Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Introduction to the New Existentialism by Colin Wilson THE NEW EXISTENTIALISM. “It is extremely important to grasp the notion that man does not yet exist. This is not intended as a paradox or a play on words; it is literally true.” Colin Wilson, Introduction to The New Existentialism. Given the name, the new existentialism and its revolutionary philosophical proposition might seem to suggest a summary or synthesis of the premises known to us as existentialist philosophy. Nothing could be further from the truth. If the new existentialism is the heir to any philosophy, it is Romanticism. Each shares a boldness and creative impulse, as well as an impassioned dream of immortality and desire to be on an equal footing with the gods. The new existentialism has more in common with Nietzsche and Goethe than with Sartre or Camus. The shift in consciousness and the new ideal of man forged by the Romantics find unparalleled and vital expression in the new existentialism. They were the first to speak of the unconscious and its inherent power, and to reclaim certain concepts and beliefs generally held to have become obsolete. And like Colin Wilson, they did so with unprecedented enthusiasm and verve, recognizing that the last word had not been said as regards man. Romantics upheld the central importance of man in the cosmos; the existentialists saw man as contingent. Romantics made the infinite mystery that surrounds us the basis of their enquiries and everything they went on to create, and, compelled by its heroic spirit, they viewed this mystery not as an affront but as proof of the existence of the sacred and of God; existentialists renounced imagination and its creative power and sought refuge in the narrow limitations of daily life with all its many trifles, thereby losing sight of the majestic and with it the idea of God and transcendence. Romantics aspired to change the world and looked to the future; existentialists thought nothing was worth the effort, that the world was finished, empty of all meaning. Broadly, these same differences distinguish the “old” existentialism and the new existentialism proposed by Wilson. The new existentialism is an ideological breakthrough, something entirely novel. In constructing it, Wilson drew on the canonical legacy and the insights he liked in the “old” existentialism. But he did so in order to highlight the failure of past philosophies when it came to fashioning a method or tool truly capable of teaching us how to live well and make the most of our potential. Wilson’s basic proposition is that the ideal man conceived of by the Romantics still does not exist. We still have to traverse an inner path that will free us from past fears and forebodings, from a debilitating culture and anxieties embedded in our unconscious by our distant nomad ancestors. Wilson proposes a philosophy for the healthy. By healthy we here mean man’s natural condition when liberated from the asphyxiating atmosphere inherited from Freudian psychology, with its emphasis on neurosis, anxiety, repression, the libido, the death drive, complexes, etcetera. Only when one is healthy is it possible to find the bravery and honesty to look fearlessly inside oneself. As Abraham Maslow said: “The healthy person wants truth even if it is painful”. In order to find this truth Wilson proposes the use of phenomenology as an exploratory method of consciousness. Why? Because as we know, our consciousness is constructed through everything we have seen and learned from the moment we were born. This is crucial. We forget that we were all born in somebody else’s home. When we come into the world, we are yet to build our own home, our own self, and have to learn to live with what those before us adjudged to be the world, life, and above all, man. We inherit our beliefs and habits from those closest to us – the family – but also from the society in which we live and its culture. If the normal thing in this culture is to underestimate man and his potential, our idea of what we are and what we are capable of becoming will naturally be diminished by these beliefs: as the philosopher José Antonio Marina puts it: “The idea we have of ourselves is a real component of what we are”. Wilson’s philosophical proposition is bold because it invites us to chart a terrain still considered the reserve of the gods or of fate; it is heroic because its goal is the most elevated, challenging thing that man can aspire to; rebellious because it faces down thousands of years of emasculating teaching and beliefs that undervalue us, lucid because it requires our full attention and awareness, and honest because it presents each of us with our self, free of mediators and outside judges. We become the architects of our own characters and lives. In this book, Wilson claims Nietzsche as the true founder of the new existentialism because it was he who heralded the coming of the superman, with his valiant optimism and zeal, so utterly removed from passivity, complacency and herd-following. Whereas the optimism of the new existentialism entreats us to achieve a state of constant awareness, to become conscious of every thought that comes into our heads, every belief that underpins our personal value system, every act that expresses our most intimate, truest self. This is what Husserl meant when he said that consciousness is intentional. The new existentialism is pure attention. Wilson proposes that we make a science of our happiness and fulfilment. By applying ourselves, by bringing our willpower and attention to bear, every day will become a site of potential, an adventure, that is, a chance to put our abilities to the test. Because as with science, the premise of the new existentialism is optimistic, which is to say, it believes in the success of its mission, of its quest. Wilson clearly establishes the relationship between existentialism, Romanticism and science: “Now the basic impulse behind existentialism is optimistic, very much like the impulse behind all science. Existentialism is romanticism, and romanticism is the feeling that man is not the mere creature he has always taken himself for. Romanticism began as a tremendous surge of optimism about the stature of man. Its aim – like that of science – was to raise man above the muddled feelings and impulses of his everyday humanity, and to make him a god-like observer of human existence.” The new existentialism is the philosophy of the future because its goal is to create the ideal man. The man yet to be born. It urges us to recognise the active part we play in constructing our lives, reminding us that we do not need to go on suffering the “passive fallacy”. The new existentialism empowers us, awakens our ontological ambitions and brings awareness of all that we can achieve. Furthermore it rekindles and marks a return to our lives of words such as “majesty”, “health”, “freedom, “heroism”, “potential” and “optimism”… It is a dynamic, practical philosophy, a tool to be used. To do so, we must first recognise the intentional aspect of consciousness, namely, the fact that we ourselves create our reality, establish the breadth or otherwise of our perceptions, and design the splendour of our horizons. The path that lies ahead is utterly enthralling. As Novalis said: “Who can tell what wonderful unions, what unanticipated new births we have yet to discover within ourselves?” Samantha Devin is the publisher and co-founder of Aristeia Press. She is the author of the novels Bilis Negra, Arcadia and Heroica . As a playwright, she has written MEN , The Great Pretender, Topophilia and The Silence . PRAISE FOR. THE NEW EXISTENTIALISM. ‘In The New Existentialism Colin Wilson does what no Continental thinker would dream of doing: he presents a positive, life-affirming existential philosophy. Avoiding the dreary cul-de-sac that philosophers such as Sartre, Camus, and Heidegger entered, and in which practically every European thinker who followed them also found a place, Wilson returns to existentialism’s roots in the work of Edmund Husserl, for whom the essence of consciousness is its “intentionality.” Wilson takes Husserl’s insight and, with hefty doses of Abraham Maslow, Alfred North Whitehead, and William James, creates a philosophical vision that is at once robust, thrilling,and inspiring. Be forewarned: if you read this book, you’ll never look at things in the old way again.’ ‘I first read Colin Wilson when I was sixteen, avidly. What I liked so much was the clarity of his prose and the sense that he was talking about important things. His career had a strange path, and he was never going to please the literary critics, who felt they had been duped by their own enthusiasm for his first book, The Outsider, and never forgave him. I continue to feel a great respect for his life and work, which seems to me to be an ideal introduction to some aspects of modern philosophy especially for young readers, and for his life, which was an exemplary illustration of how to work cheerfully and energetically despite the complete indifference of the fashionable literary world. I am very glad to see his work being reissued, and I hope it will find the audience that the best of it undoubtedly deserves.’ ‘In The New Existentialism , Wilson identifies existentialism – old and new – as “a philosophy of man without an organised religion” and traces its origin to the Romantic movement of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The Romantic rejection of organized religion granted the individual “a new freedom and a new dignity” but also placed a heavy burden upon him: if the God of organized religion did not exist, “man himself must become God – or a god”.’ ‘If the new existentialism is the heir to any philosophy, it is Romanticism. Each shares a boldness and creative impulse, as well as an impassioned dream of immortality and desire to be on an equal footing with the gods. The new existentialism has more in common with Nietzsche and Goethe than with Sartre or Camus. Wilson’s basic proposition is that the ideal man conceived of by the Romantics still does not exist.’ ‘”Existentialism…is the only modern philosophy with a long and clear road of development ahead of it.” Thus wrote Colin Wilson in 1966 and his ‘development’, his ‘new’ optimistic existentialism, remains as relevant today as it was then. Aristeia Press must be commended for bringing back this important book, inexplicably out-of-print for over thirty years, for the benefit of a new, twenty-first century, audience.’ ‘Wilson’s best philosophical book, this reprint of The New Existentialism will help readers understand the continuity running through his varied interests and provide a well needed alternative to today’s cultural impasse.’ ‘Colin Wilson was a true outsider, which enabled his striking originality. Incredibly erudite and bold in his thinking, philosophically his greatest contribution is that of turning existentialism on its head, from something nihilistic to something yea-saying of life. He was also a generous intellectual door-opener for a generation. John Shand is an Honorary Associate in Philosophy at the Open University, and studied at the University of Manchester and University of Cambridge. The most recent book he has edited is A Companion to Nineteenth-Century Philosophy (Wiley- Blackwell, 2019).’ ‘[Introduction to] the New Existentialism is, along with the seminal The Outsider, Colin Wilson’s most important book. Wilson remains unique among existentialist philosophers because of his focus in this book on building a positive practical philosophy via a stringent phenomenological examination of human consciousness. Importantly also, Wilson stresses the vital requirement to construct an entirely new language, which captures advanced states of inner cognizance. In so doing he is actually conjoining so-called analytic philosophy with existentialist thought; a major accomplishment never previously attempted, and a further mark of his significance as a leading British philosopher.’ ‘The New Existentialism (1966) is unquestionably Colin Wilson’s clearest exposition of his life-affirming philosophy. Lucidly and passionately written, it condenses over a decade of Wilson’s most intensive philosophising on the crisis of the Western mind – crystallising a vision for a more engaged and less passive form consciousness, and, as a result, a practical way for a more fulfilled sense of Being. Although our terminology changes with each age, we are at present going through what is known as a collective ‘existential crisis’, where all our values have been uprooted and civilisation suffers from a lack of unifying vision. Wilson studied the sickness of the modern man in his first book, The Outsider (1956), and sought for a way out that was not simply a return to the old religions; he was a seeker for a new way of being that felt truly authentic and affirmative, and that provided an evolutionary impetus based on knowledge . By examining our perceptual biases through applied-phenomenology, Wilson logically affirmed the value of higher states of consciousness – related to the mystical experience – which allows for a deepening of our inner vision, of a type of gnosis, which unveils the essential meaning of man’s existence. Stepping up from the ‘old’ existentialism of nausea and absurdity, he emphasised man’s ability to grasp reality and mould it, representing the evolutionary spearhead that goes beyond being merely an Outsider – but as one of civilisations’ most positively alluring and heroic figures embodied in the notion of the Superman. The New Existentialism strikes a chord of positive affirmation much needed in the 21 st Century and does so with a firmness of purpose and conviction too often lacking in the endless relativisms of postmodernity.’ ‘The seventh volume in Colin Wilson’s revolutionary ‘Outsider cycle’, integral to the author’s lifelong quest to understand the ‘mental mechanics’ behind the visionary experience, explains his optimistic philosophy of intuition. The new existentialism, pragmatic and inspirational in its transformative aspects, seeks to improve the world by widening the scope of consciousness and giving the spur to our evolutionary potential and the impetus to break free from what Wilson said was the ‘imprisonment in time, consciousness and personality’ imposed upon us by materialism. To this end, and most importantly in our day of post-modern disenchantment, the new existentialism with its phenomenological examination of consciousness lays emphasis on the key issue of what constitutes human values. Uniquely, Wilson sought recognition of a standard of values external to everyday consciousness to provide a sense of purpose and an authenticity of living on which human evolution would depend.’ Introduction to the New Existentialism. Routledge & CRC Press eBooks are available through VitalSource. The free VitalSource Bookshelf® application allows you to access to your eBooks whenever and wherever you choose. Mobile/eReaders – Download the Bookshelf mobile app at VitalSource.com or from the iTunes or Android store to access your eBooks from your mobile device or eReader. Offline Computer – Download Bookshelf software to your desktop so you can view your eBooks with or without Internet access. » » » Most VitalSource eBooks are available in a reflowable EPUB format which allows you to resize text to suit you and enables other accessibility features. Where the content of the eBook requires a specific layout, or contains maths or other special characters, the eBook will be available in PDF (PBK) format, which cannot be reflowed. For both formats the functionality available will depend on how you access the ebook (via Bookshelf Online in your browser or via the Bookshelf app on your PC or mobile device). Introduction to the New Existentialism. Introduction to the New Existentialism by Colin Wilson is, according to his introduction to the 1980 edition, a summary of the ideas contained in “ The Outsider ” cycle. Colin Wilson considered this book to be the pinnacle of his philosophy. It is an attempt to show how recent developments in understanding of consciousness, of ‘peak experiences’, aesthetic and mystical, and of language, can bring back meaningfulness, and provide 20th and 21st century man with a relevant and satisfying philosophy. Some Quotes: Some years ago, an American psychologist, Abraham Maslow, felt the same kind of instinctive revolt against the ‘atmosphere’ of Freudian psychology, with its emphasis on sickness and neurosis, and decided that he might obtain some equally interesting results if he studied extremely healthy people. He, therefore, looked around for the most cheerful and well-adjusted people he could find, and asked for their co-operation in his studies. He soon discovered and interesting fact: that most extremely healthy people frequently experience intense affirmation and certainty; Maslow called these ‘peak experiences.’ No one had made this discovery before because it had never struck anyone that a science calling itself ‘psychology’ and professing to be a science of the human mind (not merely the sick mind), ought to form its estimate of human beings by taking into account healthy minds as well as sick ones. A sick man talks obsessively about his illness; a healthy man never talks about his health; for as Pirandello points out, we take happiness for granted, and only begin to question life when we are unhappy. Hence no psychologist ever made this simple and obvious discovery about peak experiences. p. 15. Husserl has shown that man’s prejudices go a great deal deeper than his intellect or his emotions. Consciousness itself is ‘prejudiced’ – that is to say, intentional. p. 54. A child might be overawed by a great city, but a civil engineer knows that he might demolish it and rebuild it himself. Husserl’s philosophy has the same aim: to show us that, although we may have been thrust into this world without a ‘by your leave,’ we are mistaken to assume that it exists independently of us. It is true that reality exists apart from us; but what we mistake for the world is actually a world constituted by us, selected from an infinitely complex reality. p. 63. In a book called Symbolism, Its Meaning and Effect, Whitehead points out that perception is usually a matter of symbols, just like language; I say I see a book when I actually see a red oblong. The Transactionists (who have been influenced by Whitehead rather than Husserl) take this one stage further, and point out that when I ‘perceive’ something, I am actually making a bet with myself that what I perceive is what I think it is. In order to act and live at all, I have to make these bets; I cannot afford to make absolutely certain that things are what I think they are. But this means that we should not take our perceptions at face value, any more than Nietzsche was willing to take philosophy at its face value; we must allow for prejudice and distortion. p. 66. The effects of mescalin or LSD can be, in some respects, far more satisfying than those of alcohol. To begin with, they last longer; they also leave behind no hangover, and leave the mental faculties clear and unimpaired. They stimulate the faculties and produce the ideal ground for a peak experience. p. Phenomenology is not a philosophy; it is a philosophical method, a tool. It is like an adjustable spanner that can be used for dismantling a refrigerator or a car, or used for hammering in nails, or even for knocking somebody out. p. 92. Now the basic impulse behind existentialism is optimistic, very much like the impulse behind all science. Existentialism is romanticism, and romanticism is the feeling that man is not the mere he has always taken himself for. Romanticism began as a tremendous surge of optimism about the stature of man. its aim — like that of science — was to raise man above the muddled feelings and impulses of his everyday humanity, and to make him a god-like observer of human existence. p. 96. It is the fallacy of all intellectuals to believe that intellect can grasp life. It cannot, because it works in terms of symbols and language. There is another factor involved: consciousness. If the flame of consciousness is low, a symbol has no power to evoke reality, and intellect is helpless. p. 112. ISBN 13: 9780993323096. Introduction to The New Existentialism (Outsider Cycle) Wilson, Colin. This specific ISBN edition is currently not available. "The New Existentialism consists of a phenomenological examination of consciousness, with the emphasis upon the problem of what constitutes human values. Existentialism is romanticism, and romanticism is the feeling that man is not the mere creature he has always taken himself for." In this book, Wilson claims Nietzsche as the true founder of the new existentialism because it was he who heralded the coming of the superman, with his valiant optimism and zeal, so utterly removed from passivity, complacency and herd-following. Whereas the optimism of the new existentialism entreats us to achieve a state of constant awareness, to become conscious of every thought that comes into our heads, every belief that underpins our personal value system, every act that expresses our most intimate, truest self. This is what Husserl meant when he said that consciousness is intentional. The new existentialism is pure attention. Wilson proposes that we make a science of our happiness and fulfilment. By applying ourselves, by bringing our willpower and attention to bear, every day will become a site of potential, an adventure, that is, a chance to put our abilities to the test. Because as with science, the premise of the new existentialism is optimistic, which is to say, it believes in the success of its mission, of its quest. The new existentialism is the philosophy of the future because its goal is to create the ideal man. The man yet to be born. It urges us to recognise the active part we play in constructing our lives, reminding us that we do not need to go on suffering the “passive fallacy”. The new existentialism empowers us, awakens our ontological ambitions and brings awareness of all that we can achieve. "synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title. Shipping: US$ 2.64 Within U.S.A. Customers who bought this item also bought. Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace. 1. Introduction to The New Existentialism. Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 36303532-n. 2. Introduction to The New Existentialism (Paperback or Softback) Book Description Paperback or Softback. Condition: New. Introduction to The New Existentialism. Book. Seller Inventory # BBS- 9780993323096. 3. Introduction to The New Existentialism. Book Description PAP. Condition: New. New Book. Shipped from UK. THIS BOOK IS PRINTED ON DEMAND. Established seller since 2000. Seller Inventory # IQ-9780993323096. 4. Introduction to The New Existentialism (Outsider Cycle) Book Description Condition: New. A+ Customer service! Satisfaction Guaranteed! Book is in NEW condition. Seller Inventory # 099332309X- 2-1. 5. Introduction to The New Existentialism (Outsider Cycle) Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. Brand New! This item is printed on demand. Seller Inventory # 099332309X. 6. Introduction to The New Existentialism (Paperback) Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. 2nd New edition. Language: English. Brand new Book. "The New Existentialism consists of a phenomenological examination of consciousness, with the emphasis upon the problem of what constitutes human values. Existentialism is romanticism, and romanticism is the feeling that man is not the mere creature he has always taken himself for." In this book, Wilson claims Nietzsche as the true founder of the new existentialism because it was he who heralded the coming of the superman, with his valiant optimism and zeal, so utterly removed from passivity, complacency and herd-following. Whereas the optimism of the new existentialism entreats us to achieve a state of constant awareness, to become conscious of every thought that comes into our heads, every belief that underpins our personal value system, every act that expresses our most intimate, truest self. This is what Husserl meant when he said that consciousness is intentional. The new existentialism is pure attention. Wilson proposes that we make a science of our happiness and fulfilment. By applying ourselves, by bringing our willpower and attention to bear, every day will become a site of potential, an adventure, that is, a chance to put our abilities to the test. Because as with science, the premise of the new existentialism is optimistic, which is to say, it believes in the success of its mission, of its quest. The new existentialism is the philosophy of the future because its goal is to create the ideal man. The man yet to be born. It urges us to recognise the active part we play in constructing our lives, reminding us that we do not need to go on suffering the "passive fallacy". The new existentialism empowers us, awakens our ontological ambitions and brings awareness of all that we can achieve. Seller Inventory # APC9780993323096. 7. Introduction to The New Existentialism. Book Description Softcover. Condition: New. Special order direct from the distributor. Seller Inventory # ING9780993323096. 8. Introduction to The New Existentialism. Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 36303532-n. 9. Introduction to The New Existentialism. Book Description PAP. Condition: New. New Book. Delivered from our UK warehouse in 4 to 14 business days. THIS BOOK IS PRINTED ON DEMAND. Established seller since 2000. Seller Inventory # IQ-9780993323096. Colin Wilson As Hydra. On June 26, 2011, the writer Colin Wilson turned 80. I believe he has been seriously underrated and undervalued in his homeland, as a philosopher, as a novelist, as a critic, and as a polymath explorer into the sometimes eldritch realms of human potential. Part of the reason for this lack of academic and popular recognition within Britain and the US – he is certainly vitally popular elsewhere – is because Colin Wilson is something of a Hydra. In Greek mythology, the Hydra had seven or nine heads, stemming from one massive body. If one were to slice off any head it would grow back. Indeed in some versions, two heads would return. A similarly resilient and prolific beast, Wilson is seen on TV, in the press, in any number of second-hand bookshops in any number of formats, and now on DVD with his Strange is Normal . Some of his more recent heads can look rather bizarre, and are said by some to be uttering gobbledygook. Others say he spreads himself too thinly, and is always saying the same thing anyway. He himself is succinct on this point: “Isaiah Berlin once said that there are two kinds of writers, hedgehogs and foxes. He said the fox knows many things, the hedgehog knows just one thing. So Shakespeare is a typical fox; Tolstoy and Dostoevsky are typical h edgehogs. Now, I’m a typical hedgehog. I know just one thing, and I repeat it over and over again. I try to approach it from different angles to make it look different, but it’s the same thing.” The Hydra Heads of Colin Wilson. Outsider . Wilson’s first book, published in 1956, was the excellent The Outsider , and he has been out there ever since, in a huge tangential orbit of his own. Novelist . He’s written novels in several different genres – science fiction, fantasy, realist, crime fiction – always subsumed under his philosophy, and mostly patterned in the modernist tradition, albeit Wilson is sometimes postmodern in the delivery of his message: his fictive forays often owe more to Derrida than Dickens, although he would disavow this connection. Literary theorist . Wilson is a consistent theorist regarding how novels and poems should be both written (see, for example, his fine Craft of the Novel ) and critiqued, via his own Existential Literary Criticism. In this critical theory, literary craft takes a back seat to approaching questions about the meaning of life, and how to live one’s life more powerfully (which for Wilson means being more evolutionary in focus). Paranormalist , albeit somewhat innocent and over-trusting, like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Both Conan Doyle and Wilson gave credence to the Cottingley fairies, for example. Wilson continues to seriously consider all sorts of what many would in a polite mood call “weird stuff, man.” Fantastic Anthropologist/Historian . There’s a whole New Age Hydra head here. Space ships, Atlantis, a homosexual Shakespeare, mix themselves up in Wilson’s more recent speculations out on the fringe. Although he has gained many fans there, he has also probably lost some of his earlier more philosophical adherents. Criminologist particularly fascinated with sex crime and heinous murders, which are the dark side of the evolutionary drive. Over the years Colin Wilson has reared other heads too: Sexologist , Musicologist , Playwright & Scriptwriter , Columnist & TV Personality , Family Man and Collector of, among other things, books and music. Wilson however never sprouted the head of an Angry Young Man (he was not such an animal, despite being occasionally grouped with Kingsley Amis and John Osborne); university-trained academic (probably a good thing!); deliberate postmodernist (what a contradiction in terms); Feminist; Marxist; or postcolonially-aware Englishman. I wish to concentrate on the two heads which are arguably his most significant: Existentialist Philosopher and Romantic Mystic . Colin Wilson, Existentialist Romantic. Wilson’s core ideas are explained in several books which he calls his ‘Outsider Cycle’, and which appeared in the 1950s and 60s. His is an English existentialism, remote from to the narrowly academic British linguistic empiricism of the 1960s. He is a unique phenomenon. For example, in Robert Solomon’s book, Existentialism (2005), Wilson is the only British, let alone English, philosopher included, if we discount Harold Pinter as a philosopher. A French critic was quoted on the inside dust jacket of the original 1966 edition of Wilson’s Introduction to the New Existentialism as calling it: “the first important contribution to Existentialism ever made by an Englishman.” (As an ironic aside, there’s now a Facebook page entitled ‘Colin Wilson is a better philosopher than Sartre’!) Reviewing it in The Irish Times , Grattan Freyer wrote: “Anyone seriously concerned with twentieth-century values must make themselves familiar with Colin Wilson.” What then is Wilson saying? Generally, he wants an intensive and exhaustive survey of man’s inner states. More specifically, Wilson’s avowed aim in the Introduction , as in several of his earlier philosophical works, is to improve not only on what he calls ‘Existentialism Mark One’ (Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, Jaspers, Camus, etc), but on its immediate progenitor, the Romantic movement. “Existentialism is Romanticism, and Romanticism is the feeling that man is not the mere creature he has always taken himself for,” he says. Romanticism was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement which began in the late 18th century as a reaction to Enlightenment rationalism and the growing hegemony of science. Lasting until the mid 19th century, it was a movement of men and women who sensed that there was ‘more’ to life – as experienced through the magnificence of Nature. It included poets such as Coleridge, Byron and Shelley, visual artists such as Blake and Turner, and writers as diverse as Goethe and H.D. Thoreau. It was marked by intense passion and the elevation of aesthetic feeling. Existentialism, which was born in the 19th century but became very prominent in the mid 20th with Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir, saw men and women as alienated, lonely creatures born into a universe which is coldly indifferent to us, rendering our values absurd and condemning us to an inescapable freedom and responsibility. The difference between Wilson’s New Existentialism and the intense emotional spasms of the Romantics (which never lasted for any length of time and thus led to despair, depression and early demise) or the insufferable negativity of Existentialism Mark One, is that the New Existentialism is based on optimism and positivity. Wilson wants to build on the momentary earth-shattering epiphanies of the Romantics and renounce the unhappy stoicism of the earlier Existentialists to point the way to a permanently-expanded state of consciousness. Then humans – or at least some of them – will evolve exponentially into grandiose creatures of the mind, tapping our giant vista of internal freedom and what Wilson calls the objective values of existence – “there is a standard of values external to [everyday] human consciousness,” he claims in the Introduction . As he points out, “everyday consciousness is a liar.” Here I want to cast in bronze what to me is Wilson’s most significant Hydra head – the headmaster of the heads, if you will, the driving force of the Colin Wilson creature: Wilson is by nature both a Romantic and a Mystic. Elsewhere, particularly in my PhD, Existential Literary Criticism and the Novels of Colin Wilson (1996), I have categorized Wilson as a bona fide Romantic in disposition, outlook and corpus – something I believe he would not deny. I believe he is also an English Mystic in the line of William Blake, Thomas Traherne and George Fox (see my Wilson as Mystic , 2001, for example). A mystic is somebody who claims an awareness of some transcendent reality beyond the restrictions of everyday life, and who believes that this numinous realm can be explored only through some means other than scientific rationality – for example by introspection. New Existentialism is Wilson’s attempt to delineate an Existentialism which expands into free-range mysticism. Indeed his mystical impetus all-too- often overwhelms clarity of logic, expression, and sense: he is impelled to paint what he senses, in wide and colourful stokes, and damn the details. This is a significant point about his work: Wilson writes intensely, compelled to convey his vision over and over again, to the extent that often clarity of terminology or rigid logical progression are not priorities. Colin Wilson’s Mystical Peaks. The American psychologist Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) developed a theory that people have what he called ‘peak experiences’. These are moments of intense inspiration, love, happiness, insight or heightened consciousness, when the individual is in complete harmony with himself and his surroundings. Maslow said that people who have developed to their full potential have peak experiences often – perhaps even many times a day – while others have them less frequently. Wilson seized on this idea, seeing how well it fitted with his project to develop an emotionally positive existentialism. He asked: why not have peak experiences all the time, inculcated deliberately? Part of Wilson’s mission is to promote the deliberate pursuit of peak experiences through focused thought. Another key concept in this New Existentialist mission, intentionality derives originally from Edmund Husserl and phenomenology, and has become a central concept in philosophy of mind. Intentionality is the power of mental activity to be about or to stand for things or states of affairs. It refers to the directedness or deliberate attentiveness of consciousness. Wilson believes that all consciousness is intentional, even subconsciousness, as “Intentionality … can exist on many levels.” Wilson then synthesizes Maslow and Husserl as the two poles of New Existentialism: the intentional examination of consciousness itself leads inevitably to extended peak experiences, and beyond. Here Wilson shows himself to be a Grand Illuminator of the works of others, welding together what seems discordant data. Two statements, from 1966 and 1988, together give a clear picture of his approach: “The New Existentialism consists of a phenomenological examination of consciousness” ( Introduction ). “If consciousness is intentional, then we can deliberately make it more intentional, and that the result would be a step in the direction of the mystic’s insight” ( Essay on the New Existentialism ). Wilson argues that the intentional nature of human thought proves that there’s a transcendental ego, a self who aims the arrow of perception, emotion and intellect at something – a coherent, sometimes unconscious director behind the camera. To Wilson “the completely passive observer is a fallacy.” This is where he thinks Sartre went wrong philosophically. Wilson wants to philosophically reinstate the individual self; yet he also wants this self to be the avenue to the obliteration or overcoming of itself. This is rather a logical faux pas , I think, and I have written elsewhere (e.g. in Postmodern Mysticism , 2008) of the irony of Wilson’s many descriptions – especially in his fiction – of the transcendental ego being completely expunged during mystical visions. Positive and Negative Evaluations. Wilson is an outsider. The synthesis that is New Existentialism is not meant for most people, it seems: “no solution… can be immediately applied to the ‘man in the street’. But then, this is hardly important,” he says in the Introduction . He would argue that most people are nowhere near ready to be propelled into the next evolutionary ambit which he has discovered. There is a good deal of mind-mapping to do initially – tunnels must be dug into humanity’s mental caverns, and rooms constructed with permanent frameworks, before any opening of the entry gates for all. Until we solidify or map out our phenomenologically-derived consciousness, man is not yet ready for visions such as Wilson’s: for evolutionary reasons, we have built internal firewalls. But Wilson also takes it that much more recently man has also awakened to his inner freedom, and contra Heidegger’s ‘forgetfulness of existence’, having become bored with being bored, has suddenly remembered his Being. Yet the final evaluation of the New Existentialism – and indeed, of Wilson’s entire career – turns on whether he ever successfully maps out our inner selves. Does he give us the roadmaps to his sort of internal assessment of ourselves, and to the concomitant experiential fireworks of extended euphoric, free vision? According to the extremely high standards which Wilson himself sets for Existential Literary Criticism, the answer has to be ‘No’. He hints, rather than explicitly draws out for us, how we are to live at a self-aware peak. Yet he remains well worth taking seriously as a philosopher precisely because he concentrates on questions of supreme importance: What is life’s meaning? Why are we here? What should we be doing about it? Thus I will concur with and only slightly paraphrase Matthew Coniam’s piece back in Philosophy Now Issue 32, regarding not only the New Existentialism, but Colin Wilson’s life’s work: “He has managed to winch the worldview of humanist Existentialism free of the impasse of despair… this unique and iconoclastic English Existentialist is well worth the sometimes considerable effort.” Finally, let me add a personal note. To me, Colin Wilson has endured as a philosopher who must always be remembered, if not for his solutions, then at least for his syntheses, and for his always asking the questions we must all face. The fact that he has done so in a generally otiose academic and critical environment in his own homeland only shows his tenacity. He explores a difficult territory that few even attempt and despite his ‘failure’ according to his own literary critical criteria, Wilson should be judged with words culled from his 1960 review of Albert Camus’ The Possessed : “whatever ultimate criticisms can be leveled at his work, he was better than ninety-nine percent of his contemporaries .” Though I have several reservations against a wholehearted acceptance of his New Existentialism, and some concerns about the relevance of some of his later writings, this is my own estimation of Wilson. So three cheers for Colin Wilson! Happy birthday to him, too. © Dr Vaughan Rapatahana 2011. Vaughan Rapatahana has a PhD from the University of Auckland, is a published poet, and lives in Hong Kong.