Colin Wilson

And that might have been the end of the black monk story.

If a writer named Colin Wilson hadn't become interested in the case.

Wilson was already known for writing about crime, psychology, mysticism, and paranormal phenomena.

Around 1979, local historian Tom Cunniff brought the Pontefract case to his attention.

Apparently there were like crowds on the lawn, like waiting for the loud banging on the ceiling or wanting to see stuff happen.

What's interesting about this story And Colin Wilson, a famed British writer who specialized in the paranormal, called The Great Amherst Mystery perhaps the best documented poltergeist case of all time.

Yeah, because there were a lot of people writing about this at the time, like it was written about in the newspaper, of course, because it was a local sensation.

But it was also documented early on in a book.

actually just I was reading this one last night.

Colin Wilson's and like at the end, it talks about like Atlantis and Cyprus or whatever.

And yeah, I think that's bogus.

But

he doesn't believe that.

I mean, Colin Wilson, he doesn't.

But he goes into like why he doesn't believe it.

Yeah.

It is.

Colin Wilson's Poltergeist.

And that disappeared after the first day.

I couldn't find it.

And then this is contrasted with what is depicted as being more the rational, scientific version of supernaturalism, which is represented by Dr. Barrett.

But again, what's funny to me now is that all the stuff that he says is also complete pseudoscience by today's standards but in the 70s this stuff was still kind of up for debate amongst certain writers at least so he traffics in these ideas that yes supernatural things happen but they are because of mental energies within people's brains or maybe stone tape theories that you know strong emotions are mapped onto the landscape somehow Again, all stuff that we now would regard as being pseudoscientific, but at the time, you know, people like Colin Wilson were writing about this quite a lot.

You also had stuff like, things like the Enfield Poltergeist being interpreted by researchers as, you know, the unconscious... mind of a teenager acting out and having physical effects on the world that was quite common in the 1970s as well you had this popping up in fiction in places like the book carry by stephen king of course which if i recall correctly is written with sections in there purporting to be from actual scientific articles about psychokinesis telekinesis and course all this kind of language used around the supernatural at the time to make it sound more scientific that's the sort of stuff that dr barrett is trafficking in and i have a huge weak spot for that sort of thing because i suppose that is kind of the version of the paranormal that i find the most interesting it's the one i was reading about when i was a kid effectively it's the idea that the supernatural is just an extension of the natural the paranormal is just an extension of the normal there's nothing you know magical going on here these are just elements of life and nature and the universe and the human brain that we don't understand yet but the idea the assumption being that if we keep studying this stuff we will understand it that is dr barrett's position and it's just funny to me that he's he's positioned as being the skeptical one when really the stuff he believes in to us today is is just as unfounded and as difficult to prove as anything that a spiritualist might say but in the 70s i think the the book was not completely closed on that particular topic so i enjoy i enjoy this dichotomy within the novel Interestingly, both of these ideas seem to be happening in a world where parapsychological happenings are more or less taken for granted while characters argue about which of these two theories is correct.

There seems to be no real question that paranormal things do happen in Hell House.

He's written a book called Dark Star Rising, Magic and Power in the Age of Trump.

He's written a book called Turn Off Your Mind, the Daedalus book of the 1960s, Beyond the Robot, the Life and Work of Colin Wilson, The Secret Teachers of the Western World, a book on Aleister Crowley.

Revolutionaries of the Soul, Reflections on Magicians, Philosophers and Occultists, The Caretakers of the Cosmos, a book on Madame Blavatsky, among many, many others.

His most recent book is one that I've just really been enjoying reading is called Touched by the Presence.

More of my everyday kind of self.

This is a long story.

Colin Wilson, who I've written a biography of and recently brought back into print.

Sorry, here's a plug.