The Ultimate Colin Wilson -Writings on Mysticism, Consciousness and Existentialism by Colin Wilson, edited by Colin Stanley

Posted on April 22, 2026 by schoultz

Why this book: I’ve been a fan and reader of Colin Wilson since I was in university over 50 years ago. I’ve recently returned to him, and recently re-read The Mind Parasites.   I discovered this book, recently published as an updated version of The Essential Colin Wilson, which I’d never read.    I listened to this since I knew it might otherwise take me a long while (perhaps never) to get around to reading it in the text version.

Summary in 5 Sentences: (this from Amazon’s summary) This is a new edition of the The Essential Colin Wilson (first published in 1985), updated and introduced by Wilson’s bibliographer Colin Stanley. It is the only book to contain extracts from Colin Wilson’s most important work in one volume, including The Outsider (1956), A Criminal History of Mankind (1983), The New Existentialism (1966), The Occult (1971), New Pathways in Psychology (1972) and Mysteries (1978), as well as three of his novels and many other texts. Subjects covered include existentialism, criminology, psychology, consciousness studies, the occult and much more. This second edition includes all of the original volume plus six essential post-1985 essays and chapters chosen by Stanley and other Colin Wilson experts including Gary Lachman. This is an invaluable introduction for those approaching one of the late twentieth century’s most incisive thinkers for the first time and also a timely reminder, to Colin Wilson’s many fans and scholars worldwide, of a unique and challenging body of work, overing aspects of Wilson’s work from the 28 years that followed the publication of the first edition to his death in December 2013. 

My Impressions: So many important thoughts and themes in this book. It includes excerpts from many of Wilson’s most impactful books that (in the original “Essentials” version) Wilson himself thought best represented his views, his philosophy and thoughts on man’s psyche and being. Wilson himself gathered these excepts into The Essential Colin Wilson that he believed best summarized his views, and would most resonate with thoughtful readers who were interested in his views, but may not be interested in deeply academic parsing and the nuances of his ideas.

After Wilson’s death, the editor of this book and some of his colleagues reviewed The Essential Colin Wilson and concluded that Wilson had not included some of his writings  that they believed were important to understanding him.   So they put together this expanded version which they  titled  The Ultimate Colin Wilson volume which, after including all the sections from The Essential Colin Wilson, they added six sections with excerpts from works that Wilson did not include in his original edition – sections that they strongly believed deserved to be included in any overall review of Wilson’s work – some of their favorite pieces that they believed should be considered by those interested in understanding and  assessing Wilson’s philosophy and views.

The three themes that are referred to in the title – Mysticism, Consciousness, and Existentialism point to the big ideas that Wilson spent his life thinking and writing about. 

The book includes several stories and anecdotes multiple times, since he used them in various writings to make his key points.   But Wilson himself once said (I remember reading it somewhere,) that he had just a few big ideas, and he spent his whole life exploring, thinking about, developing and elaborating on those ideas and their implications. In The Essential and The Ultimate Colin Wilson, these are the “big ideas” that Wilson and the later editors found excerpts from his lifetime of writings to showcase the evolution of  Wilson’s ideas.

Consciousness – Throughout the book, he explains and develops the idea of  the “peak experience” – in fact he wrote a whole book about it that I read a few years ago, entitled Super-Consciousness. He distinguishes “peak experiences” from satori or enlightenment. Peak experiences he describes as when one’s consciousness and awareness combine in a semi-ecstatic appreciation of one’s life and surroundings.  The concept of the peak experience he attributes to Abraham Maslow who Wilson greatly admired and with whom he had a close relationship.  One might say that Wilson elaborates on and builds on some of Maslow’s ideas to create “the New Existentialism” which he believed was one of his main contributions to modern philosophy.  Regarding the peak experience, he disagreed with Maslow in that Maslow believed that peak experiences were spontaneous and could not be willed. Wilson makes the case that one can create a positive mindset that opens the door to regular peak experiences.  He would agree with a statement that a good friend of mine used to conclude his emails:  “Enthusiasm is a choice”

Mysticism – Wilson wrote two books about his exploration of paranormal phenomena that convinced him that there are laws, principles, energies in the universe that modern science can’t account for (yet) and that don’t currently withstand the test of the scientific method. The two books are “The Occult” , and “Mysteries.”    In the 1960s, when Wilson had a reputation as something of a voice of the counter culture stemming from the popularity of his book, The Outsider,  he accepted the offer to explore, investigate  and write about what he discovered about occult phenomena, even though, or perhaps because, he had had little experience or background in this esoteric field.  He went into this exploration of these phenomena with a healthy skepticism, but with an open mind. After much research, he came to believe that there was definitely something there – in spite of the many charlatans and phonies.  Much of  what he observed and learned just couldn’t be faked. 

From his exploration of mystical and paranormal phenomena he realized that the implications of these phenomena and human psychic capabilities open the door to exciting possibilities that are hard to imagine, and support his thesis, that life offers the potentiality of so much fascination and wonder.   Fascination and wonder are his two primary reactions to what he found in his studies, as well as curiosity to learn and undesrstand more.  He expressed frustration and disappointment with those who refuse to acknowledge the possibility what these phenomena may reveal, and choose to ignore what doesn’t fit conventional views of reality  These phenomena are dismissed by traditional existentialists, philosophers and many other thinkers.  

Existentialism – Wilson spends much of this volume refuting the negative Existentialism of Sartre, Camus, Schopenhauer and others, by offering a more positive approach to life, which does not depend on a conventional belief in God. And he points out that many of these philosophers who pronounce such a negative view of life – that life is pointless and full of disappointment and despair – if they were offered the opportunity to end it all, he’s pretty sure they would choose to live. Why, then choose to live, if life is so hopeless, boring, and unfulfilling, and merely a burden that must be borne?  He indicts those who choose to turn away from joy and focus on limitations, negativeity, hopelessness, and the inevitable disappointments and boredom in life.  He saw that perspective as a cop out, an excuse and unwillingness for people to take responsibility for their own despair and a willful ignoring of phenomena and opportunities that deserve fascination and excitement.

He indicts traditional existentialists, Sartre in particular, for choosing to focus on despair and hopelessness – and thereby choosing to be unhappy and despondent.  He addresses the traditional existentialist dilemma of finding purpose in a meaningless world by noting that through focus and a willingness to give meaning to joy and “peak experiences,” the world is full of meaning – we just have to open ourselves up to it. This aspect of his philosophy is very much tied to his views on consciousness. He argues that everyday consciousness is a “liar” that it has a gravitational pull down, focusing on problems and what could be better, and what somehow should be fixed.   He argues that with effort and focus, man can resist this gravitational pull – and thereby can choose  (metaphorically speaking) to fly, to search for, to create or find meaning.  This was the key message in his book entitled “The New Existentialism” Though he doesn’t (that I recall) address atheism directly, I’d conclude that Wilson is an agnostic – given that he accepts and acknowledges the “truth” or reality of so much that he’s seen and read about in the Occult, he (like me) is open to there being a greater force and larger Truth in the universe that we have difficulty imagining.  He doesn’t call that “God” but it surely looks in that direction.

Though the book includes quite a few redundancies in that the same or similar ideas are  repeatedly expressed often from a different angle, his ideas are for me worth revisiting and considering from different angles and are worth hearing again.  This book reminds me of why I have been and remain a Colin Wilson fan.

 

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The Warrior’s Edge, by Col John Alexander, Richard Groller & Janet Morris

Posted on April 15, 2026 by schoultz

Why this book:  I’d read it about 30 years ago and recall that it had made a strong impact on me.  Recently I’ve gotten back into exploring paranormal phenomena and have been in touch with John Alexander, so I believed it was time to re-read this book. Unfortunately, the book is out of print, and is difficult and expensive to acquire used.

Summary in 3 Sentences: This book is essentially a practical guide to developing one’s mental capacities to lead to greater success and wisdom in life.  He gives practical steps and exercises to help one develop (most importantly) a calm mind – especially when under stress but also to develop nascent paranormal abilities. The calm mind is essential to develop one’s abilities in remote viewing, intuitive decision making, visualization and manifestation, psycho-kinesis and what he calls “reality mapping” – broadening one’s aperture on reality.  He concludes with chapters on martial arts and how they contribute to great mental discipline, what he sees as the Absolute Warrior, as well as steps one can take to see how well one has developed one’s own “warrior’s edge.”

My impressions: John Alexander had recently retired as an Army Special Forces Colonel in 1990 and having worked in the pentagon’s classified program to develop psychic abilities in certain soldiers when he wrote this book.  It is now 2026 and since then John has been very active world wide in exploring and investigating paranormal phenomena and human capabilities, and has continued thinking and writing about the implications of these phenomena – and in answering the “so what?” question.  This book is a beginning, which offers practical skills, exercises and implementation as well as cautionary notes, to those interested in having that extra “warrior’s edge” to succeed in business, the military, or any other endeavor. 

I did not spend a lot of time carefully reading the specific instructions he gave for developing each of the esoteric capabilities he described, but they made sense to me, and made clear that, as in any effort to develop and refine a new skill, these take discipline, persistence and time. 

That said, I found particularly useful his emphasis on breathing exercises to calm the mind.  He points out that a calm mind is essential to  developing any of these skills. Many of his proposed techniques were very similar, if not identical to self-hypnosis techniques designed to take one into a state that is open to hypnotic suggestion. The calm and quiet mind is open to subtle input from within the mind and without.  Being able to calm one’s mind is a prerequisite to developing any of the skills he describes in the book.

Early on in the book he points out that we all have value systems that we must be aware of and for some of us, these value systems get in the way of seeing the world differently.  He talks about “reality mapping” –  that most of us have a conventional consensus-based “map” of reality, and he seeks in this book to have us expand that version of reality in order to be open to developing the extra powers and abilities he describes in the book.

The book includes an interesting chapter on intuitive decision making – which he abreviates as IDM.  He defines the IDM process in contrast to using reason and analytically based decision making.    Alexander argues that we need both, but that IDM  is often necessary when reason is incapable of providing a clear path.  Intuition helps shape the “educated guess” which includes and may be based on analysis of whatever facts are available.  He gives guidance on how to improve one’s IDM, and how IDM can augment reason based decision making.  And of course, he begins with steps to calm the mind. He concludes this chapter saying “The intuitive process does not work in a vacuum.  Using internal, sometimes subconscious knowledge of facts, data points, and or sensory impressions, can provide a coherent picture where none is available by other means.” p122 

He also includes chapters on remote viewing, psycho-kineses, and mental imagery,  visualizing and manifesting success and outcomes, and steps for developing one’s capabilities in these esoteric areas. His chapter on Mind-Body interface gives examples and processes by which one’s mind and intent can affect and influence the body and its processes, and he gives processes by which the individual can use the mind to manage or overcome such natural and human difficulties as stress, inability to sleep or maintain concentration and focus.

He provides a chapter which points to the advantages of using biofeedback to help one improve one’s physical and mental health, and to assist in enhancing the mind-body interface he describes in a previous chapter.   Biofeedback mechanisms were not nearly as widespread when this book was written, but today are commonly available to nearly everyone through such tools as Whoop, Oura, Apple and other online tools.

He concludes the book with three impressive chapters: 1. on the value of martial arts for developing mental discipline, focus, and mind body interface.  2. He describes the Absolute Warrior as one who has the Sensei’s control over his mind, body, and environment; and  3. The final chapter “Self Test – pushing the envelope of mental performance”gives examples of how those who are well trained in the techniques he describes can, and often do, perform feats that defy what consensual reality would believe possible.  Thus we must expand our reality map to include powers  and potentialities that this book insists we all have, but that remain undeveloped.

His goal in this book is to point these possibilities out to the reader, and for those willing, he offers exercises and processes to help the reader to develop them, to develop an extra advantage in this world, a “warrior’s edge.” 

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Running Deep: Bravery, Survival, and the True Story of the Deadliest Submarine in World War II by Tom Clavin

Posted on March 31, 2026 by schoultz

Why this book: I proposed this book based on reviews I’d read of it and it was selected from several outstanding options by members of my SEAL book club.

Summary 4 Sentences:  The book bills itself as a story about the USS Tang and a biography of its skipper Captain Dick O’Kane – but it is about much more than that. In providing the context for the story of the Tang and O’Kane, Running Deep provides a fascinating history of the evolution of the submarine, primarily as a maritime asset in war, but also in research and other underwater endeavors. That takes us up to WW1 when the submarine first truly proved itself as a deadly tool for navy’s to combat each other, and then finally leading into WW2.  We learn about the neglect that submarine warfare suffered under the US Navy’s predominantly surface oriented culture, and then the rapid development of the capability, during WW2,  through the lens of the careers of Dick O’Kane and also his mentor “Mush” Morton.  It concludes with the war patrols of the Tang under O’Kane’s leadership, the sinking of the Tang by one of its own torpedoes and the experience of O’Kane and the few surviving crewmen as Japanese POWs.

My Impressions: A powerful read and fascinating lens through which to learn about and come to appreciate the indispensable role that submarines played in our victory in the Pacific during WW2. 

Clavin begins “Act 1” of the book  at a critical moment in the Tang’s final war patrol – and introduces us to some of the main players in the story of the Wahoo and the Tang.  He then leaves us hanging as he backs up a couple of hundred years in Act 2 of the book, to relate  how submarines evolved to lead up to submarines becoming perhaps the most deadly and effective weapons of naval warfare in the 20th century.   And when the technology that was evolving to permit men to drive maritime weapons beneath the surface of the water resulted in tragedies, Clavin relates how scientists and leaders were motivated to develop tools and technology to help the men survive and be rescued if/when submarine systems failed or other tragedies left them sitting on the bottom of the ocean.  Act 2 tells the stories of some of these tragedies and the resulting limited success of measures that were developed to help mitigate the losses.

Then he gets into his Act 3 which focuses on the Pacific in WW2, and how the submarine became the primary and most successful naval weapon of war.  We learn about it largely through the experiences of the two most successful submarine skippers, Mush Morton and Dick O’Kane, but he also relates the successes and failures, the stops and starts of others and the challenges of unreliable torpedoes developed in a hurry with insufficient testing.

These guys were bold.  And brutal.  They aggressively went after whatever Japanese vessel they could find, and wherever – and begged to be sent to the most “target rich environments,” though every time they surfaced, and every torpedo they fired exposed them to retaliation and attack from destroyer escorts and air craft – and that’s how so many submarines were lost. 

I was really impressed with the mindset of the submarine captains he described, but Clavin also writes of some who were less aggressive, more risk averse, and of several leadership failures that were costly.  But the overall story is one of bold and aggressive men, volunteering for extremely hazardous duty to take the war to Japan.  

At the end of the book and just before the Tang is about to complete its final war patrol and return to Pearl Harbor for repairs, refit, and to give the crew a break, the Tang is sunk when one of it’s last torpedoes boomerangs and comes back and strikes the Tang.  Fortunately they were in relatively shallow water – about 200 feet – and 9 of the crew were able to get to the surface and survive, including the captain – Dick O’Kane.   They were picked up at sea by the Japanese and these nine men spent the next 10 months until the end of the war in Japanese PoW camps.

O’Kane in particular was targeted by the Japanese for special abuse.  The horrors of Japanese PoW camps  have been described in greater detail and depth in other books, such as Louis Zamparini’s story in Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, King Rat by James Clavell and Narrow Road to the Deep South, by Richard Flanagan. That said this final phase of Clavin’s book is an important part of the story.

Though Clavin only spends a few final chapters on O’Kane’s PoW experience in Running Deep, partly as a postscript to his  successes as CO of the Tang, but also to highlight O’Kane’s heroism in the face of great suffering and abuse,  while protecting and supporting his men and other PoWs,  and not revealing the secrets he knew.  O’Kane was in the same prison with Louis Zamparini, was abused, starved and tortured, and was barely alive when US Doctors arrived at the PoW camp just after VJ day. When he was finally delivered into US care, doctors initially gave him little  hope of survival, but with an extremely strong will and over many months, he slowly and courageously recovered and went on to continue serving in the Navy after the war. When he had recovered enough, President Truman awarded him the Congressional Medal of Honor

I’d recommend this book to anyone interested in the naval war in the Pacific – and in effective leadership in combat, as well as a biography of a naval hero in the arcane world of submarine warfare.  I was previously very much unaware of the heroism of these intrepid warriors, and was impressed and enlightened by what I read. . 

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The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler

Posted on March 9, 2026 by schoultz

Why this book: I normally don’t read private investigator books, but was planning a trip and was looking for something different. Asked ChatGPT to suggest a book that met three criteria. 1. Engaging – A page turner; 2. In the 250-350 page range; 3. Considered a classic of American Literature of the 20th century. Of the several options, I’d read many of them, but this one was unknown to me. The LA times described it as “one of the most acclaimed works of crime fiction ever written…the first novel featuring Raymond Chandler’s iconic creation Philip Marlowe, hailed as the “quintessential urban private eye.” So I thought I’d give it a try. Glad I did.

Summary in 3 Sentences: The setting is 1930s Los Angelese, and private investigator Philip Marlowe is hired to look into a blackmail letter received by a very wealthy and dying old man – to find out what it’s about, who was making the threat, whether it should be taken seriously and paid, or not. Marlowe starts pulling the string and finds multiple nasty connections tied to the shenanigans of the gentleman’s attractive, spoiled and undisciplined daughters, who had both intentionally and inadvertently gotten themselves involved in a series of nefarious and lurid activities, being run by bad guys in the underworld of LA. Marlowe finds himself playing on both sides of the law in trying to sort things out, and when things get ugly people are killed – good guys and bad guys – and Marlowe somehow puts the pieces of the puzzle together, survives and comes out clean.

My Impressions.This is the first book in Chandler’s well known Philip Marlowe series of private investigator novels, which has been copied by many authors since. While there was a page-turning, who-dunnit aspect to the book, there were three dimensions of it that I really enjoyed:

  1. Chandler wrote it in the 1930s which gives credibility to his colorful and often detailed descriptions of LA, the characters in the book, the law, the underworld, and the environment of LA in that period.
  2. I really enjoyed the character of Philip Marlowe, more concerned with his honor, professionalism, and doing what he believes is right, than in following the law or even covering his own butt and best interests.
  3. Chandler’s writing was fun to read. He was writing in the 1930s for a 1930s audience and uses slang and expressions that are no longer in vogue. Not only his descriptions of his world, but his language takes the reader back 90 or so years to a world in some ways very different from ours, and in other ways very familiar to me. He continuously uses descriptive metaphors I’ve never heard before.

To give you an idea of some of those “metaphors” and descriptions I enjoyed:

  • She ran off down the hall, gay as a thrush;
  • The sunshine was as empty as a head waiter’s smile;
  • He was a burly man with tired eyes and the slow deliberate movement of a night watchman. His voice was toneless, flat and uninterested;
  • She smiled and made a mouth, then handed it back with a secret naughty air, as if she was giving me a key to her room;
  • She brought the glass over. Bubbles rose in it like false hopes;
  • Her hand was small and had shape, not the usual bony garden tool you see on women nowadays;
  • A building in which the smell of stale cigar butts would be the cleanest odor;
  • He wore a blue uniform coat that fitted him the way a stall fits a horse;
  • Twenty minutes later I was airing the scrub woman’ s Soiree d’Amour out of my office…

The web of crime and slimy activity that Marlowe stumbles into gets rather complicated and I needed his description of how it all tied together at the end to help me see the connections.

As noted, I really enjoyed the Philip Marlowe character. His character was so familiar that I was thinking that so many authors channeled his cynical but insightful approach to his work into private detectives since – I’ve seen these cynical, lone-wolf private detectives on TV and movies so much that Marlow’s seemed almost a cliche – but the cliche is apparently largely built on the success of the Marlow character that Chandler created.

So I pursued this idea by asking ChatGPT to compare Philip Marlowe with other iconic “hard-boiled” noir private detectives from the early and mid 20th century: Sam Spade, created by Dashiell Hammett made famous in The Maltese Falcon who operated in San Francisco. Chandler, may have taken some aspects of Sam Spade in his creation of Marlowe, since The Maltese Falcon was written before The Big Sleep. But apparently, Marlowe is more nuanced, human and idealistic than Spade. And then there’s Mike Hamer created by Mickey Spillane who operates in NYC. I haven’t read those books and am not familiar with the authors or the characters, but apparently these iconic private investigators are similar – cool analytical, and professional – but different. Hammer and Spade apparently more “hard-boiled” and emotionally detached than Marlowe. ChatGPT refers to Marlowe as cynically poetic (!!) And he chooses to take those qualities into the darker side of society. 

   TV private investigators from later in the 20th century, also heirs to Marlowe’s legacy, Magnum, PI and Jim Rockford are indeed much more easy-going and likable than Marlow.  

   Comparing Phillip Marlowe with Peter Falk’s Colombo another TV icon,  ChatGPT notes Marlowe works outside the system as a private detective, whereas Colombo is a seemingly bumbling, but very effective member of the established law-enforcement order.

The below picture is taken from the movie The Big Sleep (1946) in which Humphrey Bogart (a great pick to play Marlowe) and Lauren Bacall interact. Bacall is one of the beautiful wayward daughters that cause Marlowe so many headaches. I watched the movie (available for rent on Amazon Prime) and was unimpressed. The movie did follow the plot generally, but it seemed intended largely to showcase a budding romantic relationship between Bogart and Bacall – which does not reflect what happens between the characters in the book.

Conclusion: The Big Sleep fulfilled its promise as a fun and well-written classic of the 20th century to read on a trip. I very much enjoyed Marlowe and Chandler’s writing and will read more in his Philip Marlow series.

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The Mind Parasites, by Colin Wilson

Posted on February 13, 2026 by schoultz

Why this book: I have been a Colin Wilson fan for over 50 years.  I had read this book twice before, and recommended it to my Sci Fi reading group.  I listened to it this time – and it was as if I’d never read it before! 

Summary in 4 Sentences: The Mind Parasites is written in the first person from the perspective of the very close friend of a prominent psychologist who is investigating the completely unexpected suicide of his closest friend.  He is going thru the papers and diary of his deceased friend to try to determine what could have led him to this drastic step.  The journal of his friend indicated that he believed he was being attacked or infected by what seemed to him to be an alien entity inside his consciousness, which the more he explored and learned about it, the more it seemed to attack him.  As he explores his ability to fight these mysterious entities, he discovers human psychic capabilities he realizes all of us have, that  enable him to fight the soul destroying capabilities of these “parasites,” but first, he (and mankind) have to learn to focus beyond the necessities of living day to day. 

My Impressions: This was the third time I’ve read this book – the first two having been decades ago. This time it made a stronger impression on me as I’ve recently resurrected my interest in exploring and better understanding evidence of dimensions of consciousness and reality beyond the consensual reality of Western Civilization.  The book challenges the view that “reality” is no more than what practical science, physics, and the scientific method can demonstrate as proven, and that these truths  are incontrovertible and absolute.  He challenges the idea that the practicalities of survival and improving civilization are enough for humans to thrive.  This science fiction novel intends to challenges traditional understanding of the human mind and human potential and merge with ideas most commonly associated with the occult. 

The Mind Parasites is a Sci Fi novel that explores unrealized potentialities of the human mind.  The novel is written in the first person, from the perspective of an archeologist who is exploring the suicide of his close friend, a psychologist. The archeologist knew his friend very well, and was convinced that suicide by this man was inconceivable.  His friend’s suicide note directed that his journal and notebooks go to this close friend who is the narrator of the book.  The novel is about this friend’s reading of these notes and his investigation into what caused the suicide.  He  is at first incredulous that suicide was a result of some non-corporeal entity – like a virus but with intention and will – but through his own experience comes to accept that this foreign entity had invaded his friend’s mind and deliberately led to his suicide. And as he explores this phenomena, he feels his own mind being invaded, and has to fight for his own survival.  

As he learns to fight this “infection” he recruits others to help him fight these entities, and they too are attacked and a number of them succumb and commit suicide.  He realizes that these parasites pose a threat to humanity and enlists others to help him in his fight. 

Wilson connects the theme of this novel – that we are living superficially,  with so much of our potential and strength un-utilized – with his interest in ancient history by having his archeologist protagonist involved in exploring the ruins of a fictional pre-historic civilization in Turkey.  The fictional civilization existed millennia before our oldest known civilizations, which at the time of his writing was Karatepe (~700 BCE), also in Turkey.   The exploration of these sites opened the door for Wilson to play with some of the mysteries of unknown ancient civilizations, and to give his protagonist reasons to explore his own mental abilities and to teach others to use them, to help  intuitively find truth and to develop his abilities using psycho kinesis to move objects. 

The novel progresses with a battle between the archeologist and the mind parasites as the mind parasites attack not only him but his colleagues and seek to undermine his credibility – the parasites regard his mission of strengthening people’s ability to focus and concentrate as a threat to their power. Eventually the mind parasites become desperate and influence weaker minds to take action which could endanger humanity in the form of nuclear accidents or nuclear war.  This drives the archeologist to prove to authorities the danger of the mind parasites, and to gather and train a coterie of a few highly disciplined intellectual leaders people to withstand the mental assault of the parasites, and to unite in their effort to prevent a catastrophe.

This book reflects Colin Wilson’s insistence on the importance of what he calls active intentionality as a source of power, and to resist the temptation toward passivity (going along to get along) in the face of challenge, which turns us into contented slaves.  His message is that to fulfill our human potential and live fully, individuals need to explore and develop their abilities to do more than simply get and stay comfortable by putting checks in the boxes that promote comfort, safety, and everyday survival and existence – in other words, to do more than just “take care of business.” To learn to focus, people must get out of their comfort zones and train their minds, as athletes train their bodies….

The “mind parasites” are metaphors for mental laziness and apathy, succumbing to  the will to comfort and safety, and the tendency to avoid challenge and discomfort.  It is a fascinating book with much to teach those of us who would examine ourselves and challenge ourselves to become more than automatons walking the well beaten, comfortable path.  He also intends to challenge his readers to consider the reality of  such paranormal mental capacities as telepathy and pyscho-kinesis, and the ability of those with strong minds to influence others and events around them.

Note:Since Wilson wrote The Mind Parasites, and described his fictional civilization of 2 million years BCE, two other very ancient civilizations have actually been discovered in Turkey, that existed from 8-10 thousand years earlier than Karatepe:   Karahan Tepe and Goebekli Tepe (8-10,000 years BCE.)

 

 

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The Unlikely Occultist – a Biographical Novel of Alice A. Bailey, by Isobel Blackthorn

Posted on February 6, 2026 by schoultz

Why this book: I had read Tom Murphy’s Beyond the Trident which referred to Alice Bailey and her telepathic “coach” being a Tibetan Monk – I was intrigued. Isobel Blackthorn wrote a full biography of Alice Bailey after writing this novelized version – I chose the shorter, less detailed, and perhaps more interesting read.

Summary in 3 Sentences: This is a big picture, main events and themes biography of Alice Bailey written within the context of a novel of a young woman researching the life of Alice Bailey while trying to unravel a huge trove of documents that a previous academic had gathered to write about Bailey, but who had died before she could complete the work. The “fictional” female researcher was assigned to catalogue these documents for a library but as she got into them, she became engrossed in understanding Bailey, her life, and the impact that she had made on the arcane world of Theosophy and occult studies in the first half of the 20th century and later. The novel includes Bailey’s life story, within the personal challenges of the life of the young woman researcher, as the two intertwine to create a double story.

My Impressions: This was a means for me to get a “lite” introduction to who Alice Bailey was, her life and works, without reading Blackthorn’s detailed biography nearly twice as long. This novelized version of her life is built around known facts about her, and Bailey’s own writings, and the autobiography she was in the process of writing when she died. This novelized story of Alice Bailey’s life is told in parallel with and from the perspective of a fictional researcher Heather Brown, who, like Blackthorn herself, becomes engrossed in putting the pieces of the puzzle of Bailey’s life together based Bailey’s own writings, and scraps of evidence she could find in other research. Blackthorn herself said that the process of writing The Unlikely Occultist inspired her to go deeper into answering the questions that arose and the issues of her life.

Who was Alice Bailey? In short a woman born of an aristocratic English family in the Victorian era, a fundamentalist Christian, with a strong independent streak, who became estranged from her family, and eventually moved to America. At one point while still trying to find her way, she began hearing a voice that was giving her spiritual guidance that was in contrast to her orthodox Christian beliefs. This voice was ostensibly coming from a Tibetan monk Djwal Khul living in Tibet transmitting telepathically to Bailey spiritual truths about human metaphysical evolution. He was representing the wisdom of enlightened masters, and he was “tasking” Bailey to transcribe and publish the wisdom he was transmitting to her.

The novel doesn’t go into great detail as to what this wisdom entailed, though it was generally characterized as what Bailey called “Ageless Wisdom” – or what others have called the Perennial Religion. He claimed that here is a spiritual hierarch of advanced beings who work to uplift human consciousness, The key tenets of their philosophy (unsurprisingly) involve the importance of love, cooperation, compassion, meditation leading to higher consciousness, and acceptance of spiritual wisdom. Bailey was assigned by the Tibet to transcribe and interpret his teachings and promulgate them in the Western world, which is what she accepted as her personal mission. In so doing she became a key figure in the Theosophical movement of the early 20th century.

Before she had this contact with her Tibetan master, her life had been somewhat of a mess. She laudibly had gotten involved with supporting and proselytizing her strong Christian beliefs to English troops stationed in first Ireland and then in India. These experiences had a profound influence on her – but her very constrained (by her very strict Victorian Christian morals) social life exploded when she fell head over heels in love with a man not of her social class and decided to ignore her family’s warnings and to essentially elope with him to America. This marriage did not serve her well, as he turned out to be violent and abusive and after she’d had 3 children and a lot of suffering, he left her and they were divorced. By that time she was involved in Theosophy in the Santa Cruz area and met Foster Bailey and they were married – happily it seems for the rest of her life.

The book details Bailey’s efforts with the support of her husband Foster, to participate in, and then to influence the international movement toward increasing spiritual consciousness – which she and others considered of paramount importance in the midst of the depression and the build up of military aggression which all saw as probably leading to war. In her efforts to underscore and promulgate the spiritual teachings she was given by the Tibetan, she became simultaneously much admired and revered, and much maligned and ostracized by those who disagreed with her or were jealous of her fame and influence.

The character Heather, like Blackthorn herself, admired Bailey and her character, her teachings, her dedication and idealism, but was somewhat skeptical about the physical existence of the Tibetan master himself. He is not described in the book, nor apparently in the papers Bailey left behind. Those of the esoteric bent believe in him as a spiritual, non-physical entity speaking to Bailey from a different dimension of a reality that most of us don’t see. . Others believe he was an unconscious manifestation and construct of her own mind. No one seems to believe that Bailey intentionally deceptively created Djwal Khul to preach her truth. I tried to read one of the books that Bailey wrote that ostensibly was dictated by her Tibetan Master, but the language (and perhaps the ideas) were too far outside my experience to make a lot of sense to me.

Heather was emotionally moved by Bailey’s idealism, character, and her struggles, which are described in this novelized biography and which indeed reflects Blackthorn’s own views. The Tibetan himself was not much of a presence in the book, which disappointed me. Bailey apparently had no relationship with him except to accept and transcribe what he told her and pass it on. I was disappointed that the book did not explore more about the possible sources of the Tibetan and his wisdom.

One of the other insights I gained from this book is how the world of Theosophy, occult, esoteric and spiritual movements is rife with conflicting egos, conflict, power dynamics and other unenlightened tendencies that they all decry and seek to rid from the world, but don’t recognize in their own behavior. It seems that idealists of any color often seem to have blinders on, believing in their own ideal and their own importance in realizing that ideal, and are willing to diminish anyone who doesn’t accept their views, but they are unable to see or rectify their own tendencies in the same direction as those they malign. Very reminiscent of vicious competition for power and influence in politics anywhere. Alice Bailey did not seem to participate in the character assassinations that others practiced then, and apparently still do, against her.

The Unlikely Occultist book is an interesting and entertaining means of exploring the world of Theosophy in the last century.

 

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The Tiger’s Wife, by Tea Obreht

Posted on January 11, 2026 by schoultz

Why this book: Selected by my literature reading group. 

Summary in 3 Sentences: This book is hard to summarize, as there are multiple subplots going on in different time windows, with different characters in different places.  The setting is in the Balkans – intentionally without a specified country, and the various stories take place before, during, and after the various wars that have taken place there during the 20th century – WW1, WW2, and the Serbia/Bosnia-Herzegovina conflict of the 1990s.  The story is told in the voice of a young woman doctor, much of it relating her stories about her grandfather who grew up prior to and during the first World War, as she explores his life after he mysteriously dies in the late 1990s.  The grandfather is the closest thing to a protagonist in this story – the young woman who is the “Tiger’s Wife” is actually a relatively minor character in the novel – a deaf mute girl who had developed a special and trusting connection with a tiger that had escaped from the zoo after it was bombed during the First World War.

My Impressions:  An interesting book, without a clear plot or single theme – but many interesting characters and subplots.  After thinking about it a lot, it seemed that the author’s intent was to inform the reader of how war impacts the common people living in remote areas in that part of the world – she studiously avoids political issues or the causes of the various wars in the Balkans- focusing instead on the impact that these wars have had on mostly rural and uneducated villagers in that part of the world.  She also draws attention to how rural and largely isolated and uneducated people see the world differently, largely thru the lens of beliefs and superstitions to explain phenomena for which they don’t have any other explanation. 

In the story, we learn of many these superstitions and how people incorporated these superstitions and customs into their daily lives, and used them to explain what is often otherwise unexplainable to them.  These superstitions don’t make sense to the educated 21st century Westerner – but do  provide boundaries and guardrails for their lives of those who llive outside the modern world of social media, internet and 24 hour news – lives which are driven largely by other forces they don’t understand and can do little about – especially war. 

Natalia – the main voice in the book serves as a bridge for the reader between the superstitious and simple-living people she describes and the modernity of the 20th and 21st centuries. She grew up in a relatively modern world.  Her parents and grandparents were educated, she has a college education, and completed medical school to become a doctor,  following in the footsteps of her much-admired grandfather, who is the other main character in the book.   Natalia is trying to provide modern medical assistance to those injured and affected by the war in rural and remote parts of the Balkans.  She and her grandfather are Christian, her grandmother was Muslim, which denotes more an ethnic affiliation than a religious orientatin.  The issues of hate and distrust between these two groups in the Balkans regularly plays out in the book.  As a member of the Christian community, she is distrusted by the Muslims; as a modern educated woman, she is distrusted by both men and women in the rural areas.  

But much of the book is her recounting stories she heard from her grandfather, and that she’d heard growing up with him as an important mentor in her life, and later in researching how and where he suddenly and unexpectedly died. The book often digresses to the voice of the grandfather telling stories to Natalia, which seem to highlight the themes of how the political  power struggles and war disrupt the lives of good people trying to make a living in their communities and live good lives, and how superstition continues to have an inordinate influence on the lives of rural people. 

But that last point becomes ambiguous, as what seems a bit of magical realism creeps into Natalia’s story.  The grandfather relates a story from his younger years as a doctor,  of  his encounter with “the deathless man” – a man cursed with not being able to die, as penance for running afoul of his uncle, seemingly a surrogate for the devil. The grandfather relates how he meets the deathless man, they have a civilized conversation, the deathless man tells his story which the grandfather doesn’t believe, and the deathless man goes on to “prove” that he can’t die, by sitting underwater for hours with no air.  Grandfather believes it was a trick and still doesn’t believe him.  The deathless man also claims to “know” who will die soon – and he shows up in various scenarios to advise people to make their peace with God, or to maneuver them into a death that is none too painful.. 

The deathless man reappears in grandfather’s life several times in the story,  and seems not to have aged, but also still wants to die. Natalia is perplexed by this story, but then a strange man appears in her life, who she believes is the deathless man her grandfather had described to her.

So what about a tiger, and a “tiger’s wife?”  Included in the many stories Natalia tells from her grandfather are several stories related to different tigers,  which escaped from zoos during bombardment during the wars.  The “Tiger’s Wife” of the title is a young woman who is a deaf mute living in a remote village where Natalia’s grandfather was growing up as a young boy. The young woman can’t communicate but has a detached and almost ethereal air about her, but is  badly physically abused by her husband. She develops a connection to a tiger which had escaped from a zoo which the villagers are trying to hunt down and kill.  The tiger is known to come into the village and it is revealed that it is given food by the young woman.   When her husband disappears, the villagers assume it was a result of her connection to the tiger.  Natalia’s  grandfather, still a young boy, is also enchanted with the tiger, and becomes aware of the young woman’s efforts to feed it and keep it from being hunted and killed. The superstitious villagers believe this is a bad omen, believe that the tiger is the devil and the young woman has been seduced by it, and they therefore name her “the Tiger’s Wife.”  The outcomes of this are not good. 

This is a sad story in the book, which doesn’t connect well to the other stories, but it is very memorable.

The many different stories in this book do not always tie well together, except to reinforce the themes of the horror and disruption of war on peasants, and the role that superstition plays in their lives.  The book could just as easily been named “the Deathless Man” or “The Balkan Doctor,” given the prominent role that the grandfather played in the book.  The Tiger’s Wife is a compilation of fascinating short stories from the Balkans, at war for much of the 20th century only loosely tied together by the narrative of Natalia about her efforts to understand and navigate that chaos, and the stories she told of her grandfather. 

Did I enjoy it – yes, it is compelling and very well written, but throughout I was looking for the tie that bound the stories together. Would I recommend it to others – yes with caveats. If you’re looking for a page-turner with a driving plot, you wont enjoy this book  and would probably put it down.  If on the other hand, you’re willing to go on a ride through the Balkans in the 20th century through the eyes of a doctor and his granddaughter, with doing their best to understand and ameliorate the suffering in the rural and isolated communities in the region, it is a good and often fascinating read. 

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The Book of Patagonia, by Juan Manuel Herrera Traybel

Posted on January 10, 2026 by schoultz

Why this book:  Recommended to me as a good overview on many aspects of Patagonis to help prepare me to get the most from my trip to Patagonia in February 2026.

Summary in 5 Sentences:  A broad history of Patagonia, beginning briefly with its geological history, what is know (or accepted) of its pre-history and settlement by indigenous tribes originating in Siberia, until its initial “discovery” by Europeans, beginning with Magellan, then additional Spanish explorers, then Darwin and the Beagle, events which led to the settlement of Argentine Patagonia in the early/middle 19th century.  He describes the battles with, and ultimately the genocidal campaign against indigenous peoples that ensued when European settlers  began moving into their lands in the Pampas and then the Tierra del Fuego regions. As he moves into the 20th century, he describes the tensions between the owners of the huge estancias and the working class men needed to work them, and the rebellions and class warfare that ensued.  After the building of the Panama Canal,  ship traffic through the straights of Magellan diminished significantly, and after WW2, the development and popularity of synthetic fibers hurt the sheep and wool industries on which the economy was largely based.  Into the late 20th, early 21st century, the economy has been bolstered by tourism – sourced by mountaineering and the beauty of the Andes.

My Impressions: Very informative and a personalized view from the perspective of the author – an Argentine native who has spent much time in Patagonia.   He is not unwilling to use the personal pronoun in explaining his views of what happened and took place as he covers four hundred plus years of history.  I felt this added credibility to his story and his interpretation of the history.

Much of what he describes as the process of settlement of the Patagonia region of Argentina mirrors the settlement of the West in the US: the conflict and near extermination of the indigenous peoples as settlers moved in; the undue influence of the wealthy – Argentina’s version of US robber barons – on the policies and laws coming out of Buenos Aires; the strikes and rebellion of the exploited workers, living barely above subsistence level while their bosses, the estancia owners, lived in luxury. 

One key difference was that the West in the US was enroute to the US West Coast, which had its own wealth and economic draw – good weather, farmland and the gateway to Asia, and the rest of the Pacific coast.  In Patagonia, the pampas were on the way to The Ends of Earth – Tierra del Fuego – which is/was a rather cold and desolate area on the way to Antarctica – not a commercially enticing area.  Sheep farming was the mainstay of the economy in Patagonia on the large estancias in the pampas region, while those in Tierra del Fuego initially depended on its role as a stop over for ships moving from the Atlantic to the Pacific – that is until the Panama Canal was completed at the beginning of the 20th century.  At that point, the economy in Tierra del Fuego began to struggle.  Then, after WW2 the market for wool collapsed  and sheep farming throughout Patagonia became much less profitable. 

I particularly enjoyed his chapters on the 20th century.  He gave a full chapter to mountaineering in Patagonia – the Andean peaks and the glaciers have drawn, and continue to draw intrepid climbers, explorers and researchers to both Argentinian and Chilean Patagonia, and is part of the now burgeoning tourist industry which is replacing sheep farming as a major source of income for Argentina in the region.  He concludes the book with a couple of chapters on the Masters family which over generations had built a large estancia in remote far western Patagonia in the foothills of the Andean cordillera. The author had been curator of the museum of the Masters family estancia which is now an important tourist destination for those who want to hike, explore, or simply view the remote Andes in that region. 

The author saw my review of Bruce Chatwin’s In Patagonia (here) and reached out to me.  He and I exchanged emails and I told him I was still  looking for more information on the Chilean side of Patagonia, since I’ll be travelling there soon.  Though his book does address Chile to some degree, it’s clear that most of the “history” of European settlers in Patagonia took place on the Argentine side, on the pampas and the foothills of the Andes.  Most of what he shares about Chile discusses the history of Tierra del Fuego where Argentine and Chilean interests coincided and eventually clashed.  

I particularly enjoyed the conversational and personalized tone of the writing. The author’s intent was clearly to offer the casual reader and explorer an easily accessible overview of Patagonia’s history, culture and economy, and at this he succeeds. He suggests additional reading and resources for those who want to dive deeper into many of the areas he touches on. The book offers B&W pictures,  which are not too clear, especially the older ones, but they provide a useful perspective.  There are a few typos and minor editing issues but they didn’t distract from the quality and tone of his book. I’d recommend it to anyone as a primer on Patagonian history and culture, with the caveat that the history, settling and culture of the South Patagonia in Chile does not get much attention – perhaps because not much was happening there. 

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In Patagonia, by Bruce Chatwin

Posted on December 25, 2025 by schoultz

Why this book: I”m preparing to spend 3 weeks in Patagonia with a group of friends, hiking, camping, kayaking. This is a classic in travel literature describing the author’s travels around Patagonia in the late 1960s/ early 70s.

Summary in 3 Sentences: The author travels by foot, bus, train, hitchhiking around Patagonia, interviewing people, following leads on potentially interesting stories and sharing his experiences and this book is a chronicle of the stories he heard and the places he visited.  He spends most of his time on the Argentinian side of Patagonia and then in the Tierra del Fuego region, meeting with eccentric and old people who’d lived there for decades, and who knew the people who had been key figures in or had personally participated in the history of the region  – it is a sort of people’s history of the region.   It is also a personalized  look at the type of people who in the 20th century would choose to live almost literally at the end of the world, away from civilization, how they lived, what the thought and experienced, their joys, frustrations and tragedies. 

My Impressions: An easy book to read, with short chapters, each dedicated to an anecdote or a piece of a story he is relating from his peripatetic experience traveling around Patagonia.  Many fascinating stories by and about people who live very different lives than I do,  in a very remote, but beautiful part of the world.  I was at some points a bit frustrated in not finding a thread that tied them all together, but after finishing the book and doing a bit of research I found what i had missed early on – his trip was an exploration of the background and people behind the story his grandmother had told him about her cousin who’d given her a piece of dinosaur skin from Patagonis. These stories hsd inspired and intrigued him.

Bruce Chatwin had been a journalist in the UK and become disillusioned with his job, and decided to chuck it all and pursue a childhood obsession and fascination with Patagonia – a place he’d never been.   This “obsession” came from the stories his grandmother had told him about her cousin and the piece of what he told her was dinosaur skin he’d sent her as a wedding gift, that he claimed he had found in a cave  in Patagonia.    As a journalist,  Chatwin had also interviewed a 92 year old woman who had done a painting of Patagonia, and told him, “I’ve always wanted to go there.  Go there for me.”  Stories such as these had fascinated the young Chatwin, fueled his imagination and motivated him to follow his dream and explore this remote, almost mythical place.

The early part of the book he spends largely in the pampas region on the Argentinian side of Patagonia, hitch hiking and traveling west into the foothills and eventually and briefly into Chile.  Here he digresses from his exploration of dinosaur skins to explore the stories and myths around the famous American outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, in the wake of the famous movie with Robert Redford and Paul Newman that had recently captured the imagination of the world. He meets and talks to older people who claimed to have actually encountered these American outlaws in the region,  examines various versions of some of the stories and myths surrounding their activities and their ultimate demise.  In that process we meet more eccentric nomads, recluses and exiles who have chosen to live in the remote foothills of the Andes, and then he heads south, to literally the end of the continent in Tierra del Fuego. 

In this region he is able to pursue the story of his grandmother’s cousin Captain Charley Milward a man who in some ways typified the eccentrics and interesting characters who’d settled in Patagonia.  Chatwin provides a brief bio of Milward who had begun his life in Australia, over many years became a somewhat controversial ship captain who survived a ship wreck in 1898 in the Straits of Magellan. Which led to him settling in Punta Arenas, a large town sitting on the north shore on the Chilean side of the Straits of Magellan. Milward died in 1928, some 50 years before Chatwin’s visit, so Chatwin found and spoke to people who’d actually known him, which allowed him to further explore the myth of the dinosaur skin his grand mother had shown him.

The so-called “dinosaur skin” had prompted a certain degree of controversy in the world of paleontology.  It was soon realized that it had belonged to a mylodon – a huge, long-extinct sloth-like creature.  But because one so-called expert believed the piece of skin was of recent origin, indicating that the long extinct mylodon may still exist in the region,  a number of explorations were launched looking for a living version of the mylodon. Apparently many skeletons of mylodon have been found in the region, and it was finally determined that the so-called dinosaur skin was from a mylodon from close to 10 thousand years ago.

The last portion of the book described his experiences, adventures and the eccentrics he met in this far southern region of Patagonia, which straddles by both Chilean and Argentinian national boundaries.   This sharing of the land on either side of the Straits of Magellan had over the years been a source of tension between Argentina and Chile, but a treaty between the two in 1881 seems to have dampened that animosity.  Chatwin also recounts some of the rich and tragic history of European interactions with the indigenous populations of the region over the previous century and a half.

The book concludes with Chatwin finally visiting the cave where Milward supposedly found what he believed was a piece of brontosaurus skin.  Chatwin searches through the rubble in the cave and among petrified mylodon turds, finds for himself a small piece of mylodon skin – similar to the piece Milward had sent his Grandmother so many years ago which had inspired him as a boy.   And then Chatwin concludes his trip and boards a ship back to the UK.  He published the story of his wanderings through Patagonia in the UK,  which launched his career as a travel writer and novelist. 

Apart from his personal agenda of exploring this family mystery of the dinosaur skin from Patagonia, this book reminded me a bit of Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.   Both books are a travelogue through a vast landscape, and recount in first person terms the authors’ experiences and impressions of  the people they met and the places they visited.  For each, their trips were an exploration of how people have coped with the circumstances life had handed them, and how they’d dealt with their restlessness and disillusionment with conventional middle class living.    Both Chatwin and Pirsig were themselves loners and nomads, and in their books, are exploring their fascination with people living different lives in different places. In writing about these people, they seem to be seeking  insights into themselves, the human experience, through the experiences of those who’ve rejected the structured lifestyle of civilized society.

When I was consulting AI Gemini for more info on Chatwin, Gemini offered to draft a paragraph connecting Chatwin’s life-long focus on “nomadism,” which he explored not only in In Patagonia but in his subsequent writings, to the journey he describes In Patagonia.”  Here is what Gemini offered me, which I find interesting and insightful:  

While In Patagonia is a journey centered on a family mystery, it also captures the early development of Chatwin’s lifelong obsession with nomadism. Throughout the book, he is drawn to the “eccentric nomads, recluses and exiles” who have abandoned conventional society for the remote edges of the Andes. This fascination eventually blossomed into the radical theory he proposed in The Songlines: that human restlessness is a biological necessity and that our natural state is one of constant movement. By documenting the lives of those living “away from civilization” in the far south, Chatwin was already beginning to explore his belief that the settled world is a source of human malaise, and that true fulfillment is found only on the open road.

 

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The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, by Claire North

Posted on December 23, 2025 by schoultz

Why this book: Selected by my SEAL reading group – something different from a different genre

Summary in 3 sentences:  Harry August is dies and is reborn again and again in the same place and time and retains all his memories with each rebirth.  As a child he has to pretend he doesn’t know all that he does and over many lifetimes learns to pretend to be normal, in order to take advantage of his knowledge and wisdom, and he sets different goals in different lifetimes. Eventually he finds other people with this unique “ability” or gift and one of them is seeking to strategically accumulate knowledge over his many lifetimes that he plans to use to create a God-like entity which will prevent the armageddon that he foresees we are headed toward. 

My impressions:  This was a strange book- but interesting. I listened to it, and because Harry August was a Brit, it was narrated by a Brit – accent wasn’t hard to follow, but hearing the story in afrom someone who is clearly a Brit telling the story in a British accent drove home to me the cultural differences between Harry August and myself as an American.  Once I eventually believed I’d figured out what was going on with his “reincarnation” over and over again into himself in the same time and place, I enjoyed  his perspectives on the different paths he chose in each life, after learning from previous iterations of “Harry August.”

In addition to being reborn as himself again and again, Harry had to learn how to live with his “unique” ability – and Harry also had the “gift” of perfect recall – so he remembered  EVERYTHING from his previous lives, which made him a rare “mnemonic” among those who had his strange gift.  A “mnemonic” in this book is a person with total recall from previous lives.  During his many lifetimes Harry tried a number of possible life paths,  one of which included suicide, one included led to him being institutionalized as insane after he told his wife about his repeated rebirths.  He eventually was able to determine that he wasn’t unique – that there were other people with this “gift” of constant rebirth to relive their lives again and again. These people called themselves “kalachakra” and when they found each other, they were brought into a secret organization called Chronus Clubs.  “Kalachakra” is apparently a Sanskrit word that refers to “Wheel of Time” an important concept in Tibetan Buddhism.

Over the course of his many lives, we share Harry’s experiences as he learns, evolves, and figures out how to deal with his ability to recall and learn from previous incarnations.   He tries to keep his gift secret – after seeing how he was treated – locked away in an institution – when he revealed to his wife how he’d lived multiple times. These people find each other and bring them into their secret society – called Chronus Clubs all over the world.  The Chronus club in the UK eventually finds Harry and is brought into the fold, where he connects with others with the same gift and learns from them how they pass information to others who will come after them, living again and again in the same time window.  In one of his later lives he realizes that something strange, unsettling,  is going on with the various Chronus clubs he’s contacted, and he embarks on trying to find out why they have started to disappear.

Harry had an engineers/scientists mind, and over several lives became extremely well read in the current state of physics, eventually attaining a professorship in physics at a prestigious university.   One of his students, Vincent, is a very precocious and ambitious young man, who Harry eventually realizes is another Kalachakra. Vincent has ambitions of accumulating scientific knowledge over multiple lifetimes and bringing it back in future incarnations to speed up the development of science to  accelerate the advance of technology and civilization.  This effort to change the future violates Chronus Club ethics and policy, but Vincent could care less about Chronus Club concerns – he’s on a personal mission to accumulate enough knowledge to speed up human evolution. And he’s not going to let the Chronus Club get in his way.

Once Harry realizes this, he realizes that Vincent is on megalomaniacal quest, and Harry sees  grave danger in his ambitions.  Harry is deeply concerned that Vincents efforts will yield unpredictable and negative results, and over multiple lives seeks to find and stop Vincent.    This becomes a cat-and-mouse game that lasts over several lifetimes.  As part of his plan, Vincent develops a way to neutralize the efforts of kalachakras to get in his way be erasing all memories of previous lives and knowledge.  Without memories from previous lives, a Kalachakra will be born again with a blank slate and no memory of previous lives,  and must learn from scratch just like everyone else.    By erasing the memories of other kalachakras, he intends to undermine the efforts of the kalachakras and the Chronus Clubs  to stop him on his quest.  He tricks them into submitting to this memory erasing treatment. 

Eventually Harry is able to connect with Vincent in his fifteenth life, win his confidence and the end of the book describes how Harry is able to trick Vincent, the master trickster.  

There are a number of ethical dilemmas and issues in this book worthy of discussion.  

  • Is it “right” to use knowledge of the future to interject oneself to change the future?
  • There are times when decides to prevent evil he knows people will commit based on having known them in previous incarnations, by killing them, though they haven’t yet committed any evil.  So called “preemptive justice.”  This was an issue in the movie “Minority Report.” 
  • Is perfect recall a gift or a curse?  How does the degree to which one remembers (or forgets)  affect one’s sense of identity? 
  • Is Vincent’s goal of near-perfect knowledge indeed an ethical goal?
  • How do we feel about sacrificing others toward a huge goal -like god-like knowledge – sacrificing people who have not committed to this goal, or may even oppose it? 
  • If one has knowledge of the future, is it ethical to withhold that knowledge, even though by revealing it, one might mitigate suffering or death? What about unintended consequences? Is it more ethical to take no action if you “know” that something could result in catastrophe, or to act and accept unintended consequences?  

An Alternative read: If you find the theme of being reborn again and again in the same body intriguing, I’d recommend Replay by Ken Grimwood (my review of it here.)  A really fun page-turner, much more straightforward than Harry August.  It is also a sci-fi fantasy but about a 20th century American guy who most healthy American men could relate to, who dies in his mid/late 40s and wakes up to find himself back in his body in his college dorm, 18 years old with all his memories and experience from his previous life.  He takes advantage of all the opportunities healthy American guys could relate to – lots of fun, sex, money, crazy adventures and more, then dies again in his late 40s and starts all over again – and again and again.  Interesting to see how the freedom to get all the things guys would love to have got boring after a while, leading to a wisdom otherwise hard to achieve, and how he evolves. I related to and enjoyed Replay much more than The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August – just in case that might appeal to you.    

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