The ‘Ladder of Selves’

In Mysteries (Grafton, 1986) Colin Wilson recounts the experiences of Alan Vaughan with a ouija board. Vaughan and his friend asked the board about the death of a well-known newspaper columnist and they were informed she had died of poison. At the inquest ten days later this was revealed to be true. Another spirit called Nada got inside Vaughan’s head so he could hear her repeating the same phrases over and over again. The board spelt out ‘Awful consequences - possession’. Wilson records, ‘In the presence of a friend who understood such matters, another spirit called "z" made Vaughan write out the message: "Each of us has a spirit while living. Do not meddle with the spirits of the dead".’ After this Vaughan, who had been pale and scared, felt a surge of enormous energy and well-being. He felt uncontained by time and space and began to sense what other people were thinking and what was going to happen in the future.

Colin Wilson relates these occurrences with his own convincing theory of a ‘ladder of selves’, a type of internal hierarchy, the upper echelons housing a superior being with heightened faculties that we can learn to call upon. This higher self or selves have paranormal powers that may be accessed when we achieve peak experience or certain states that we may call mystical or inspired. However, he also says:

Most recorded instances of telepathy and prevision have taken
place without the surge of heightened consciousness…So it
would seem that if such powers depend upon our ‘higher centres’,
then there are two ways of establishing contact: either clambering
up the ladder, or through some form of short-circuit that connects
the higher self and the everyday self without the everyday self
being aware of it.

There seems much to recommend Wilson’s theory. It explains why some people are natural witches or mediums and why others have to work to achieve the right state of mind. For instance, some people are able to charm away warts with a touch, while it took me three attempts, with three different rituals, before a small wart on the hand of one of my sons disappeared. However, there may be advantages to taking the long route for it comes with inbuilt safeguards such as protective rituals and achieving the right state of consciousness. In other words, the result seems dependent on self-expansion, focus, inner strength and harmony to the point where the ‘spiritual essence’ is enhanced and the goal, whether it involves mediumship or something else, becomes to some extent irrelevant. The talking glass needs none of these things. It is an effective form of short-circuit’ and, therefore, a dubious idea.