Colin Wilson – författare

Colin Wilson's great classic work is a comprehensive history of mystery and magic. His genius lies in producing a skilful synthesis of the available material; clarifying without simplifying, seeing the occult in the light of reason and reason in the light of the mystical and paranormal. It is a journey of enlightenment - a wide-ranging survey of the whole subject and an insightful exploration of Man's latent powers. Republished two years after the author's death and with a new foreword by bibliographer Colin Stanley, Wilson brings his own refreshingly optimistic and stimulating interpretation to the worlds of the paranormal, the occult and the supernatural.

The classic study of alienation, creativity and the modern mind'Excitingly written, with a sense of revelation' GUARDIANTHE OUTSIDER was an instant literary sensation when it was first published in 1956, thrusting its youthful author into the front rank of contemporary writers and thinkers. Wilson rationalised the psychological dislocation so characteristic of Western creative thinking into a coherent theory of alienation, and defined those affected by it as a type: the outsider. Through the works and lives of various artists, including Kafka, Camus, Hemingway, Hesse, Lawrence, Van Gogh, Shaw, Nietzsche and Dostoevsky, Wilson explored the psyche of the outsider, his effect on society and society's on him. Nothing that has happened in the decades since has made THE OUTSIDER any less relevant; it remains the seminal work on this most persistent of modern-day preoccupations.

Almost two decades after writing his famous The Occult, Colin Wilson re-examined the whole spectrum of the mystical and paranormal, producing a general occult theory that remains as compelling as the evidence of atomic particles. Originally published in 1988, Beyond the Occult contains a huge amount of new material and evidence, which came to light following publication of The Occult. It combines scientific thinking on the nature of physical reality with a wide range of fascinating case studies, from the Swiss dowser who located the body of a missing woman to the lucky American whose dreams foretold the winning horses in multiple races to scores of accounts of mystical experiences of the Divine, of spirit possession and of poltergeists. Part One covers the amazing hidden powers of the human mind: ESP, clairvoyance, psychometry, precognition, psychokinesis, and dowsing. Part Two considers the more mysterious forces for good or evil - poltergeists, spirit possession, and reincarnation - that convinced Colin Wilson of the reality of disembodied spirits. In Beyond the Occult, Colin Wilson puts forward a convincing case that our so-called 'normal' experience may, in fact, be subnormal, and that evolution may have brought us near the edge of a quantum leap into a hugely expanded human consciousness. This new edition includes a foreword by Colin Wilson's biographer, Colin Stanley.

THE ULTIMATE 2000 AD MIX-TAPE HAS ARRIVED! Best of 2000 AD is a landmark series from the cult comic, bursting with our greatest stories for a new generation of readers. Every Best of 2000 AD contains a mix of modern classics and gems from the vault. In each edition you'll find an explosive new Judge Dredd adventure, fresh essays by prominent popular culture writers, a graphic novel-length feature presentation by global legends and a vintage Dredd case. In this volume: Judge Dredd hunts untraceable assassins firing Magic Bullets by Al Ewing and Colin Wilson; even robots get the Red Planet Blues from Alan Moore, Steve Dillon and John Higgins; not even Mega City One’s brightest can escape The Vampire Effect; join the front line of the resistance against intergalactic bigots in Gothic masterpiece Nemesis The Warlock! Boasting brand new covers from an all-star line-up of artists including Becky Cloonan (The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys) and Charlie Adlard (The Walking Dead) with designer Tom Muller (X-Men), Best of 2000 AD is the essential gateway into the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic.

When Colin Wilson died in December 2013, one perceptive obituary writer suggested that, despite the seemingly diverse subject matter of his books, Wilson's legacy lay in the field of consciousness studies. This is undoubtedly true. In Super Consciousness (first published in 2009), Wilson, nearing the end of his creative life, decided to succinctly summarise the ideas he had developed during years of research first as an existentialist philosopher and a psychologist, and later as an explorer of the occult. In the Foreword Wilson states: ""I am now 75, and most of my life has been devoted to a search for what might be called 'the mechanisms of the Peak Experience', or 'power consciousness'. This book might be regarded as a kind of DIY manual of how to achieve it."" Peak Experience – the experience of sudden overwhelming happiness – is a concept coined by the American psychologist Abraham Maslow (1908–1970), but while Maslow believed that Peak Experience could not be induced, Wilson thought otherwise. He points out that boredom and lack of purpose are among the most destructive states we can experience, and instead emphasises the importance of acknowledging the reality of free will and actively evolving our own consciousness to find deep meaning and joy in every part of life. In this fascinating and optimistic work, Wilson looks at what we can learn from the Peak Experiences of Yeats, Blake, Sartre, Nietzsche, Robert Graves and other luminaries, revealing the process of how we too can gain incredible insight into the deepest mysteries of existence. This new edition includes a foreword by Colin Wilson's bibliographer, Colin Stanley.

In 1976, the US Supreme Court ruled in Gregg v. Georgia that the death penalty was constitutional if it complied with certain specific provisions designed to ensure that it was reserved for the 'worst of the worst.' The same court had rejected the death penalty just four years before in the Furman decision because it found that the penalty had been applied in a capricious and arbitrary manner. The 1976 decision ushered in the 'modern' period of the US death penalty, setting the country on a course to execute over 1,400 inmates in the ensuing years, with over 8,000 individuals currently sentenced to die. Now, forty years after the decision, the eminent political scientist Frank Baumgartner along with a team of younger scholars (Marty Davidson, Kaneesha Johnson, Arvind Krishnamurthy, and Colin Wilson) have collaborated to assess the empirical record and provide a definitive account of how the death penalty has been implemented. Each chapter addresses a precise empirical question and provides evidence, not opinion, about whether how the modern death penalty has functioned. They decided to write the book after Justice Breyer issued a dissent in a 2015 death penalty case in which he asked for a full briefing on the constitutionality of the death penalty. In particular, they assess the extent to which the modern death penalty has met the aspirations of Gregg or continues to suffer from the flaws that caused its rejection in Furman. To answer this question, they provide the most comprehensive statistical account yet of the workings of the capital punishment system. Authoritative and pithy, the book is intended for both students in a wide variety of fields, researchers studying the topic, and--not least--the Supreme Court itself.

In 1976, the US Supreme Court ruled in Gregg v. Georgia that the death penalty was constitutional if it complied with certain specific provisions designed to ensure that it was reserved for the 'worst of the worst.' The same court had rejected the death penalty just four years before in the Furman decision because it found that the penalty had been applied in a capricious and arbitrary manner. The 1976 decision ushered in the 'modern' period of the US death penalty, setting the country on a course to execute over 1,400 inmates in the ensuing years, with over 8,000 individuals currently sentenced to die. Now, forty years after the decision, the eminent political scientist Frank Baumgartner along with a team of younger scholars (Marty Davidson, Kaneesha Johnson, Arvind Krishnamurthy, and Colin Wilson) have collaborated to assess the empirical record and provide a definitive account of how the death penalty has been implemented. Each chapter addresses a precise empirical question and provides evidence, not opinion, about whether how the modern death penalty has functioned. They decided to write the book after Justice Breyer issued a dissent in a 2015 death penalty case in which he asked for a full briefing on the constitutionality of the death penalty. In particular, they assess the extent to which the modern death penalty has met the aspirations of Gregg or continues to suffer from the flaws that caused its rejection in Furman. To answer this question, they provide the most comprehensive statistical account yet of the workings of the capital punishment system. Authoritative and pithy, the book is intended for both students in a wide variety of fields, researchers studying the topic, and--not least--the Supreme Court itself.

In 1976, the US Supreme Court ruled in Gregg v. Georgia that the death penalty was constitutional if it complied with certain specific provisions designed to ensure that it was reserved for the ''worst of the worst.'' The same court had rejected the death penalty just four years before in the Furman decision because it found that the penalty had been applied in a capricious and arbitrary manner. The 1976 decision ushered in the ''modern'' period of the US death penalty, setting the country on a course to execute over 1,400 inmates in the ensuing years, with over 8,000 individuals currently sentenced to die. Now, forty years after the decision, the eminent political scientist Frank Baumgartner along with a team of younger scholars (Marty Davidson, Kaneesha Johnson, Arvind Krishnamurthy, and Colin Wilson) have collaborated to assess the empirical record and provide a definitive account of how the death penalty has been implemented. Each chapter addresses a precise empirical question and provides evidence, not opinion, about whether how the modern death penalty has functioned. They decided to write the book after Justice Breyer issued a dissent in a 2015 death penalty case in which he asked for a full briefing on the constitutionality of the death penalty. In particular, they assess the extent to which the modern death penalty has met the aspirations of Gregg or continues to suffer from the flaws that caused its rejection in Furman. To answer this question, they provide the most comprehensive statistical account yet of the workings of the capital punishment system. Authoritative and pithy, the book is intended for both students in a wide variety of fields, researchers studying the topic, and--not least--the Supreme Court itself.

In 1976, the US Supreme Court ruled in Gregg v. Georgia that the death penalty was constitutional if it complied with certain specific provisions designed to ensure that it was reserved for the ''worst of the worst.'' The same court had rejected the death penalty just four years before in the Furman decision because it found that the penalty had been applied in a capricious and arbitrary manner. The 1976 decision ushered in the ''modern'' period of the US death penalty, setting the country on a course to execute over 1,400 inmates in the ensuing years, with over 8,000 individuals currently sentenced to die. Now, forty years after the decision, the eminent political scientist Frank Baumgartner along with a team of younger scholars (Marty Davidson, Kaneesha Johnson, Arvind Krishnamurthy, and Colin Wilson) have collaborated to assess the empirical record and provide a definitive account of how the death penalty has been implemented. Each chapter addresses a precise empirical question and provides evidence, not opinion, about whether how the modern death penalty has functioned. They decided to write the book after Justice Breyer issued a dissent in a 2015 death penalty case in which he asked for a full briefing on the constitutionality of the death penalty. In particular, they assess the extent to which the modern death penalty has met the aspirations of Gregg or continues to suffer from the flaws that caused its rejection in Furman. To answer this question, they provide the most comprehensive statistical account yet of the workings of the capital punishment system. Authoritative and pithy, the book is intended for both students in a wide variety of fields, researchers studying the topic, and--not least--the Supreme Court itself.

A spellbinding blend of history and science, scholarship and speculation, this landmark work presents startling new evidence that traces archaeology''s most enduring mysteries back to the lost civilization of Atlantis....The Great Pyramid. Stonehenge. Machu Picchu. For centuries, these and other sacred sites have inspired wonder among those who ponder their origins. Conventional science tells us they were constructed by local peoples working with the primitive tools of a fledgling civilization. But these megaliths nonetheless continue to attract pilgrims, scholars, and adventurers drawn by the possibility that their true spiritual and technological secrets remain hidden. Who could have built these elaborate monuments? How did they do it? And what were their incomprehensible efforts and sacrifices designed to accomplish?Now comes a revolutionary theory that connects these mysteries to reveal a hidden global pattern -- the ancient work of an advanced civilization whose warnings of planetary cataclysm now reverberate across one hundred millennia. International bestselling author Colin Wilson and Canadian researcher Rand Flem-Ath join forces to share startling evidence of a fiercely intelligent society dating back as much as 100,000 years -- one that sailed the oceans of the world, building monuments to preserve and communicate its remarkable wisdom. The Atlantis Blueprint is their term for a sophisticated network of connections between these sacred sites that they trace to Atlantis: a sophisticated maritime society that charted the globe from its home base in Antarctica ... until it was obliterated by the devastating global changes it anticipated but could not escape.Here is adventure to realms beyond our imaginings ... to shifting poles, changing latitudes ... into the world of ancient mariners who recharted the globe ... to astonishing discoveries about our ancestors. Here are the great mysteries ... the incredibly complex geography of the Temple of Luxor ... the startling sophistication of Egyptian science and math ... and tantalizing similarities among the Hebrew, Greek, and Mayan alphabets to the Chinese lunar zodiac. The Atlantis Blueprint opens up a Pandora''s box of ancient mysteries, lost worlds, and millennial riddles. It is a story as controversial, fascinating, dangerous -- and inspiring -- as any ever told.From the Hardcover edition.

Is the near-death experience a defense mechanism of the brain or have people actually been on the threshold of another world? Colin Wilson assesses the evidence that includies mediumship, paranormal activity, spirit sightings, and spirit communications. Above all, he includes the striking case histories of people who claim to have "died, " and reported their experiences of the afterlife.

As the number of serial killers worldwide has risen steadily - from the emergence of Jack the Ripper in 1888 to Harold Shipman and Ivan Milat, the backpacker killer of the Australian outback - the need to understand mass murder is becoming more urgent. Using privileged access to the world's first National Centre for the Analysis of Violent Crime, Colin Wilson and Donald Seaman bring you this incisive study of the psychology of serial killers and the motives behind their crimes. From childhood traumas to issues of frustration, fear and fantasy, discover what turns an ordinary human being into a compulsive killer.

Inspired by the revelation that the Sphinx had been weathered by water and not by wind-blown sand and was, therefore, thousands of years older than the oldest civilisation known to man, Colin Wilson sets out to explore the remote depths of history. The compelling argument of this bestselling book is that, thousands of years before Ancient Egypt and Greece held sway, there was a great civilisation whose ships travelled the world and who possessed some knowledge system that offered a unified view of the universe, alien to modern man. In this fascinating exploration of the world at a time when, according to Plato, the 'lost civilisation' of Atlantis was destroyed, the author makes a ground-breaking attempt to understand how these long-forgotten peoples thought, felt and communicated on a universal plane.

As the number of serial killers worldwide has risen steadily - from the emergence of Jack the Ripper in 1888 to Harold Shipman and Ivan Milat, the backpacker killer of the Australian outback - the need to understand mass murder is becoming more urgent. Using privileged access to the world's first National Centre for the Analysis of Violent Crime, Colin Wilson and Donald Seaman bring you this incisive study of the psychology of serial killers and the motives behind their crimes. From childhood traumas to issues of frustration, fear and fantasy, discover what turns an ordinary human being into a compulsive killer.

Alien Dawn is the most comprehensive bird's eye view of the subject ever undertaken, and the conclusions Wilson draws are of overwhelming significance to us all.Here Wilson describes what he found as he set out to piece together this vast, complex jigsaw puzzle, whose components include poltergeists, lake monsters, ancient folklore, time slips, out-of-body experiences, mystical awareness and psychic travel to other worlds, as well as allegations of worldwide gorvernment cover-ups.

Taking the most famous 'prophet' of recent times, David Koresh, as a starting point, this is an analytical look at the troubled history of charlatan messiahs around the world. But Koresh was neither the first, nor the most excessive, nor even the most misguided, and Colin Wilson looks at cult leaders from the early days of Christianity through, among others, the 'Rev' Jim Jones and Jeffrey Lundgren.He goes on to consider what it is that makes these messiahs believe they are who they claim to be, and what makes people give up everything to follow them - a messiah is nothing without someone to believe in him. This comprehensive study untangles the history of the charlatan messiahs and explores their world view.Colin Wilson's remarkable career has led him to write on subjects as diverse as archaeology, astronomy, cosmology, Egyptology, crime and the paranormal. His other books have been translated into many languages and he travels the world, lecturing and holding workshops.

What makes a good scandal? Money, politics and power, and a huge dose of media interest. Scandal reigns in the world of politics, celebrity, business, religion, royalty and art, and this book covers it all - from Watergate to Michael Jackson, Diana to Oscar Wilde. Distinguished writer Colin Wilson delves into the murky intrigues of British and American life to bring the most scandalous secrets to light.Containing brand new chapters on Michael Jackson, ENRON, the death of David Kelly, the Catholic Church sex scandals and the cash-for-honours scandal, and an updated chapter on OJ Simpson, here are the embarrassing true stories the rich and famous tried but failed to hide.

Colin Wilson is the bete-noir of the Oxbridge literary establishment. He never went to university, let alone Oxbridge, yet wrote The Outsider, a brilliant account of the pain of being alive today, when he was just twenty-four. It sold millions of copies around the world, and he was acclaimed as one of the leading intellectuals of the age, finding a huge audience with the anti-establishment, alternative and underground thinkers. Because of his radically new attitudes he was - with John Osborne - dubbed an 'angry young man' in the article that originally coined that phrase. In this way a young man from a working class background suddenly found himself moving in the most colourful literary and artistic circles of the day. In his autobiography he tells stories about, among others, Aldous Huxley, Angus Wilson, John Osborne, Kingsley Amis, Kenneth Tynan, Francis Bacon and Norman Mailer - all observed with a true outsider's eye for absurdity. He is regarded by many as a true literary hero - Julian Cope stopped a recent concert to pay tribute to Wilson who as sitting in the audience and Donovan Leitch dedicates his new autobiography to him - but he also has huge mass market appeal. His insightful, brilliant books on the Occult, the Mysteries and Atlantis and the Sphinx were all huge bestsellers netting millions of copies. In this return to the themes of The Outsider, looked at from the point of his own life story, he again proves himself one of the great intellectuals of our age, never ceasing to wrestle with the great questions of life and death, and writing with an erudition and an easy way with ideas that is rare in English literary life.