A film documentary like this about the life and times of Colin Wilson has been long, long overdue, and this 100-minute offering from Philip Gardiner and Dennis Price is a worthy effort in putting matters right.

    For half a century, Wilson has been one of the major figures in the pantheon of 'alternative' science and philosophy and an intrepid pioneer in studies of consciousness, as well as one of our most ground-breaking novelists, critics and literary theorists. However, while this film recognises Wilson's greatness and does provide a useful introduction to his ideas, there are, sadly, some missed opportunities.

    Commendably, if somewhat drily, it deals with key moments and turning points in Wilson's long life - he's 80 next June - but at times there's too much emphasis on the celebrities he's encountered during his career when the time could have been better spent discussing his works in more detail. There seems to be a fundamental misconception here - Wilson is not and never has been about celebrity, quite the opposite, in fact. However, having said that, one has to admit that in today's cultural climate the celebrity aspect of the film might just attract some new readers to the Wilson canon.

    Similarly, the concluding five-minute interview with Joy Wilson fails to ask the crucial question that any interviewer worth his salt would ask - 'What has it been like living with Colin Wilson for more than 50 years?' The question is not put. We would have loved to know. Instead, there are more tiresome questions about celebrities she has met.

    I think the problem lies in Dennis Price's rather woolly and awestruck approach to interviewing Wilson when a more rigorous, journalistic attitude would have delivered even more of substance from a man who is undoubtedly one of the major writers and thinkers of our day.

    For example, 'existentialism' is not mentioned, although the cover of Wilson's 1966 book, Introduction to the New Existentialism, does appear (along with images of many of Wilson's other titles which, hopefully, will boost sales of his back catalogue). This is surely a major oversight as it is Wilson's optimistic 'new existentialism', since its formulation half a century ago, which remains a great challenge to Western philosophy. Perhaps Gardiner and Price felt this would have gone over the heads of their envisaged audience, but surely viewers could have been given the chance to learn about it.

    Most of the film is a face-to-face interview with Wilson at his home in Gorran Haven, Cornwall, interspersed with linking sequences of him giving a guided tour (to a hand-held camera) of his cobwebby library sheds which hold tens of thousands of books, and of his jungle of a garden.

    Revealing the breathtaking sweep of Wilson's interests explored in at least 120 books, the film goes straight into his long-held conviction that humankind is on the verge of an evolutionary leap forward, his concept of the untapped potential of the mind, and the power of the imagination, and then switches to discussion of the possibility of life after death, poltergeists and hauntings.

    Wilson talks about his studies of serial killers and his 10-year correspondence with Moors murderer Ian Brady, his criticism of major literary figures, the purpose of the universe in which he sees an underlying intelligence, and how our minds can influence our destiny. We hear about Wilson's early life in Leicester, his conversion from science to literature, his teenage contemplation of suicide and how he realised that it was more life he wanted, not less; his time in the RAF, his first marriage, the media prejudice which hit hard upon publication of Religion and the Rebel, his follow-up to The Outsider, and how he has always felt he has been 'swimming against the current' of mainstream thinking.

    Crucially, he tells of his association with the American existential psychologist Abraham Maslow in the 1960s and his investigation over four decades of the 'peak experience' - that moment when perception suddenly soars to ineffable glimpses of a higher reality - and how he has learned to induce and sustain these periods of heightened consciousness which he believes is the key to our evolutionary development.

    I like the apt title of the film although it is not drawn from anything Wilson actually says in it. There's scarce mention of how he was involved in the 'angry young man' scene of the 1950s, or of his pacesetting explorations of ancient civilisations and how they were much more advanced intellectually and technologically than conventional science will allow. And, inexplicably, the concluding interview with Joy suddenly cuts straight to trailers for other Reality films without any credits rolling, or any pause for reflection.

    Despite such shortcomings, Gardiner and Price are to be congratulated in directing resources to this informative documentary which gives a welcome insight into a man whose life's work is so hugely relevant to our rapidly changing times.

►This article also appears at the Colin Wilson World website, which I manage on behalf of the author. See Resources page for link.

 

New York journalist Daniel Pinchbeck takes a broad philosophical and optimistic view of 2012 in this purposeful and engaging documentary (October, 2010) which he has made, as executive producer, with the Brazilian director João Amorim, and others of like mind. 
    Amorim follows Pinchbeck as he meets with a wide and colourful range of sustainability activists. Indeed, Pinchbeck's holistic approach draws on the widest spectrum of 'alternative' opinion from many fields including the environment, ecology, economics, archaeology, permaculture, the arts, medicine, architecture, yoga and meditation, all packed into a compelling 85 minutes.
    Pinchbeck says: 'We need to recognize that the inertia of our society as it operates now is going to lead to cataclysmic effects, so a critical mass of people need to get fully engaged in changing that.' He thinks that in order to attain a sufficiently intensified state of consciousness that can address the environmental, economic and military crises besetting us, we need to integrate empirical and rational thought with the intuitive and shamanic modes of cognition known to tribal cultures.
    I very much agree with this. Unconscious forces unleashed by millennial dread - including the whole of the “New Age” phenomenon and 2012 omens - must be shaped by and applied with a certain practicality if they are to be of any use to us in this time of psychic change. All this is reflected in the film's sub-title (or sub-text), 'From Conscious Evolution to Practical Solutions'.    
    The possibility of a paradigm integrating ancient wisdom and shamanism with contemporary scientific method lies in the potential for increased consciousness. After all, the more you delve into the shamanic eidos, the more it is capable, or ought to be capable, of creating a spur for action against planetary catastrophe. Echoes of his new book, Breaking Open the Head (2010), in which he describes how his head was 'broken open' during a shamanic ritual involving the hallucinogenic plant iboga in the Gabon, are to be found in the film. On both a personal and an intellectual quest, he was also led to practising shamans in the Ecuadorian Amazon and Mexico.
    Pinchbeck believes that the counterculture's drug experiments, which began on a wide scale in the 1960s, may finally pave the way for some long-term dividends. Rock star Sting appears in the documentary to tell (somewhat drolly) of his experience with psychotropic plants of the Amazonian rainforest. Movie actress Ellen Page excitedly describes her visit to a sustainable farm, and film director David Lynch expounds intently on the benefits of meditation, which he has practised for many years.   
    The 'secret purpose', the makers of the film admit - although it's really an open secret - is to get people to view the world differently, and begin to participate in a conscious movement towards personal and social transformation, and it can only contribute to the shift in awareness. To my mind, the great affliction of our time, endemic in all our strife and conflict, and troubling us individually and socially, is the loss of soul. When soul is neglected, it doesn't just disappear somewhere; it re-emerges in the world symptomatically in violence, lack of meaning, obsessions, addictions and preoccupations with image over substance 
    Thus 2012: Time for Change presents an sanguine alternative to apocalyptic 'end of the world' scenarios: as 'conscious agents of evolution', it is possible for us to restructure post-industrial society on ecological principles to make a world that works for everyone.
    There are three key points in this thoughtful film which I have known as intuitive truths for decades, and which have long been reflected in my own writings: unconsciousness is the cause of problems in the world, altered states of consciousness can provide a glimpse of the oneness of the universe that we need to understand if we are to improve our world, and inventing God or gods absolves us of the responsibility we ought to be shouldering ourselves.
    The message of 2012: Time for Change chimes with this in that, rather than collapse and anarchy, 2012 holds out hope of a restorative global ethos in which involvement in soul and spirit becomes paramount, and replaces the brittle materialism that has held sway for too long.
    But, of course, the crucial question is: with all the trouble that there is in the world, how much time do we have to effect such meaningful change? The optimism of the upbeat Pinchbeck remains infectious: as he says in the documentary, the agricultural revolution took thousands of years, the industrial revolution hundreds, the information revolution a decade, and so the hoped-for 'wisdom revolution' might take only a few years. As we know, change has to start with the individual. As many individuals as possible need to watch this film.

As the title implies, this recording of Ian Crane’s timely and revealing address to the Glastonbury Symposium in July 2010 goes much wider than the scandalous BP oil spill incident in the Gulf of Mexico.

    Ian’s view is that this disaster bears all the hallmarks of a contrived event, and one which will have long-lasting and far-reaching impact upon the lives of tens of thousands and perhaps hundreds of millions of people - explaining the ‘population reduction‘ element of the title of the DVD which is an excellent example of Crane’s performance style and ebullient rhetoric.

    In particular, he says we must urgently examine the deployment of the toxic substance corexit which, used to disperse the oil, entered the Gulf Stream and is now being carried around the world.

    Coincidentally or otherwise, the release of the DVD coincides with the publication (August 2010) by O Books of Karen Sawyer’s collection of 'alternative research', The Dangerous Man: Conversations with Free-Thinkers and Truth-Seekers, in which Ian features. Just how dangerous Crane is to the powers-that-be remains to be seen.

    Certainly, he is being monitored: at one of his recent talks, a sheet of BP headed notepaper was passed to him with an unsigned message thanking him for his talk - such heavy irony does not go unremarked.

    Ian is a former oilfield executive who now writes and lectures on - and I quote from his publicity blurb - ‘the geo-political webs that are being spun, with particular focus on US hegemony and the New World Order agenda for control of global resources’. I first came into contact with him a few years ago when I interviewed him about the Codex Alimentarius, the blatant UN attempt to halt organic farming and destroy the complementary and alternative healthcare industry, which is the subject he writes about in Sawyer’s book.

    His general approach is summed up by a quote he uses from Zbigniew Brzezinski’s 1969 book Between Two Ages: America‘s Role in the Technotronic Era: ‘The challenge for governments in the future will be to prevent man from effectively discovering his true self, and keeping humanity locked in consumerist materialism.’ In other words, the ‘deep agenda’ comprises another assault on gnosis as heresy against the established order.

    Ian asks: was the ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico caused by equipment failure, poor safety procedures, incompetence or something much more sinister?

    On April 19, 2010, he sent out a warning newsletter as he had a strong sense of foreboding that a 'false flag' event was about to happen. This was because he had realized that Waco, the Oklahoma City bombing and the Columbine High School massacre had all take place during the April 19/20 festival of 'Sacrifice by Fire' which he claims is within the occult belief system of those who regard themselves as ‘the rightful rulers of a planetary fiefdom’ - although, disappointingly, in this DVD he does not explain how he arrived at this idea.

    Crucially, he identifies the individual who was ultimately responsible for the oil-rig explosion and says this person must be required to reveal ‘his allegiances outside of BP’.

    Drawing inspiration from Peruvian shamans, the ‘wisdom keepers’ of the ancient Inca, and their prophecy for 2012, Ian’s message essentially is optimistic as he believes that people worldwide taking responsibility for themselves and their actions, and consequently the future of the planet - the emergence of ‘homo luminous’ - can subvert the machinations of our would-be oppressors. If we didn't have Ian, we'd have to invent him!
 

  

The Rosslyn Frequency: Uncovering the Hidden World of the Knights Templar

Reality Films $19.95/£9.99
 

Since the 15th-century Rosslyn Chapel, near Edinburgh, Scotland, featured in Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, it has become a chiliastic shrine for occult investigation and a symbol of extra-dimensional portals and possibilities.

    A whole industry of extravagant associations has sprung up around it - the Knights Templar, the quest for the Holy Grail, King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table, and fabulous buried treasure.

    This film, under Philip Gardiner's distinctive directorial stamp of psychedelic CGI and billowing musical soundtrack, is about one man's encounter with the mysteries of Rosslyn. Bluff Scotsman Brian Allan, a paranormal investigator, describes his strange experiences at the chapel in the company of various psychics, including mediums and a dowser. In one place, the floor rolls like the deck of a ship, in another, he seems to levitate.

    The Rosslyn "frequency" concerns the hundreds of peculiar cubes with strange carvings that adorn the chapel, each arch of cubes terminating in a stone angel playing a medieval instrument. Allan suggests they represent a musical chord, the augmented fourth, known as the devil's frequency because of its power to induce unease in the listener, and apparently banned by the Catholic Church for this reason. Perhaps it would be better called the demented fourth!

    Despite the film's sub-title, there's not much at all about the Knights Templar. Rosslyn Chapel is a treasure trove of medieval imagery but it was not built by the Templars and, as far as I know, it has no connection with them at all. The Templar order was destroyed more than a century before the chapel was built, although the main base of the Scottish Templars had been a few miles from Rosslyn Castle. Indeed, the St Clair family, who built the chapel, testified against the Knights Templar at trials in Edinburgh in 1309.

    And as Allan points out, the architecture of the chapel closely follows that of the east choir of Glasgow Cathedral, rather than being based on Solomon's Temple or any Templar blueprint.

    From the enigma of Rosslyn, Allan takes an unexpected turn into quantum science which to him seems to suggest the underlying gnosis of existence - well, "there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy".

    Allan's idea of "quantum magic", the ability to affect reality by application of the will, echoes the definition of magic made long ago by Aleister Crowley and Dion Fortune - causing changes in consciousness at will - and this seems to tie in with how, at the sub-atomic level, the experimenter affects the experiment.

    This is interesting but it's not immediately clear what it has to do with Rosslyn, unless it's Allan's suggestion that the enormous increase in visitors in recent years has been draining the chapel of its energies - so much so that it could take another 500 years to recharge itself and make itself ready once more for "experiment".

    Again, on behalf of the general viewer, as with Ancient Code: The Movie (reviewed below), I would have liked an explanation of terms - in this case, for example, epiphany, boson, God particle, gnosis. But I expect it was thought this would slow the pace. It's also a pity that there's no actual film of Rosslyn Chapel, only stills and computer graphics.