Stan Gooch, once described by Colin Wilson as "one of the most underrated writers of our time" whose work represented "one of the most impressive and exciting intellectual structures of the second half of the twentieth century", died in hospital at Swansea, Wales, in September, without next of kin, after living for years as a recluse on a caravan park in the city.
Although Gooch, born at Lewisham, London, in 1932, never wrote a best-seller, he still had a wide readership. Writer Terry Welbourn, who visited Gooch in 2004, accompanied by fellow author Simon Brighton, said: "He was a fascinating man who completely dropped out. When we visited him, his caravan was in a terrible state - I could not believe how such an intelligent man could live in such conditions."
Gooch admitted to being pretty much a "down and out". But Terry found an amiable, intelligent man who seemed pleased to discuss his situation and ideas.
Writer of Alternative Books
"I don't think anyone knew about his death - a very sad end," said Terry. "I only found out because I wrote him a letter earlier in the week and received a reply from the patient welfare officer at the Swansea hospital who had been to Stan's caravan to collect his belongings and found my unopened letter."
Among Gooch's baker's dozen of non-fiction titles - he also wrote a novel and short stories - were Total Man, The Neanderthal Question, Creatures From Inner Space, The Paranormal, Cities of Dreams, The Secret Life of Humans, Guardians of the Ancient Wisdom, Personality and Evolution and The Double Helix of the Mind.
Before embarking on a career as a writer of alternative books, Gooch was a successful child psychologist who chose to give up a potentially lucrative career to pursue his own goals, although this did not bring him the success he believed he deserved. His first book, co-authored, was a textbook on child psychology, published in 1970.
Suggested that Man is a Dual Being
Eventually, Gooch became disillusioned with the world of publishing, and gave up writing for many years, despite even being been offered, by supporters, the use of a cottage in the South of France, if it would motivate him.
In Total Man (1972), Gooch suggested that man is a dual being, consisting of a rational ego and a darker more instinctive being, the Self. Inhabiting the 'old brain', he saw the Self as the source of legends about vampires, troglodytes, demons and other creatures from of the occult.
Gooch's experience of mediumship, among other things, probably made him aware of the unconscious as a realm of dark forces, and he argued that the unconscious was located in that part of the brain called the cerebellum. He went on to criticise the hemisphere model of the brain in The Double Helix of the Mind (1980).
Neanderthals interbred with Cro-Magnon
In The Neanderthal Question (1977), Gooch claimed that Neanderthal man was not exterminated by Cro-Magnon 40,000 years ago, but was 'bred out' by interbreeding with Cro-Magnon, producing us, in whom Cro-Magnon characteristics were uppermost.
Writing in 1995, Colin Wilson said Gooch's work had never been more relevant, with new studies of ancient civilizations now appearing by best-selling researchers such as Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval.
"If there were civilizations that pre-dated Sumer and Egypt by more than ten thousand years, then Gooch's argument that Neanderthal man was a far more sophisticated creature than anyone has recognised also becomes far more plausible," said Colin. "In fact, the whole field has opened up, to an extent that even Stan Gooch could not have guessed in the mid 1980s."
Realm of Paranormal Experience
Colin said he was even more excited by Gooch's next book The Paranormal (1978) 'in which he begins by describing in detail his experiences as a medium and he goes on to produce a classic study of the whole realm of paranormal experience'.
In Cities of Dreams (1989) and The Neanderthal Legacy (2008), Gooch returned to the theme of Neanderthal man, setting out to show that the Neanderthals had as rich and complex a culture as Cro-Magnon.
With Cities of Dreams, Colin added, Gooch once more encountered the problem of his work being too original and wide-ranging for academics, and too closely argued and serious for the general public: 'Yet that struck me as outrageously unfair since the book was so obviously a culmination of his work since Total Man.'
Geoff Ward - Geoff Ward, MA Lit., is a British journalist, media consultant, author and lecturer/tutor in literature and creative writing
