Mysteries: An Investigation into the Occult, the Paranormal and the Supernatural

577 Pages·2006·3 MB·English

by  Colin Wilson

MYSTERIES

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE OCCULT,

THE PARANORMAL AND THE SUPERNATURAL

COLIN WILSON

FOR EDDIE CAMPBELL

WITH AFFECTION

Colin Wilson is one of the most prolific, versatile and popular writers at work
today. He was born in Leicester in 1931, and left school at sixteen. After he had
spent years working in a wool warehouse, a laboratory, a plastics factory and a
coffee bar, his first book The Outsider was published in 1956. It received
outstanding critical acclaim and was an immediate bestseller.

Since then he has written many books on philosophy, the occult, crime and

sexual deviance, plus a host of successful novels which have won him an
international reputation. His work has been translated into Spanish, French,
Swedish, Dutch, Japanese, German, Italian, Portuguese, Danish, Norwegian,
Finnish and Hebrew.

By the same author

NON-FICTION

The Outsider cycle:
The Outsider
Religion and the Rebel
The Age of Defeat
The Strength to Dream
Origins of the Sexual Impulse
Beyond the Outsider
Introduction to the New Existentialism

Books on the occult and paranormal The Occult
Poltergeist
Psychic Detectives
Strange Powers
The Geller Phenomenon
A Dictionary of Possibilities (with John Grant) Other Non-Fiction:
An Encyclopedia of Murder (with Pat Pitman) An Encyclopedia of Modern

Murder (with Donald Seaman) A Casebook of Murder

Order of Assassins
Rasputin and the Fall of the Romanovs
Bernard Shaw—A Reassessment
New Pathways in Psychology
The Quest for Wilhelm Reich
The War Against Sleep—The Philosophy of Gurdjieff
The Lord of the underworld—A Study of Jung
The Craft of the Novel
The Strange Genius of David Lindsay Frankenstein’s Castle
Access to Inner Worlds
Eagle and Earwig (Essays on books and writers) Poetry and Mysticism
A Book of Booze
Starseekers
The Brandy of the Damned (Essays on Music) Anti-Sartre
The Misfits

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Voyage to a Beginning

FICTION

The ‘Sorme Trilogy’:
Ritual in the Dark
The Man without a Shadow (re-titled The Sex Diary of Gerard Sorme) The God

of the Labyrinth

Other Fiction:
Adrift in Soho
The World of Violence
Necessary Doubt
The Glass Cage
The Mind Parasites
The Killer
The Philosopher’s Stone
The Black Room
The Space Vampires
The Schoolgirl Murder Case
Rasputin: A Novel
Spider World: The Tower
Spider World: The Delta

Contents

Analytical Table of Contents
Introduction to the New Edition
Introduction: The Ladder of Selves

PART
ONE

1 Ghosts, Ghouls and Pendulums
2 Giants and Witches
3 The Path of the Dragon
4 The Timeless Zone

PART
TWO

1 The Curious History of Human Stupidity
2 How Many Me’s Are There?
3 In Search of Faculty X
4 The Rediscovery of Magic
5 Descent into the Unconscious
6 Revelations
7 Worlds Beyond
8 Ancient Mysteries
9 The Great Secret
10 Powers of Evil?

PART

THREE

1 Evolution
2 Messages from Space and Time
3 The Mechanisms of Enlightenment

4 Other Dimensions

Appendix: Electromagnetic Induction of Psi States
Notes
Bibliography

Acknowledgments

It would have been impossible to write this book without the help of many
friends who have kept me supplied with material, or drawn my attention to cases
that I might otherwise not have seen. Chief among these has been Ira Einhorn,
who is virtually a one-man liaison service for parapsychologists and scientists
interested in various aspects of the paranormal. My old friend June O’Shea has
also provided me with invaluable material, including Walter Prince’s original
articles on the Doris case. Lawrence Leshan spoke to me of the Philip case, and
put me in touch with Dr George Owen, who not only sent me his wife’s book on
the subject, but provided equally fascinating material on Matthew Manning, Uri
Geller and on poltergeist phenomena. I am also indebted for material to C. L.
Tilburn, Hugh Corbett, Walter Williams, Robert Turner, Joyce Carol Oates,
Doris Cerea, Kathie Schlichting, Angelica de St. Prix, Jerry Neff, John Comley,
Sir Robin Mackworth-Young, Jacquetta Hawkes, Arthur Young, Martin Gardner,
Nigel Morland, Jesse Lasky jnr, Carol Davies, Anita Gregory, Wilson Knight,
Theo Brown, Andrew Green, Idries Shah, Linda Woolery, Arthur Guirdham,
Geoffrey Ashe, Björn Sjöval, Sheila Clarkson, Stephen Skinner and Robert
Temple. The National Enquirer was kind enough to send me photostats of
various items that I had otherwise been unable to trace. The Society for
Psychical Research, represented by its Librarian Miss Eleanor O’Keefe, has been
equally generous in lending me otherwise unobtainable books, as has the Harry
Price Library of London University. The staff of the London Library has shown
incredible patience and ingenuity in tracing dozens of obscure books and
references that would otherwise have been unavailable to me. (Their particular
triumph was the details of the career of Benoit de Maillet.) Finally, I wish to
offer my warmest thanks to my English and American editors, Rivers Scott and
Anne Freedgood, for their truly enormous labours in getting this book into its
final shape.

Colin Wilson

Analytical Table of Contents

Introduction: The Ladder of Selves

My experience of ‘panic attacks’. The ‘schoolmistress effect’. My realisation
that we contain a ‘hierarchy of selves’. J. G. Bennett’s description of his
experience

of ‘higher consciousness’ at Fontainebleau. ‘Faculty X.’ Gurdjieff s power to
‘transfer

energy’. Fritz Peters’ story. Rasputin revives Anna Vyrubova. Story of the two
monks.

Suffocating effects of ‘the robot’. Nietzsche’s vision on Leutsch. Ramakrishna’s
suicide attempt. ‘Men are far stronger than they suspect.’ What lies at the top of
the ladder

of selves? My aim in writing this book. The mechanics of contacting our higher
selves.

Can paranormal phenomena be explained in terms of the ‘ladder-of-selves’
theory? Dowsing, divination, multiple personality. Ian Stevenson’s case of Jasbir
Lal Jat. Poltergeist

activity. Anne Owen’s glimpse of the future. Alan Vaughan’s experience of

‘possession’

and higher consciousness. Proust, William James, Toynbee: ‘All is well’ feeling.
Basic

importance of security. The ultimate questions about the universe: do they have
‘answers’?

Sartre’s nausea: Camus’s absurdity. Lack of inner pressure. The failure of
psychical

research to provide conclusive answers. Attempt at a comprehensive theory of
‘the

occult’. T. C. Lethbridge and the pragmatic approach.

PART
ONE

1 Ghosts, Ghouls and Pendulums

Tom Lethbridge moves into Hole House. Lethbridge and dowsing. The ‘witch’
who lived next door. Her astral projections. She teaches Tom how to throw
pentagrams. How to

use the pendulum. Locating buried silver. Lethbridge studies ‘rates’ of length.
Searching for truffles. The problem of ghosts. The invisible porter of Trinity. The
ghoul on

the stairs. The apparition of Hole Mill. Was she a tape recording? The suicide in

the wood. The ‘blanket of depression’ on Ladram beach. Mina is urged to jump
over

the cliff. The common denominator: water. Lethbridge’s ‘field’ theory of ghosts
and

ghouls. Bill Lewis and Leonard Locker. Are ghosts intelligent? Beverley
Nichols’ story

of the haunted house of Torquay. Arthur Guirdham’s theory of houses that
induce illness.

Lethbridge’s poltergeist on Skellig Michael. A ghost steals the sandwiches.
Vanishings

and apports. Sir Oliver Lodge’s ‘tape recording’ theory. Andrew Green and the
house

in Ealing. The haunting of the Ma Barker house in Florida. Unusual powers of
animals:

the cat’s ‘second sight’. Are cats’ whiskers divining rods? The behaviour of the
hawk

moth. Is dowsing ‘electrical’? Sexual electricity. Freida Weisl, whose orgasms
made

ornaments jump off the mantelpiece. Electrical theory of the paranormal.
Lethbridge

and ‘other dimensions’. Can the pendulum reveal what is beyond death? ‘The
second

whorl of the spiral.’ The timeless zone. Robert Leftwich and the
‘superconscious’

theory of dowsing. Jung’s ‘other selves’. The concept of ‘promotion’. Our inborn
passivity.

Lethbridge’s last days. Lethbridge’s four areas of study.

2 Giants and Witches.

The owner of Skellig Michael suggests a theory. Lethbridge disagrees. The white
dog of Hole. The tile with the white hare. The search for the giant of Wandlebury
Camp.

The legend of the ghostly knight. The mystery of the giant hill figures. The
Cerne

Abbas giant. The Long Man of Wilmington. The white horses of England.
Dragons? Lethbridge locates the Wandlebury giant and discovers three figures.
The Celts and their gods.

Lethbridge’s theories cause controversy. He leaves Cambridge. Frazer and The
Golden Bough. Andrew Lang’s criticisms. Margaret Murray and the god of the
witches. Leland’s Aradia. ‘The old religion.’ Lethbridge’s theories of the Great
Mother. The sun god Lugh becomes St Michael. Gerald Gardner and the
witchcraft revival. Norman Cohn’s criticisms

of Margaret Murray. Michael Harrison’s Roots of Witchcraft: the phalluses
hidden in the altar. The Bishop of Exeter catches the monks worshipping ‘the
pagan Diana’. Sheila-na-gigs. Michael Dames’s theory of the purpose of Silbury

Hill: a giant fertility figure? My own investigations into the ‘Old Religion’ in
Cornwall.

The Helston furry dance; the Padstow ‘Obby ‘Oss. The Hungerford tuttimen.
The horned

dancers. Lethbridge on magic. Are the stone megaliths storage batteries? Levi
and

Crowley on magic: the ‘Astral Light’. Robert Graves and the moon cult.

3 The Path of the Dragon
The modern ‘occult revival’. Gerald Gardner, The Morning of the Magicians.
The Piri Reis maps. Kenneth Arnold sights the first flying saucers. George Hunt
Williamson and the Great Pyramid. Kubrick’s 2001. Lethbridge reads von
Däniken. Von Däniken’s inaccuracies. His literary offences.

Lethbridge’s theory of ‘space men’. Who were the ‘giants in the earth’? The
‘war in

heaven’. Lethbridge on Stonehenge. Geoffrey of Monmouth’s account. Where

did the stones

come from? Lethbridge’s investigations. Were the stones intended to guide space
craft?

Robert Temple’s Sirius Mystery. How did the Dogon know Sirius was a double
star? Lethbridge at the Merry Maidens.

My own experience of dowsing. Alfred Watkins discovers ley lines. Are leys
ancient

trade routes? Guy Underwood and his theory of aquastats. The ‘earth force’.
White

horses and dragons. John Michell’s theory of leys. The feng-shui lines. The
currents of the earth force. Does this explain the ‘Old religion’? Man and the
earth. Leys and acupuncture. The coiled serpent. Hermes as god of the leys.

The earth as a living being. Its forces can interact with the human mind.
Poltergeists

and ley lines. Black dogs. Animal ghosts. Colin Godman’s story of the white dog
of

Blaize House. Ancient man as a nomad. The theories of Alexander Thom and
Gerald Hawkins: the megaliths as astronomical observatories. The new Carbon
14 dating of Stonehenge.

Euan MacKie’s theory of a ‘theocratic élite caste’ in the late Neolithic. Evidence

that the Great Pyramid was an observatory. Why was ancient man so fascinated
by the skies? James Bailey’s theories of ‘ancient sea kings’ long before 2000 BC.
Evidence in South America. The ‘White Gods’ of the South American Indians:

were they Europeans? Pierre Honoré’s theory that they were Cretans. Lethbridge
and

Prince Madoc.