Raised in the solitude of the Australian outback - with vast expanses of open space and none of the distractions of today's world - Paul Wilson had a unique unopportunity to explore how the mind worked. And to cultivate a range of concentrative and mindfulness skills.

At that early age there were no thoughts or even awareness of meditation, but that's where it ultimately headed.

Fast forward to the seventies...

Having no affiliation with any particular school or philosophy, he becomes one of the first freelance meditation teachers in Sydney. This would mean that in years to come he'd be equally at home teaching in secular or spiritual environments, and at his own centre the Calm Centre. (You're too late, it's no longer in operation.)

Fast forward to the eighties...

Wilson is teaching meditation at the Calm Centre. The handbook he writes, The Calm Technique, has been picked up by an Australian book publisher who turns it into a local best-seller. Six months later it is published in the US. The calm is spreading.

Fast forward to the nineties...

Now there is not just one Paul Wilson 'calm' title, but dozens of them. Wilson has become the biggest-selling author in a number of countries, particularly in Europe. In the UK, for example, he has five books in the Top 10 - simultaneously - a feat that has only ever been equalled by Roald Dahl.

Fast forward to the late nineties...

It is impossible to calculate exactly how many of these 'calm' books are in circulation, but as at the close of the century, there are at least 10 million. At least. Possibly many millions more.

So ubiquitous is this suite of calm (and related) titles that they are regularly lampooned in newspaper cartoons and the like without any attempt to add context. Knowledge of the backstory by the general public is assumed. Check out the very first episode of the comedy series, Black Books. And the more recent Peter Rabbit movie. And on other shows like QI.

However his focus has always been on how to relate this practice to a busy, contemporary world. Believing that most people were too tied up with daily life to put in the hours that the traditional meditation approaches required, he developed an alternative - one that would deliver the same benefits in a more streamlined way. When his book about this, The Calm Technique, took off around the world in the 80s, meditation was very much on the mainstream agenda. 

In the 90s he and his rearchers developed a range of even more streamlined meditation methods. These have been covered in a number of his books.

Now, with Calm No Matter What, Wilson simplifies meditation even more. And enables you to take it further into the spiritual world than most books allow.

However his focus has always been on how to relate this practice to a busy, contemporary world. Believing that most people were too tied up with daily life to put in the hours that the traditional meditation approaches required, he developed an alternative - one that would deliver the same benefits in a more streamlined way. When his book about this, The Calm Technique, took off around the world in the 80s, meditation was very much on the mainstream agenda.