Self and Unself
I share extracts from my books here, but there are very few from Self and Unself, my philosophy of all and everything, because it is difficult to cut meaningful sections from a book which ultimately only makes sense as a whole. I have posted two introductory sections, on ‘the limits of literalism’ and ‘the illusions of abstract philosophy’, but these give a skewed, rather thinky poleroid of a landscape which takes in…
It is far more accessible than professional philosophy, but still somewhat challenging if you’re not used to reading this kind of thing, which is why I’ve written a cute easy-reader version, The Fire Sermon (coming soon), but for those of you who would like the full story, I recommend starting with Self and Unself.1
Philosopher Bernardo Kastrup said that he ‘loved it, the tone, the content, the lot.’ Here are some other reader reviews…
Self and Unself really is groundbreaking but not for the faint-hearted — and that’s a genuinely good thing… the book elaborates in such BEAUTIFUL and PAINFULLY REAL detail about what human experience actually is, and is not, that it can be a tricky one to get into at first. But what I soon realised was that I found it to be tricky because of how removed I really am from true human experience. To realise this through any means is nothing short of extraordinary, let alone a book. It was a privilege to read.
Amazon review (‘Jack’)
Okay, this book is extraordinary… Allen has written a book that has both a metaphysical rigor and a fierce aliveness to it! All I can say he moves you through a process that will reveal Truth from many different layers of reality, while always pointing you to what is prior to experience and knowledge. While I’m sure many of us here have read our share of philosophical / spiritual /existential books… you haven’t read anything quite like this. Very unique, well crafted, and deeply enriching!
Amazon review (Ted Saad)
A delightfully accurate portrayal of basically everything, with fresh / age-old insights and a relatively clear steering toward how one might gain more contentment in life; living. Towards the end, as Darren began describing the end of days, I found a bizarre joy in the vision of what would come after the collapse, of a return to, or rather, maturation of the pre-civ golden age. Only qualm I have with it is I suppose now I’ll have to be off getting rid of my awful ego now. What a bother.
Goodreads review (‘Aden Weir’)
Self And Unself is an amazing book and in my opinion the only meaningful philosophical advance in since Wittgenstein… I think it’s fair to say it changed my life and is one of the only times a book has made me feel like I’d taken drugs. The colours!
Reader email (‘C.M.’)
Self And Unself is quite possibly the most difficult reading I have ever undertaken. Not because [the] prose isn’t masterful and the subject matter wholly gripping, but as [the book] points out, my self isn’t particularly keen on examination.
Reader email (‘M.W.’)
Although it seems daunting at first, Self and Unself is actually a surprisingly easy and earthy book… and it’s just so, so beautiful. In fact the sheer beauty of it made me cry. I just can’t believe a book like this exists in our times. If any books from our shitty society are read in a hundred years this will be one of them.
Reader email (‘F. H.’)
Do you want to see God, at last, after all this time? Do you want to be egotistically exposed? Do you want it all to just make some goddamn sense?
Goodreads review (‘Maason’)
[Self and Unself] winds a thread through metaphysics and societal critique and science and an entire history of the rise and fall of mankind’s terrible project to remind us of who we really are and what the hell is up with this Hell we seem to be trapped in. It is at once conceptually precise, simple and straightforward, and a spiritually sublime work, lively with metaphor and a vital mythic sensibility… It is a miracle that a work like this can come out of the West, and be written in English, a language thoroughly disenchanted by Latin influence and the developments of the Norman conquest. Western philosophy is, as a whole, a poisoned tradition, with sparse glimpses of the shining truth spotted in between the holes in the pointless dialect that defines the tradition. Self and Unself somehow takes these glimpses and brings them together with a crystal clarity. I can’t say it’s the best philosophical work I’ve ever read, but I can say with confidence that it is the most essential philosophical work of the 21st century, and that Darren Allen is our greatest contemporary author.
Goodreads Review (‘Naomi Richmond-Nykiforuk’)
Self and Unself is available through most online bookshops, and through my site, here.
In some respects all the essays in Ad Radicem and on this site (indeed all my non-fiction) are footnotes to Self and Unself and one day I hope to present them that way, in a single volume.