Here’s the kind of review every writer wants. Michael Dirda, the Post’s regular reviewer and a Pulitzer Prize winner, gives his readers two reasons to get Beyond The Robot: The Life and Work of Colin Wilson. I’ll give you one guess what they are.
Here’s the kind of review every writer wants. Michael Dirda, the Post’s regular reviewer and a Pulitzer Prize winner, gives his readers two reasons to get Beyond The Robot: The Life and Work of Colin Wilson. I’ll give you one guess what they are.
Gary Lachman 
Congratulations! This is just wonderful! Wonderful for you, wonderful for Colin Wilson and even wonderful for our culture that such a glowing and intelligent review appears in the freak’n Washington Post?!!
Hi Gary I just read a great book you should look out for, Caves and the Ancient Greek Mind by Yulia Ustinova. Academic work surveying pre-Socratics, oracles, mystery cults, and the use of caves and grottos for means of sensory deprivation, meditation and altered states.
Many thanks for the suggestion John. I wonder if you know Peter Kingsley’s work?
I do. I have a copy of In The Dark Places of Wisdom here. He’s referenced a bit. Yulia Ustinova goes into Parmenides proem and links it with OOBE, I believe. She runs comparisons between cave experience and sensory deprivation experience, among other things.
It’s expensive though, I got my library to buy it.
ta
You might want to look at David Lewis-Williams The Mind in the Cave if yuo haven’t already. It looks at our prehistoric ancestors use of psychedelics and sensory deprivation as means of inducing visions of the spirit world.
I have looked at that, it’s kind of dense and hard to get into but there are papers online and other stuff about his work - Blombos cave, Bushmen, entoptic phenomena, shamanism in caves etc. Yes, linked, and Ustinova references ancient Greeks as shamanic in some ways. How about Genevieve von Petzinger who has recently completed a study of symbols in cave art ? Question: if cave art is from altered states, if altered states induced underground produce entoptic visions - where are they in Greek cave and grotto art ? Are there commonalities ? Or has altered state art changed ?
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/geometric_signs/
Wow. Excellent review from the great Michael Dirda. His reviews are always intelligent, fair, open-minded, and with a style all their own. Dirda’s books are worth picking up, too. His latest, Browsings is superb, as is Book By Book, Bound To Please, and Readings. His memoir relating his childhood and learning to love books, The Open Road, is to me, a classic of the genre. Dirda is an American treasure. Reading his review of Beyond The Robot thrilled me beyond measure.
Congratulations, Gary. You’ve given us an excellent book with Beyond The Robot: The Life and Work of Colin Wilson.