Arthur Koestler
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[[Image:Arthur Koestler.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Arthur Koestler]]
'''Arthur Koestler''' <small>[[Order of the British Empire|CBE]]</small> ([[September 5]], [[1905]], [[Budapest]] – [[March 3]], [[1983]], [[London]]) was a [[Jewish]]-[[Hungary|Hungarian]] [[polymath]] [[author]] who became a naturalized [[United Kingdom|British]] subject. In 1931, he joined the [[Communist Party]], but left the party seven years later, after emigrating to the United Kingdom. By the late 1940s, he was one of the most recognized and outspoken British [[Anti-communism|anti-communists]]. He wrote numerous books, of which the most famous is the novel ''[[Darkness at Noon]]'' about the [[Great Purge]] in the [[Soviet Union]], an indictment of [[Stalinism]].
== Life ==
He was born '''Kösztler Artúr''' ([[Hungarian name]]s have the [[surname]] first) in [[Budapest]], [[Austria-Hungary]], to a [[German language|German-speaking]] Hungarian family of [[Ashkenazi Jews|Ashkenazi Jewish]] descent. His father, Henrik, was a prosperous start-up [[industrialist]] and [[inventor]]. His great business success was a "health" soap, which substituted conventional soaps based on animal fats (scarce during the WWI). Henrik's mineral soaps were thought to have health qualities thanks to their weak radioactivity, which in those times was considered curative. When Artur was 14, his family moved to [[Vienna]]. It was at this age which he had a "mystical experience", which perhaps gave rise to his later interest in the paranormal.<ref>[http://www.forteantimes.com/features/profiles/118/arthur_koestler.html ''Fortean Times'' ]</ref>
Koestler studied science and [[psychology]] at the [[University of Vienna]], where he became President of a [[Zionist]] student fraternity. A month before he was due to finish his studies, he burnt his matriculation book and did not take his final examinations but made "[[aliyah]]" to Israel (then a British Mandate). From 1926 to 1929 he lived in the [[British Mandate of Palestine]], firstly in a ''[[kibbutz]]'' in the Jezreel Valley ("Heftzibah"), and later in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, where he almost starved. He left Palestine for Paris as a correspondent to the [[Ullstein]] group of German newspapers. A year later he became science editor for Ullstein based in Berlin; a highlight of that post was membership in a 1931 [[Zeppelin]] expedition to the [[North Pole]].
He joined the [[Communist Party of Germany]] in 1931, but left it after the Moscow trials of 1938. During this period he traveled extensively in the Soviet Union and climbed [[Mount Ararat]] in [[Turkey]]. In [[Turkmenistan]], he met the [[African American|Black American]] writer [[Langston Hughes]].
In his memoir ''[[The Invisible Writing]]'', Koestler recalls that during the summer of 1935 he "wrote about half of" a sequel to the satirical novel ''[[The Good Soldier Švejk|The Good Soldier Schweik]]'', "called ''The Good Soldier Schweik Goes to War Again''. It had been commissioned by [[Willi Münzenberg|Willy Münzenberg]] <nowiki>[</nowiki>the [[Comintern]]'s chief [[propagandist]] in the [[Western world|West]]] ... but was vetoed by the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Party]] on the grounds of the book's 'pacifist errors' ..." (p. 283).
Soon after the outbreak of [[World War II]], the [[France|French]] authorities detained him for several months as a resident alien in [[Camp Vernet|Vernet Internment Camp]]<ref>http://www.forteantimes.com/features/profiles/118/arthur_koestler.html</ref> in the foothills of the [[Pyrenees]] mountains. Upon his release, he joined the [[French Foreign Legion]]. He eventually escaped to [[England]] via [[Morocco]] and [[Portugal]]. In England, he served in the [[British Army]] as a member of the [[British Pioneer Corps]], 1941-42, then worked for the [[BBC]]. He became a [[British subject]] in 1945, and returned to France after the war, where he rubbed shoulders with the set gravitating around [[Jean-Paul Sartre]] and [[Simone de Beauvoir]] (one of the characters in de Beauvoir's novel ''[[The Mandarins]]'' is believed to be based on Koestler).
Koestler returned to [[London]] and spent the rest of his life writing and lecturing. In June 1950, Koestler attended and delivered the keynote address at a conference of [[anti-Communism|anti-Communist]] intellectuals in [[Berlin]] that led to the founding of the [[Congress for Cultural Freedom]]. He was made a Commander in the [[Order of the British Empire]] in the 1970s.
In 1983, suffering from [[Parkinson's disease]] and [[leukemia]], Koestler committed joint [[suicide]] with his third wife, Cynthia, by taking an overdose of drugs. He had long been an advocate of voluntary [[euthanasia]], and in 1981 had become vice president of EXIT (now the United Kingdom's Voluntary Euthanasia Society). His will endowed the chair of [[parapsychology]] at the [[University of Edinburgh]] in [[Scotland]].
=== Speaking out against Nazi atrocities during World War II ===
During the [[World War II|Second World War]], Koestler continually spoke out against the atrocities of the [[Nazi Germany|Nazi regime]] in [[Germany]] — his Central European [[Jew]]ish family background made him particularly involved in a way that many British and [[United States]] politicians were not. Witnessing first hand the growth of [[Extremism|extremist]] tendencies in the region no doubt added to his resolve.
Koestler and a minority of writers and public figures believed that if they sufficiently described the horrors being committed in Europe in news media and public meetings, it would spur the West to action. Despite their efforts, these protests often fell on deaf ears. Capturing their frustration, Koestler described these people as the "screamers". In 1944, he wrote:
{{quote|We, the screamers, have been at it now for about ten years. We started on the night when the epileptic [[Marinus van der Lubbe|van der Lubbe]] [[Reichstag fire|set fire to the German Parliament]]; we said that if you don't quench those flames at once, they will spread all over the world; you thought we were maniacs. At present we have the mania of trying to tell you about the killing-by hot steam, mass-electrocution, and live burial-of the total Jewish population of Europe. So far three million have died. It is the greatest mass killing in recorded history; and it goes on daily, hourly, as regularly as the ticking of your watch. I have photographs before me on the desk while I am writing this, and that accounts for my emotion and bitterness.<ref>"On Disbelieving Atrocities", ''New York Times Magazine'', January 1944 and reprinted in ''The Yogi and the Commissar'', Macmillan (1945), pp. 88-92.</ref>}}
Despite these frustrations, Koestler and the "screamers" continued their campaign until the late stages of the war.
===Multilingualism===
In addition to his mother tongue [[German language|German]], and the [[Hungarian language|Hungarian]] of his homeland, Koestler became fluent in [[English language|English]], and [[French language|French]], and knew some [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] and [[Russian language|Russian]]. His biographer [[David Cesarani]] claims there is some evidence that Koestler may have picked up some [[Yiddish language|Yiddish]] from his grandfather. Koestler's multilingualism was principally due to his having resided, worked, or studied in [[Hungary]], [[Austria]], [[Germany]], [[British Mandate of Palestine|Palestine]] (pre-1948 [[Israel]]), the [[Soviet Union]], the United Kingdom, and [[France]], all by 40 years of age.
Though he wrote the bulk of his later work in English, Koestler wrote his best-known novels in three different languages: ''[[The Gladiators (novel)|The Gladiators]]'' in Hungarian, ''[[Darkness at Noon]]'' in German (although the original is now lost), and ''[[Arrival and Departure]]'' in English. His journalism was written in German, Hebrew, French and English, and he even produced the first Hebrew language [[crossword]] puzzles and wrote the sketches for the first Hebrew cabaret ("HaMatateh").
===Women===
Koestler was married to Dorothy Asher (1935–50), Mamaine Paget (1950–52), and Cynthia Jefferies (1965–83). He also had a very short fling with French writer [[Simone de Beauvoir]]. Biographer [[David Cesarani]] in his ''Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind'' (1998){{page number}} claimed that Koestler beat and raped several women, including film director [[Jill Craigie]]. The resulting protests led to the removal of a bust of Koestler from public display at the [[University of Edinburgh]].
Questions have been raised by his [[suicide pact]] with his last spouse. Although he was [[Terminal illness|terminally ill]] at the time, she was apparently healthy, leading some{{who?|date=March 2008}} to claim he persuaded her to take her own life.
==Honours==
Koestler received the Sonning prize from the University of Copenhagen, and an honorary doctorate from Queen's University, Ontario, in 1968. In 1972 he was appointed [[Order of the British Empire|CBE]], and in 1974 a companion of the Royal Society of Literature.<ref>Kevin McCarron, ‘Koestler, Arthur (1905–1983)’, ''[[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]]'', Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/31324, accessed 16 Feb 2008]</ref>
==Mixed legacy==
Just as ''Darkness at Noon'' was selling well during the [[Cold War]] of the 1940s and '50s, Koestler announced his retirement from politics. Much of what he wrote thereafter revealed a multidisciplinary thinker whose work anticipated a number of trends by many years. He was among the first to experiment with [[LSD]] (in a laboratory). He also wrote about [[Japan]]ese and [[India]]n mysticism in ''[[The Lotus and the Robot]]'' (1960).
This originality resulted in an uneven set of ideas and conclusions. Topics covered by his works include creativity (''Insight and Outlook, Act of Creation'') and the history of science (''The Sleepwalkers''). In ''Act of Creation'', he reported on [[Forster's Syndrome]], the phenomenon of compulsive punning. Some of his other pursuits, such as his interest in the [[paranormal]], his support for [[euthanasia]], his theory of the origin of [[Ashkenazi Jews]] like himself, and his disagreement with [[Darwinism]], are more controversial.
=== Politics ===
Koestler was involved in a number of political causes during his life, from [[Zionism]] and [[communism]] to [[anti-communism]], voluntary [[euthanasia]], and campaigns against [[capital punishment]], particularly [[hanging]]. He was also an early advocate of [[nuclear disarmament]].
=== Journalism ===
Until the bestseller status of ''Darkness at Noon'' made him financially comfortable, Koestler often earned his living as a journalist and foreign correspondent, trading on his ability to write quickly in several languages, and to acquire with facility a working knowledge of a new language. He wrote for a variety of newspapers, including ''[[Vossische Zeitung]]'' (science editor) and ''B.Z. am Mittag'' (foreign editor) in the 1920s. In the early 1930s, he worked for the Ullstein publishing group in [[Berlin]] and did freelance writing for the French press.
While covering the [[Spanish Civil War]], in 1937, he was captured and held for several months by the [[Falange|Falangists]] in [[Málaga]], until the [[Foreign and Commonwealth Office|British Foreign Office]] negotiated his release. His ''[[Spanish Testament]]'' records these experiences, which he soon transformed into his classic prison novel ''Darkness at Noon''. After his release from Spanish detention, Koestler worked for the ''News Chronicle'', then edited ''[[Die Zukunft]]'' with [[Willi Münzenberg]], an anti-Nazi, anti-Stalinist German language paper based in [[Paris]], founded in 1938. During and after World War II, he wrote for a number of English and American papers, including ''[[The Sunday Telegraph]]'', on various subjects. He was a frequent contributor to ''[[Encounter (magazine)|Encounter]]'', one of the most influential periodicals of the Cold War period.
===Paranormal and scientific interests===
During the last 30 years of his life, Koestler wrote extensively on science and scientific practice. The [[Post-Modernism|post-modernist]] scepticism colouring much of this writing tended to alienate most of the scientific community. A case in point is his 1971 book ''The Case of the Midwife Toad'' about the biologist [[Paul Kammerer]], who claimed to find experimental support for [[Lamarckism|Lamarckian inheritance]].
Koestler's trilogy culminating with ''[[The Ghost in the Machine]]'' and later ''[[Janus: A Summing Up]]'' bridges concepts of [[reductionism]] and [[holism]] with his [[systems theory|systemic theory]] of Open Hierarchical Systems. [[Holons]] in a [[Holarchy]] have the dual tendency of integration and development and out of balance they tend to a pathology. He included his concept of Bisociation that became a profound basis for other's work on creativity and [[James Papez]]/[[Paul McLean]]'s ''Schizophysiology'' to explain the often irrational behaviour of humans as part of Open Hierarchical Systems.
[[Mysticism]] and a fascination with the [[Parapsychology|paranormal]] imbued much of his later work, and greatly influenced his personal life. For some years following his death a Koestler Society in London promoted investigation of these and related subjects. He left a substantial part of his estate to establish the Koestler Parapsychology Unit at the [[University of Edinburgh]] dedicated to the study of paranormal phenomena. His ''[[The Roots of Coincidence]]'' makes an overview of the scientific research around [[telepathy]] and [[psychokinesis]] and compares it with the advances in quantum physics at that time. It mentions yet another line of unconventional research by Paul Kammerer, the theory of coincidence or [[synchronicity]]. He also presents critically the related writings of [[Carl Jung]]. More controversial were Koestler's studies of [[levitation]] and [[telepathy]]. Koestler had joined the [[Society for Psychical Research|SPR]] in 1950, but perhaps did not publicise this interest for fear of ridicule.<ref>http://www.forteantimes.com/features/profiles/118/arthur_koestler.html</ref>
===Judaism===
Although a lifelong atheist, Koestler's ancestry was Jewish. His biographer [[David Cesarani]] claimed that Koestler deliberately disowned his Jewish ancestry.
When Koestler resided in Palestine during the 1920s, he lived in a [[kibbutz]]. This experience provided background for his novel ''[[Thieves in the Night]]''.
He supported the statehood of Israel, but remarked that the [[Balfour Declaration of 1917]] amounted to "one nation solemnly promising to a second nation the country of a third."<ref>Arthur Koestler, ''Promise and Fulfilment: Palestine 1917-1919'' (New York: Macmillan, 1949, p. 22)</ref> However, he opposed a diaspora Jewish culture: In an interview published in the ''London Jewish Chronicle'' around the time of Israel's founding, Koestler maintained that all Jews should either migrate to Israel or else assimilate completely into their local cultures.(See "Judah at the Crossroads" in ''The Trail of the Dinosaur'' collection of essays.) As for Jewish culture in Israel, Koestler proposed that Israel drop the [[Hebrew alphabet]] for the [[Roman alphabet|Roman]].{{Fact|date=February 2007}}
Koestler's book ''[[The Thirteenth Tribe]]'' (1976) advanced the controversial thesis that [[Ashkenazi]] Jews are not descended from the Israelites of antiquity, but from the [[Khazars]], a [[Turkic peoples|Turkic]] people in the [[Caucasus]] who converted to [[Judaism]] in the 8th century and were later forced to move westwards into present-day [[Russia]], [[Ukraine]] and [[Poland]]. Koestler stated that part of his intent in writing ''The Thirteenth Tribe'' was to defuse [[anti-Semitism]] by undermining the identification of European Jews with Biblical Jews, with the hope of rendering anti-Semitic epithets such as "[[Christ killers]]" inapplicable. Ironically, Koestler's thesis that Ashkenazi Jews are not Semitic has become an important claim of many anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist groups.
=== Hallucinogens ===
In November, 1960, Koestler participated in [[Timothy Leary]]'s early experiments with [[psilocybin]] at Harvard. According to fellow participant [[Charles Olson]], Koestler was distressed by the effects of the drug and isolated himself in an unfurnished bedroom in the Cambridge house Leary used for his project. Koestler again experimented with psilocybin at the [[University of Michigan]] at [[Ann Arbor, Michigan|Ann Arbor]], comparing this trip to [[Walt Disney]]'s ''[[Fantasia (film)|Fantasia]]''.
In ''Return Trip to Nirvana'', published in the ''Sunday Telegraph'' in 1967, Koestler wrote about the drug culture and his own experiences with hallucinogens. The article also challenged the defence of drugs in [[Aldous Huxley]]'s ''[[The Doors of Perception]]'':
==Cultural influence and references==
In his younger days, the singer [[Sting (musician)|Sting]] was an avid reader of Koestler. His band of the time, [[The Police]], were to name one of their albums ''[[Ghost in the Machine]]'' after one of Koestler's books. Their album ''[[Synchronicity (album)|Synchronicity]]'' was also inspired by Koestler's ''[[The Roots of Coincidence]]'', which discusses [[Carl Jung]]'s [[synchronicity|theory]] of the same name. Koestler knew little about the burgeoning [[New Wave (music)]] scene, and is alleged to have said:
<blockquote>Look at this. Did you ever see a magazine called the ''[[New Musical Express]]''? It turns out there is a pop group called The Police—I don't know why they are called that, presumably to distinguish them from the punks—and they've made an album of my essay ''The Ghost in the Machine''. I didn't know anything about it until my clipping agency sent me a review of the record.<ref>Cesarani, David (1999) ''Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind''. Free Press.</ref></blockquote>
Koestler's will also left money for the [[The Koestler Trust]], which helps prison inmates to express themselves creatively, as a means to rehabilitation. The trust continues to exhibit work by prisoners on a regular basis. He also left money for the Department of [[Parapsychology]] in [[University of Edinburgh|Edinburgh]].
== Books ==
* 1980. ''[[Bricks to Babel]]''. Random House, ISBN 0-394-51897-7. This 1980 anthology of passages from many of his books, described as "A selection from 50 years of his writings, chosen and with new commentary by the author", is a comprehensive introduction to Koestler's writing and thought.
===Fiction===
* 1935. ''The Good Soldier Schweik Goes to War Again....'' Unfinished and unpublished.
* 1939. ''[[The Gladiators (book)|The Gladiators]]''. A novel on the revolt of [[Spartacus]].
* 1940. ''[[Darkness at Noon]]''.
* 1943. ''[[Arrival and Departure]]'', novel.
* 1946. ''[[Thieves in the Night (novel)|Thieves in the Night]]''.
* 1972. ''[[The Call Girls (play)|The Call Girls]]: A Tragicomedy with a Prologue and Epilogue''. A novel about scholars making a living on the international seminar-conference circuit.
===Drama===
* 1945. ''[[Twilight Bar]]''.
===Autobiography ===
* 1937. ''[[Spanish Testament]]''.
* 1941. ''[[Scum of the Earth (book)|Scum of the Earth]]''.
* 1952. ''[[Arrow in the Blue|Arrow In The Blue: The First Volume Of An Autobiography, 1905-31]]'', 2005 reprint, ISBN 0-09-949067-6
* 1954. ''[[The Invisible Writing|The Invisible Writing: The Second Volume Of An Autobiography, 1932-40]]'', 1984 reprint, ISBN 0-8128-6218-X
* 1984. ''[[Stranger on the Square]]''.
The books ''The Lotus and the Robot'', ''The God that Failed'', and ''Von weissen Nächten und roten Tagen'', as well as his numerous essays, all contain autobiographical information.
===Other non-fiction===
* 1934. ''Von weissen Nächten und roten Tagen''. About Koestler's travels in the USSR. In his ''The Invisible Writing'', Koestler calls the book ''Red Days and White Nights'', or, more usually, ''Red Days''. Of the five foreign language editions − Russian, German, Ukrainian, Georgian, Armenian − which were intended, only the German version was eventually published, "thoroughly expurgated", in [[Kharkiv|Kharkov]], [[Ukraine|Ukrainian S.S.R.]], and the work is therefore very scarce.
* 1937. ''L'Espagne ensanglantée''.
* 1942. ''[[Dialogue with Death]]''. Abridgement of ''Spanish Testament''.
* 1945. ''[[The Yogi and the Commissar]] and other essays''.
* 1949. ''The Challenge of our Time''.
* 1949. ''[[Promise and Fulfilment]]: Palestine 1917-1949''.
* 1949. ''[[Insight and Outlook]]''.
* 1951. ''[[The Age of Longing]]''.
* 1955. ''[[The Trail of the Dinosaur]] and other essays''.
* 1956. ''[[Reflections on Hanging]]''.
* 1959. ''[[The Sleepwalkers]]: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe''. ISBN 0-14-019246-8 An account of changing scientific paradigms.
* 1960. ''The Watershed: A Biography of Johannes Kepler''. (excerpted from ''The Sleepwalkers''.) ISBN 0-385-09576-7
* 1960. ''[[The Lotus and the Robot]]'', ISBN 0-09-059891-1. Koestler's journey to India and Japan, and his assessment of East and West.
* 1961. ''Control of the Mind''.
* 1961. ''Hanged by the Neck''. Reuses some material from ''Reflections on Hanging''.
* 1963. ''[[Suicide of a Nation]]''.
* 1964. ''[[The Act of Creation]]''.
* 1967. ''[[The Ghost in the Machine]]''. Penguin reprint 1990: ISBN 0-14-019192-5.
* 1968. ''[[Drinkers of Infinity]]: Essays 1955-1967''.
* 1970. ''The Age of Longing'', ISBN 0-09-104520-7.
* 1971. ''[[The Case of the Midwife Toad]]'', ISBN 0-394-71823-2. An account of [[Paul Kammerer]]'s research on [[Lamarckism|Lamarckian evolution]] and what he called "serial coincidences".
* 1972. ''[[The Roots of Coincidence]]'', ISBN 0-394-71934-4. Sequel to ''The Case of the Midwife Toad''.
* 1973. ''The Lion and the Ostrich''.
* 1974. ''[[The Heel of Achilles (essays)|The Heel of Achilles]]: Essays 1968-1973'', ISBN 0-394-49596-9.
* 1976. ''[[The Thirteenth Tribe]]: The Khazar Empire and Its Heritage'', ISBN 0-394-40284-7.
* 1976. ''Astride the Two Cultures: Arthur Koestler at 70'', ISBN 0-394-40063-1.
* 1977. ''Twentieth Century Views: A Collection of Critical Essays'', ISBN 0-13-049213-2.
* 1978. ''[[Janus: A Summing Up]]'', ISBN 0-394-50052-0. Sequel to ''The Ghost in the Machine''
* 1981. ''[[Kaleidoscope (Koestler)|Kaleidoscope]]''. Essays from ''Drinkers of Infinity'' and ''The Heel of Achilles'', plus later pieces and stories.
===Writings as a contributor===
* [[The Encyclopoedia of Sexual Knowledge|''The Encyclopoedia [sic] of Sexual Knowledge'']] (1934) (In his ''The Invisible Writing'', Koestler uses the [[Typographical ligature|ligature]], spelling the word "Encyclopœdia".)
* ''Foreign Correspondent'' (1939)
* ''[[The Practice of Sex]]'' (1940)
* ''[[The God That Failed]]'' (1950) (collection of testimonies by ex-Communists)
* ''[[Attila, the Poet]]'' (1954) (Encounter ; ; 1954.2 (5)). On loan at the UCL library of the School of Slavonic & Eastern European Studies.
* [http://library.ucl.ac.uk:80/F/482FU6EL2H2D5M313X59FNURXIJEXB9DEH6UNIIMKH4BHVDSG1-00222?func=item-global&doc_library=UCL01&doc_number=000806339&year=&volume=&sub_library=SSEES UCL library online]
* ''Beyond Reductionism: The Alpbach Symposium. New Perspectives in the Life Sciences'' (co-editor with J.R. Smythies, 1969), ISBN 0-8070-1535-0
* ''[[The Challenge of Chance]]: A Mass Experiment in Telepathy and Its Unexpected Outcome'' (1973)
* ''[[The Concept of Creativity in Science and Art]]'' (1976)
* ''Life After Death'', (co-editor, 1976)
* ''Humour and Wit. I'': [[Encyclopædia Britannica]]. 15th ed. vol. 9.(1983)
* *<small>[http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9106291 humour - Encyclopædia Britannica](by Arthur Koestler)</small>
===Biographies of Koestler===
* Atkins, J., 1956. ''Arthur Koestler''.
* Buckard, Christian G., 2004. ''Arthur Koestler: Ein extremes Leben 1905-1983''. ISBN 3-406-52177-0.
* [[David Cesarani]], 1998. ''Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind''. ISBN 0-684-86720-6.
* Hamilton, Iain, 1982. ''Koestler: A Biography''. ISBN 0-02-547660-2.
* Koestler, Mamaine, 1985. ''Living with Koestler''. ISBN 0-297-78531-1 or ISBN 0-312-49029-1.
* Levene, M., 1984. ''Arthur Koestler''. ISBN 0-8044-6412-X.
* Mikes, George, 1983. ''Arthur Koestler: The Story of a Friendship''. ISBN 0-233-97612-4.
* Pearson, S. A., 1978. ''Arthur Koestler''. ISBN 0-8057-6699-5.
[[Langston Hughes]]'s autobiography also documents their meeting in [[Turkestan]] during the [[Soviet]] era.
==Notes==
{{reflist}}
== External links ==
{{wikiquote}}
*[http://www.integralbuddha.net/topic_aqalsdi_abhoh.htm A brief history of Holons and Holarchies]
*[http://www.koestlertrust.org.uk/ The Koestler Trust]
*[http://city-journal.org/html/17_2_oh_to_be.html 2007 ''City Journal'' article on Koestler]
*[http://www.bodysoulandspirit.net/mystical_experiences/read/notables/koestler.shtml Mystical Experiences of Arthur Koestler]
* [http://moebius.psy.ed.ac.uk/ Koestler Parapsychology Unit] - Koestler and his third spouse left a large sum of money for research into parapsychology: this funded, amongst other things, the Koestler Parapsychology Unit at Edinburgh University
* [http://koestlerarthur.fw.hu Hungarian site on Koestler]
* [http://www.draken.com/ahellas/koestler.html Arthur Koestler Project]
* [http://www.forteantimes.com/features/profiles/118/arthur_koestler.html Koestler's Legacy] - ''Fortean Times'' article on the centenary of Koestler's birth
* [http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/koestler.htm Online biography]
* [http://www.ilsa.de/frmthryohs.html ''General Properties of Koestler's Open hierarchical Systems'']
* [http://www.george-orwell.org/Arthur_Koestler/0.html George Orwell on Koestler.]
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