The Man in the Iron Mask, by Colin Wilson.

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

The Man in the Iron Mask, 

by Colin Wilson. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

It's quite startling, to say the least, realising just his real the various stories and persons involved in some of the legendary literature - especially those by Alexandre Dumas - is! Especially, because, unlike some of the later writers, he wasn't tomtommed for realism; on the contrary, his work proliferated with thrilling, unlikely, far from everyday events and characters of average lives of normal people. 

So realising that characters of Three Musketeers, and Man In The Iron Mask, were real, makes one wonder - what next? Who was Count Of Monte Christo, and who were the villains? 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................

................................................

December 07, 2021 - December 08, 2021.

................................................

................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

The Loch Ness Monster, by Colin Wilson.

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

The Loch Ness Monster, 

by Colin Wilson. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Chapter 31 has Wilson give detailed history of Nessie, the Loch Ness creature(s), or rather, known history of their sightings by humans. 

And more. 

" ... Peter Macnab was on his way back from a holiday in the north of Scotland, and pulled up his car just above Urquhart Castle. It was a calm, warm afternoon – 29 July 1955 – and he saw a movement in the still water near the castle; he hastily raised his camera, and took a photograph which has joined the “surgeon’s photograph” and the Lachlan Stuart photograph as one of the classic views of the monster. But he was so anxious to avoid ridicule that he released the picture only three years later, in 1958. 

"Before that happened, interest in the case had been revived by the best book on it so far – More Than a Legend, published in 1957. The author was Constance Whyte, wife of the manager of the Caledonian canal, who became interested in the monster after she was asked to write an article about it for a small local magazine. Mrs Whyte interviewed every witness she could find, and produced the first overall survey of the evidence since Rupert Gould’s book of 1934. More Than a Legend aroused widespread interest, the author was deluged with correspondence, and once again the Loch Ness monster was news. What Mrs Whyte had done, with her careful research, was to refute the idea that the monster was a joke, or the invention of the Scottish Tourist Board. No one who reads her book can end with the slightest doubt that the monster really exists, and that it shows itself with a fair degree of frequency."

"In 1959 an aeronautical engineer named Tim Dinsdale read an article about the monster in a magazine called Everybody’s, and was intrigued. He spent most of that winter reading everything he could find; it was in the following February that (as already described) he looked at the surgeon’s photograph, and noticed the circle of ripples that convinced him that it was genuine. In April that year Dinsdale went off to Loch Ness to hunt the monster. But after five days he had still seen nothing. On the day before he was due to return home he was approaching his hotel in Foyers when he saw something out in the loch; his binoculars showed a hump. He snatched his 16-mm ciné-camera and began to film as the creature swam away. Then, almost out of film, he drove down to the water’s edge; by the time he got there the creature had vanished. But Dinsdale had fifty feet of film showing the monster in motion. When shown on television it aroused widespread interest and – as Witchell says – heralded a new phase in the saga of the monster. 

"That June the first scientific expedition to Loch Ness embarked on a month-long investigation, with thirty student volunteers and a Marconi echo-sounder, as well as a large collection of cameras. A ten-foot hump was sighted in July, and the echo-sounder tracked some large object as it dived from the surface to a depth of sixty feet and back up again. The expedition also discovered large shoals of char at a depth of a hundred feet – an answer to sceptics who said that the loch did not contain enough fish to support a monster; the team’s finding was that there was enough fish to support several."

"In 1963 Holiday interviewed two fishermen who had seen the monster at close range, only 20 or 30 yards away. One said that the head reminded him of a bulldog, that it was wide and very ugly. The neck was fringed by what looked like coarse black hair. In a letter to Dinsdale, Holiday remarked: “When people are confronted by this fantastic animal at close quarters they seemed to be stunned. There is something strange about Nessie that has nothing to do with size or appearance. Odd, isn’t it”? He was intrigued by the number of people who had a feeling of horror when they saw the monster. Why were dragons and “orms” always linked with powers of evil in medieval mythology? He also began to feel increasingly that it was more than coincidence that the monsters were so hard to photograph: he once had his finger on the button when the head submerged. Either the monsters had some telepathic awareness of human observation or they were associated with some kind of Jungian “synchronicity”, or meaningful coincidence."

"In a letter to me in 1971 Ted Holiday described a further coincidence. Looking across the loch, he found himself looking at the word DEE in large yellow letters. Bulldozers engaged in road-widening had scraped away the soil running down to the loch, and the top half of the “letters” was formed by the yellow subsoil. The bottom half of the letters was formed by the reflection of the top half in the perfectly still water."

"He had caught his first glimpse of a lake monster in Loch Long in Ross-shire in 1967. In June 1968, in a boat in Norway’s Fjord of the Trolls, he saw another, which came straight towards them; the Norwegian captain who was with him told him not to be afraid: “It will not hurt us – they never do”. And in fact the monster dived before it reached their boat. But the Captain, Jan Andersen, was convinced that the monsters were basically evil, that in some way they could do harm to men’s characters (or, as Omand would have said, their souls). In 1972 Omand attended a psychiatric conference at which an eminent Swedish psychiatrist read a paper on the monster of Lake Storsjön, and said that he was convinced that the monsters had a malevolent effect on human beings, especially those who hunted them or saw them regularly. He thought their influence could cause domestic tragedies and moral degeneration. So Omand began to consider the theory that perhaps lake monsters are not real creatures, but “projections” of something from the prehistoric past.

"Holiday wrote to Omand, and the odd result was that in June 1973 Holiday and Donald Omand rowed out into the middle of Loch Ness, and Omand performed an exorcism of the loch. Holiday said they both felt oddly exhausted when it was over. And his suspicion that he was stirring up dangerous forces seemed to be confirmed two days later when he went to stay the night with a retired Wing Commander named Carey. Holiday was telling Mrs Carey about a Swedish journalist called Jan-Ove Sundberg who had been wandering through the woods behind Foyers when he had seen a strange craft in a clearing, and some odd-looking men; the craft had taken off at a great speed, and after his return to Sweden, Sundberg had been plagued by “men in black” – people claiming to be officials who often seem to harass UFO “contactees”.

"Holiday said he intended to go and look at the place where the “UFO” had landed, and Mrs Carey warned him against it. At this moment there was a rushing sound like a tornado outside the window and a series of violent thuds; a beam of light came in through the window, and focused on Holiday’s forehead. A moment later, all was still. The odd thing was that Wing Commander Carey, who had been pouring a drink only a few feet away from his wife, saw and heard nothing. The next morning, as Holiday was walking towards the loch he saw a man dressed entirely in black – including helmet and goggles – standing nearby; he walked past him, turned his head, and was astonished to find that the man had vanished. He rushed to the road and looked in both directions; there was nowhere the man could have gone. One year later, close to the same spot, Holiday had a heart attack; as he was being carried away he looked over the side of the stretcher and saw that they were just passing the exact spot where he had seen the “man in black”. Five years later, Holiday died of a heart attack."

" ... Most people still regard the question of the monster’s existence as an open one, and the majority of scientists still regard the whole thing as something of a joke. In 1976 Roy Mackal, a director of the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau and Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Chicago, published the most balanced and thoroughgoing scientific assessment so far, The Monsters of Loch Ness. He turns a highly critical eye on the evidence, yet nevertheless concludes that it is now proven that “a population of moderate-sized, piscivorous aquatic animals is inhabiting Loch Ness”. If the scientific establishment was willing to change its mind, this book should have changed it; yet it seems to have made no real impact."

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................

................................................

December 06, 2021 - December 06, 2021.

................................................

................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Fedor Kuzmich, by Colin Wilson.

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Fedor Kuzmich, 

by Colin Wilson. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Wilson looks at another mysterious man in chapter 30, a hermit in Siberia, who was suspected to be the Tsar Alexander I who had defeated Napoleon. Wilson traces his popularity to his contrasting the previous Tsars, including Peter the Great and Catherine the Great. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................

................................................

December 06, 2021 - December 06, 2021.

................................................

................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Junius, by Colin Wilson.

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Junius, by Colin Wilson. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Colin Wilson looks at a ticklish mystery of English recent history, that of identity of Junius, whose caustic correspondence caused much upheaval in political life of England at a time when newspapers were making the transition from entertainment to serious news, and opinions of people other than royals and parliament were beginning to be of account. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................

................................................

December 06, 2021 - December 06, 2021.

................................................

................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Did Joan of Arc Return from the Dead? by Colin Wilson.

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Did Joan of Arc Return from the Dead? 

by Colin Wilson. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Next, chapter 28, Wilson asks if Joan of Arc returned from death. 

"On 30 May 1431 Joan of Arc was burnt as a heretic by the English; she was only nineteen years old. She regarded herself as a messenger from Heaven, sent to save the French from their enemies the English (who were in league with the Burgundians who captured her). ... Her military career was brief but spectacular: in a year she won many remarkable victories, and saw Charles VII crowned at Rheims. Then she was captured by the Burgundians, sold to the English for ten thousand francs, tried as a witch, and burnt alive."

Wilson gives the history of her resurfacing. The person who surfaced claiming to be her, was immediately recognised and accepted by her brothers, other relatives, and various comrades in arms; the king met her, but did not denounce her as imposter until much later, not immediately. Wilson discusses how she could have escaped in the first place. 

"It is easy to see how this could have come about. We know that Joan was an extraordinarily persuasive young lady, and that dozens of people, from Robert de Baudricourt to the Dauphin, who began by assuming she was mad, ended by believing that she was being guided by divine voices. We know that even in court Joan declared that she could hear St Catherine telling her what to say. Even at her trial she had certain friends; a priest called Loyseleur was her adviser. When Joan complained about the conduct of her two guards the Earl of Warwick was furious, and had them replaced by two other guards – which suggests that the earl held her in high regard. So it would not be at all surprising if there was a successful plot to rescue her. And it is possible that the English themselves may have been involved in such a plot; when Joan was apparently burnt at the stake in Rouen the crowd was kept at a distance by eight hundred English soldiers, which would obviously prevent anyone coming close enough to recognize her. At the trial for her rehabilitation in 1456 the executioner’s evidence was entirely second-hand, although three of Joan’s comrades who were with her at the “end” – Ladvenu, Massieu and Isambard – were actually present. If Joan was rescued, presumably they also were involved in the plot."

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................

................................................

November 17, 2020 - November 18, 2020 -

December 24, 2020 .

................................................

................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Jack the Ripper, by Colin Wilson.

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Jack the Ripper, 

by Colin Wilson. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Wilson deals next with Jack the Ripper in Chapter 27. 

" ... Jack the Ripper still remains far and away the world’s most famous – or infamous – serial killer. This is not due simply to the grisly picturesqueness of the nickname but to the fact that the murders took place in the fog-shrouded London of Sherlock Holmes and that – unlike the three killers mentioned above – the identity of Jack the Ripper is still a total mystery." 

Wasn't there a whisper about it possibly being the eldest son of the then Prince of Wales, who subsequently met an untimely death in bed after an illness that was the last of life for him, having never been known to be in good health for that matter? 

" ... But the majority of criminals throughout history have killed or robbed for purely economic reasons. ... " 

That certainly fits, for example, Dyer and his usage of tank, apart from soldiers bearing rifles, barring the only escape for a crowd of purely civilians enjoying a public park in Amritsar, Punjab, and having hundreds shot dead, including women, children, babies and old people - looting India was, after all, chief and a very serious financial enterprise of British, as evidenced in the collapse from a first power and globe gelding empire to a small fry that Britain was brought down to, after 1947. 

" ... The lower classes were too hungry to bother about “forbidden” sex, and the upper classes could obtain it so easily that rape would have been pointless. ... " 

Wilson disregards the obvious - most authority being comprised of male, few bothered to question if a woman had consented to a physical relationship; in most of Europe, when not confronted by victorious soldiers going berserk, feudal lines of caste were maintained in male assaults against women, so not only women had little recourse to justice but weren't even recognised as victims. Of course, victorious soldiers going berserk murdering civilian population of the defeated was accepted in Europe as norm, and women being raped as normal part thereof; this attitude prevailed well into 1980's. 

"Compared to these, there was something utterly calculated about the Jack the Ripper murders, which took place in the Whitechapel area of East London, in the autumn of 1888, and which produced a morbid sense of shock and panic. 

"It was still dark on the morning of September 1 when a cart driver named George Cross walked along Bucks Row on his way to work. It was a narrow, cobbled street with the blank wall of a warehouse on one side and a row of terraced houses on the other. In the dim light Cross saw what he thought was a bundle of tarpaulin and went to investigate. It proved to be a woman lying on her back, ... "

" ... A few hours before her death she had staggered back to the lodging house, her speech slurred with drink, and admitted that she lacked the fourpence necessary for a bed. The keeper had turned her away. ... "

"Oddly enough, the murder caused little sensation. Prostitutes were often killed in the slums of London, sometimes by gangs who demanded protection money. The previous April a prostitute named Emma Smith had dragged herself into London Hospital, reporting that she had been attacked by four men in Osborn Street. They had rammed some object, possibly an iron bar, into her vagina with such force that it had penetrated the uterus; she had died of peritonitis. In July dismembered portions of a woman’s body had been recovered from the Thames. And on 7 August 1888, a prostitute named Martha Tabram had been found dead on a landing in George Yards Buildings, Whitechapel; she had been stabbed thirty-nine times with a knife or bayonet. Two soldiers were questioned about her murder but proved to have an excellent alibi. Evidently some sadistic brute had a grudge against prostitutes, it was hardly the kind of story to appeal to respectable newspaper readers."

" ... Hysteria swept over the whole country. There had been nothing like it since the Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811, when two families were slaughtered in East London, and householders all over England barricaded their doors at night. 

"On 29 September 1888, the Central News Agency received a letter that began: “Dear Boss, I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they won’t fix me just yet”. It included the sentence; “I am down on whores and I shan’t quit ripping them till I do get buckled” and promised: “You will soon hear of me with my funny little games”. It was signed “Jack the Ripper” – the first time the name had been used. The writer requested: “Keep this letter back till I do a bit more work, then give it out straight”. The Central News Agency decided to follow his advice.

"That night, a Saturday, the “ripper” killed again – this time not one, but two prostitutes. ... "

"The policeman who found it also found a chalked message scrawled on a nearby wall: “The Juwes are not the men that will be blamed for nothing”. The police commissioner, Sir Charles Warren, ordered the words to be rubbed out, in spite of a plea from a local CID man that they should be photographed first; he thought they might cause a riot against the Jews, thousands of whom lived in Whitechapel. 

"Macnaghten admitted later: “When the double murder of 30th September took place, the exasperation of the public at the non-discovery of the perpetrator knew no bounds”. The “Jack the Ripper” letter was released, and the murderer immediately acquired a nickname. And early on Monday morning the Central News Agency received another missive – this time a postcard – from Jack the Ripper. ... "

There were several theories later about the identity, all proven false due to inconsistencies. 

"When, in 1960, I published a series of articles entitled “My Search for Jack the Ripper” in the London Evening Standard, I was asked to lunch by an old surgeon named Thomas Stowell, who told me his own astonishing theory about the Ripper’s identity: that it was Queen Victoria’s grandson – the heir to the throne – the Duke of Clarence, who died during the flu epidemic in 1892. Sowell told me that he had seen the private papers of Sir William Gull, Queen Victoria’s physician, and that Gull had dropped mysterious hints about Clarence and Jack the Ripper, as well as mentioning that Clarence had syphilis, from which he died. When, subsequently, I asked Stowell if I could write about his theory, he said no. “It might upset Her Majesty”. But in 1970 he decided to publish it himself in a magazine called The Criminologist. Admittedly, he did not name his suspect – he called him S – but he dropped dozens of hints that it was Clarence. Journalists took up the story and it caused a worldwide sensation. Stowell was so shaken by all the publicity that he died a week later, trying to repair the damage by claiming that his suspect was not the Duke of Clarence."

Wilson gives another story involving the Duke of Clarence, the painter Walter Sickert and a young woman Annie Crooks, and then proceeds to say it was full of holes too; but this time the inconsistencies seem less of an obstruction to the main story, that of Joseph "Hobo" Sickert, son of Walter Sickert, being grandson of Clarence; and the ripper murders being caused by blackmail that his mom's nanny subjected royals to, and her having taken several persons into confidence. 

"It was, in fact, Hobo Sickert himself who pulled the rug out from under Knight by publicly admitting that the Jack the Ripper part of his story was pure invention. He insisted, however, that the story of Annie Crook giving birth to the Duke of Clarence’s daughter – and the daughter becoming his own mother – was true. And in this he was probably being truthful. The most convincing part of Knight’s book is his description of the various “clues” to the affair that Sickert slipped into his paintings."

"What the Florence Pash evidence does seem to prove is that the Duke really fathered an illegitimate daughter, who became the mother of Joseph Sickert. It also confirms the unlikeliest part of Hobo Sickert’s story: that Mary Kelly acted as a nursemaid to the baby. She may even have tried to blackmail Sickert. But even without the blackmail motif, we can understand why Sickert thought he was the custodian of a frightening secret. When Mary Kelly became – almost certainly by pure chance – the Ripper’s final victim, he must have felt certain that the long arm of Buckingham Palace was involved. ... "

Wilson continues for a few more pages ending up with two plausible candidates, one whose son migrated to Australia soon after learning it from his sadistic father who intended to confess publicly but didnt; another, added by Wilson in a postscript, gets his vote. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................

................................................

November 17, 2020 - November 18, 2020 -

December 24, 2020 .

................................................

................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

The Mystery of Hypnosis, by Colin Wilson.

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

The Mystery of Hypnosis, 

by Colin Wilson. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Wilson begins chapter 25, The Mystery of Hypnosis, by giving account of a criminal case in U.K. in 1991, of a man who hypnotised over a hundred young women and assaulted them sexually, for years, while they had no clue. He then goes into history of hypnosis as known to West, from Svengali on. 

" ... French peasants still use this method at market when buying a live hen. Africans probably knew about animal hypnosis long before that; in his book Hypnosis of Men and Animals (1966), Ferenc Volgyesi describes how wild elephants can be tamed by tying them to a tree and waving leafy boughs in front of their eyes until they blink and become docile."

He speaks of Mesmer and his pupil. 

" ... With another excellent hypnotic subject named Madeleine, Puységur would give public demonstrations of mind reading; one total skeptic was converted when he himself was able to order Madeleine – mentally – to put her hand in his pocket and take out an object he had placed there. This ability to influence hypnotized subjects telepathically was demonstrated again and again during the nineteenth century; but medicine has continued to dismiss it as a myth.

"Mesmer’s enemies drove him out of Paris and Vienna; he died, discredited and embittered, in 1815. And the medical profession made sure that hypnosis was treated as a fraud throughout the nineteenth century; any doctor who practiced it was likely to be struck off the register. It was only toward the end of the century that Charcot rediscovered it. Charcot had noticed that patients suffering from hysteria behaved as if they were hypnotized. For example, a man who was convinced that his arm was paralyzed would behave exactly as if it was paralyzed, although there was nothing physically wrong with his arm. But he could be cured by being told under hypnosis that his arm was not paralyzed – and the paralysis could also be reinduced by hypnosis. When Charcot announced to the medical profession that hypnosis was simply a form of hysteria, his colleagues believed that he had solved the mystery and ceased to regard hypnosis as a fraud. It took some time before it was recognized that Charcot had inverted the truth and that hysteria is, in fact, a kind of hypnosis. A hysterical patient becomes convinced that he is suffering from some disability and “suggests” himself into it. Freud was one of the many who were impressed by Charcot’s theory of hypnosis; he later made it the basis of his own theory of the unconscious."

Another example, of a hypnosis performance in public in U.S., stinks of colonial racism. 

" ... Finally, to convince the audience that they were not listening to the words of spirits, Carpenter summoned a philosophic pig, which discoursed learnedly on Hinduism."

Hudson, who had seen the performance, decided to cure a relative, living several hundred miles away, of rheumatism, using hypnosis. He succeeded. 

"Hudson claimed that he went on to cure about five hundred people in the same way. He failed in only two cases and these – oddly enough – were patients who had been told that he intended to try to cure them.

"This, Hudson believed, underlined another peculiarity of the subjective mind: its powers have to work spontaneously, without self-consciousness. As soon as it becomes self-conscious, it freezes up, like the hand of a schoolboy when the teacher looks over his shoulder as he is writing. This also explains why so many “psychics” fail when they are tested by skeptics. It is like trying to make love in a crowded public square."

" ... Some of the most remarkable tests in the history of psychical research were carried out by a professor of geology named William Denton. He would wrap geological and archaeological specimens in thick brown paper packages, shuffle them until he no longer knew which was which, then get his “psychometrists” – his wife and sister-in-law – to describe the contents and history of packages chosen at random. Their accuracy was amazing – for example, a fragment of volcanic lava from Pompeii produced an accurate description of the eruption, while a fragment of tile from a Roman villa produced a description of Roman legions and a man who looked like a retired soldier."

"Hudson’s book became a bestseller and went into edition after edition between 1893 and Hudson’s death in 1903. Why, then, did its remarkable new theory not make a far greater impact? The reason can be summarized in a single word: Freud. The objective and subjective minds obviously correspond roughly to Freud’s ego and id – or conscious and unconscious. But there is a major difference. Freud was a pessimist who saw the unconscious mind as a passive force, a kind of basement full of decaying rubbish that causes disease – or neurosis. The conscious mind is the victim of these unconscious forces, which are basically sexual in nature. Hudson would have been horrified at such a gloomy and negative view of the subjective mind. But because Freud was a “scientist” and Hudson was merely a retired newspaper editor, the latter’s achievement was ignored by psychologists."

Interesting discovery of truth:- 

" ... Sartre’s whole philosophy of human existence – he is known as one of the founding figures of existentialism – is based on his mistaken notion that “nausea” is some fundamental truth about human reality – the beautiful woman in hair curlers. Moreover, it is a philosophy that is echoed by some of the most respectable figures in modern literature, from Ernest Hemingway and Albert Camus to Graham Greene and Samuel Beckett. It could be said to dominate modern philosophy and modern literature. Yet we can see that it is simply a misunderstanding. “Nausea” is not some glimpse of reality; it is as unimportant as a headache, and in some ways curiously similar. If Sartre had known about the right and left hemispheres, he would have recognized that he was greatly exaggerating the importance of “nausea”. And if we could grasp, once and for all, that “alienation” in left-brain consciousness is not a glimpse of the reality of the human condition, we would experience an enormous and immediate rise in our level of optimism and vitality."

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................

................................................

November 17, 2020 - November 18, 2020 -

December 24, 2020 .

................................................

................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

The Hope Diamond, by Colin Wilson.

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

The Hope Diamond, 

by Colin Wilson. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Next, chapter 24, discusses The beautiful blue diamond known finally as Hope Diamond. 

"The diamond was purchased by Louis XIV in 1668 from a French trader named Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, who is believed to have stolen it (like Milton Hayes’s “Green Eye of the Little Yellow God”) from the eye socket of an idol in an Indian temple. (One writer mentions the temple of Rama-sitra, near Mandalay.) Tavernier subsequently went bankrupt, sailed for India to try to recoup his fortune, and died en route."

Did Wilson make the careless mistake, due to colonial racist disregard, or was it only made in the transcript of the e-book? It should be"temple of Rama-Sita", of course. The atrocious mistake is repeated at the end, so presumably it was racism. 

"Many similar stories could be told of “jinxed” ships, houses, airplanes, and cars.9 The car in which the Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated at Sarajevo (thus precipitating the First World War) went on to bring death or disaster to its next seven owners."

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................

................................................

November 17, 2020 - November 18, 2020 -

December 24, 2020 .

................................................

................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Homer and the Fall of Troy, by Colin Wilson.

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Homer and the Fall of Troy, 

by Colin Wilson. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Next, chapter 23, Homer and the Fall of Troy, discusses the modern trend that questions existence of Homer. 

"Greek bards learned their poetry by heart and could recite many thousands of lines from memory – as their modern descendants still can today. So there was no question of Homer being lost in the dim mists of antiquity, in the days before there were any historical records. The memories of the bards themselves were the historical records. ... "

Wilson gives the story of life of Homer as written by Herodotus, which is heartwrenching. 

" ... But as his fame spread throughout Greece, and bards recited his poems, Chian bards formed a school known as the children of Homer – or Homeridae – which was still flourishing when Herodotus wrote his life of Homer."

Wilson speaks about Samuel Butler studying the epics. 

" ... And it was as he was reading about Circe that Butler was suddenly struck by a dazzling intuition: that Circe was not created by a man but by a woman – and, moreover, by a young one. Closer reading convinced him of this. The males of the Odyssey are wooden creatures compared to the women, who have that touch of life. Butler also concluded that while the author of the Odyssey shows intimate knowledge of the affairs of women, he is often oddly uncomfortable when describing things that are the province of males, especially seamen or farmers. What male would place the rudder in front of the ship? What seaman would believe that seasoned timber can be cut from a growing tree? Or make the wind “whistle” over the waters? (It whistles on land, because of obstacles, but there are no obstacles at sea.) What man with any knowledge of farming would make a herdsman milk the sheep, then give them their lambs to feed (presumably with empty udders)? What countryman would make a hawk tear its prey on the wing? The author of the Odyssey makes these curious errors, and many more. Butler goes on to argue with great skill and conviction that the author of the Odyssey had to be a woman, and a young one at that."

" ... George Bernard Shaw attended a Fabian Society meeting at which Butler lectured on the female authorship of the Odyssey and admitted that, while initially skeptical about the idea, he took up the Odyssey and soon found himself saying, “Of course it was written by a woman”.

"Robert Graves was another classical scholar who allowed himself to be convinced, and whose novel Homer’s Daughter is inspired by the theory. ... "

"Another interesting footnote to the Butler theory is that James Joyce used his prose translation of the Odyssey as the basis of Ulysses."

Wilson describes various archaeological excavations in efforts to find Troy and other places mentioned. 

" ... Finally, writing in its modern form – with paper and ink – was invented and at last the great epics were written down. ... "

No, it was always existing in India on leaves and bark; paper was brought to Europe from China, and ink from India (hence the word indigo, for what India calls "neel", which is, literally, "blue". 

Wilson goes on to discuss facts of history about Troy and Greece, and the war, with much information packed in the chapter thereby from diverse sources. 

" ... Homer tells us that the men of Troy were killed, and their women and children enslaved and taken back to Greece."

No surprises there - slavery was norm of Mediterranean cultures. 

"All that we can say for certain is that Homer – whether one person or two – created a concept that is now almost synonymous with the human imagination: the concept of literature."

Colonial racism there, plain and simple. For, literature was far more ancient in India than Homer. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

The Holy Shroud of Turin, by Colin Wilson.

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

The Holy Shroud of Turin, 

by Colin Wilson. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

"The shroud had been in Turin cathedral since 1578 – it was now the property of the Duke of Savoy – and on 25 May 1898 it was again put on public display. A Turin photographer, Secondo Pia, was commissioned to photograph it. And it was in his apartment, towards midnight, that the photographer removed the first of two large plates from the developing fluid. What he saw almost made him drop the plate. Instead of the dim, blurred image he was looking at a real face, quite plainly recognizable. Yet he was looking at a photographic negative, not the final product. This could only mean one thing: that the image on the shroud was itself a photographic negative, so by “reversing” it Pia had turned it into a positive – a real photograph. If the relic was genuine, Pia was looking at a photograph of Christ."

Wilson gives various existing theories of the history thereof, before coming to recent and well known part.  

"In 1955 Group Captain Leonard Cheshire took a crippled Scottish girl to Turin, and she was allowed to hold the shroud in her lap; however, no cure took place. Possibly this failure decided Cardinal Pellegrino of Turin to make a determined attempt to establish the shroud’s authenticity or otherwise by scientific means. ... In fact tests showed that there was no blood on the shroud."

"Lomas and Knight believe that the scrolls in the Temple came from the same source as the Dead Sea Scrolls, but were of far greater significance. There is evidence that the Templar who took some of the scrolls back to France was Geoffrey de St Omer, the second in command after Hugh de Payen. The scrolls were taken to an old priest called Lambert of St Omer, who is mainly known to historians because of a copy of a drawing that depicts the Heavenly Jerusalem. It was made about AD 1120, and – Lomas and Knight point out – shows the basic symbols of Freemasonry five centuries before Freemasonry is said to have been founded. Lomas and Knight argue convincingly that the drawing originated in Solomon’s Temple."

"The Dead Sea Scrolls were the property of a Jewish sect called the Essenes, also known as the Nazoreans. These were what we might describe as Jewish Puritans, strict vegetarians who rejected animal sacrifice, and therefore refused to recognize the divine inspiration of Moses. 

"The Essenes were founded because of a fundamental split among the Jews. When the Jews were dragged off into their Babylonian exile by the armies of King Nebuchadnezzar in 587 BC, they dreamed of a Messiah who would lead them to freedom. And when they returned to Jerusalem fifty years later, and a priest named Zerubbabel rebuilt the Temple, Zerubbabel was regarded by many as the Messiah – although he himself preferred to avoid that responsibility. 

"Two centuries later, Alexander the Great conquered Palestine, and it was his generals, known as Seleucids, who then ruled. But when the Greek conquerors were rash enough to place a statue of Zeus on the altar of the Temple, the Jews under Judas Maccabeus, began a highly successful guerrilla campaign, and finally rededicated the Temple to Jehovah in 164 BC. The Maccabees became kings, as well as high priests, of Jerusalem."

"The most controversial part of the argument of Lomas and Knight is that the leader of the Essenes in the first century AD were Jesus, who became known as Jesus Christ, and his brother James. Jesus, they claim, was actually known as Jesus the Nazorean, not the Nazarene. Nazareth, they say, did not even exist in Jesus’ time. 

"According to Lomas and Knight, it was Jesus’ younger brother James, also known as Ya’cov, who was the leader of the Essenes and the “Teacher of Righteousness”. 

"The Roman Catholic Church has denied that Jesus had brothers or sisters, although this is actually contradicted by the Gospel of Matthew (13: 55): “Is this not the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary, and his brothers James, Simon and Jude? And his sisters, are they not all with us”?

"Lomas and Knight argue that Jesus was not simply a preacher of universal love; he wanted to get rid of the Romans, and was prepared to lead a revolt to do it. A large number of the Essenes preferred Jesus’ less radical brother James."

"The Romans issued a wanted poster for Jesus which still survives, describing him as short, (about 4ft 6ins), bald-headed and humpbacked. His brother James was arrested first, then Jesus was arrested in Gethsemane."

"When Saul became a Roman citizen, he changed his name to Paul and was given the job of stamping out the remains of the Jewish freedom movement. This was ten years after the death of Jesus, in AD 43. And it was seventeen years later that Paul had his experience on the road to Damascus, and was suddenly converted to Christianity. Lomas and Knight state that this would not have been the Damascus in Syria, where he would have had no authority, but probably Kumran, which was also referred to as Damascus. And it was probably on the way to Kumran to persecute the Essenes that Paul received his revelation. He became temporarily blind, and when he recovered, became romantically enthralled by the doctrine that would be later labeled Christianity. This doctrine, of Paul’s own invention, declared that Jesus had died on the cross to redeem humankind from the sin of Adam, and that all who believed in Jesus would become free of Original Sin. 

"James and the other Nazoreans must have been astonished and delighted to discover that their persecutor had suddenly become Jesus’ chief admirer. But when, in due course, they learned the details of the Christianity that had been invented by Paul, they were enraged, and habitually referred to him as “the spouter of lies”."

"Lomas and Knight quote Pope Leo X as saying: “It has served us well, this myth of Christ”."

Hereon Wilson gives history close to what's given in Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and other works by Lomas and Knight, towards their theory about the shroud being, in fact, that of Jacques Dr Molay. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................

................................................

November 17, 2020 - November 18, 2020 -

December 24, 2020 .

................................................

................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Rudolf Hess, by Colin Wilson.

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Rudolf Hess, 

by Colin Wilson. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

This one, about and titled Rudolf Hess, begins with his suicide at the age of ninety three, and goes on to question his identity, discussing relevant history of Hess. 

"Ignoring complaints by human-rights groups, the Soviet Union insisted that Hess be held in prison until he died – the real motive being to maintain that nation’s access to West Berlin, where Spandau Prison was situated.

"For more than ten years before his suicide, there had been odd rumors that Prisoner Number 7 was not Hess at all but a double, planted on the British for reasons unknown.. ... "

The chief reason to doubt his identity, after various people initially not recognising him or being not recognised by him, despite previous acquaintance, and the strange fact of his refusal to see either the wife or the son of Rudolph Hess, was medical. 

"What Thomas now discovered puzzled him deeply. Hess had been wounded in the chest in the First World War, and the resultant lung injury had caused him much bronchial trouble in the days when he was Hitler’s deputy. Now there was no sign of a war wound and no bronchial trouble. Examination of Hess’s medical records made it clear that there should have been many scars from war wounds, none of which was visible on the body of the Spandau prisoner. When, at a second examination, Thomas asked him, “What happened to your war wounds”?, Hess blanched, began to tremble, then muttered, “Too late, too late”. What did that mean? That there would now be no point in admitting that he was not Rudolf Hess?"

But throughout, Wilson holds on to the view that if the said prisoner wasn't Hess, then Hess never arrived in England with that flight in 1941, when he took off from Augsburg and flew himself. 

Another possibility, discussed somewhere that one read during last couple of decades or so, seems not to occur to the author, namely, that Hess did arrive in U.K. , and the person brought to Nuremberg by British authorities was a different one. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................

................................................

November 17, 2020 - November 18, 2020 -

December 24, 2020 .

................................................

................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Kaspar Hauser, by Colin Wilson.

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Kaspar Hauser, 

by Colin Wilson. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Kasper Hauser is about an unusual case early nineteenth century in Nuremberg. 

"One of the most curious things about him was his incredible physical acuteness. He began to vomit if coffee or beer was in the same room; the sight and smell of meat produced nausea. The smell of wine literally made him drunk, and a single drop of brandy in his water made him sick. His hearing and eyesight were abnormally acute – in fact, he could see in the dark, and would later demonstrate his ability by reading from a Bible in a completely black room. He was so sensitive to magnets that he could tell whether the north or south pole was turned towards him. He could distinguish between different metals by passing his hand over them, even when they were covered with a cloth."

"Then, a mere seventeen months after he had been “found”, someone tried to kill him. It happened on the afternoon of 7 October 1829, when Kaspar was found lying on the floor of the cellar of Daumer’s house, bleeding from a head-wound, with his shirt torn to the waist. Later he described being attacked by a man wearing a silken mask, who had struck him either with a club or a knife. The police immediately made a search of Nuremberg, but had no success in finding anyone who fitted Kaspar’s description of his assailant. ... He was moved to a new address, and two policemen were appointed to look after him; Ritter von Feuerbach was appointed his guardian. And for the next two years Kaspar vanished from the public eye. ... "

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................

................................................

November 17, 2020 - November 18, 2020 -

December 24, 2020 .

................................................

................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

The Grey Man of Ben MacDhui, by Colin Wilson.

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

The Grey Man of Ben MacDhui, 

by Colin Wilson. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Chapter 19 tells about various people's similar experiences at and near Cairgnorms. 

"He fell asleep and woke up “to a fear of a more terrifying nature”. Moonlight fell through the crack of the flysheet of his tent, and as he stared at it he saw a brown blur, and “knew that something lay between himself and the moon”. He lay there in frozen immobility until the shadow went away. He now pulled aside the flysheet of the tent. “The night was brilliant. About twenty yards away a great brown creature was swaggering down the hill. He used the word “swaggering” because the creature had an air of insolent strength about it”. His impression was that the creature was about twenty feet high, and was covered with shortish brown hair. It was too erect to be a huge ape; it had a tapering waist and very broad shoulders. Affleck Gray’s book contains a photograph of footprints in the snow taken on Ben MacDhui, and they look oddly like the famous photograph of the footprints of the “Abominable Snowman” discovered on the Menlung glacier on Everest by Eric Shipton in 1951."

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................

................................................

November 17, 2020 - November 18, 2020 -

December 24, 2020 .

................................................

................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

The Glozel Mystery, by Colin Wilson.

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

The Glozel Mystery, 

by Colin Wilson. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Wilson mentions another case before describing and discussing The Glozel Mystery.

"Together with his friend Professor Vilanova, Marcelino announced his discovery to the world; visitors – including the king of Spain – flocked to the cave (today known as Altamira). But when he went to a congress of prehistorians in Lisbon, Marcelino was stunned to discover that they regarded his cave paintings as a fraud. Indeed, all the learned men of Europe denounced them. Marcelino had them reproduced in a book; it was ignored. Ancient cavemen could not possibly paint like that, said the experts; it had to be a confidence trick. His chief enemy, a prehistorian named Cartailhac, even refused him admission to a congress in Algiers. 

"Years later Cartailhac went to look at newly discovered caves at Les Eyzies, in the Vézère Valley, and found them full of paintings like those at Altamira. Too late, he returned to Altamira to apologize for his mistake; the child Maria, now a grown woman, could only take him to see her father’s grave."

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................

................................................

November 17, 2020 - November 18, 2020 -

December 24, 2020 .

................................................

................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Fairies, by Colin Wilson.

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Fairies, 

by Colin Wilson. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Wilson speaks of W. B. Yeats doing research about beliefs of Irish, and realising they had a concrete belief in fairies. 

"It is the fact that it is not abnormal men like artists, but normal men like peasants, who have borne witness a thousand times to such things; it is the farmers who see the fairies. It is the agricultural labourer who calls a spade a spade who also calls a spirit a spirit; it is the woodcutter with no axe to grind . . . who will say he saw a man hang on the gallows, and afterwards hang round it as a ghost."

He relates the story of Elsie Griffiths and Frances Wright, two cousins at Cottingley, whose photographs of fairies were published, and had convinced an expert photographer, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, of their genuineness. 

"The last photograph was taken on a drizzly day, 21 August 1920. Later referred to by Frances as a “fairy sunbath”, it seems to show two fairies hanging a gossamerlike material over a tuft of grass, to make a shelter or suntrap. Frances said she often saw the little people doing this on dull days, as if to keep themselves warm. Oddly enough, this phenomenon has been reported in various unconnected fairy sightings before and after the Cottingley photographs. The fairies in this last photograph have a semi-transparent quality, which detractors claimed was a sign of double exposure but which believers ascribed to the effect of cold on the fairy constitution."

"One detractor, a doctor by the name of Major Hall-Edwards, even went so far as to say: 

"I criticize the attitude of those who declared there is something supernatural in the circumstances attending to the taking of these pictures because, as a medical man, I believe that the inculcation of such absurd ideas into the minds of children will result in later life in manifestations of nervous disorder and mental disturbances." 

"(One wonders how he felt about parents telling their children that Santa Claus was a real person.)"

"Frances had had no “psychic” experiences. But in the spring of 1918 she saw her first gnome. She had gone down to the stream after school and observed a phenomenon she had often observed before: a single willow leaf began to shake on the tree by the stream. Then a small man, all dressed in green, was standing on the branch. Frances watched, breathless, terrified of disturbing him. The little man looked straight at her, then disappeared. After that, she claimed, she often saw little men wearing coats of grayish green and matching caps by the stream. She gradually reached the conclusion that the little men were engaged in some kind of purposeful activity, perhaps associated with helping plants to grow. Later, she began to see fairies, with and without wings. These were smaller than the elves; they had white faces and arms and often seemed to be holding some kind of meeting. Elsie, she insists, never saw the fairies or little men."

"When the world suddenly became interested in the fairies, the girls were in a difficult position. The photographs were fakes. Yet – according to the girls – the fairies really existed. If the whole thing had been a hoax, it would have been easier to confess. But it was not a hoax – not totally, anyway. They were in an embarrassing and anomalous position. If they admitted that the photographs were fakes, they would be implying that the whole affair was a deception. And that would be as untrue as continuing to maintain that the photographs were genuine. So they decided to keep silent. 

"When the whole affair blew up again in 1965, the situation was unchanged. It is true that Elsie, now a hardheaded woman in her sixties, was no longer convinced that Frances had seen fairies; yet she was absolutely certain that she had had “psychic” experiences and was therefore prepared to be open-minded. As to Frances, she had seen fairies and had nothing to retract. In a letter to Leslie Gardner, the son of Edward Gardner, Elsie remarked that after her interview with Peter Chambers (in 1965), in which she had declared that people must judge for themselves and that the pictures were “figments of our imaginations”, Frances had said indignantly, “What did you say that for? You know very well that they were real”. 

"In fact, Frances had always maintained that the fairies were real. In November 1918 she sent the first fairy photograph to a friend in South Africa and scrawled on the back: “Elsie and I are very friendly with the beck Fairies. It’s funny I never used to see them in Africa. It must be too hot for them there”."

"W.B. Yeats had been convinced of the existence of fairies ever since he and Lady Gregory went door to door collecting information from the local peasants. They recorded these interviews in a 1920 book entitled Visions and Beliefs. Evans Wentz concludes his Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries by acknowledging: “We seem to have arrived at a point . . . where we can postulate scientifically . . . the existence of such invisible intelligences as gods, genii, daemons, all kinds of true fairies, and disembodied men”."

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................

................................................

November 17, 2020 - November 18, 2020 -

December 24, 2020 .

................................................

................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

The Mystery of Eilean More, by Colin Wilson.

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

The Mystery of Eilean More, 

by Colin Wilson. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

"In 1947 a Scottish journalist named Iain Campbell visited Eilean More on a calm day, and was standing near the west landing when the sea suddenly gave a heave, and rose seventy feet over the jetty. Then, after about a minute, it subsided back to normal. It could have been some freak of the tides, or possibly an underwater earthquake. Campbell was convinced that anyone on the jetty at that time would have been sucked into the sea. The lighthouse keeper told him that this curious “upheaval” occurs periodically, and that several men had almost been dragged into the sea."

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................

................................................

November 17, 2020 - November 18, 2020 -

December 24, 2020 .

................................................

................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

The Dogon and the Ancient Astronauts, by Colin Wilson.

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

The Dogon and the Ancient Astronauts, 

by Colin Wilson. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

" ... Members of an African tribe called the Dogon, who live in the Republic of Mali, some 300 miles south of Timbuktu, insist that they possess knowledge that was transmitted to them by “spacemen” from the star Sirius, which is 8.7 light-years away. Dogon mythology insists that the “Dog Star” Sirius (so called because it is in the constellation Canis) has a dark companion that is invisible to the naked eye and that is dense and very heavy. This is correct; Sirius does indeed have a dark companion known as Sirius B."

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................

................................................

November 17, 2020 - November 18, 2020 -

December 24, 2020 .

................................................

................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Was Philip K. Dick Possessed by an Angel? By Colin Wilson.

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Was Philip K. Dick Possessed by an Angel? 

by Colin Wilson. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

This one becomes interesting gradually, but makes it clear Wilson needed to understand better, and chose to stick within limitations of his social setup and upbringing. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................

................................................

November 17, 2020 - November 18, 2020 -

December 24, 2020 .

................................................

................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

The Devil’s Footprints, by Colin Wilson.

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

The Devil’s Footprints, 

by Colin Wilson. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

About mysterious footprints in Devon in February 1855, is quite intriguing, with no explanation satisfactory enough. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................

................................................

November 17, 2020 - November 18, 2020 -

December 24, 2020 .

................................................

................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

The Curse of the Pharaohs, by Colin Wilson.

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

The Curse of the Pharaohs, by Colin Wilson.  

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

"The Curse of the Pharaohs" begins, aappropriately, with the history of archaeological exploration of the sites. 

"On 26 November 1922 the archaeologist Howard Carter peered through a small opening above the door of the tomb of Tutankhamon’s tomb, holding a candle in front of him. What he saw dazzled him: “everywhere the glint of gold”. He and his colleague Lord Carnarvon had made the greatest find in the history of archaeology. But a few days later they found a clay tablet with the hieroglyphic inscription: “Death will slay with his wings whoever disturbs the peace of the pharaoh”. The following April Lord Carnarvon died of some unknown disease. By 1929 – a mere six years later – twenty-two people who had been involved in opening the tomb had died prematurely. ... "

"Tutankhamon was the heir of the “great heretic” Akhnaton (about 1375 BC to 1360), the first monotheist king in history. He abandoned the capital Thebes, with all its temples, and built himself a new capital, called Akhetaton (Horizon of Aton), at a place now called Tell el Amarna. He worshipped only one god, the sun god Aton. ... "

His account of Howard Carter, Theodore Davis, and the curse about the deaths, along with the long list of deaths of those connected with the excavation, was probably what inspired an Agatha Christie work about a curse, and deaths explained by her detective. 

Wilson speaks of various similar things, not admitted by modern science, in various parts of earth, from Hawaii to Africa. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................

................................................

November 17, 2020 - November 18, 2020 -

December 24, 2020 .

................................................

................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................................................................