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Authors: Colin Stanley
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‘constructive will-force’” (331):
“Whenever we experience delight we realize that the answer is simply to translate this delight into intellectual terms—words and ideas— and then trust the intellect .From then on we must learn to carry out the act of ‘completing’ with conscious deliberation, with the unshakeable certainty that it is providing the correct solution….We merely need to grasp this insight about ‘completing’ and ‘upside-downness’ to see that most human suffering is self-inflicted.”(330-1)
Wilson believes that achieving this turnaround, and freeing-up vital energy, can also help produce the ‘occult vision’: mystical insights, clairvoyance, out-of-body experiences, telepathy, precognition etc.
In an important final chapter, Wilson delineates his ‘Seven Levels of Consciousness’.In Levels 1 to 4, ranging from dream consciousness to everyday consciousness, we are heavily under the influence of ‘the robot’.In Level 5, however, ‘spring-morning consciousness’, we experience moments of bubbling happiness: ‘peak experiences’.Level 6, the ‘magical level’, is when life becomes a continuous ‘peak experience’.Wilson calls Level 7 ‘Faculty X’: “There is an almost godlike sensation…[a] sense of mastery over time … ” (348).It should be emphasised, however, that Wilson is only delineating the seven levels of what he calls ‘normal’ consciousness:
“The most interesting thing about the levels beyond Level 7 …is that they seem to contradict the evidence of our senses and of everyday consciousness.The inner becomes the outer, the outer becomes the inner, man is the whole universe and a mere atom, space and time are seen to be illusions …” (348)
In his autobiography Dreaming to Some Purpose (2004) he adds:
“…excluding the weird and paradoxical Level 8, I had worked out the basic normal levels of consciousness.The interesting thing is that up to …Level 4½, consciousness is passive.Beyond 4½, it is as if you have reached a mountain top, and the going is now all downhill; consciousness has become active .
To grasp this is obviously of immense importance, for once you know that a certain effort will take you to Level 5 and beyond, you become unstoppable.There is a law of consciousness which states: the stronger it becomes, the stronger it is capable of becoming.And the method involves focused attention.”(Wilson (3), 354)
[The inadequacy of language (see below) becomes apparent when considering the levels above 7.But Wilson has always been a great believer in elucidating his central ideas by incorporating them into his fiction and there is no better example than his 1967 novel The Mind Parasites (London: Arthur Barker).Gilbert Austin’s ‘disappearance’ after his last great battle with the parasites, possibly to join the enigmatic ‘universal police’, appears to be an allegorical reference to his elevation above Level 7.The battle against the parasites had apparently “…geared him to a faster rate of evolution….”(Wilson (4), 191)]
So, in order to transform our lives we need to: “…grasp that the apparent ‘ordinariness’ of the world is a delusion created by the robot …” (359).The key is the ‘peak experience’:
“…a feeling that life is full of marvellous possibilities.This happens when the subconscious mind is in a positive mood—in which state it is as if we had switched on a kind of rose-coloured underfloor lighting….The peak experience is a perception that all is well and that the ‘upside-downness’ which usually fills us with mistrust is a misunderstanding, a childish delusion.”(359-60)
Wilson is convinced that these glimpses of our “hidden powers” are a sign of our evolutionary potential: “Our chief problem is to interpret these glimpses in terms of reason and logic …” (361).Thus the message delivered in Beyond the Outsider (1965), at the conclusion of his ‘Outsider Cycle’: “The way forward
“Whenever we experience delight we realize that the answer is simply to translate this delight into intellectual terms—words and ideas— and then trust the intellect .From then on we must learn to carry out the act of ‘completing’ with conscious deliberation, with the unshakeable certainty that it is providing the correct solution….We merely need to grasp this insight about ‘completing’ and ‘upside-downness’ to see that most human suffering is self-inflicted.”(330-1)
Wilson believes that achieving this turnaround, and freeing-up vital energy, can also help produce the ‘occult vision’: mystical insights, clairvoyance, out-of-body experiences, telepathy, precognition etc.
In an important final chapter, Wilson delineates his ‘Seven Levels of Consciousness’.In Levels 1 to 4, ranging from dream consciousness to everyday consciousness, we are heavily under the influence of ‘the robot’.In Level 5, however, ‘spring-morning consciousness’, we experience moments of bubbling happiness: ‘peak experiences’.Level 6, the ‘magical level’, is when life becomes a continuous ‘peak experience’.Wilson calls Level 7 ‘Faculty X’: “There is an almost godlike sensation…[a] sense of mastery over time … ” (348).It should be emphasised, however, that Wilson is only delineating the seven levels of what he calls ‘normal’ consciousness:
“The most interesting thing about the levels beyond Level 7 …is that they seem to contradict the evidence of our senses and of everyday consciousness.The inner becomes the outer, the outer becomes the inner, man is the whole universe and a mere atom, space and time are seen to be illusions …” (348)
In his autobiography Dreaming to Some Purpose (2004) he adds:
“…excluding the weird and paradoxical Level 8, I had worked out the basic normal levels of consciousness.The interesting thing is that up to …Level 4½, consciousness is passive.Beyond 4½, it is as if you have reached a mountain top, and the going is now all downhill; consciousness has become active .
To grasp this is obviously of immense importance, for once you know that a certain effort will take you to Level 5 and beyond, you become unstoppable.There is a law of consciousness which states: the stronger it becomes, the stronger it is capable of becoming.And the method involves focused attention.”(Wilson (3), 354)
[The inadequacy of language (see below) becomes apparent when considering the levels above 7.But Wilson has always been a great believer in elucidating his central ideas by incorporating them into his fiction and there is no better example than his 1967 novel The Mind Parasites (London: Arthur Barker).Gilbert Austin’s ‘disappearance’ after his last great battle with the parasites, possibly to join the enigmatic ‘universal police’, appears to be an allegorical reference to his elevation above Level 7.The battle against the parasites had apparently “…geared him to a faster rate of evolution….”(Wilson (4), 191)]
So, in order to transform our lives we need to: “…grasp that the apparent ‘ordinariness’ of the world is a delusion created by the robot …” (359).The key is the ‘peak experience’:
“…a feeling that life is full of marvellous possibilities.This happens when the subconscious mind is in a positive mood—in which state it is as if we had switched on a kind of rose-coloured underfloor lighting….The peak experience is a perception that all is well and that the ‘upside-downness’ which usually fills us with mistrust is a misunderstanding, a childish delusion.”(359-60)
Wilson is convinced that these glimpses of our “hidden powers” are a sign of our evolutionary potential: “Our chief problem is to interpret these glimpses in terms of reason and logic …” (361).Thus the message delivered in Beyond the Outsider (1965), at the conclusion of his ‘Outsider Cycle’: “The way forward
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