Carole M. Cusack, Gurdjieff and the Angry Young Men: Stuart Holroyd, Colin Wilson, and Waking Up in 1950s Britain By Carole Cusack

https://www.academia.edu/146233482/Carole_M_Cusack_Gurdjieff_and_the_Angry_Young_Men_Stuart_Holroyd_Colin_Wilson_and_Waking_Up_in_1950s_Britain?email_work_card=title In 1950s Britain the writers Stuart Holroyd (1933-2025) and Colin Wilson (1931-2013) were part of a group of working-class and lower-middle class novelists and playwrights who were known as the ‘angry young men’. Wilson and Holroyd, friends over three decades, shared an interest in literature, esotericism and altered states of consciousness, sexual flourishing, the paranormal, and spirituality more broadly. Both explored the teachings of Armenian-Greek spiritual teacher G. I. Gurdjieff (1877-1949), who featured in Wilson’s epoch-making book, The Outsider (1956) and Holroyd’s unpublished play, The Prophet (1959). This article draws connections between: Wilson’s and Holroyd’s textual and theoretical engagement with the Fourth Way; Fourth Way groups and teachers in Britain with which they interacted, chiefly John Godolphin Bennett (1897-1974) and his pupils; and the rise of anti-establishment literature and culture in the UK in the 1950s and 1960s. The value of Holroyd’s The Prophet, and Holroyd’s literary reputation, are asserted to be greater than is usually acknowledged. ...