seriousness not usually found in the genre, but never to lose sight of the need to entertain. (I have even written a volume of tongue-in-cheek pornography and diabolism—The Sex Diary of Garard Sorme—which embodies, in fictional form, the ideas I expound in my phenomenological study, Origins of the Sexual Impulse.)
All of this should make clear why I feel such affinities with Lovecraft, and why the present volume contains my own partly tongue-in-cheek, partly affectionate tribute to him. It so happens that the Lovecraft tradition is largely my own. I feel more at home with books than with people. I take a great delight in adding authenticity to my fiction by piling—in the results of my reading, and by working out elaborate myths of metaphysical systems. So in this book I have combined Lovecraft’s preoccupation with strange unknown forces with my own interest in the problem of why the human race suddenly began to produce ‘outsiders’ in such quantity after the French Revolution.
I also realised, after I had finished the book, that I had stolen its central idea—of mind parasites—from a science fiction story I once read. In this story, the first man to travel to Mars suddenly has an experience of some strange creature wrenching itself out of his mind, and hurtling itself back screaming towards the earth, which is its home. Unfortunately, this story ended, in the rather ‘smart’ manner so characteristic of pulp science fiction, with the man landing on Mars, and immediately being possessed again by the same parasites. For some reason, writers of science fiction take a delight in pessimistic endings. (My friend A. E. Van Vogt is a remarkable exception; this is because he never ceases to be preoccupied with the problem of the superman which, like myself, he inherited from Nietzsche and Shaw.) And while I am admitting to theft (something that never bothers me since I feel that, like Shakespeare, I improve everything I steal), I may as well mention being impressed by a film called Forbidden Planet, which I saw in 1956, in which a scientist, (played by Walter Pidgeon) conjures up—without knowing it—monsters from his ‘id’, which destroy every expedition that tries to land on the planet and ‘rescue’ him. Anyone who wishes to understand phenomenology without effort should go and see this film.
The present novel has one passage to which I would draw your attention: the description of Austin’s night-long battle with the mind parasites. This scene—I say with all modesty—is a tour de force, since it spends several thousand words describing a battle that takes place entirely in the mind, and in which, therefore, none of the usual cliches of battle scenes can be called upon.
I should also add that the ghastly, flaccid writing of the opening pages was supposed to be a parody of the Stevenson-Machen type of narrator, with perhaps a touch of Serenus Zeitblom from Mann’s Doktor Faustus. It didn’t come off; but what the hell. I’d rather get on with another book than tinker about with it. I have also cut out a fifty thousand word extract from Karel Weissman’s Historical Reflections from the middle of this novel; my wife felt that it slowed down the narrative. I may later publish it as a separate volume.
—COLIN WILSON
Hollins College, Virginia
Christmas, 1966
THIS EDITION OF THE MIND PARASITES CONTAINS THE
COMPLETE TEXT OF THE ORIGINAL HARD-COVER EDITION.
NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED…
PREFATORY NOTE
WE MAKE NO APOLOGY for devoting Volume III of the Cambridge History of the Nuclear Age to this new edition of that important document known as The Mind Parasites by Professor Gilbert Austin.
The Mind Parasites is, of course, a composite document made up from various papers, tape recordings, and verbatim reports of conversations with Professor Austin. The first edition, which was only about half the size of the present one, was published shortly after Professor Austin’s disappearance in 2007, and before the Pallas had been found by Captain Ramsay’s expedition. It consisted mainly of the notes made at the request of Colonel Spencer, and of the tape recording numbered 12xm, in the library of London University. The later edition that appeared in 2012 included the transcript of the shorthand conversation taken down by Leslie Purvison on 14 January, 2004. Inserted into these transcripts was material from two articles written by Austin for the Historical Review, and from his preface to Karel Weissman’s Historical Reflections.
This new edition retains the old text in toto, and includes completely new material from the so-called Martinus File, that was for many years in the possession of Mrs Sylvia Austin, and that is now in the World Historical Archive. The editors have made clear in the footnotes 2 the sources from which various sections have been drawn, and haveutilized the still unpublished Autobiographical Notes written by Austin in 2001.
No edition of the Mind Parasites can claim to be definitive. It has been our aim to arrange the material in such a way that it forms a continual narrative. Where it was thought to be strictly relevant, material from Austin’s philosophical papers has been added, and one short passage from the introduction to Homage to Edmund Husserl, edited by Austin and Reich. The resulting narrative seems, in the opinion of the editors, to support the views they advanced in New Light on the Pallas Mystery. But it should be emphasized that this was not their aim. They have tried to include all relevant material, and believe that the justice of this claim will be demonstrated when Northwestern University completes its edition of the Complete Papers of Gilbert Austin.
—H.S. W.P.
St. Henry’s College, Cambridge,
2014
(THIS SECTION IS TRANSCRIBED FROM A TAPE RECORDING MADE BY DR. AUSTIN A FEW MONTHS BEFORE HIS DISAPPEARANCE. IT HAS BEEN EDITED BY H. F. SPENCER.3 )
A STORY AS COMPLEX AS THIS has no obvious starting point; neither am I able to follow Colonel Spencer’s suggestion of ‘beginning at the beginning and going on to the end’, since history has a habit of meandering. The best plan is probably to tell my personal story of the battle against the mind parasites, and to leave the rest of the picture to the historians.
My own story, then, begins on the 20th of December 1994, when I returned home from a meeting of the Middlesex Archaeological Society, before whom I had delivered a lecture on the ancient civilizations of Asia Minor. It had been a most lively and stimulating evening; there is no pleasure more satisfying than discoursing on a subject that is close to your heart in front of a completely attentive audience. Add to this that our dinner had finished with an excellent claret of the 1980’s, and it will be understood that I was in a most cheerful and agreeable frame of mind when I inserted my key in the front door of my flat in Covent Garden.
My telescreen was ringing as I came in, but it stopped before I reached it. I glanced into the recording slot; it registered a Hampstead number that I recognized as that of Karel Weissman. It was a quarter to twelve, and I was sleepy; I decided to ring him back in the morning. But somehow, I felt uncomfortable as I undressed for bed. We were very old friends, and he frequently rang me up late at night to ask me to look something up in the British Museum (where I spent most mornings). Yet this time, some faint psychic alarm bell made me uncomfortable; I went to the screen in my dressing gown and dialled his number. It rang for a long time; I was about to hang up when the face of his secretary appeared on the screen. He said: ‘You have heard the news?’ ‘What news?’ I asked. ‘Dr. Weissman is dead.’ I was so stunned that I had to sit down. I finally mustered the wit to ask: ‘How should I have known?’ ‘It is in the evening papers.’ I told him I had only just come in. He said: ‘Ah, I see. I’ve been trying to ring you all evening. Could you possibly come up here right away?’
‘But why? Is there anything I can do? Is Mrs. Weissman well?’
‘She
