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Supernatural: Your Guide Through the Unexplained, the Unearthly and the Unknown
Popular culture has created a new thirst for supernatural knowledge and this comprehensive encyclopedia covers the entire spectrum of paranormal phenomena. From precognition and psychic detection to ghosts and demonic possession, authority Colin Wilson tells us everything we ever wanted to know about vampires, doppelgängers, witches, Odic forces, Atlantis, UFOs, crop circles, and more.
600 pages, Paperback
First published June 7, 2011
16 people are currently reading
133 people want to read
About the author
Colin Wilson
409 books1,290 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Colin Henry Wilson was born and raised in Leicester, England, U.K. He left school at 16, worked in factories and various occupations, and read in his spare time. When Wilson was 24, Gollancz published The Outsider (1956) which examines the role of the social 'outsider' in seminal works of various key literary and cultural figures. These include Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ernest Hemingway, Hermann Hesse, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, William James, T. E. Lawrence, Vaslav Nijinsky and Vincent Van Gogh and Wilson discusses his perception of Social alienation in their work. The book was a best seller and helped popularize existentialism in Britain. Critical praise though, was short-lived and Wilson was soon widely criticized.
Wilson's works after The Outsider focused on positive aspects of human psychology, such as peak experiences and the narrowness of consciousness. He admired the humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow and corresponded with him. Wilson wrote The War Against Sleep: The Philosophy of Gurdjieff on the life, work and philosophy of G. I. Gurdjieff and an accessible introduction to the Greek-Armenian mystic in 1980. He argues throughout his work that the existentialist focus on defeat or nausea is only a partial representation of reality and that there is no particular reason for accepting it. Wilson views normal, everyday consciousness buffeted by the moment, as "blinkered" and argues that it should not be accepted as showing us the truth about reality. This blinkering has some evolutionary advantages in that it stops us from being completely immersed in wonder, or in the huge stream of events, and hence unable to act. However, to live properly we need to access more than this everyday consciousness. Wilson believes that our peak experiences of joy and meaningfulness are as real as our experiences of angst and, since we are more fully alive at these moments, they are more real. These experiences can be cultivated through concentration, paying attention, relaxation and certain types of work.
Colin Henry Wilson was born and raised in Leicester, England, U.K. He left school at 16, worked in factories and various occupations, and read in his spare time. When Wilson was 24, Gollancz published The Outsider (1956) which examines the role of the social 'outsider' in seminal works of various key literary and cultural figures. These include Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ernest Hemingway, Hermann Hesse, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, William James, T. E. Lawrence, Vaslav Nijinsky and Vincent Van Gogh and Wilson discusses his perception of Social alienation in their work. The book was a best seller and helped popularize existentialism in Britain. Critical praise though, was short-lived and Wilson was soon widely criticized.
Wilson's works after The Outsider focused on positive aspects of human psychology, such as peak experiences and the narrowness of consciousness. He admired the humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow and corresponded with him. Wilson wrote The War Against Sleep: The Philosophy of Gurdjieff on the life, work and philosophy of G. I. Gurdjieff and an accessible introduction to the Greek-Armenian mystic in 1980. He argues throughout his work that the existentialist focus on defeat or nausea is only a partial representation of reality and that there is no particular reason for accepting it. Wilson views normal, everyday consciousness buffeted by the moment, as "blinkered" and argues that it should not be accepted as showing us the truth about reality. This blinkering has some evolutionary advantages in that it stops us from being completely immersed in wonder, or in the huge stream of events, and hence unable to act. However, to live properly we need to access more than this everyday consciousness. Wilson believes that our peak experiences of joy and meaningfulness are as real as our experiences of angst and, since we are more fully alive at these moments, they are more real. These experiences can be cultivated through concentration, paying attention, relaxation and certain types of work.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 28, 2024
Colin Wilson really Out-did himself here!
I needed a boost exactly like this book gave me, back in the mediocrity of the mid-eighties when I realized my management job was not perfectly “as advertised.”
The new office I joined upon promotion in 1985 seemed at first like a sleepy seniors’ establishment - but then, shortly after, showed its true face of conniving one-upmanship.
Sure, it was gentrified politely, but that attitude was redolent of a vain ostrich’s neat little hole in the sand. Reality need not show its true face in this land of sleeping, immense egos! Each one out to cut his latest rival’s career into shreds…
But reading this one on my weekends seemed like a pure bit of escapism from all that noise. Early on, in the first chapter, Wilson says if we read this sorta book (or such is his implication) we’ve gotta be like a doughty old school mistress clapping her hands to bring her unruly gang of kids to order.
(In just such a way, the inference goes, the Supernatural can be like a magical incantation which must be hastily disposed of, by clapping our hands quickly like his old Schoolmarm of Brutal Rationality!)
I felt comfortable with this book, and felt I could trust Wilson a lot more than my workaday confrères.
But I never carried it along with me to the office, fearing subtle snorts of derision from them!
I couldn’t reread it now, at ALL, though.
Now, more than Double the age of 35 I was in ‘85, I’ve seen too much evidence of real evil in my life to take these stories too lightly.
So in leaving you, dear Mr. Wilson, I’ll simply say that my growing old has now dispelled all your fantastic crop of grim storied ghosts from my heart -
Like the Illusory Mists of my Own Early Morning.
And now, in old age, there is peace from all these devils!
For the supernatural is quite simply a corrupt concept - an aberration of solid, concrete reality.
I needed a boost exactly like this book gave me, back in the mediocrity of the mid-eighties when I realized my management job was not perfectly “as advertised.”
The new office I joined upon promotion in 1985 seemed at first like a sleepy seniors’ establishment - but then, shortly after, showed its true face of conniving one-upmanship.
Sure, it was gentrified politely, but that attitude was redolent of a vain ostrich’s neat little hole in the sand. Reality need not show its true face in this land of sleeping, immense egos! Each one out to cut his latest rival’s career into shreds…
But reading this one on my weekends seemed like a pure bit of escapism from all that noise. Early on, in the first chapter, Wilson says if we read this sorta book (or such is his implication) we’ve gotta be like a doughty old school mistress clapping her hands to bring her unruly gang of kids to order.
(In just such a way, the inference goes, the Supernatural can be like a magical incantation which must be hastily disposed of, by clapping our hands quickly like his old Schoolmarm of Brutal Rationality!)
I felt comfortable with this book, and felt I could trust Wilson a lot more than my workaday confrères.
But I never carried it along with me to the office, fearing subtle snorts of derision from them!
I couldn’t reread it now, at ALL, though.
Now, more than Double the age of 35 I was in ‘85, I’ve seen too much evidence of real evil in my life to take these stories too lightly.
So in leaving you, dear Mr. Wilson, I’ll simply say that my growing old has now dispelled all your fantastic crop of grim storied ghosts from my heart -
Like the Illusory Mists of my Own Early Morning.
And now, in old age, there is peace from all these devils!
For the supernatural is quite simply a corrupt concept - an aberration of solid, concrete reality.
June 24, 2020
Actual Rating 0.5 Stars
I just couldn't... this was so bad! Uuuhhh what to say? Save your time and money! I can understand that some people really like this genre of books, - it is just really not for me! Enough said.
I just couldn't... this was so bad! Uuuhhh what to say? Save your time and money! I can understand that some people really like this genre of books, - it is just really not for me! Enough said.
August 21, 2011
Although I'm a huge fan of Wilson's work and have read most of his books, this gets only one star.
Maybe I should have read the blurbs a little more carefully, but I was disappointed to find that "Supernatural" is a compendium of some of Wilson's earlier works. It does have an original preface and foreword by both Wilson and his son (who put together this condensed version), but those hardly make up for what is basically a reprint.
Maybe I should have read the blurbs a little more carefully, but I was disappointed to find that "Supernatural" is a compendium of some of Wilson's earlier works. It does have an original preface and foreword by both Wilson and his son (who put together this condensed version), but those hardly make up for what is basically a reprint.
August 16, 2021
ho letto solo il volume 13 pubblicato nel 1976 da Rizzoli. una accozzaglia di fandonie e fatti non certificati senza capo ne coda per creduloni o chi vuole informarsi male e con superficialità. Un episodio di X-files è più approfondito.
June 12, 2022
Very interesting book
July 28, 2017
Colin Wilson's "Supernatural" is an exquisite compendium of ghosts and otherworldly entities.
I find Colin Wilson to be inspiring, in how he was once homeless, left to sleep on park benches at night and during the day he spent his hours at the library. He then rose up to become one of the most respected researchers of the paranormal, occultism, and parapsychology.
I find Colin Wilson to be inspiring, in how he was once homeless, left to sleep on park benches at night and during the day he spent his hours at the library. He then rose up to become one of the most respected researchers of the paranormal, occultism, and parapsychology.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews