SELF & UNSELF

“I loved [Self and Unself], the tone, the content, the lot.”

Bernado Kastrup, author of The Idea of the World

Who am I? Such an easy question, and yet I keep getting it wrong.

An original, wide-ranging and accessible philosophy of all and everything, presenting the source and synthesis of metaphysics, science, art, language, sex, gender, character, culture, history, self-knowledge, love and death. Neither optimistic nor pessimistic, neither objective nor subjective, neither theist nor atheist, Self & Unself expresses the unfathomable paradox at the root of all branches of human experience, providing the reader with a new, radical ground of understanding, solving, en route, all the actually important questions of philosophy; who I am, who you are, why we are here and what on earth is going on.

Everything? Yes, nothing.

  • Why has nobody come anywhere near solving the mysteries of science?
  • Why are philosophers baffled by reality?
  • Why must the mediocre man rely on method?
  • Why do the realest times of our lives feel unreal?
  • Why do great people look like great people?
  • Why do we find masks so terrifying?
  • Why doesn’t the anxious mind get the joke?
  • Why do people almost never suffer for the reasons they think they do?
  • Why does the mind go looking for things to feel bad about?
  • Why do people cling to absurd beliefs?
  • Why did we build this god-awful world?

Self and Unself solves these, and many other mysterious whys, by laying bare the what that lies behind them.

Read the introduction here, an extract about dreams here, and one that touches on Personality and Character here.

SELF & UNSELF IS AVAILABLE FROM ONLINE RETAILERS — avoid Amazon though (use Blackwells in the UK, and Barnes and Noble in the US). If you want me to get a higher slice, you can order directly FROM MY BOOKSHOP

Reader Reviews

…this book is extraordinary …Allen has written a book that has both a metaphysical rigor and a fierce aliveness to it!… Very unique, well crafted, and deeply enriching!

Amazon review (Ted Saad)

Truly original, deeply researched and intellectually supercharged, Self and Unself is an account of who and what we – civilised humanity, as we like to flatter ourselves – are truly.

Goodreads review (‘Mr. Paul’)

I think it is an extraordinary achievement, full of revelation and truth.

Reader email (‘Michael’)

Groundbreaking… elaborates in beautiful and painfully real detail what the human experience actually is.

Amazon review (‘Jack’)

Thoroughly engaging, riveting, discombobulating, confronting and insightful. It’s hard to find original wisdom and understanding these days but this has it.

Review on Twitter (‘@Thingsthatmat’)

I have just finished Self and Unself and want to say how much I enjoyed reading it, and what a wonderful work it is.

Reader email (‘P’)

Mindblowing. Nothing like it exists.

Reader email (‘A.G.’)

…it 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 [because]… my self isn’t particularly keen [on] examination…

Reader email (‘Mr.W.’)

…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.

Goodreads review (‘Aden Weir’)

A work of art.

Goodreads review (‘Jono Maile’)

…the only meaningful philosophical advance 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 (‘Charlie’)

Self and Unself is one of the best and most consequential books I’ve come across.

Reader Mail (‘Timothy’)

To say this book is just ok, or good, or whatever is to completely not get it. It is the culmination of all human philosophical pondering.

Amazon Review (‘Taylor’ — since deleted, for some reason)

Masterful writing… rare wisdom and punchiness.

Goodreads Review (‘David’)

Books like this don’t come around often. Made my ego scream and life vivid.

Goodreads Review (‘Fackermack’)

Gripping and arrestingly true… Like all great works, it references and synthesizes great ideas before it, but there is something additional here.

Amazon Review (‘Eric N’)

…not only intellectually stimulating but also uplifting.

Paul Cudenec (read his review here: tinyurl.com/2p8b37e3)

…far and away the most eye-opening non-fiction book I’ve read in a long, long time. Possibly ever. But be warned, it’s not really light reading.

Twitter comment (‘@GaryOxide’)

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? Read this book.

Goodreads Review (‘Thomas’)

It is at once conceptually precise, simple and straightforward, and a spiritually sublime work, lively with metaphor and a vital mythic sensibility… 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’)