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Reflections on an explorer of the ‘ultimate questions’
All papers presented by the ten speakers at the third international Colin Wilson Conference held in Nottingham, UK, in September 2023, are now available in Reading Colin Wilson (Paupers’ Press, Spring, 2024), edited by Colin Stanley, Wilson’s indefatigable bibliographer.
This illustrated 250-page book is an invaluable record for anyone (such as myself) who was unable to attend the three-day conference but would have liked very much to have been there.
Colin Wilson (1931–2013), the English existential philosopher, critic and novelist, left a remarkable legacy of more than 150 books and a reputation as a foremost pioneer in consciousness studies.
In his introduction to Reading Colin Wilson, Ghost Club chairman Alan Murdie rightly says that Wilson’s ‘urgent and searching curiosity to explore great existential and ultimate questions’ is what continues to fascinate and inspire readers and admirers today.
Indeed, subjects raised during the conference, which was organised by Colin Stanley, reflected Wilson’s own wide-ranging interests, including the paranormal, precognition, ghosts, synchronicity or meaningful coincidence, the American fantasy and horror fiction writer H P Lovecraft, science fiction, psychology, music, T E Lawrence (‘Lawrence of Arabia’), and the ‘King of the Bohemians’ Ironfoot Jack.
Colin and Joy Wilson’s eldest son, author Damon Wilson, speaking engagingly about his parents and life at home in Cornwall, opened the conference. ‘Tetherdown was an amazing place to grow up,’ said Damon. ‘Books and LP records lined every wall. The garden was just wild enough to make playing in it an adventure… And then there was southern Cornwall itself — perhaps the most beautiful part of Britain.’
The other speakers were writer and musician Simon Brighton, writer Matthew Coniam, writer Gary Lachman, the author of Beyond the Robot, a full-length study of Colin Wilson’s life and work, writer and film-maker Sean Martin, writer David Moore, musician and composer David Power, actor, writer and broadcaster John West, writer and lecturer Paul Weston, and Colin Stanley himself. Clearly, a male preserve.
In large part, the transcripts can be read as a welcome collection of new essays although…
