancz published the 24-year-old Wilson's The Outsider in 1956. The work examines the role of the social "outsider" in seminal works by various key literary and cultural figures – such as Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ernest Hemingway, Hermann Hesse, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, William James, T. E. Lawrence, Vaslav Nijinsky and Vincent van Gogh – and discusses Wilson's perception of social alienation in their work. The book became a best-seller and helped popularise existentialism in Britain. It has never been out of print and has been translated into more than thirty languages (Wikipedia, 2019).

St Neot's margin was the recognition by British philosopher/crime writer/novelist Colin Wilson that the human mind can be bullied out of its usual state of debilitating indifference by a concerted effort of will of facing a sudden crisis. St Neot was the small town in England through which he was hitch-hiking in the 1950's.This curious state of human consciousness runs through every piece of work he has ever published - it really is an eye opener - it's a crying shame he never had the recognition he deserves. Here is a quote from his current autobiography "Dreaming to some purpose" - "We spend most of our lives in mono-consciousness, a narrow state in which we are only aware of the present moment. It could be compared to being in a picture gallery but being forced to stand with your nose within an inch of the canvas", Colin Wilson (2005). Here is another excerpt, from his 1983 book "access to inner worlds" - "We have all experienced moments which William James calls melting moods, when it suddenly becomes perfectly obvious that life is infinitely fascinating. The insight seems to apply retrospectively. Periods of my life which seemed confusing and dull at the time now seem complex and rather charming. It is almost as if some other person - a more powerful and mature individual - has taken over my mind. This higher self views my problems and anxieties with kindly detachment, but entirely without pity. Looking at my problems through his eyes, I can now see that I was a fool to worry about them. If I could remain in this state all the time - or at least, summon it at will - life would be a continual adventure; and this is the maddening absurdity. For during these moments of intensity and affirmation, we can see that it would be so easy to maintain this insight. Whenever we face crisis or difficulty, we can see that life without it would be delightful. Why do human beings live in an almost permanent state of unreality? The basic answer is that human beings are the only creatures who spend 99% of their time living inside their own heads", Colin Wilson (1983) cited in (Scottish boy, 2004).

Scottish boy (2004) Forum post here: http://shyunited.proboards.com/thread...

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