Beyond the Occult Quotes

“It is the sheer weight of the robot that makes us feel we are living in a ‘wooden world’. We can see for example that the moment Ouspensky or Ward returned from the mystical realm of perfect freedom and found themselves ‘back in the body’ they once again found themselves saddled with all their boring old habits and worries and neuroses, all their old sense of identity built up from the reactions of other people, and above all the dreary old heaviness, as if consciousness has turned into a leaden weight. This is the sensation that made the romantics feel that life is a kind of hell — or at the very least, purgatory. Yet we know enough about the robot to know that this feeling is as untrustworthy as the depression induced by a hangover. The trouble with living ‘on the robot’ is that he is a dead weight. He takes over only when our energies are low. So when I do something robotically I get no feedback of sudden delight. This in turn makes me feel that it was not worth doing. ‘Stan’ reacts by failing to send up energy and ‘Ollie’ experiences a sinking feeling. Living becomes even more robotic and the vicious circle effect is reinforced. Beyond a certain point we feel as if we are cut off from reality by a kind of glass wall: suddenly it seems self-evident that there is nothing new under the sun, that all human effort is vanity, that man is a useless passion and that life is a horrible joke devised by some demonic creator. This is the state I have decribed as ‘upside-downness’, the tendency to allow negative emotional judgements to usurp the place of objective rational judgements. Moreover this depressing state masquerades as the ‘voice of experience’, since it seems obvious that you ‘know’ more about an experience when you’ve had it a hundred times. This is the real cause of death in most human beings: they mistake the vicious circle effects of ‘upside-downness’ for the wisdom of age, and give up the struggle.”
― Colin Wilson, Beyond the Occult: Twenty Years' Research into the Paranormal

“Physically speaking we all evolve through a number of stages between birth and death — Shakespeare’s ‘seven ages of man’. But it also seems obvious that we evolve through a series of personalities. How often have we met a child after several years and been amazed that he no longer seems to be the same person? But our personal evolution is not as inevitable as our physical growth: it is the result of effort. If life becomes too difficult we cease to make efforts and cease to evolve. This,”
― Colin Wilson, Beyond the Occult: Twenty Years' Research into the Paranormal

“I had learned a basic lesson: that the secret of avoiding boredom is to have a strong sense of purpose.”
― Colin Wilson, Beyond the Occult: Twenty Years' Research into the Paranormal

“I first noticed this as a child: too much happiness bored me. If I went for a walk on a sunny morning and began to experience an increasing sense of sheer joy, there came a point at which I grew tired of it and deliberately brought my mind back down to earth. Thinking about this later I always found it difficult to understand why I wanted that happiness to come to an end. Now the solution is obvious. When we experience a sudden insight we want to grasp it, to turn it into words. But the left brain is like an amanuensis who has to take everything down in longhand. If the intuitions come too fast he wants to shout, ‘Slow down, slow down!’ And if the speaker refuses to slow down he throws down his pen in disgust. As”
― Colin Wilson, Beyond the Occult: Twenty Years' Research into the Paranormal

“And in fact this insight had often been confirmed by experience. I had frequently noted that I became accident-prone when I had allowed myself to become tired and discouraged, and that some instinct for avoiding accidents seemed to be aroused when I was feeling fully alive. I”
― Colin Wilson, Beyond the Occult: Twenty Years' Research into the Paranormal

“In a celebrated case a Mrs Butler, who lived in Ireland, dreamt repeatedly of ‘the most enchanting house I ever saw’. She and her husband decided to move to England and inspected many properties around London. One day they went to look at a house in Hampshire and Mrs Butler recognized it as her dream house. She was so familiar with it that she was able to show the housekeeper around the premises and describe every room before they entered it. The price of the house was absurdly low, and when they went to see the agent he told them why. ‘The house is haunted.’ But, he added, ‘you need not be concerned. You are the ghost.’ He had recognized her from the owner’s precise description.”
― Colin Wilson, Beyond the Occult