tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post2112220129476082153..comments2024-03-29T11:18:17.285+00:00Comments on Bruce Charlton's Notions: The failed mission of Colin Wilson: why Non-Christian romanticism failed to persuade people to adopt more optimistic and positive metaphysical assumptionsBruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-34452343529903217142021-11-02T12:22:33.945+00:002021-11-02T12:22:33.945+00:00Religion without belief is a flower in a vase, sev...Religion without belief is a flower in a vase, severed from it's roots. Beautiful for a short time before it withers and dies forever.Sean G.https://www.blogger.com/profile/03107563428752354740noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-45199899145892810712021-11-02T06:28:54.778+00:002021-11-02T06:28:54.778+00:00@FX - Hello again!
I agree with your summary of ...@FX - Hello again! <br /><br />I agree with your summary of CW. Faculty X will 'inevitably' be found as part of post mortal life in Heaven, I believe - for those who choose that path and destination. <br /><br />I would say the lesson of failing to discover a technique for inducing FX is that it is part of a wider perspective and motivation - genuine raising of human consciousness comes from being motivated by love; and is part of our experience and learning upon earth. <br /><br />In other words, in this mortal life, the reason for FX is mainly to teach us things we need to learn for our post-mortal life; the purpose of this life is for our learning, Not for us to exist in a constant state of raised consciousness. <br /><br />After all this life is always temporary and may be very short - while what comes after is eternal: this life is extremely important, but it is not the most important thing. Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-64671813610566068542021-11-02T02:46:28.790+00:002021-11-02T02:46:28.790+00:00The big problem still unsolved was Faculty X has s...The big problem still unsolved was Faculty X has strong limitations -- he never developed a working method to duplicate in this world what he showed in his books like The Mind Parasites.<br /><br />If in line with CW's work, the development of Faculty X should have in theory stimulated the ability to directly sense the truth in the Astral and Etheric planes. However it did not. <br /><br />Some of the techniques Colin Wilson wrote as boosting development of human consciousness don't work in the way they do in his fiction: focusing on a pencil and relaxing or doing Husserl's phenomenology is not a method to expanded mind powers. <br /><br />While philosophical and religious approaches have their place the lack of development of something like contemplative objective exploration of the other times and places and planes that Faculty X represented has not yet come to be.<br /><br />His extensive writing always came back to the same great philosophical insights and yet no method was ever found. Nonetheless his optimism came from feeling one day it would inevitably be so.<br />Faculty Xnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-76083978686193954132021-11-01T17:05:46.708+00:002021-11-01T17:05:46.708+00:00@Frank - I think Bruce is right in his assessment ...@Frank - I think Bruce is right in his assessment of why CW never became a Christian. I met him in 2008, and while he was a most generous host, a terrific raconteur, and undeniably a deep and serious thinker, I had the impression that his mind was going round in circles somewhat rather than forward in any purposeful sense. There was little sense of intellectual or spiritual risk. The edge had been blunted. 'His work expanded rather than deepened.' That's an apt way of putting it.<br /><br />I also think he was way too deferent to science. Maybe it's a mid-twentieth century thing, I don't know. He was always at great pains in his writing to squeeze everything into a scientific framework. He would have been better off using a more spiritual paradigm. Science wasn't his friend ultimately. Religion could have been and should have been. We see this synergy leaping off the pages in Religion and the Rebel, his most potent and energetic work imo. Shame he didn't follow through on it. But even so he'll always be part of the circle of great British spiritual and philosophical lights for me. <br /><br />Nice to think of CW this way on All Saints Day!John Fitzgeraldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13951246561259007162noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-53275215829576063802021-11-01T13:28:14.772+00:002021-11-01T13:28:14.772+00:00I don't know anything about Colin Wilson, but ...I don't know anything about Colin Wilson, but I do think CS Lewis may have had it easier in being able to pinpoint a sympathize-able personal grudge against God at the death of his mother. I know my personal grudges against God have usually been embarrassingly immature and stupid. Lucindahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01834799557675879450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-44183101273207319262021-11-01T07:09:15.274+00:002021-11-01T07:09:15.274+00:00@red - Thanks for your note.
@Frank - I suppose ...@red - Thanks for your note. <br /><br />@Frank - I suppose I can understand Colin Wilson's failure to take the last step, in the sense that it took me such a long time. <br /><br />Also, I think that 'public figures' can on the one hand feel themselves trapped by their reputation and past work. There is a sense in which becoming a Christian would have invalidated a fair amount of CW's earlier work, and he seems to have been somebody who wanted to regard his entire span of work as *all* being important, all building towards something. That was the way he told his own story, anyway. <br /><br />But more fundamentally, I don't think CW *thought* very hard, deep or or long in his later life - he was too busy churning-out potboilers to pay the bills for his excessive profligacy in buying wine, books and gramophone records. Consequently his work expanded rather than deepened. Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-19353305437831394312021-10-31T20:21:34.504+00:002021-10-31T20:21:34.504+00:00Dear Sir,
I have nothing to add to your thought-p...Dear Sir,<br /><br />I have nothing to add to your thought-provoking meditations on "the curren situation", except that it's a joy to read something written in Real English with all its richness, instead of US-Americanese diversity-babble. I confess to re-reading your "Addicted to Distraction" book to remind myself of the horrors of "media". <br /><br />Again, many thanks,<br /><br />RedAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-67110659268006809052021-10-31T19:25:10.072+00:002021-10-31T19:25:10.072+00:00I still can't wrap my head around how Colin Wi...I still can't wrap my head around how Colin Wilson couldn't take the definitive step toward God during mortal life, especially when you consider his obvious admiration of religious thinkers, most notably, William Arkle. Nevertheless, perhaps he accepted the truth after mortal life ended, in much the same way you have argued Nietzsche likely accepted the truth. But who knows? Wilson was very committed to his assumptions in life. Francis Bergerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11063224017320651978noreply@blogger.com