Questioning consensus reality
"It took me two-thirds of my life to encounter a cat for the first time" says Bernardo, after having lived with them most of his life.
Dialogues with Patrick are full of exotic fairies and UFOs, but the fundamental message is how mysterious "ordinary" reality truly is. We are blinded by a culture that wants to make everything literal, when for Patrick, even notion of literal is a metaphor.
This session is a challenge to the very notion of consensus reality, an invitation to enchantment, and to encounter our world at a depth we so often ignore.
We discussed:
- Why "consensus reality doesn't hold up"
- The connection to McGilchrist's left and right brain
- Three types of mystical vision: nature, the beloved, and God
- Catholics vs Puritans about fairies
- Blake's sun: a heavenly host, a golden guinea — already a simile either way
- Why there may be nothing truly literal at all
As ever, I look forward to your reflections, and wish you many a true encounter....
Amir
About Patrick Harpur
Bernardo considers Patrick his top 3 author worthy of far more exposure.
He attended St Catharine's College, Cambridge, to read English, and his writings have appeared in The Guardian, Fortean Times, Gnosis, Resurgence, the New Statesman and the Independent on Sunday. He is often invited to give talks in the UK, in Spain and in America; and he has taught post-graduate students at Schumacher College (Dartington).
As well as several novels, Patrick is the author of 4 non-fiction books including Daimonic Reality: A Field Guide to the Otherworld which attempted to make sense of visions and apparitions by recourse to Platonic philosophy, Jungian psychology, and the Romantic notion of imagination. He also wrote The Philosophers' Secret Fire: A History of the Imagination outlined an esoteric Western way of seeing the world which has been largely neglected.
In 2010, Rider published the rather ambitiously titled A Complete Guide to the Soul, which appeared a year later in the US as The Secret Tradition of the Soul (Evolver Editions, an imprint of North Atlantic Books). The Stormy Petrel (The Squeeze Press, 2017) is a novel based on the life and work of the Danish thinker Søren Kierkegaard, whose writings have gripped Patrick for years.
You can read his article on the Daimonic Nature of Reality here
