Witches

by Colin Wilson

A history of witchcraft from ancient sorcery to modern spiritualists includes discussion of witch trials, spells, earth spirits, and werewolves

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Paranormal, Occult, Witches, Witchcraft, Folklore

157 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1981

About the author

Librarian 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.

Reviews

[SadieWhiteCoat · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting how bro attached no bibliography. Also interesting how bro didn’t know how Martha Corey was married to Giles Corey? Bro gave them differently spelled surnames. Also interesting how bro made sweeping unsubstantiated claims about the commonly held beliefs of psychology. Other peoples thought processes are fascinating.

[RdWd · Rating 3 out of 5]

Primarily this is an art book for Una Woodroof (it's published by 1980s art powerhouse, Paper Tiger). Her artwork has a peculiar quality to it, with naïve human proportions, but it comes together with great sense of colour, shading and theme.

Colin Wilson's contributions to a history of witchcraft are more muddied. There's some blatant historical inaccuracies and poor-wordings, like the contradictory claim that King Arthur "defended England from the Anglo-Saxons".

Fun Halloween read either way.

[m. · Rating 3 out of 5]

More like an overview of things more deeply discussed in his other, weightier tomes, this is nevertheless an interesting read and recap of witchcraft through the ages.

[Jessie Mosley · Rating 1 out of 5]

Some of The facts were incorrect from a historical point of view,especially on how many people were killed in the one town during the crusades.

[S. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three stars for Una Woodruff's art, but the author is a sexist exoticist and full of s*it.