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Reflections on the Work of Colin Wilson Reflections on the Work of Colin Wilson Reflections on the Work of Colin Wilson Proceedings of the Second International Colin Wilson Conference University of Nottingham July 6-8, 2018 Edited by Colin Stanley Reflections on the Work of Colin Wilson Edited by Colin Stanley This book first published 2019 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2019 by Colin Stanley and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-2774-3 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-2774-4 CONTENTS Acknowledgement .................................................................................... vii Preface ....................................................................................................... ix Colin Stanley Introduction ................................................................................................ 1 John Morgan Voyager and Dreamer:’s Autobiographical Colin Wilson.......... Writing 7 .. Nicolas Tredell The Evolutionaryhors of Metap Colin Wilson..................... .................... 27 David J. Moore The Outsider and the Work: Coliny ..... Wilson, 41 Gurdjieff and Ouspensk Gary Lachman Consistent Patternsations in of Two Reviews Generts and Assessmen ofThe Outsider ......................................................................................... 53 George C. Poulos Writinge toPurpose Som .......................................................................... 73 Stanley Krippner The Hunt for ColinLulu ............................................................ Wilson’s 9 7 Vaughan Rapatahana Body, Mind, Heart: Three Aspects of Mysticism in Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities ....................................................................... 89 Brendan McNamee vi Contents Colin Wilsonn Music o ........................................................................... 101 Jonathan Lewsey Appendix: The WritingAdrift inof Soho Colin ...................... Wilson’s 117 Colin Stanley Notes on Contributors.................................... ......................................... 125 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Thanks, once again, to Rowan Wilsonvarious for the photographs of the speakers. PREFACE SECONDINTERNATIONAL COLINWILSON CONFERENCE UNIVERSITYNOTTINGHAM OF JULY6-8, 2018 COLINSTANLEY With the success of the First enceInternational in July Colin Wilson Confer 2016, it was agreed that, providingit should funding could be obtained, become a bi-annual event. Agains thought the University of Nottingham wa to be the best venue,home of being Wilson’s thettingham archive and No itself a central accessible location to easily UK. all Once parts again, of the however, as with the First Conference,ame not delegates and speakers c only from the Home Countries but from all parts of the world. Unlike the previous Conference,this which one lasted for just one day, spread itself out overth July, three. eight On academic Friday 6 papers on x Preface aspects of Wilson’s work weref presented the King’s in the formal setting o Meadow Campus of the University of Nottingham. During the lunch interval delegates were invitedanuscripts to view an exhibition, by the M and Special Collections staff,ks, of published and unpublished boo manuscripts, dissertations and theses about Wilson’s work. On the morning ofth, Saturday delegates the were 7 entertained at the Mercure Hotel in central Nottingham990 by a video screening of a 1 performance of Donald SwannThe and Man withColin Wilson’s operetta a Thousand Faces. This was followed by theColin premiere of the film Wilson: Philosopher of Optimism, a lengthy interview with Wilson conducted in 2006. In the evening a meal was provided guests for the speakers and special (which included the Wilson family: at the Joy, Sally, Damon and Rowan) hotel. On the morningth, of for Sunday the delegates 8 that remained, there was a private preview screening of novel theAdrift feature film of Colin Wilson’s in Soho at the Nottingham Broadway cinema. Directed by Pablo Behrens, this received its premiere inmber Londonth 14 later in the year, on Nove 2018, and was nominated for awardsound theat various film festivals ar globe. Meanwhile, the Wilson revival of continues Brad with the second edition Spurgeon’sColin Wilson: Philosopher of Optimism and the publication of what has survived of the manuscriptd novel of Colin Wilson’s unfinishe Lulu in 2017. In 2018 a new editionEagles of Wilson’s long out-of-print and Earwigs: essays on books and writers was issued by Eyewear Publishing. 2019 will see the ssentialpublication of Wilson’s updated e reader:The Ultimate Colin Wilson by Watkins Publishing and David J. Moore’sEvolutionary Metaphors: UFOs, new existentialism and the future paradigm byth 6Books. Also, from Paupers’ Press, two more ‘Colin Wilson Studies’My Interest and in Murder: an autobiographical introduction to Wilson’sOrder of Assassins , discarded before publication in 1972 and re- discoveredter 45 among years his la papers. ** Reflections on the Work of Colinxi Wilson Holdings of the Colin Wilson Archivengham can at the University of Notti be accessed at: http://mss-cat.nottingham.ac.uk/CalmView/TreeBrowse.aspx?src= CalmView.Catalog&field=RefNo&key=CWA Details of the Colin Wilson Collectiontingham can at the University of Not be accessed at: http://mss-cat.nottingham.ac.uk/CalmView/Record.aspx?src= CalmView.Catalog&id= CWC&pos=7 INTRODUCTION: MEETINGS OMETO P URPOSE JOHNM ORGAN While it is unfortunately thecant case attention that Colin Wilson received s from the cultural establishmente is a during small, his lifetime, today ther yet dedicated, cadre of friendsto layand thesupporters who are seeking foundations for a field of Wilsonfurthering studies, of or perhaps even the his work by future scholars. Towardrences this end, a series of confe dedicated to his work has beenhe inaugurated, second, of which this was t the first having been held in 2016. Friday July 6 was the day of theformal Conference proper. Before the proceedings began,attendees however, were the invited archive to view of Colin Wilson’s manuscripts,housed papers at and printed work that is the University ofarchive Nottingham. is a hattreasure The will surely trove t be fruitfully minedolars by for Wilsonears many to schy come. Then came the lectures. Firsth up literary was Nicolas Tredell, an Englis scholar who has published two to studies date, the of Colin Wilson’s fiction more recentNovels one to Some being Purpose; the fiction of Colin Wilson,1 a massive tome which is an exhaustiveilson’s critical exploration of W many novels. Mr. Tredell’s paper,ilson’s ‘Voyager and Dreamer: Colin W autobiographical writing’ focusedaphies notthat only on the two autobiogr Wilson published,Voyage to a Beginning andDreaming to Some Purpose, but also the various places,s, scattered where he across his other writing talked about himself.ny other More thinker thanf, with aI can the think o possible exception of Nietzsche,und Wilson’sup work was very much bo with the story of his life, andis he own made frequent reference to h experiences to illustrate pointsell pointed he made in his books. Mr. Tred out that Wilson wasfor quitea British atypical1950s writer and of early the ’60s in that he wrote quite franklyness was about still himself, when prudish the norm, most especiallys of his own in sexual terms. experience 2 Introduction: Meeting to Some Purpose Next was David Moore, a young, upcoming is just independent scholar who about to publishEvolutionary his first Metaphors: book,UFOs, New Existentialism, and the Future Paradigm.2 Mr. Moore’s lecture, ‘The Evolutionary Metaphors of Colinarize Wilson,’ the was an attempt to summ thesis of his book, and expandedrote upon about ideas that Colin Wilson w in his 1998Alien Dawn: book, An Investigation into the Contact Experience. Moore contended that attemptingn itself to understand the UFO phenomeno serves as a metaphor for grapplinging reality, with a new way of understand given that so many attempts to sinvestigate and it have revealed gap contradictions in our existingonsciousness, understanding of the universe, c and epistemology that our currentve. His science seems unable to resol paper sought to expand upon Wilson’sd original existing ideas in a new an way helping to point towards the in a future manner of Colin Wilson studies that few others have attempted remain thus far. For Wilson’s legacy to vibrant, scholars to mustventure be unafraid intoy, or new even territor question some of Wilson’s own conclusions. The third speaker of the day wasmerican Gary Lachman, the well-known A writer on esotericism and the powerd a of imagination who publishe comprehensive and definitive isintroduction work, to Colin Wilson and h Beyond the Robot: the life and work of Colin Wilson, in 2016,3 a book which serves as the ideal startingto place Wilson’s for anyone seeking to get in work for the first time. Mr. Lachman the Work: spoke on ‘The Outsider and Colin Wilson, Gurdjieff, and Ouspensky,’ which discussing the ways in Wilson drew on the two ‘Fourth his Way’ writing thinkers over the course of career. Lachman mentioned that interests, Wilson, as he was in many of his was ahead of his time
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