Abraxas Update
AUGUST 2000
Afterlife has been reprinted by Llewellyn Books in the USA with an additional chapter on channelling. The Devil's Party (originally Slouching Toward Bethlehem) has come out in England to some mixed reviews, including a laudatory one in the prestigious Times Literary Supplement. Japanese Television wish to make a film about Colin in which he appears as a kind of modern master instructing pupils in his ideas. He has been filmed by Channel Four to appear in a forthcoming programme on Aleister Crowley. His Encyclopaedia of Murder, originally co-authored with Pat Pitman, is being updated for a massive Robinson edition. He also told me Hampton Roads is planning to republish the Spiderworld series on a yearly basis and he is on the threshold of writing another volume. He also told me that Hampton Roads is planning to republish the Spiderworld series on a yearly basis and he is on the threshold of writing another volume. Recently a very early diary of Colin's appeared dating back to the Outsider years, found in the possession of Pat Pitman's daughter - a fascinating primary source now returned to its owner. Howard Dossor came over to England and visited Colin and myself (PN). We had lunch at the White Hart in St Austell and a pleasant discussion on writers like J.D. Salinger and T.S. Eliot.
JANUARY 2001
Colin's superb article on Robert Graves, first printed a year or two back for an American Journal, is now available in Abraxas 16. In order to read extracts from the latter, and also a resume of A History of Terror - glance through our Tripod site. Abraxas 17 will shortly be printed; this will feature part of Colin's introduction to the Age of Defeat, an article on 'paradise engineering', the Ballad of Dr Shipman by D.M. Thomas, an enquiry into religious bias and paranomal enquiry by Joseph Felser, a review of Atlantis Blueprint by Vaughan Robertson as well as a strange story about an entirely new addition to Borges's bestiary called 'The Vacuum'.
On the publishing front, Colin's sunny psychological study of a murderer The Killer is about to be reprinted in a quality edition and an index is being prepared for the latest edition of The Outsider. Colin Stanley is at work on the follow-up to First Novel and has recently received - and enjoyed reading - the early chapters of Spiderworld 3. Colin kindly emailed his long introduction to The Age of Defeat which PAUPERS is reprinting around June of this year. It goes right back to the scene in the fifties, just after the manifesto of the AYM called 'Declaration' had been published, and there are many anecdotes concerning long-lost figures like Negley Farson and Oliver Reynolds. Over the past months there have been innumerable CW articles in the Daily Mail, on Atlantis, ghosts, psychometry, immigrants in Leicester, Nostradamus, Moon Madness, psychic detection and the plight of Ian Brady. Down at the 'Ship' Colin presented me with a copy of 'Tell England' by Ernest Raymond to browse through. The previous week I had loaned him a collection of essays by the same author which included 'The Joyous Overplus', a celebration of zest in literature and life.
MAY 2001
Colin is going to open the occultural festival in Brighton (June 25th) and Abraxas has decided to bring out as a booklet his recent whistlestop tour of psychology called Notes for George Pranksy. But we are also running a special offer that is so vulgarly generous it is going to be set out just here:
- AMAZING SPECIAL OFFER!
- Four texts only £10, including P&P!
- (UK only freepost)
All in all, what with his 70th birthday coming up and the republication of Spiderworld and a superb edition of The Age of Defeat by Colin Stanley, it should be an exciting year. (Incidentally, if you want to read Colin's superb new introduction to this classic volume of the Outsider series, just click here. As I write, I have just received a copy of Gary Lachman's 'Turn Off Your Mind: The Mystic Sixties & the Dark Side of the Age of Aquarius', a swashbuckling, swanky pantomime of a read. It combines depth with dash in the way it highlights all the major occult strands of the sixties, starting with Herman Hesse's essay on the Russian Man and working through LSD, sex and satanics and the dreadful retribution of the Manson murders. A photograph of CW is in there, too, and an outline of his contribution to the mayhem: a brilliant and breathtaking cultural survey which will be dealt with more fully in later issues of Abraxas. Meanwhile, among the books I have to review for Issue 18, are 'Hellish Nell', a study of the life of Helen Duncan, a fat, sad and tragic medium who was hounded by the police and eventually tried under the Witchcraft Act, and 'Tunnel Visions' - both published by Fourth Estate - the second an everyday account of Underground folk, gritty observations patched with bits of wisdom, vaguely philosophical in character with some effective vignettes.
NOVEMBER 2001
The Brady controversy has been occupying the papers but seems to be dying down as Ashworth Hospital has come to understand that the prisoner's book is not concerned with the operation of their establishment. It is more of an appraisal of various murderers by a man who has had first hand experience. Colin has been asked to write a full autobiography to replace or augment his preliminary investigation Voyage to a Beginning. When complete, this should be of great interest to those who like philosophy and literature, as his memories go back to the 1950s, to figures like John Braine, Kingsley Amis and John Wain. But there are also loftier personalities like T.S. Eliot, Aldous Huxley, Graham Greene and Henry Miller, and we may even get a glimpse of Marilyn Monroe. There is also a stock of robust, manly stories to show how the great behaved at a more instinctual level. As I write, Savoy Books have just issued 'The Killer' with a new introduction from Colin. This hardback will shortly be added to the Abraxas booklist. Abraxas 18 has just appeared - so hurry up renew your subs if you've got behind - featuring the Outsider 2002 'Postscript', showing how CW's thinking has changed since the 1950's, a fascinating outline by Bruce Charlton of the ideas of John Hansom Mitchell, a survey of the occultural scene by Gary Lachman, a story by Euan Tait, a head-on treatment of CW's evolutionary ideas by Matthew Coniam and two rousing pieces from the inimitable Vaughan Robertson, plus poems, letters and news.
JUNE 2002
Abraxas 19 has been delayed owing to technical problems but I have received some excellent material from Colin, including large chunks of his new auto, the fourth volume of Spiderworld and his update of the Criminal History of Mankind, which is due shortly to be reprinted by Caxton. Recently I uploaded some new articles to the site, including John Pick on Nietzsche and myself on the miner-poet of Cornwall, John Harris, and on the latter's connection with Longfellow. At present all this stuff is bunged together in miscellaneious reference page but I intend to get a firmer organisational grip on things, maybe separating CW material from the general, esoteric and literary stuff. But the site's not that big yet for it to cause real confusion.
DECEMBER 2002
A rather slow year, I'm afraid, owing to a heavy workload - including a filmscript and guidebook commission from Time Out - but now I'm back at Abraxas and have got Issue 19 almost ready, together with the Colin Wilson Festchrift that I'm going to sell at £6, an Abraxas-sized compilation with some original and unexpected articles like an eccentric but wholly enjoyable diatribe against gardening and an in-depth appraisal of bias in history. It will be for sale at around £6 or $12, including post, so reserve yourself a copy and Happy Christmas of course!
MARCH 2007
What a long time it's been since last update. Most Abraxas readers will know by now that the format of Abraxas has changed, from an A4 magazine to a large Crown Quarto paperback of around 260 pages, costing £12 per copy, plus £2 P&P. Facilities for buying Abraxas Unbound, as this new version is titled, are found on the index or home page of this site. Copies can be ordered through the editorial address or at the Lulu Website, though the latter's postal costs - for single issues, that is - are a little astringent. Colin has finished his latest book THE ANGRY YEARS, in which he appraises the Angry Young Men from the viewpoint of one who was a key figure in the group, and now is back working on another crime book.
