Wilbur Wright - ITLAD before ITLAD?

[Anthony Peake]

I have recently managed to source, at long last, a copy of a book that I have wanted to read ever since Colin Wilson referenced it in his book Beyond The Occult. Indeed I am delighted to discover that two or three of my favourite precognition anecdotes, first discovered in Colin's book and repeated in my own, were originally sourced by Colin from this original book. Colin calls the book Immortality and the I Ching by Wilbur Wright. In his footnote on page 237 of the latest Watkins edition of BTO Colin states that this book was, at that stage (I guess in 1988 when BTO was first published), unpublished. I have many times tried to trace this book but with no success. Unfortunately Wilbur Wright has the same name as one of the Wright Brothers and as such he is almost impossible to trace on Google.

Last week I decided to really give this another go. I have just finished writing the Book Proposal for my planned book on Ouspensky, Dunne and Priestley and I came across, again, Colin's reference to Wilbur's work. In Colin's opinion Wilbur was the natural heir to both Dunne and Ouspensky. This fascinated me and I felt that for my next book I really needed to include Wright's ideas. I spent two hours on the web and, quite by chance, came across a reference to WW posted on another forum about three years ago. In this posting the person mentioned another book title written by Wright called Time - Gateway To Immortality. I had the lead I needed.

I found that there were three second hand copies left on Amazon UK and I ordered one.

I have now read the first 50 pages and this guy was the first itladian. Indeed I am relieved that I have only encountered this amazing book now, because if I had read it ten years ago I would have felt that I had stolen many of Wilber’s ideas. If this had been the case then it would not be ITLAD but TGTI and I would be one of his readers! Indeed I suspect that a good deal of CtCw is also to be found in its later pages!

I find it astounding that such an important book failed to find a publisher. From Colin Wilson’s foreword it is clear that this book is the (self) published version of “Immortality and the I Ching”. Indeed as he has read both ITLAD and TGTI I am amazed that Colin did not mention these similarities when he wrote his comments on ITLAD (I will be emailing Colin later today to get more information on Wilber. I am sure that he is now dead but I am really keen to let the world know of the ideas of this lost genius).

In fact this could be, for me at least, evidence of ITLAD/CTF. Is it possible that last time round the Bohmian IMAX I read this book? This time round I subliminally “remembered” what Wright had written and incorporated many of his ideas into my work. Indeed I do find it stunning just how many times Wilbur uses the identical anecdotes to underline his theory as I use in ITLAD to make the same points. I know that these stories were sourced from may different locations as part of my own reading but if I had read TGTI then I would have known that they were all to be found in this one book! Have I re-written (and, I have to admit, elaborated upon,) a past-life memory of a book I knew nothing of in this life? Interesting thought! Was this guidance Daemonic or simply a memory stored deep in my memory banks ….. or is it just pure coincidence?

I will be re-writing my publisher’s Book Proposal in the light of this discovery. WW will now feature in this proposed book with equal heading with Ouspensky and Dunne.

[A Dark Philosopher]

Tony: I've spent the last half hour or so, during a brief break from writing, going through my Colin Wilson books reviewing the references to Wilbur Wright. Like yourself, I'd never seen a copy of this book so once you've read it could I kindly ask to have a look? I will, of course, wear the requisite latex gloves and breathing mask

I have now read the first 50 pages and this guy was the first itladian. Indeed I am relieved that I have only encountered this amazing book now, because if I had read it ten years ago I would have felt that I had stolen many of Wilber’s ideas. If this had been the case then it would not be ITLAD but TGTI and I would be one of his readers! Indeed I suspect that a good deal of CtCw is also to be found in its later pages!

I hope so, my list of references for CtCw is almost a chapter in itself now! I'm always looking for more. Indeed these ideas have been around since antiquity and form the core of esoteric beliefs but you managed to very beautifully craft ITLAD to present CTF as a hypothesised functioning mechanism by which much of the work of these earlier great writers and thinkers could operate in modern scientific standing. I hope I've done similar with CtCw, and of course both ITLAD and CtCw become even stronger and more encompassing when presented as a cohesion.

I'm really looking forward to hearing more from you on this book, sorry I can't see you this week but I'll certainly arrange something soon as we really need to get our heads together on several matters of mutual interest.

[Anthony Peake]

Karl,
Of course. I am sure that you will find the book interesting. The more I read of this book the more that I am really sad that it is highly likely that wilbur is now dead. When he finished the book he was 72 and seriously ill with multiple myeloma. As this was 17 years ago it is highly unlikely that he is still with us.

I emailed Colin Wilson this morning hoping to get further information. Indeed I am already planning on re-writing the structure of my next book to include a detailed account of Wilbur's hypothesis.

Tony

[A Dark Philosopher]

Karl,
Of course. I am sure that you will find the book interesting.

Thank you. I really appreciate that.

The more I read of this book the more that I am really sad that it is highly likely that wilbur is now dead. When he finished the book he was 72 and seriously ill with multiple myeloma. As this was 17 years ago it is highly unlikely that he is still with us. I emailed Colin Wilson this morning hoping to get further information. Indeed I am already planning on re-writing the structure of my next book to include a detailed account of Wilbur's hypothesis.

Well, 89 isn't beyond hope, as my 93 yr old Grandma will tell you, but you are probably correct, given his illness - although obviously I hope not. Maybe Colin can help. I look forward to reading it, thanks again and thanks for highlighting this interesting development.

[Anthony Peake]

This is getting stranger ........

On page 121 of his book Wilbur Wright cites the Maury dream and the headboard. On page 61-62 of ITLAD I cite exactly the same case. As I have read my way through Wright’s book I have come across case after case that I decided to use to support my hypothesis that Wright also used to support his. Now this could be that these cases all come from the same sources and as such this is not surprising. However I made an effort to not use the “classics” but to find little known and rarely used cases. For example I really liked the circumstances surrounding the sad death of Robert Morris senior (page 171/2). I encountered this in Colin Wilson’s book Beyond the Occult and, as it had a Liverpool link (the ship involved was called The Liverpool and Robert Morris senior worked for a Liverpool shipping firm), I decided to use it. I also used the “Down Street” incident where the coachman fell of his horse. This I first read in one of Art Funkhouser’s papers and subsequently again in Priestley’s Man & Time. You may also recall I site a whole series of cases where people did not turn up to travel on the Titanic. Now what is really weird is that Wright used all these examples in his book …..and many other examples littered throughout his book and each one I sourced from different books, articles and monographs, we share.

It is as if I “remembered" reading this book during an earlier run through the Bohmian IMAX and the anecdotes so impressed me that I subliminally selected them when I wrote my own. Was this my Daemon or simply a case of “future memory”?

This thought struck me last night as I was reading Wright’s book. I then thought to myself ….. I wonder if there is a term for such a perception (of “recalling material from one’s future experience and using this material to write something else). And this is where it becomes not only weird but bizarrely self-referential. It was as if at that point I knew what was about to come next …. The term. And so it did. On page 138 Wright introduces his readers to something he calls “The Time Shunt”. He explains this by describing how, in 1979 he awoke from a really vivid dream. In this dream he had found himself reading the last chapter of a novel. The characters were so burned on his memory that on waking he recalled all their names and what they had been doing. His problem was that he had difficulty in “remembering” the earlier chapters. However he embarked upon writing a book based on this dream, and using the same characters. He called this The Sunless Sea” and this subsequently became a best seller both sides of the Atlantic. Over a period of weeks after the dream he was able to recall the rest of the plot and this ended up in the book. He decided on completing the book has he dreamed it to add another, undreamt, chapter that gave the book a very bleak ending.

He considers this to be a classic example of a “Dunne Dream”. However it gets even more itladian in that later his American publishers decided that the last chapter was too depressing and re-wrote the ending by excluding the final chapter. As Wright states, clearly in his dream he was reading the American version, not the British!

He calls this act of creating something from future knowledge brought about by the thing created a “Closed-loop Time System”. This was a description of exactly what I was experiencing as I read his book …… In my past life I read this book and included the examples he used in my own book ( a section written in its first version in 2001); a series of examples that I would only encounter all in the same place in my version of January 2010 in this re-run.

I am not sure that I have described this well but suffice to say I find this as confusing as a seeing a mirror reflecting a mirror …..

[A Dark Philosopher]

Fascinating account Tony, I'm really looking forward to taking a look at this book; you'll almost be accused of plagiarism if this continues!

It is as if I “remembered" reading this book during an earlier run through the Bohmian IMAX and the anecdotes so impressed me that I subliminally selected them when I wrote my own. Was this my Daemon or simply a case of “future memory”?

He calls this act of creating something from future knowledge brought about by the thing created a “Closed-loop Time System”. This was a description of exactly what I was experiencing as I read his book …… In my past life I read this book and included the examples he used in my own book ( a section written in its first version in 2001); a series of examples that I would only encounter all in the same place in my version of January 2010 in this re-run.

These are particularly interesting comments to my mind as I think of my F.A.R (Future Anticipated Recall) concept, as outlined in my Deja Paper. What are your thoughts on F.A.R and your 'writing muse' with this "Closed-Loop Time System" concept in mind? I've received many accounts of F.A.R experiences since I published the paper last November and I'm shortly going to be putting the finishing touches to the follow-up detailing just some of these. Perhaps you would agree to contribute your thoughts on this example (or allow me to reproduce some of your comment above) as another potential angle? It will be interesting to read your thoughts.....