Some of his fiction contains relatively minor fantastic elements. Nevertheless, his sf is of considerable interest. A further difficulty is that, as his total oeuvre grew, it became harder to work out which texts were deeply considered, which were blarney, and which were potboilers. Sf and scientific critics did not generally respond with much warmth to Wilson's later nonfiction, perhaps because his eagerness to penetrate the barriers of 'orthodox' science led him into assumptions about and formulations of the nature of consciousness that seemed to lurch dangerously far into the realms of Pseudoscience that is, the science he used as underpinning for his sf is often not generally accepted as such. He was later known in particular for his numerous books on crime, notably A Criminal History of Mankind ( 1984) and Written in Blood: A History of Forensic Detection ( 1989) and for his investigations of the paranormal, of which the most important are The Occult ( 1971), Mysteries: An Investigation into the Occult, the Paranormal, and the Supernatural ( 1978), Poltergeist! ( 1981), Beyond the Occult ( 1988) and From Atlantis to the Sphinx: Recovering the Lost Wisdom of the Ancient World ( 1996), which locates its titular 'lost wisdom' in cultures like Atlantis, before the advent of civilizations built around the control of fertility (see Feminism). (1931-2013) UK author of speculative works, who remains best known for his first book, The Outsider ( 1956), in which he gave graphic expression to the brilliant autodidactism, the erratic system-building mentality, the tendency to treat himself (and a previous few others) as a natural elite, and the voracity for new mental sensations that would mark the very numerous titles he would produce over the next several decades, many of them of some indirect interest to sf and fantasy writers and readers.

Colin wilson beyond the occult