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

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? This text re-evaluates Western culture in terms of a tradition which has been neglected or ignored, called "secret" or "occult" - but which is now once again stepping out of the shadows as it always does in times of intense cultural transition. It is a book about folklore, myth, magic and philosophy throughout the ages, peopled with poets, visionaries, demons and shape-shifters, depicting a world where imagination is key. The timescale stretches from the Egyptians and Pythagoreans through the Renaissance Magi, to the Romantics, Jung, and T.S. Eliot. Following the Greeks, the author calls it the "daimonic tradition". The text aims to show how the idea of the daimonic, together with the analagous ideas of soul and imagination, provides a tool - the faculty of insight - for seeing beneath the waves of history to the great sweeping undercurrents of myth by which our changing world-views are formed.

Table of Contents:
Part 1 Shape-shifters: the beginning of Iceland; the secret commonwealth; fallen angels; wise women and cunning men; the little people. Part 2 The seal-woman's skin: feeding the dead; the princess and the deer; Daimon lovers. Part 3 Concerning zombis: the fate of the Reverend Kirk; changelings; the "Bokos'" jars; the shadow of the body. Part 4 St. Patrick's purgatory: gateways to the otherworld; where the dead live; Hel and Valhalla; Plato's cave. Part 5 The soul of the world: primary imagination; the animated world; the collective unconscious; archetypes; dreaming. Part 6 Inside out: in search of Tir-na-Nog; how the unconscious began; Pishogue and glamour; Peer Gynt and the trolls; salvation through science. Part 7 Matter and spirits: the violation of Dame Kind; turning the tables; the atoms of Hades; fuzzy pictures. Part 8 "How natives think": hard world, soft world; life as a tiger; the great chain of being; good to eat, good to think. Part 9 The Daimons' tales: Apollo and his brother; the structure of myth; feminine sun, masculine moon; dreamtime; the self-transcending human. Part 10 The hero and the virgin: history and myth; the metaphorical and the literal; painting dryads. Part 11 Rites of passage: puberty rites; why we cook children; the craving for initiation; postscript - nature as Daimonic. Part 12 The animals who stared Darwin in the face: Darwin's nausea; the imbecile stepmother; the survival of the fittest. Part 13 The transmutation of species: the facts of life; evolution and devolution; missing links; the scientific priesthood; genes as Daimons. Part 14 The composition of the Magi: Hermes Trismegistus; Ficino's star magic; what Petrarch saw on Mount Ventoux; the art of the Cabala. Part 15 Conjuring angels: John Dee's journeys; Bruno's "furor"; science and magic; the uncanniness of numbers; the vegan spider. Part 16 The boar from the underworld: Venus and Adonis; Shakespeare the shaman; Cromwell's dream, England's nightmare. Part 17 Mercurius: red mercury; the transmuting powder; the great work; the raven's head; volatile and fixed; the mirror of alchemy. Part 18 The philosopher's retorts: mercury and sulphur; cooking metals; the groaning of creation; the four-fold unity; Newton's golden trees; the secret. Part 19 The cosmos and the universe: saving the appearances; the lighted cathedral; parallel worlds; the big picture; dark matter. Part 20 The weight of the world: the ego and the hero; gravity; Newton and Einstein; singularities. Part 21 Fafnir's blood: the liver-eating vulture; Heracles in the underworld; the charred ankle-bone; Baldur's dream. Part 22 The myths of machinery: the clock, the magnetic compass and the printing press; why tribes reject technology; "tekhne" as art; the glamour of television; the flight of the shaman. Part 23 The invention of walking: Coleridge leaps the gate; a "passion of awe"; the country life of Jean-Jacques Rousseau; the call of the wilderness. Part 24 The romantic philosophy: the "tabula rasa"

About the Author :
Patrick Harpur has written two novels and edited a modern alchemical journal. He is the author of DAIMONIC REALITY [Viking/Arkana]. He lives in Dorset.