Colin Wilson on Peak Experience

Presented at the 1994 INFO FortFest Colin Wilson discusses existentialism and peak experiences. The International Fortean Organization (INFO) hosts conferences on anomalous phenomena and its philosophical implications and the talks in their entirety are available on DVD from INFO.
For more information on INFO go to http://www.forteans.com

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Philosophy
• Existentialism
• Forteana

[VideoDave2]

It is a sad fact of life that with age men tend to add to the stomach and women to the butt. At the age of 63 Wilson like many men had picked up a bit of a gut, Im sure you will be glad to know that when I recorded him 4 years later, he had slimmed down a bit. But, surely what he has to say is more important than an aging body. Judge me by my size do you?

[sliceofsand]

Fantastic video. Maybe there isn't really a need to abbreviate it, you could simply upload in a series of parts.

We certainly need more videos of this man, as YouTube seems to be lacking in English language ones.

[VideoDave2]

>>Maybe there isn't really a need to abbreviate it, you could simply upload in a series of parts. >>

It is a teaser, the entire talk as well as others by Wilson and others are available on DVD from the International Fortean Orginization. A link is on the video description, or message me.

[emmalema18]

it isn't brisk, it's just been edited

[VideoDave2]

emmalema18 said: "it isn't brisk, it's just been edited" That is correct, the original talk (available from INFO) was about an hour long. I have included some of the key points in this re-edited version.

[puddleg]

The thing is not to try to recapture the peak experience but to live our lives taking it for granted as our natural state. Pessimism, depression, despair, and boredom serve no useful purpose; we should respect them like we respect cancer. Philosphy, apart from Wilson's and Maslows, seeks to normalise these pathological mental states. Because academics are so often depressives (the rest are too busy living) they justify themselves as sages by philosophies of impotence. Wilson calls their bluff.

[loonasy]

geniuses are surrounded by fools

[river2walk]

A great thinker who has the rare ability to write in such a way that most people can understand, however I have read his non-fiction books and while they were and are very interesting many of the ideas they contain have become fatally dated over the years. For instance his 1971 book 'The Occult' while considered cutting edge at the time, seems now to be just a collection of fairly innocent ghost stories. But Wilsons grasp of the abilities that lie mostly dormant within us is often stunning.

[nuggert]

hes a psychopath

[hedavie]

love this man, he's such a genius

[Tomorer]

Life is indeed a battle for happiness :() War of Truth !!

[puddleg]

@ commanche1, maybe so but the academic is in a unique position to rationalise a depressive's pessimism, for example by promoting it as "scepticism", (as if the only sensible attitude to a new possibility is to suspect it of fraud and dismiss the evidence). A phrase such as "if it seems too good to be true..." gives away the sceptic's low expectations and history of personal disappointments; while pretending to a universal applicability, it is deeply rooted in a defective psyche.

[thecomanche1]

@puddleg you look at non academics

in the public eye. Say... the modern celebrity, its a fact that many of them suffer depression and turn to drugs. just one example. there are just as many depressives in the too busy living, as there are in academia

[TheSamara89kitten]

voidforpurpose, what an ignorant, shallow fool you are.