The Philosophers' Secret Fire

Across the globe many societies still believe in an Otherworld of spirits, gods and demons 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.

Contents

1. Shape-Shifters
2. The Seal-Woman's Skin
3. Concerning Zombis
4. St Patrick's Purgatory
5. The Soul of the World
6. Inside Out
7. Matter and Spirits
8. 'How Natives Thing'
9. The Daimons' Tales
10. The Hero and the Virgin
11. Rites of Passage
12. The Animals who Stared Darwin in the Face
13. The Transmutation of Species
14. The Composition of the Magi
15. Conjuring Angels
16. The Boar from the Underworld
17. Mercurius
18. The Philosophers' Retorts
19. The Cosmos and the Universe
20. The Weight of the World
21. Fafnir's Blood
22. The Myths of Machinery
23. The Invention of Walking
24. The Romantic Philosophy
25. Boehme and Blake
26. Remembrance of Things Past
27. The Still Sad Music of Humanity
28. The Desert and the Rose Garden
29. Syzygies
30. The Bear that Bites the Heart
31. 'The Night-mare Life-in-Death was she'
32. The Myths of Madness
33. Ungodly Messiahs
34. The Cure of Soul
35. The Waste Land