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

Timestamps

0:00:00 Welcome to Patrick Harpur
0:08:59 Can something be concrete without being literal?
0:12:30 Blake’s double vision: seeing through the world
0:19:55 When ordinary nature becomes a revelation
0:28:34 Does consensus reality survive a walk with friends?
0:30:00 A UFO encounter and a crack between worlds
0:35:33 Fairy enchantment and the uncertainties of perception
0:41:30 Can a vivid memory be something that never happened?
0:44:30 The missing keys that unsettle ordinary reality
0:48:32 Why Patrick questions literal alien abductions
0:53:21 Is anything truly literal?
0:58:36 How language divides what we experience
1:03:58 Is metaphor the foundation of language?
1:08:55 Could science explain why there is no pure perception?
1:16:01 Why do we remember film scenes that aren’t there?
1:21:09 Proust: remembering a life or reliving it?
1:27:39 Are some people more open to the daimonic?
1:29:12 Patrick’s childhood encounter with a numinous world
1:34:32 Imagination isn’t fantasy
1:40:12 The otherworld hiding in popular culture
1:45:24 Are we ourselves daimonic beings?
1:50:04 Why Bernardo took decades to truly encounter a cat
1:53:02 Is there room for daimons in Christianity?
1:56:53 Fairies, angels and sacred wells
2:01:31 Closing reflections: stories around the campfire
2:02:38 Introducing the recording search tool

Recording