by Colin Wilson
How is it possible for people to go through life without seriously thinking of such questions? The answer is again disturbing. Because my thought is tied down to familiar things. As absurd as it sounds, the human mind does not seem to be really made for thinking. You realize this if you try to think about some fairly simple, abstract problem, such as why a mirror reverses your left and right sides, but not your head and feet. The mind tries to grasp the problem, then skids, like a car on ice. It is as if some gravitational force pulled your mind back to the here-and-now as the ground pulls us back when we jump. You try to focus on big, universal problems, and a moment later find yourself wondering if you posted a letter. Philosophers who are aware of these problems are inclined to take the view that human life is brutal and meaningless. It is hard for a logical mind to disagree.
This explains why most intelligent people are suspicious of the idea of reincarnation, or of life after death. They see such ideas as another symptom of the human inability to face up to reality. We are hopelessly drugged by the biological sense of security—as sheep and cows are until they get to the slaughter-house and smell blood. We like to soothe ourselves with the tacit assumption that things will always go on as they are now. And so most religions promise their followers an afterlife that bears all the signs of wishful thinking—from the Elysian Fields of the Greeks to the Happy Hunting Ground of the American Indians. Philosophers can see through the daydream, but they have no convincing alternative to suggest.
If we can drag our mind away from everyday trivialities and think honestly about these problems, we have to admit that the pessimists inspire no more confidence than the 'true believers'. Most of them use their pessimism as an excuse for not thinking. At first sight, this seems a reasonable attitude, since they believe that thinking only leads back to the conviction that life is meaningless. But then, some deep instinct tells us that when a man ceases thinking, he has thrown away his greatest advantage. There is an odd feeling of arrested development about most of the total pessimists, as if they had ceased to evolve as human beings.
Besides which, none of the pessimists—Schopenhauer, Andreyev, Artsybashev, Beckett, Sartre—has really come to grips with the central question about human existence. All right, I have no idea where I came from or where I am going to, and most of the meanings that I see around me are mere conventions. I am little more than a blinkered horse, plodding along patiently, doing more or less what I did yesterday and the day before, and I see all the human beings around me behaving in the same way. Yet there does seem to be a certain logic about human existence, particularly when I am gripped by a sense of purpose. When I experience a feeling of intensity, I catch a glimpse of meanings that seem far greater than the 'me' I know. But then, I get the feeling that the 'me' I know is some kind of temporary half-measure. On top of all this, I begin to believe that the pessimists are making a fundamental mistake about the rules of the game. 'Meaning' is revealed by a kind of inner-searchlight. (This is just another way of stating Husserl's insight: Perception is intentional.) The greater the intensity of the beam, the more meaning it reveals. So a man who stares at the world with a gloomy conviction of defeat is going to see as little meaning as he expects to see.
There is something absurd about human existence. You find yourself surrounded by apparently 'solid' meanings—which are all comfortingly trivial. But when you try to raise your eyes beyond them, all certainties dissolve. It is as disconcerting as walking through the front door of a magnificent building and finding that it is just a facade, with nothing behind it. The odd thing is that the facade seems solid enough. This world around us certainly looks consistent and logical. It is hard to believe it is part of a bad joke or a nightmare.
Which brings us back to this most fundamental of all questions. Is it possible that the ladder-of-selves theory is the key not only to 'psychic powers', but also to the basic question of human existence, the riddle that has always tormented philosophers and theologians and 'existentialist' thinkers? Mystics have declared that in flashes of revelation the answer to the mystery of the universe suddenly becomes obvious. And again and again, they have expressed the essence of this revelation in words like 'All is well' or 'Everything is good'. This is hard—in fact, impossible—to conceive. But that is not necessarily an ultimate objection. We cannot conceive infinity, yet Goerg Cantor created a mathematics of infinity which has proved to be a valuable tool. We cannot conceive the notion that future events have somehow already taken place; yet cases of precognition seem to demonstrate that, in some baffling sense, this is true.
The ladder-of-selves theory, certainly throws light on some other basic problems of human existence: for example, the problem of absurdity or meaninglessness. The world around us seethes with endless activity, and this normally strikes us as quite reasonable. But there are certain moments of fatigue or depression when this meaning seems to crack under us, like thin ice. Camus compares it to watching a man gesticulating in a telephone booth, but being unable to hear a word he is saying. We suddenly wonder if our whole relationship with the world is based on a misunderstanding. Man likes to think he has a symbiotic relation with the universe, but perhaps the universe has never heard of him? Sartre calls this same feeling 'nausea'; it comes if you stare at something until your sense of 'knowing' it dissolves, and it seems to become alien and strangely hostile. According to Sartre, this is because man has suddenly recognized the truth about his own nothingness. Simone de Beauvoir expressed it in a passage of Pyrrhus et Cinéas: 'I took at myself in vain in a minor, tell myself my own story, I can never grasp myself as an entire object, I experience in myself the emptiness that is myself, I feel that I am not.'
According to the ladder-of-selves theory, this is precisely what one would expect in a state of low inner-pressure. But it is not an inescapable part of the human condition, still less a fundamental truth about the universe. In moments of intensity, of excitement, of creativity, I move up the 'ladder', and instantly become aware that the meaninglessness was an illusion. For I can 'tell myself my own story' and grasp it as a reality; I can look in a mirror and experience myself as an entire object. This is what is meant by Faculty X.
Another way of expressing the same conclusion would be to say that when my inner-pressure is low, consciousness is dominated by the robot, and life becomes unreal. The sense of the uniqueness of the present moment is lost, and you find it difficult to distinguish between something you have experienced and something you have only read about or dreamed. In this state, I become separated from my own life, as if by a glass wall; if I listen to music, it is the robot who hears it; if I eat, it is the robot who tastes the food. The higher I move up the 'ladder', the more I am able to experience my own life.
It is important to recognize that meaning can draw us up the ladder, and that when this happens, we feel revitalized and re-energized. Sex provides an obvious example: a state of boredom and fatigue can be instantly dissipated by a sudden sexual stimulus. The result is a kind of invasion of meaning that lifts us to a more concentrated and purposive state. A man who has discovered this simple trick—like Casanova—may spend his whole life repeating it. He believes it is the sex he is interested in; in fact, it is the 'intensity experience', the momentary glimpse of a less mediocre self. But since he fails to grasp the meaning-content of the insight, he continually falls back to a lower level.
On the other hand, when the meaning content is grasped the 'trick' can be used to tap vital energy reserves. This is clearly something Gurdjieff understood. Others—like Uri Geller and Matthew Manning—seem to be able to achieve contact with another form of energy that can be used for bending spoons or deflecting compass needles. The nature of this energy is still not understood, but of its existence there can be no doubt.
It seems too much to hope that any single theory could cover the whole field of the 'paranormal': In 1784, the Puységur brothers—disciples of the notorious Dr Mesmer—stumbled on the phenomenon of hypnotism when they were making 'magnetic
passes' over a young shepherd, and he fell into a trance. Ever since then, hypnosis has been widely used in medical treatment; but still no one understands its nature. In 1848, mysterious rappings in the house of the Fox family in Hydesville, New York, led to a nationwide interest in the subject that became known as Spiritualism. The rappings always took place in the presence of the two daughters of the family—aged twelve and fourteen—and were probably some kind of poltergeist activity. But other 'mediums' went into trances and were apparently able to communicate with the spirits of the dead; they were usually taken over by a 'guide' from the other world. The Society for Psychical Research was set up to investigate the phenomena scientifically, and eminent investigators—like Professor Ernest Bozzano, Professor Charles Richet, F. W. H. Myers—attempted to construct theories that would serve as a foundation for 'psychic science'. None of them came even remotely near to succeeding. And this, on the whole, still remains true today.
But it is worth noting that many of the phenomena—from hypnotism to mediumship—seem to involve 'other levels' of the personality.
Of course, the notion of a ladder of selves is not even a theory. It is simply a convenient description of what happens when we feel 'more alive'. But since this sense of increased vitality and heightened awareness also involves a feeling of 'expanded powers', it may be worthwhile to see how far the 'ladder' hypothesis can be made to tie in with the known facts.
This raises another problem. In the past ten years or so, there has been such an 'information explosion' in the psychic field that it is difficult to know where to begin. Any comprehensive book on the paranormal is now expected to cover such subjects as plant telepathy, psychic surgery, transcendental meditation, bio-feedback, Kirlian photography, multiple personality and synchronicity, as well as such optional fringe topics as possession, UFOs, leys and the 'ancient religion'.
I have chosen an approach which has, for me, the virtue of straightforwardness. When he died in 1971, Tom Lethbridge was the author of nine books on 'occult' subjects, one of them still in typescript. His books cover an immense range; at one time or another he thought about all the major subjects that concern modern paranormal research.
When I wrote The Occult, I was familiar only with his early book Witches: Investigating an Ancient Religion. It was not until later that I discovered books like Ghost and Divining Rod and ESP, and experienced the excitement of encountering a first-rate intelligence that combined scepticism with imagination and a sense of humour. When I learned that he lived fairly close to me, in Devon, I wrote him a letter and sent him a copy of The Occult. His wife Mina replied, saying that he had died the previous year.
The more I read of Lethbridge, the more I became convinced that he is the only investigator of the twentieth century who has produced a comprehensive and convincing theory of the paranormal. Because this is scattered over nine books, it is still insufficiently known to the general reader. That is why I have devoted the first long section of this book to his work and ideas. It will serve the dual purpose of introducing him to readers who have not yet made his acquaintance and raising most of the topics that will be discussed in the rest of this book.
It will also enable me to pay a debt of gratitude to one of the most wide-ranging and original minds in modern para-psychology.
THE 'OTHER MODE'
From Frankenstein's Castle, 1980
As I approach the age of fifty—just twice the age at which my first book, The Outsider, appeared—I realise more clearly than ever that my life has been dominated by a single obsession: a search for what I call 'the other mode of consciousness'.
An example will clarify my meaning.
A musician friend once told me how he had returned home after a hard day's work feeling rather tired and depressed. He poured himself a whisky, and put a record on the gramophone—it was a suite of dances by Praetorius. As he drank the whisky, he began to relax. Suddenly, he says, he 'took off'. The music and the whisky entered into some kind of combination that produced a feeling of wild happiness, a rising tide of sheer exhilaration.
Why describe this as 'another mode' of consciousness, rather than simply as ordinary consciousness transformed by happiness? Because it can lead to experiences that seem completely beyond the range of 'normal' consciousness. A BBC producer friend told me how he had sat in an empty control room at the BBC and played himself a record of the Schubert Octet, which happened to be on the turntable. Suddenly, he said, he became Schubert. I was intrigued and tried to get him to be more precise. Did he have a kind of 'time slip' into Schubert's Vienna, so he knew what Schubert had eaten for lunch on the day he started composing? No, this was not what he meant. He tried to explain: that he had felt as if he was composing the music, so that he could understand why Schubert had written each bar as he had, and precisely what he might put into the next bar . . . I saw that what he was describing was not a mystical or 'occult' experience, but simply an unusually deep sense of empathy. Sartre once said that to enjoy a book is to rewrite it; my friend had done the same for Schubert's Octet. We are bound to 'enter into' music if it is to be more than just a meaningless noise; but clearly, my friend had entered into it ten times as deeply as usual, like going down in a lift.
But then, perhaps it is a mistake to emphasise this element of empathy or sympathy. I had a similar experience when writing a book about Bernard Shaw. A friend had borrowed a book that I wanted to consult; and on this particular morning, he returned it. So I sat down at my typewriter feeling pleased I had it back. It was a pleasant, warm day, with the sun streaming through on to my desk. I was writing the chapter about Shaw's marriage and 'breakthrough', after years of plodding around London's theatres and concert halls as a critic. No doubt I was 'identifying' with Shaw, imagining what it must have been like to feel that you have sailed out of a storm into a quiet harbour. But this was not what explained that sudden feeling of intense joy, as if my heart had turned into a balloon and was sailing up into the air. It was not just Shaw's life that was somehow passing through my mind; it was something bigger: a sense of the multiplicity of life itself. In a sense, I was back in Edwardian London; but it could just as easily have been Goethe's Weimar or Mozart's Salzburg.
In fact, this 'other mode' of consciousness is a state of perception rather than empathy—an awareness of a wider range of 'fact'—of the actuality of the world outside me. What has changed in such experiences is our perspective. I am used to seeing the world in what might be called 'visual perspective'—that is, with the objects closest to me looking realler and larger than the objects in the middle distance, which in turn look realler and larger than the objects on the horizon. In these experiences, we seem to sail up above this visual perspective, and the objects on the horizon are as real as my fingers and toes.
This is the experience that lay at the heart of The Outsider. The 'Romantic Outsiders'—Rousseau, Shelley, Hoffmann, Hölderlin, Berlioz, Wagner, Dostoevsky, Van Gogh, Nietszche—were always experiencing flashes of the 'other mode' of consciousness, with its tantalising hint of a new kind of perception, in which distant realities are as real as the present moment. But this created a new problem: intense dissatisfaction with the ordinary form of consciousness, with its emphasis on the immediate and the trivial. So the rate of death by suicide or tuberculosis was alarmingly high among writers and artists of the nineteenth century. Many of them seemed to feel that this was inevitable: that death and despair were the price you paid for these flashes of the 'other mode'. Even a relatively latecomer to the scene like Thomas Mann continued to think of the problem in terms of these bleak opposites: stupidity and health, or intensity and death.
I was inclined to question this equation. In many cases, the misery seemed self-inflicted. Eliot was right when he snapped: 'Shelley was a fool.' Shelley was a fool to fall in love with every pretty face that came by, a fool to believe England could be improved by violent revolution, a fool to give way to self-pity every time he got depressed, and to feel that the situation could be improve
d by 'lying down like a weary child to weep away this life of care'. The same criticism applies to a large number of 'romantic outsiders'.
Still, even when full allowance was made for weakness and self-pity, there was another problem that could not be dismissed so easily. L. H. Myers had called it 'the near and the far' (in the novel of that title). The young Prince Jali gazes out over the desert in the light of the setting sun, and reflects that there are two deserts, 'one that was a glory for the eye, another that it was a weariness to trudge'—the near and the far. And the horizon, with all its promise, is always 'the far'. The near is trivial and boring. Huysmans had made the same point amusingly in A Rebours, where, after reading Dickens, the hero, Des Esseintes, has a sudden craving for London. While waiting for his train he goes to the English tavern near the Gare St Lazare, and eats roast beef and potatoes, and drinks pints of ale. Then it strikes him that he has, so to speak, tasted the essence of England, and that 'it would be madness to risk spoiling such unforgettable experiences with a clumsy change of locality'. So he takes a cab back home.