Patrick Harpur

Daimonic Reality is a sweeping look at strange, otherworldly events in the world around us -- UFOs, fairies, phantom animals, visions of the Virgin Mary, alien abductions, and mysterious lights in the sky. But rather than simply listing the events, Patrick Harpur shows how they can all be tied together using his concept of Daimonic Reality. Starting with a look at the events themselves, Harpur shows how they are connected by using ideas proposed by Carl Jung and the Romantic poets, William Butler Yeats and William Blake. Harpur connects the old-fashioned fairies to the modern occupants of UFOs. He highlights the similarities in sightings of the older Black Dogs, more recent mysterious cats, and Yetis, Yowies, and Bigfoot. Lights in the sky have existed throughout history; once they were seen as witches, now they are UFOs. The ephemeral materializations of Spiritualism's seances have been replaced by tangible crop circles. And all of them are manifestations of Daimonic Reality.

A Field Guide to the Otherworld

Daimonic Reality

Complete Guide to the Soul

Realidad daimónica

Who am I? What's my life's purpose? Where am I going when I die? These questions lie at the heart of all our lives, yet clear answers seem hard to come by. A Complete Guide to the Soul explains that answers can in fact be found in a secret history that runs like quicksilver through Western culture, from philosophy and alchemy, to poetry and modern psychology. This hidden tradition places our soul at the centre of the universe and shows us how to recover a sense of meaning that so many of us have lost today. In this important book, Patrick Harpur explores the nature of our soul, as well as its destiny. He unpacks the myths that surround it and shows how it may actually be the very fabric of reality. And he explains that, not until we have a clear understanding of this invisible part of ourselves, can we discover the answers to many of our questions about existence and human nature. Ultimately, this knowledge could help us find our true place within the world in which we live.

A Complete Guide to the Soul

How is it that the same myths are perpetuated through different cultures at different times? Could it be something to do with the universal imagination?

A History of the Imagination

The Philosophers' Secret Fire

Is there any place for the ancient myths of our ancestors in modern times? Could their shadowy presence in our common imagination be more influential than we realise? Across the globe many societies still believe in an Otherworld of spirits, gods and daimons, which the West has banished to the unconscious mind and now only visits in dreams. Yet this visionary tradition continues to subvert the rational universe, erupting out of the shadows in times of intense religious and philosophical transition. In his dazzling history of the imagination, Patrick Harpur links together fields as far apart as Greek philosophy and depth psychology, Renaissance magic and tribal ritual, Romantic poetry and the ecstasy of the shaman, to trace how myths have been used to make sense of the world. He uncovers that tradition which alchemists imagined as a Golden Chain of initiates, who passed their mysterious 'secret fire' down through the ages. As this inspiring book shows, the secret of this perennial wisdom is of an imaginative insight: a simple way of seeing that re-enchants our existence and restores us to our own true selves.

Mercurius : O el matrimonio de cielo y tierra

La tradición oculta del alma

In 1952 a country clergyman called Smith begins his tortuous quest for the Holy Grail of alchemy - the Philosophers' Stone which transmutes base metal to gold and confers immortality. As he pits himself against the bizarre perils of the Great Work, it becomes clear that his arcane transformations are as much spiritual as chemical. Gradually the shadow of alchemy falls over those around him; a young girl whose sudden pregnancy is a local scandal; Janet, trapped in a barren marriage; and Robert who pursues his own quest for the legendary blue glass of Chartres. Thirty years later, Eileen comes to live in Smith's vicarage. In the medieval cellar she unearths a hidden manuscript and begins to read of secret fire and mysterious prime matter, a green lion and a raven's head, a fatal conjunction of king and queen, a descent into Blackness and putrefaction. As she penetrates farther into the alchemical labyrinth, she is haunted both by her own history and by that of her neighbours, the menacing Mrs Zetterberg and the disfigured Pluto - and, finally, by the enigma of Smith himself. In separate but interwoven accounts, Smith and Eileen strive towards the one thing necessary for the Work's success - the great Secret guarded by the paradoxical Mercurius, who leads them to the zero point where Heaven is wedded to Earth and the miraculous Stone appears at the intersection of time and eternity. By reconstructing a highly sophisticated but almost forgotten world-view, Mercurius restores to us our own spiritual heritage which, rooted in the alchemists' dark retorts, will perhaps flower in the light of the future.

Patrick Harpur

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