human potential

As I said elsewhere, reading Gary Lachman’s book “Beyond the Robot,” about Colin Wilson’s life and work, is bringing back active memories of a treasured friendship. Here’s one I don’t think I have ever shared.

How often does one of your literary heroes become a friend? During the 25 years between stumbling upon The Mind Parasites in 1970 and meeting Colin Wilson in 1995, my life changed many times, but I never suspected that one day he would write an introduction to one of my books. But that’s what he did, for Muddy Tracks, published in January, 2001, and here it is:

Foreword

by Colin Wilson

When Frank DeMarco told me he intended to write a book about his experiences of The Monroe Institute, I immediately offered to write this introduction, for I needed no convincing that Robert Monroe is one of the most important figures in modern paranormal research. What I had not expected was that the book I had so casually offered to introduce, sight unseen, would be itself as remarkable as any of Monroe’s books.

I met Frank on March 17, 1995, in the New York apartment of the distinguished paranormal researcher Alexander Imich. As it happens, it was the day Robert Monroe died. I remember the date because my taxi had got stuck in the Saint Patrick’s Day parade, and I was two hours late for the party. Fortunately, it was still going strong. But the only one of the guests I mentioned later in my diary was Frank DeMarco. And that was partly because he had sent me a novel he had written called Messenger, a sequel to James Hilton’s Lost Horizon, and that, unlike most sequels, it was totally absorbing. It was the story of a young American pilot whose spy plane crashes in Tibet in 1962, and who is taken to the monastery of Shangri-La. It was obvious that DeMarco had written it partly because he felt that James Hilton had missed some important opportunities. His young pilot attempts to escape, but is caught, then decides to make the best of it and begin to practice mental and spiritual disciplines. The book made it clear that DeMarco knew a great deal about such disciplines, and had practiced them himself. And I sensed this as I talked to him—mainly about Monroe—at the party.

Continue reading Colin Wilson’s preface to Muddy Tracks

Gary Lachman’s book is bringing back such fond memories of Colin. When I told him I was writing a book about my own explorations into consciousness, he offered, sight unseen, to write a preface. (I was to find that this kind of generous impulse was typical of the man.) When he had finished reading the manuscript of Muddy Tracks, he sent me an email saying that the last paragraph had him blushing.

Well, let’s assume that “blushing” was exaggeration. Still, clearly he was pleased.

This last paragraph was part of an appendix called “Mapmakers.” In it I listed “People you ought to know, and why. These are all authors unless otherwise noted. I count them as friends I never met—except that in a few cases, I have met them. These personal favorites of mine will lead you on to others, by their own reference and with a little help from your friends Upstairs.” Last on the (alphabetical) list:

Colin Wilson: novels and nonfiction. Colin Wilson can’t seem to write an unreadable sentence or a dull page. His lively mind moves from here to there and carries you with him. He lives in a wider world than most, which is a continual breath of fresh air. He has written eighty or so books, and I doubt there’s a used bookstore or a public library in an English-speaking country that doesn’t have at least one, and usually more. His newer books can be found in any bookstore of reasonable size. The Outsider is a classic, and a renewed delight whenever I reread it. Among my favorites of his novels are The Philosopher’s Stone, The Mind Parasites, and Necessary Doubt. But you can hardly go wrong anywhere.

Reading Gary Lachman’s book brings back how much Colin’s work meant to my life. A short excerpt from my book Muddy Tracks:

For more than forty years I endured the long, hard, solitary road. Yet I had gotten a startling glimpse of the existence of a better way of living one night late in February 1970, when I was a few months from turning twenty-four. I was in a drugstore checkout line when a strong impulse led me to pick up a paperback book off the rack. Oddly, for some reason the thought came to me that I might steal it. I still don’t know why that thought came across, unless merely to underline for me the importance of that book, a science-fiction novel called The Mind Parasites, by an author I’d never heard of named Colin Wilson. I bought it, and that moment turned my life.

Monday, August 29, 2016

Carl Jung: There is little use in teaching wisdom

To Chang Chung-yuan

Dear Sir, 26 June 1950

I have read your pamphlet with great interest and I can tell you that I fundamentally agree
with your views.
I see Taoism in the same light as you do.
I’m a great admirer of Ch’uang-tze’s philosophy.
I was again immersed in the study of his writings when your letter arrived in the midst of it.
You are aware, of course, that Taoism formulates psychological principles which are of a very universal nature.
As a matter of fact, they are so all-embracing that they are, as far as they go, applicable to any part of humanity.

But on the other hand just because Taoist views are so universal, they need a re-translation and specification when it comes to the practical application of their principles.
Of course it is undeniable that general principles are of the highest importance, but it is equally important to know in every detail the way that leads to real understanding.

The danger for the Western mind consists in the mere application of words instead of facts.
What the Western mind needs is the actual experience of the facts that cannot be substituted by words.
Thus I’m chiefly concerned with the ways and methods by which one can make the Western mind aware of the psychological facts underlying the concept of Tao, if the latter can be called a concept at all.
The way you put it is in danger of remaining a mere idealism or an ideology to the Western mind.
If one could arrive at the truth by learning the words of wisdom, then the world would have been saved already in the remote times of Lao-tze.
The trouble is, as Ch’uang-tze rightly says, that the old masters failed to enlighten the world, since there weren’t minds enough that could be enlightened.
There is little use in teaching wisdom.
At all events wisdom cannot be taught by words.
It is only possible by personal contact and by immediate experience.
The great and almost insurmountable difficulty consists in the question of the ways and means to induce people to make the indispensable psychological experiences that open their eyes to the underlying truth.
The truth is one and the same everywhere and I must say that Taoism is one of the most perfect
formulations of it I ever became acquainted with.
Sincerely yours,

C.G. Jung

~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 559-560

Continue reading Carl Jung: There is little use in teaching wisdom

Friday August 5, 2016

5 a.m. At the dentist’s yesterday morning, I had to wait quite a while. (A temporary crown had broken the day before, and they had squeezed me in.) Rather than succumb to irritation or impatience, I – existed. I remained in neutral. Hard to explain. And therefore a couple of remarkable things happened. Can I recapture them?

One thing, I wondered what it would be like to be entirely present, to be fully aware of my life as a 6- or 12- (or however many there are) dimensional being. We have been told that as we become more aware of other dimensions, our experience of time necessarily changes (because those dimensions are crammed into our experience of time in a sort of spare-drawer or junk-closet kind of way). So what if we were fully aware, what would it feel like?

I knew that it isn’t a matter of how we think about things. And yet that isn’t something to be ignored, either, if only because the way we think can get in our own way. If you think guidance is “over here” or is “them,” your opportunities are going to be lessened than if you thought “they” are right here and are not “them.” So, although we can’t think our way into an experience of wholeness (call it), we can prevent ourselves from having it by thinking wrongly.

So I kept that in mind, and tried not to think but to be. What would it feel like to experience myself as I really am, rather than only as this 3D-experiencing machine with a lifeline to the non-3D? Since it can’t be thought into, I couldn’t use concepts to frame it. All I could do was intend to feel it.

Working from that intent, I held myself in an attitude of not-thinking alertness. (Sorry for the inadequacy of description, but I can’t find words for it, or in fact even concepts to try to describe in words. I think a better observer might come back with analogies, at least.) The result was that I “intended” into a clear mental space whose “feel” I have experienced occasionally. I saw a room, with two main objects in it, one closer to me than the other. I can’t remember the objects but the impression was of a very rich room – like a room in a museum, say, with the walls covered with artwork. Nothing moved, nor did my intent. I was being careful not to “move,” myself. I let it be, and held my intent, and tried hard not to start thinking about it, or associating ideas to it.

I don’t remember how it ended – whether it faded, or I started to think, or what. It only lasted a short time. Less than a minute, maybe, though it seemed longer (or perhaps I should say “timeless”) while it lasted.

I remember resolving to try to stay in a state of remembering at least my intent to experience life as fully as possible, and it did seem to affect my day, as long as it lasted. (That is, as long as I remembered.)

Now, by that phrase, “experience life as fully as possible,” I am not talking about what people often seem to mean when they say something similar, which is, roughly, “cram as many experiences, emotions, etc. as possible into my life.” I mean nothing like that. Rather than compiling “external” events and my reactions to them, I’m talking about expanding my moment-to-moment pattern of perception so that I live in the world more as it really is and less as it appears from a constricted 3D perspective. I don’t know how to do it – I won’t know unless / until I succeed – but I think I know how to go about it, focused intent and stillness. But how to remember intent, moment by moment? That’s a big question.

Obviously this way of proceeding won’t be for everyone, if it is even for me. But it seems worth a try, and now I’m wondering if this is that people aim for by meditating. The trouble with all this exploring is that so little of it can be expressed, and such little as can be expressed can be so misleading. Still, it seems worth pursuing.