Colin+Wilson

=Colin Wilson=

=Biography= Colin Wilson (born June 26, 1931 in Leicester), an English writer, philosopher. He was born into a working class family, with a father that worked in the boot and shoe trade. When he was 10, his grandfather gave him his first science fiction magazine. At age 24, publisher Victor Gollancz published his first book, __The Outsider,__ which talked mostly about the idea of alienation, where a person is set aside from society,” “withdrawing or separation of a person or a person's affections from an object or position of former attachment, alienation…from the values of one's society and family” merriam-webster. He was widely praised at first but to only find criticism by the same critics who praised him at first. Colin Wilson has written more than 100 works of literature, spanning from novels, books, essays and others.

Ideas
Throughout his life and his many works of literature one idea stood out most, it was the idea of “peak experiences” or moments of sudden and extreme happiness. Described by Wilson, "existentialism is a philosophy that asks the kind of questions that were once regarded as "religious": questions about the meaning of human existence, freedom and the existence of god." This concept is a cornerstone of his works. He also states that "the new existentialism is pessimistic - even nihilistic - and a limit seems to have been reached in it's development." because of this he decides to write about the topic which in turn he gets really interested by. He didn't accept the view that philosophy doesn't ask religious questions.

Bibliograpy:
The Outsider (1956) Ritual in the Dark (1960) Beyond the Outsider (1965) The Occult: A History (1971) Dreaming To Some Purpose (2004)

References:
[|http://web.archive.org/web/20080112001829/www.personal.umich.edu/~jbmorgan/cwbio.html] [] // -Dreaming to Some Purpose // // -The Angry Years // -Contraries: A Personal Progression -Introduction to the New Existentialism -New Pathways in Psychology