Introduction to 'The Faces of Evil': an unpublished book (Colin Wilson Studies 22)

In the mid-1970s A & W Publishers of New York planned to publish a book by Colin Wilson entitled The Faces of Evil. The publisher’s blurb read: “One of Britain’s foremost authors re-examines man’s haunting fear of evil, in mythology and history. Witches, the supernatural—Hitler, Stalin, Rasputin, and Richard the Third are re-appraised in an informative, fast-moving essay strikingly illustrated with historical reproductions and 30 original paintings.”
The book did not appear in print and all that remains is the substantial Introduction—over 80 pages in manuscript—written by Wilson and recently retrieved from an archive by Wilson scholar Vaughan Rapatahana. In a stimulating essay, Wilson concludes:
“I would not like to pass a dogmatic opinion on whether there are such things as evil ‘entities’ in the universe....That would presuppose that they are living beings who, like ourselves, are struggling to evolve to a higher level. But it seems to me wholly within the bounds of possibility that human beings have released ‘evil’ forces of whose power and persistence they are unaware...”