Super Consciousness: The Quest for the Peak Experience

by Colin Stanley, Colin Wilson

Overview

Blending existential and occult thought, a highly acclaimed philosopher explains how we can find profound meaning and joy by inducing states of extreme awareness and emotion

Throughout history there have been references and examples in literature, art and philosophy of an increased awareness of life while under the influence of extreme emotions. These have become known as Peak Experiences. Soon after Colin Wilson became aware of this phenomenon in the 1960s, he wondered about its history and how its power could be harnessed, and began a forty-year investigation.
 
In Super Consciousness, we see how such luminaries as Yeats, Blake, Sartre, Nietzsche, and Robert Graves were affected by Peak Experiences, and how it has long been noted that we are least insightful when we are at our lowest ebb. By looking in detail through the different areas where this phenomenon has occurred—and by offering anecdotes and examples of how many people in history (as well as himself) were affected—Wilson reveals a pattern of insight with emotions. He ends the book with an instructional section on achieving power consciousness for yourself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781786782885
Publisher:	Watkins Media
Publication date:	12/10/2019
Pages:	200
Sales rank:	1,013,637
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Colin Wilson is a highly respected and erudite writer. He has written many books, both fiction and nonfiction on the occult and the paranormal, including The Occult, Mysteries, and Super Consciousness. Wilson passed away in December 2013, leaving behind an enduring legacy in the field of consciousness studies.

Table of Contents

Foreword Colin Stanley vii

Preface xi

Chapter 1 The Discovery of Inner Freedom 1

Chapter 2 The Ecclesiastes Effect 9

Chapter 3 The Sexual Explosion 15

Chapter 4 What Is Cosmic Consciousness? 27

Chapter 5 The Near and the Far 43

Chapter 6 The Paradoxes of Nihilism 57

Chapter 7 Absurd Good News 83

Chapter 8 The Two Selves 87

Chapter 9 A Brief Outline of History 97

Chapter 10 Strange Powers 105

Chapter 11 Faculty X and the Sexual Vision 115

Chapter 12 Philosophy 123

Chapter 13 Achieving Power Consciousness 143

Postscript 167

Index 171