Only yesterday man was nearly colour-blind; Homer thought that the sea was the same colour as wine. If man’s sensitivity has expanded so much within a mere tick of the cosmic clock, what will we be seeing tomorrow?
‘Refreshingly optimistic about the future of man. The Occult, always stimulating, provocative’
Sunday Express
‘I am very impressed by this book, not only by its erudition but by the marshalling of it, and above all by the good-natured, unaffected charm of the author whose reasoning is never too far-fetched, who is never carried away by preposterous theories. Mr Wilson’s mental processes are akin to Aldous Huxley’
Cyril Connolly, Sunday Times
‘A tour de force. An immensely powerful synthesis of all the relevant indications. An intensely felt, deeply impressive essay by a mind from which ideas spurt like exploding lava’
Evening News
‘The Occult is the most interesting, informative and thought-provoking book on the subject I have read. Colin Wilson has mastered the literature and retails it with tremendous gusto. And if publishers have done their astrological homework correctly, occultism is in the ascendant’
Arthur Calder-Marshall, Sunday Telegraph
The power of the mind to establish direct union with Reality may be produced by the reaction of a chemical called Serotonin on the pineal gland. The Bo-tree under which the Buddha is said to have achieved enlightenment produces figs with an exceptionally high Serotonin content.
‘Colin Wilson’s new book on The Occult is by far and away his best work to date, and worthy to be placed on the same shelf alongside William James, F. W. H. Myers’ monumental study of Human Personality and Frazer’s Golden Bough. And it has something of the thoroughness and erudition of Havelock Ellis’ celebrated Studies. For those with insight, this stupendous volume is the natural sequel to The Outsider. It is an essential volume for all readers interested in any way whatsoever in the wide spectrum of interrelated occult subjects which he discusses with such penetration and intelligence – a “must” for anyone with the remotest interest in the future of civilised man’
Alan Hull Walton, Books and Bookmen
‘The Occult, a cheerful perambulation through the marshes, forests and badlands of magic and superstition, is a book which should encourage those who share Wilson’s conviction that man must evolve in order to survive, and that his only path of evolution lies in the development of his neglected paranormal faculties ... Genial and open-hearted ... my final feeling for it is one of strong affection. Wilson is rather like the headmaster of some appalling school who contrives, in his innocence and benevolence, to find a good word on even the most outrageous of his pupils. It displays, more fully than any other Wilson book that I have read since The Outsider, the full array of his amiable virtues’
Philip Toynbee, Observer
Colin Wilson was one of the most prolific, versatile and popular writers of the past 50 years. 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.
He wrote many books on philosophy, the occult, crime and sexual deviance, plus a host of successful novels that won him an international reputation. His work has been translated into Spanish, French, Swedish, Dutch, Japanese, German, Italian, Portuguese, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish and Hebrew.
Colin Wilson died in December 2013.