Wilson, Ian 1941–

(Ian William Wilson)

PERSONAL:

Born March 30, 1941, in London, England; son of William Thomas (a clerk) and Doris (a school secretary) Wilson; married Judith Mary Dyett (a psychologist), December 9, 1967; children: Adrian Peter, Noel Christopher. Education: Magdalen College, Oxford, B.A., 1963, M.A., 1977. Religion: Roman Catholic. Hobbies and other interests: Art history, foreign travel, painting, photography.

ADDRESSES:

Home and office—Bristol, England.

CAREER:

Author and historian. Bristol United Press Ltd. (newspaper publishers), Bristol, England, publicity and promotions manager, 1969-79; full-time writer, 1979—.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Gold Award from Miami Film Festival and British Academy Robert Flaherty Award for best feature documentary of the year, both 1978, both for "The Silent Witness."

WRITINGS:

The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus Christ?, Doubleday (Garden City, NY), 1978, published in England as The Turin Shroud, Gollancz (London, England), 1978, (with Barry Schwortz) McArthur (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2000.

Mind out of Time? Reincarnation Claims Investigated, Gollancz (London, England), 1981.

All in the Mind: Reincarnation, Hypnotic Regression, Stigmata, Multiple Personality, and other Little-Understood Powers of the Mind, Doubleday (Garden City, NY), 1982.

Jesus: The Evidence, Harper & Row (New York, NY), 1984, republished as Jesus: The Evidence: The Latest Research and Discoveries Investigated, HarperSanFrancisco (San Francisco, CA), 1996.

Exodus: The True Story behind the Biblical Account, Harper & Row (San Francisco, CA), 1985.

The Mysterious Shroud, photographs by Vernon Miller, Doubleday (Garden City, NY), 1986.

Worlds Beyond: From the Files of the Society of Psychical Research, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (London, England), 1986.

The After Death Experience: The Physics of the Nonphysical, Morrow (New York, NY), 1987.

Undiscovered: The Fascinating World of Undiscovered Places, Graves, Wrecks, and Treasure, Beech Tree Books (New York, NY), 1987.

The Bleeding Mind: An Investigation into the Mysterious Phenomenon of Stigmata, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (London, England), 1988.

Stigmata: An Investigation into the Mysterious Appearance of Christ's Wounds in Hundreds of People from Medieval Italy to Modern America, Harper & Row (San Francisco, CA), 1989.

The Columbus Myth: Did Men of Bristol Reach America before Columbus?, Simon & Schuster (London, England), 1991, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1992.

Holy Faces, Secret Places: The Quest for Jesus' True Likeness, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1991.

Shakespeare, the Evidence: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Man and His Work, St. Martin's (New York, NY), 1994.

Out of the Midst of the Fire: Divine Presence in Deuteronomy (dissertation), Scholars Press (Atlanta, GA), 1995.

The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence That the World's Most Sacred Relic Is Real, Free Press (New York, NY), 1998.

The Bible Is History, Weidenfeld & Nicholson (London, England), 1999.

Before the Flood: Understanding the Biblical Flood as Recalling a Real-life Event, Orion (London, England), 2001, St. Martin's (New York, NY), 2002, published as Before the Flood: The Biblical Flood as a Real Event and How It Changed the Course of Civilization, St. Martin's Griffin (New York, NY), 2004.

Past Lives: Unlocking the Secrets of Our Ancestors, Cassell (London, England), 2001.

John Cabot and the Matthew, Breakwater Books (St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada), 2001.

Nostradamus: The Man behind the Prophecies, St. Martin's (New York, NY), 2002.

Murder at Golgotha: Revisiting the Most Famous Crime Scene in History, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2006.

Lost World of the Kimberley: Extraordinary Glimpses of Australia's Ice Age Ancestors, Allen & Unwin (Crows Nest, New South Wales, Australia), 2006.

Coauthor of screenplay, The Silent Witness, based on The Turin Shroud (Screenpro Films, 1978). Contributor to magazines and newspapers, including Sunday Times.

SIDELIGHTS:

Author Ian Wilson once told CA: "A compulsion to investigate the unexplained has perhaps been the chief motivating factor in my writing career. This began as early as 1955 when I first became aware of the Turin shroud and found myself, as an agnostic, quite unable to dismiss the cloth's image as the work of any forger. In 1973 I was able to examine the Shroud at a rare private showing, and began serious work on a book, but found myself unable to interest British publishers in what seemed to them such an obscure subject. Then in 1976, after a Catholic Herald article on the Shroud appeared, I was contacted by Doubleday, and The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus Christ? was born. The film Silent Witness followed, and today the book has already been translated into French and Japanese, with further foreign language editions in progress.

"In 1979 I decided to commence a full-time writing career, with a view to researching in depth the phenomenon of apparent past-life recall. As I am now a Roman Catholic, the phenomenon raises precisely the same quarrel in my mind as originally raised by the Shroud. It is impossible to tell at this stage what the eventual verdict will be, but after Mind out of Time? Reincarnation Claims Investigated, I have promised myself to choose a more frivolous subject."

Whether frivolous or not, in 1994 Wilson temporarily abandoned the mysteries of religion and turned to researching bard and playwright William Shakespeare in hopes of discovering the benefactor behind a large amount of his work. Wilson discovered Ferdinando Stanley, or Lord Strange, who had a special love for theater and was known to have supported Christopher Marlowe and Edmund Spenser. In Shakespeare, the Evidence: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Man and His Work, Wilson explains how Lord Strange's support helped Shakespeare rise from his low ranks to become one of the most famous and respected men in England and the world. Wilson also explores another avenue of the writer's life: his religion. He theorizes that Shakespeare was a closet Catholic and offers evidence that he and his father, John Shakespeare, supported the underground religious movement. While a Publishers Weekly reviewer claimed that there is "virtually no hard evidence to back up this theory," the reviewer did give Wilson credit for his tireless research efforts, stating that "Wilson has produced an intriguing, richly illustrated, surprisingly full-bodied biography" that "plunges readers into Shakespeare's turbulent milieu" while providing "an autobiographical or historic context for most of his plays."

Ten years after the 1988 carbon-fourteen dating of the Shroud of Turin, which led scientists to conclude that the Shroud was created between the years 1260 and 1390, Wilson published an updated history of the Shroud, The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence That the World's Most Sacred Relic Is Real. In it, Wilson scrutinizes everything that has been said about and done to the cloth, which the author truly believes was the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth. He explains how the carbon dating may have been thrown off as much as a thousand years by a bacterial coating which itself may be from medieval times, making the testing method inaccurate. However, Wilson does not point fingers at scientists and defends them against accusations that the 1988 tested sample was doctored. In The Blood and the Shroud, Wilson also relates how scientists took pollen samples from the cloth that dated back to the first century and refutes the claim that a post-crucifixion image of Jesus was painted onto the cloth in medieval times. Apparently, the 1998 black-and-white negatives of photographs of the Shroud revealed three-dimensional details that could only be seen on its negatives, making the "painted" theory virtually impossible. The artist would have to have had the foresight to create an image viewable by a technology not yet invented in his or her time, not to mention the skill to paint each individual fiber, as the image appears to have manifested from a change within the fibers and not between them. Instead, the image seems to have been created by a chemical change in the linen similar to a faint scorching, which believers attribute to the historical transformation the Savior underwent before the Resurrection.

Wilson most likely expected fiery opposition to his theories when The Blood and the Shroud was published, and though he undoubtedly received some, many literary critics responded similarly to the book, questioning not the validity of his findings but the degree to which his personal beliefs take away from the objectivity of the book. "Mr. Wilson is scrupulously fair," maintained Jeffery Hart in the National Review, "although he does hope passionately that the Shroud is genuine. Nevertheless, he explores all the evidence and does full justice to his opponents. He writes, as well, an engaging narrative, indeed a fine detective story, which gives the reader the impression of thinking along with him as he explores the material." Booklist contributor Ilene Cooper commented that "despite his belief in the Shroud, Wilson is always respectful of those who oppose him." Cooper also wrote: "Readers who approach his book with an open mind will find that he really does ask some penetrating questions" and that "he makes his strongest points with physical evidence." In an America review, contributor Richard Carson stated: "My only reservation about The Blood and the Shroud is that the author is overly concerned about answering those (mostly British) who accept the carbon-fourteen results as scientifically conclusive." At the culmination of his review, Carson construed that the book "nevertheless calls attention to the Shroud in a positive way and provides an excellent chronology of the history of this unique relic."

In his 1999 publication The Bible Is History, Wilson examines events spanning biblical history and attempts to uncover truths within them, pitting them against widely accepted, secular world histories. His information comes from the findings of archaeologists and scholars, who lend some validity to his claims. But Eugene O. Bowser, writing in Library Journal felt that Wilson partially misleads his readers. Although the book's introduction emphasizes the "controversial nature of much of the scholarship of biblical history and the tentative nature of the results," wrote Bowser, the reviewer felt that in the rest of the book, Wilson's writing confers "an impression of certainty" that Bowser feared could be "very misleading to the careless reader." However, the reviewer concluded that the author's "investigation is quite valuable."

Wilson continues to consider the validity of biblical history with his Before the Flood: Understanding the Biblical Flood as Recalling a Real-life Event. In 1998, authors Walter Pitman and William Ryan published Noah's Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries about the Event That Changed History, a book that attempted to trace the true occurrence of a flood of the vast proportions described in the myths of various cultures around the world. Pitman and Ryan concluded that around 5600 BC, the Mediterranean broke the barrier between itself and the Black Sea, rushing into the fresh body of water and causing it to rise and consume vast amounts of land. Three years later, Wilson expanded on the ideas of Pitman and Ryan in Before the Flood. He tells readers that a huge wave from the Mediterranean, caused by melting glaciers, created the Bosporus Strait and consumed about 60,000 square miles of land as it rose for two years, forcing many different peoples to become nomadic before finally settling in various areas around the Mediterranean, where they began to tell stories of the catastrophe, resulting in the many flood myths of today's cultures. One Kirkus Reviews contributor observed: "Wilson's construing of myth solely in terms of ‘collective memory’" is "troubling" and "an anthropologically naïve move." The same reviewer ended the review by terming the work "a bold revision of ancient history that is well worth reading, even if its conclusions sometimes overshoot the evidence." In a critical examination of the author, biblical studies professor Richard J. Clifford wrote in a review for America: "Wilson is an amateur in the best sense of the word, enthusiastic, capable of writing a fascinating account, and, for the most part, drawing on respectable authorities. He is a literary detective, however, rather than a historian." Clifford concluded: "Before the Flood has its charms, but it does not illuminate the Bible." A Publishers Weekly contributor pointed out, however, that "Wilson does not aim to prove the literal truth of the Bible story—only that Noah had real-life counterparts who escaped the flood by ship." The contributor concluded: "Nonetheless, the book is sure to spur some lively debates." Describing the book's 2004 American edition, a writer for Publishers Weekly called it a "lively detective story" that offers a "sweeping narrative of history, mythology and philology." A Kirkus Reviews contributor also assessed the book highly, deeming it "a bold revision of ancient history."

In Past Lives: Unlocking the Secrets of Our Ancestors, Wilson examines the reconstruction techniques used to give faces to long-dead subjects by studying their skulls. Several examples of actual historical figures—and more broadly, different cultures—are given, as well as a background of the evolution of techniques used by reconstruction artists and historians. The book's cover invites readers to "Know—and see—how your ancestors ate, dressed, built their homes and villages, worshipped, played games, and made war and love." In a review for Booklist, David Pitt found it "fascinating" that "in learning more about what humans looked like in the distant past, we can also learn more about how they lived." Pitt also voiced that "Wilson tells the story well, with some dramatic flair, but mostly with solid scholarship."

Wilson's 2002 publication Nostradamus: The Man behind the Prophecies focuses on Michele de Nostredame, the famous astrologer and prognosticator. Though Wilson does analyze the validity of specific predictions made by Nostradamus on the course of events of the lives of well-known figures, the book is not an assessment of the truth of his prophecies, but rather an examination of Nostradamus as a person. In a Publishers Weekly review, a contributor commented: "The greatest service this book offers is to insist on treating Nostradamus as a man rather than a mysterious presence." The reviewer added that "in the end, however, Wilson spends considerable space disproving particular predictions" and that he "is not able to explain why Nostradamus nonetheless remains such a lasting influence." A Kirkus Reviews contributor who read Nostradamus pointed out that "Wilson does a good job of describing the historical and social context from which Nostradamus emerged" and described the book as a "fair-minded treatment of a character with an enduring hold on the popular imagination."

Wilson was inspired to write Murder at Golgotha: Revisiting the Most Famous Crime Scene in History after seeing Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ, known for its emphasis on the bloody and sadistic nature of Christ's crucifixion. Drawing on archaeological, medical, and historical evidence, Wilson examines events that lead up to Christ's trial and execution, including the Last Supper and the events at Golgotha, the execution site. As he explains in his first chapter, "the bloody image that caused such revulsion amongst cinema audiences, derived not from Christian gospels or historical sources but from the mystic visions of an early nineteenth-century German nun, Anne Catherine Emmerich, as recorded by a poet, Clemens Brentano…. They have no sound historical or medical foundation."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Wilson, Ian, Murder at Golgotha: Revisiting the Most Famous Crime Scene in History, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2006.

PERIODICALS

AB Bookman's Weekly, May 18, 1987, review of Exodus: The True Story behind the Biblical Account, p. 2216.

America, February 29, 1992, review of Holy Faces, Secret Places: The Quest for Jesus' True Likeness, p. 172; October 17, 1998, Richard Carson, review of The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence That the World's Most Sacred Relic Is Real, p. 23; March 17, 2003, Richard J. Clifford, "Inundation or Interpretation?," review of Before the Flood: Understanding the Biblical Flood as Recalling a Real-life Event, p. 25.

Best Sellers, November, 1982, review of All in the Mind: Reincarnation, Hypnotic Regression, Stigmata, Multiple Personality, and other Little-Understood Powers of the Mind, p. 312; June, 1985, review of Jesus: The Evidence, p. 113; August, 1986, review of Exodus, p. 194.

Biblical Theology Bulletin, January, 1988, review of Exodus, p. 39.

Booklist, September 15, 1982, review of All in the Mind, p. 82; February 15, 1986, review of The Mysterious Shroud, p. 837; September 15, 1987, review of Undiscovered: The Fascinating World of Undiscovered Places, Graves, Wrecks, and Treasure, p. 105; September 1, 1991, review of Holy Faces, Secret Places, p. 8; May 15, 1998, Ilene Cooper, review of The Blood and the Shroud, p. 1562; September 15, 2001, David Pitt, reviews of Before the Flood and Past Lives: Unlocking the Secrets of Our Ancestors, p. 185; December 1, 2002, Ilene Cooper, review of Before the Flood, pp. 630-631; March 15, 2006, June Sawyers, review of Murder at Golgotha, p. 7.

Books, January, 1992, review of The Columbus Myth: Did Men of Bristol Reach America before Columbus?, p. 5.

British Book News, October, 1981, review of Mind out of Time? Reincarnation Claims Investigated, p. 588; March, 1986, "The Exodus Enigma," review of Exodus, p. 149; October, 1986, "The Evidence of the Shroud," review of The Mysterious Shroud, p. 574.

Canadian Book Review Annual, 1996, review of John Cabot and the Matthew, p. 264.

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, October, 1986, review of Exodus, p. 327; January, 1999, review of The Blood and the Shroud, p. 906.

Christian Century, April 2, 1986, review of Jesus, p. 336; July 30, 1986, review of Exodus, p. 686.

History Today, May, 1992, review of The Columbus Myth, p. 58.

Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 1982, review of All in the Mind, p. 727; January 1, 1985, review of Jesus, p. 42; January 1, 1986, review of The Mysterious Shroud, p. 46; May 15, 1991, review of Holy Faces, Secret Places, p. 663; October 15, 1994, review of Shakespeare, the Evidence: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Man and His Work, p. 1397; April 15, 1998, review of The Blood and the Shroud, p. 571; September 1, 2002, review of Before the Flood, pp. 1295-1296; October 1, 2003, review of Nostradamus: The Man behind the Prophecies, p. 1218; September 1, 2002, review of Before the Flood, p. 1295.

Library Journal, September 1, 1982, review of All in the Mind, p. 1666; March 1, 1985, review of Jesus, p. 95; February 15, 1986, review of The Mysterious Shroud, p. 187; December, 1994, review of Shakespeare, the Evidence, p. 94; May 1, 1998, Eugene O. Bowser, review of The Blood and the Shroud, p. 104; June 15, 2000, Eugene O. Bowser, review of The Bible Is History, p. 89; December 1, 2002, Charlie Murray, review of Before the Flood, p. 137; December 1, 2002, Charlie Murray, review of Before the Flood, p. 137.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, October 10, 1982, review of All in the Mind, p. 4; February 14, 1999, review of Shakespeare, the Evidence, p. 4.

National Review, January 30, 1987, Jeffrey Hart, review of The Mysterious Shroud, p. 66; May 18, 1998, Jeffrey Hart, review of The Blood and the Shroud, pp. 51-52.

New Statesman, April 8, 1983, "Reincarnation?," review of All in the Mind, p. 24; May 4, 1984, review of Jesus, p. 29.

New Statesman & Society, September 20, 1991, review of The Columbus Myth, p. 41.

New York Times Book Review, April 9, 1989, review of The After Death Experience: The Physics of the Non-physical, p. 32; August 5, 1990, review of The After Death Experience, p. 28.

Observer (London, England), November 10, 1992, review of The Columbus Myth, p. 59.

Publishers Weekly, June 11, 1982, review of All in the Mind, p. 55; March 22, 1985, review of Jesus, p. 36; January 3, 1986, review of The Mysterious Shroud, p. 48; September 27, 1991, review of Holy Faces, Secret Places, p. 34; October 31, 1994, review of Shakespeare, the Evidence, p. 49; April 27, 1998, review of The Blood and the Shroud, p. 59; November 11, 2002, review of Before the Flood, p. 51; September 29, 2003, review of Nos-tradamus, pp. 50-51; November 11, 2002, review of Before the Flood, p. 51.

Quill & Quire, October, 1981, review of Mind out of Time?, p. 44.

Reference and Research Book News, August, 1995, review of Shakespeare, the Evidence, p. 52.

Reflections: The Wanderer Review of Literature, Culture, the Arts, winter, 1987, review of The Mysterious Shroud, p. 19.

Religious Studies Review, April, 1988, review of All in the Mind, p. 134; January, 1995, review of Holy Faces, Secret Places, p. 41; January, 1998, review of Jesus, p. 80.

School Library Journal, October, 1986, review of Exodus, p. 196.

Science Books and Films, January, 1983, review of All in the Mind, p. 18.

Spectator, July 18, 1982, review of Mind out of Time?, p. 21; April 14, 1984, review of Jesus, p. 22.

Times Educational Supplement, April 13, 1984, review of Jesus, p. 32; December 18, 1987, "Life after Death," review of The After Death Experience, p. 16; March 29, 1991, review of Holy Faces, Secret Places, p. 21; June 21, 1991, review of The Bleeding Mind: An Investigation into the Mysterious Phenomenon of Stigmata, p. 30; September 11, 1992, review of The Columbus Myth, p. 7; January 20, 1995, review of Shakespeare, the Evidence, p. 14.

Times Literary Supplement, March 16, 1982, review of Mind out of Time?, p. 360; November 1, 1991, review of Holy Faces, Secret Places, p. 27; April 22, 1994, review of Shakespeare, the Evidence, p. 5; September 26, 1997, review of Life after Death?, p. 30.

Village Voice, June 17, 1986, review of The Mysterious Shroud, p. 49.

Wall Street Journal Central Edition, April 10, 1998, review of The Blood and the Shroud, p. W6.

ONLINE

Country Bookshop,http://www.countrybookshop.co.uk/ (May 11, 2004), description of Before the Flood and author information.

Hope College Web site,http://www.hope.edu/academic/ (May 11, 2004), "Reading the Old Testament: Bibliography."