The Philosophers' Secret Fire: A History of the Human Imagination

Politics & Social Sciences

Patrick Harpur

Social Sciences

Penguin Books, Ltd.

Details the progress of an autistic and severely damaged nine-year-old called Mikey, as Ruth, his nurse, struggles to cope with both the demands of her role in his recovery and her own growing attachment to him. Ruth’s story is cut with those of Mikey’s rich and inadequate parents and an adult patient at the Unit where she cares for the boy. Harry believes he’s living in the last degenerate and desolate days before the Rapture, when God will gather the chosen ones and transport them to heaven before destroying the world and creating it anew.

The Rapture

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

Macmillan

When Eileen retreats from an unhappy love affair to a deserted house in the country, she finds herself drawn to the researches of a previous occupant, the Reverend Smith, who combined his pastoral duties with scientific activities. The author also wrote "The Rapture" and "The Serpent's Circle".

Mercurius

The Serpent's Circle (Coronet Books)

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Coronet Books

Imprisoned in his own disturbed private world, nine-year-old Mikey fears for his life at every second. His nurse, Ruth, is perhaps the only person who can help him, yet she also is the prisoner of her own past. Harry, shut up in the local psychiatric hospital suffering the onslaught of an evil spirit, awaits the Second Coming.Dorothy meanwhile is careful not to suffer guilt for her son's affliction as Rex, her husband, is similarly careful not to reveal his own tormenting secret ...But when Klackan enters their lives, all equilibrium is lost and all is changed. The day of reckoning is approaching.'A fine realist writer ... plainly a writer to look out for' The London Standard 'Convincing and unsettling' The Observer

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 realize?  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.

The Philosophers' Secret Fire: A History of the Imagination

Blue Angel Gallery

This highly sought after novel was first published in 1990. It has been out of print for many years and until the release of this brand new edition was as rare as hen's teeth, with some old copies fetching prices of up to USD $600.00. This new edition features a beautiful new cover and has been revised and updated by the author. Know this: I, Mercurius, have set down a full, true and infallible account of the Great Work. But I give you fair warning that unless you seek the true philosophical gold and not the gold of the vulgar; unless your heart is fixed with unbending intent on the true Stone of the Philosophers, unless you are steadfast in your quest, abiding by God s laws in all faith and humility and eschewing all vanity, conceit, falsehood, intemperance, pride, lust and faintheartedness, read no further lest I prove fatal to you. 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 GreatWork, 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.

Mercurius: The Marriage of Heaven and Earth

Mercurius: Or, the Marriage of Heaven & Earth

The Squeeze Press

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 realize? 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.

Philosophers Secret Fire

History

Ancient Civilizations

Wooden Books

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Books by Patrick Harpur