Reflections on an explorer of the ‘ultimate questions’

Colin Wilson in the garden of his home at Gorran Haven, Cornwall, in 2004. Photo: Geoff Ward.

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…