Glad you got the discussion back on line. I thought there for awhile it was some sort of Zen 'no-answer as the answer' trick... which would actually make a good webpage no that I think of it.
Anyway, I was wondering about the last question I posed of C. Wilson's foray into the world of Uri Geller and how fraudulant I thought that world was. Near to me is the infamous town of Roswell, New Mexico which celebrated the alleged crash-landing of an alien spaceship about fifty years ago this summer with a big concert and festivities. They have even opened a commemorative museum. The number of people that came to Roswell is staggering to me, and I know there are many more who believe in it around the country and even in other countries.
Basically, these people believe that an alien spacecraft crash-landed in Roswell in the late '40s and the vehicle was taken away to 'Area-51' and has been studied ever since by the government. This is impossible for many reasons, but the spin-doctoring of the story has thrown it into the stratosphere of the ignorant mind where it has become a fiercely-believed truth.
But I recognize the loss of spiritual paths and laziness of ontological phenomenology here in America today, and the subsequent grasping for the paranormal, superstitious, and the outrageous to explain things to people. These are 'false idols' if you will, and they serve that spiritual void in the common man, however shortlived and irresponsible they may be. So I hope for a movement (and try to help it come) in responsible searching and establishment of individual meaning in the world... the key word being 'responsible'.
I could go on here at length on how most organized religion has caused this backfiring of belief, but it would take up too much space!
I do hope and believe in the probability of other life in the universe, but I am with Carl Sagan's thoughts on the matter.
Gerald James
Earth
Gerald James has an entry (24 July) in which he brings up (Wilsons belief in) Uri Geller. Yes, it's the acid test of all supernatural questions, and I'll tell about my own UG attitude: At first I thought he was genuinely gifted, but then I came across his autobiography, and all went well there too - until I came to the part where he tells of a parachute jump during a military exercise. The gist of it is that to save himself weight and trouble he cheated and left behind the heavy barrel of the machine gun his platoon carried. Upon landing he was asked by the combat umpires to prove the gun by loading and firing (the missing barrel is not obvious seen from outside). He knew that he was to be found out and punished, but went through the motions; put in the ammunition belt, pulled the loading arm back; released it and pulled the trigger ....and the gun started to fire as normal! That was when I stopped to believe, but afterwards I have asked myself why that particular part was so crucial? And really, I haven't been able to answer. A little miracle is not more plausible than a big one, so I forward this to Gerald. There is a phenomenon called "poltergeist": disturbances caused by teenagers - preferably - that stops once they leave or grow up. I will not go into detail, it is so well-documented that to protest it you have to be positively determined not to believe anything at all. I think Colin Wilson knows more about such things than anyone else in the world, and that he is LESS easily convinced than most, so for me, I leave the whole complex suspended in this sentence: what is supernatural depends on what an age declares to be natural.
Bo Skutvik
I only half agree with Mr. Skutvik's last sentence. Surely the times point to the pictures of normality, but I think the ontological man sees beyond eras and their prejudices. This is what science's main attribute is: to blow past the nervous leaves of the current passions of the world to see the solid ground beneath. All the great scientists have defied the age they lived in (and live in). One of the greatest of this century was the late Carl Sagan, who sought to help mankind relieve himself of the dust of centuries of superstition and religious irresponsibility. His last book is a brilliant success in this arena. I think of my mind as more open than most, but I have never seen the 'extraordinary evidence' needed to explain 'extraordinary events' such as poltergeists. As much as I admire Colin Wilson in his life's explosion of consciousness, I believe the occult has two paths and he has taken only the ying one. The other was taken by Carl Sagan and others. But the good realization is that all diverging paths converge.
Gerald James
Gerald James and mine debate over Colin Wilson's attitude to the occult threaten to founder because he won't admit even the best documented unexplained phenomenons; the poltergeist disturbances. I am not very easily convinced, but not a total sceptic either, and regarding this - and other person-related effects (for instance the young woman whose presence stopped the looms in a factory) - one must be absolutely determined not to admit ANYTHING, to deny. I don't think that if one accept this, the next thing is to swallow the Roswell case. Gerald countered my statement (that the supernatural is decided by an age's "naturalness") by the pious remark of mankind's upward march, which implies that he fears a slide to the Dark Ages if one confesses the tiniest doubt.
The problem is that the mind-matter dualism that we subscribe to is "occult" at its very core. For example would you Gerald offer an explanation of how you manage to move a finger? You think of doing the said act and the thought - in the mind - is by definition disembodied, at least immaterial and energyless, but at some point it jumps the gap and materializes in a bodily energy-requiring movement. How does that come about? If this isn't occult what is?
My "accusation" re. Colin Wilson is that he hasn't moved beyond the occult, and realised that it is the said mind/matter dualism that creates the impassi. I will soon receive his Atlantis/Sphinx book and am looking forward to read it and learn of the development I sensed in the taped talk with Richard Foreman.
Bo Skutvik
To respond to Mr. Skutvik: I do try to remain ever receptive to new information, but your at-odds wording provides the key ('unexplained' in "documented unexplained phenomenoms"). As I have said, I search for the 'extraordinary evidence'. I do downplay poltergeists and occult experiences, because they do seem always to be so trivial--a lamp breaking, a vision moving a chair around, even the young woman in the factory with the looms. I don't think a thousand scientists crawling all over an occult scene is in order to help my understanding, but rather I think I would have to experience the phenomena first hand in order to believe. I also don't see how it helps to 'admit' something without first believing in it. Yes, I do not believe in blind faith and I don't trust most occult accounts, but my doubt is not negativism or fear; it is a desire to learn and experience, and I think of it as an exciting process.
Now, I was also trying to point out C.W.'s mire in occultism is a problem of dualism and I agree that he "hasn't moved beyond". My own solution to dualism is in a Zen "vanishing of the problem." Your "occult" example of how one moves their finger definitely seperates Mind from Body, and I solve it by not acknowledging a "gap". "Music is made of the notes as well as the spaces between them," and "the airplane wing splits the air into 'upper' and 'lower' for a moment and then they flow together again," are my two favorite metaphors.
My argument then is against most occult phenomenology (which I see as irresponsible to the development of man, poor in 'meaning experience', and lazy). I am for the development of a new religion based on ontological phenomenology, instead.
Gerald James
I was wondering if there is going to bea follow up to the third Spider World-The Magician? I read that there was problems with the publishers but I have no positive answers. That series is great and I'm dying to find out the fortune (or misfortune) of Niall!!! Please respond to the dicussion page!
I've received a lot of questions about the Spider World books. According to Colin Stanley, Wilson's bibliographer, the first three books were only modestly successful in terms of sales, and the publishers have not made any plans to publish further volumes. Wilson has also moved on to other projects himself, so it seems unlikely that any more will be written, unfortunately.