How Colin Wilson Ilumine Each Other

Excerpt from “Colin Wilson And The Other Mode A New Look At The New Existentialism” by Jonathan Lewsey “In the final pages of his first book, At Your Command, Goddard writes about the art of fishing. He is commenting on the two miraculous catches of fish as told in the Gospels of Luke 5:1-11 and John 21:1-14. Here is the first miraculous catch as described in Luke. It occurs right at the outset of Christ’s ministry and is the occasion of him gathering the first of his disciples: One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret; the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God.n2225 ¶1

He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.n2225 ¶2

When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch. Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets. When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. The story of the miraculous catch highlighted by Neville Goddard could be seen as a story illustrating the mnemonic I grew up with—“If you don’t at first succeed, try, try, try again”—an illustration that you have to be doggedly persistent and eventually you’ll have your reward; and this is certainly a justifiable interpretation; but it fails to take into account all the facts in the story. The standard Christian interpretation would probably go like this: the fishermen have been casting their nets with no result and are on the verge of giving up. If they were to continue casting their nets, in the same spirit of hopelessness that has taken hold of them, they would almost certainly continue to have the same negative results. It is the fact that they are willing to continue casting their nets, no matter how absurd, no matter how hopeless it may appear, for no other reason than that Christ tells them to do it—because they believe in Christ, because they know that he is the Son of God.n2225 ¶3

Now this interpretation is perfectly reasonable and congruent with the facts. But it will only make sense to somebody who also believes that Christ is the Son of God, and therefore has supernatural powers that enable him to see what they, the disciples, cannot see. It will only make sense to Christians who have a literal understanding of the Gospels.n2225 ¶4

There is a modern-day recreation of this parable in the film Forrest Gump, where, having been discharged from the army, Gump determines to set up in the shrimping business in honor of his friend Bubba, who has been killed in Vietnam. For months on end, it appears as though Gump has made a disastrous decision. Every day he takes his trawler out, and every day he returns empty-handed—principally because the competition has always got there first and there are no more shrimps to be had. Then suddenly, the impossible happens—a hurricane hits the region and all the competition is wiped out—leaving Gump to monopolize the waters, with the result that very quickly he goes from being pretty well destitute to being a millionaire. And the only reason this has happened is that Gump refused to give up—he kept on casting his nets in spite of the apparently absurd odds ranged against him. (6) Neville Goddard’s interpretation of the miraculous fish story is as follows: “If you would catch that which is beyond your present capacity, you must launch out into deeper waters, for, within your present consciousness, such fish or desires cannot swim.n2225 ¶5

To launch out into deeper waters, you leave behind you all that is now your present problem, or limitation, by taking your ATTENTION AWAY from it. Turn your back completely upon every problem and limitation that you now possess. Dwell upon just being by saying “I AM”, “I AM”, “I AM”, to yourself. Continue to declare to yourself that you just are. Do not condition this declaration, just continue to FEEL yourself to be and without warning you will find yourself slipping the anchor that tied you to the shallow of your problems and moving out into the deep.” (7) What he is saying is this: Christ is your awareness — your consciousness — your sense of being in the world, of being a part of the world; but Christ is outside and beyond your rational consciousness; that is, He is beyond the part of you that thinks and worries and obsesses. Christ is purely and simply your awareness of being. Christ is that which gives you life — the totally impersonal force that means you are alive in the world — irrespective of your ambitions, problems, neuroses, successes and failures. Christ is Life itself — the life in which you are participating, simply by breathing and being on this planet.n2225 ¶6

Your rational consciousness is that that attends to a problem and seeks to resolve it; because that is what our powers of reasoning are for is it not – for problem solving? But we make a critical mistake in identifying ourselves, our being, our being-alive-in-the-world, solely with this problem solving faculty. The problem solving faculty is but a tool for us to use when required.n2225 ¶7

The message of Neville Goddard was: Nothing will change until you change your state of consciousness, and this is the true message of the fishing parable. It is not a question of believing in any external power. It is a question of believing in the power that you already have and are. Now to fully understand what Goddard is saying it is necessary to turn to a little book entitled Feeling is the Secret.n2225 ¶8

Here is the opening of Chapter 1: ‘The world, and all within it, is man’s conditioned consciousness objectified. Consciousness is the cause as well as the substance of the entire world.n2225 ¶9

So it is to consciousness that we must turn if we would discover the secret of creation…… Consciousness is the one and only reality, not figuratively but actually. This reality may for the sake of clarity be likened unto a stream which is divided into two parts, the conscious and the subconscious. In order to intelligently operate the law of consciousness, it is necessary to understand the relationship between the conscious and the subconscious. The conscious is personal and selective; the subconscious is impersonal and non-selective. The conscious is the realm of effect; the subconscious is the realm of cause. These two aspects are the male and female divisions of consciousness. The conscious is male; the subconscious is female. The conscious generates ideas and impresses these ideas on the subconscious; the subconscious receives ideas and gives form and expression to them.n2225 ¶10

This mechanism is recognised in business and management training which employs something called the four levels of competence as follows: Unconscious incompetence, Conscious incompetence, Conscious competence, Unconscious competence. When we start out to learn a new skill we may not realise the level of our incompetence, so the first task is to make the individual aware of their incompetence, then once you have learned the skill it is a question of passing the knowledge to the unconscious so that the skill may become automatic. This was first posited by Martin M. Broadwell in 1969, about the same time Colin Wilson was formulating his theory of the Robot, which of course is an acknowledgement of precisely the same mechanism.n2225 ¶11

Goddard continues: ‘By this law — first conceiving an idea and then impressing the idea conceived on the subconscious — all things evolve out of consciousness; and without this sequence, there is not anything made that is made. The conscious impresses the subconscious, while the subconscious expresses all that is impressed upon it. The subconscious does not originate ideas, but accepts as true those which the conscious mind feels to be true and, in a way known only to itself, objectifies the accepted ideas. Therefore, through his power to imagine and feel and his freedom to choose the idea he will entertain, man has control over creation. Control of the subconscious is accomplished through control of your ideas and feelings. The mechanism of creation is hidden in the very depth of the subconscious, the female aspect or womb of creation. The subconscious transcends reason and is independent of induction. It contemplates a feeling as a fact existing within itself and on this assumption proceeds to give expression to it. The creative process begins with an idea and its cycle runs its course as a feeling and ends in a volition to act. Ideas are impressed on the subconscious through the medium of feeling. No idea can be impressed on the subconscious until it is felt, but once felt — be it good, bad or indifferent — it must be expressed. Feeling is the one and only medium through which ideas are conveyed to the subconscious. Therefore, the man who does not control his feeling may easily impress the subconscious with undesirable states. By control of feeling is not meant restraint or suppression of your feeling, but rather the disciplining of self to imagine and entertain only such feeling as contributes to your happiness.n2225 ¶12

Control of your feeling is all important to a full and happy life.’ (8) (my italics)” Read the book on archive.org See also The Forgotten Library: Colin Wilson, the Other Self, and Unlocking the Mind’s Hidden Vaultsn2225 ¶13