The Secret Tradition of the Soul

Patrick Harpur teaches philosophy to graduate students at Schumacher College, Dartington, and frequently lectures in the United States. His articles have appeared in The Hermetic Journal, Gnosis, and Fortean Times as well as The Guardian, Country Living, and The Independent on Sunday. He lives in Dorset, UK.

In The Secret Tradition of the Soul, author Patrick Harpur argues that answers to life's most difficult questions--the meaning of life, the nature of self, and the existence of an afterlife--can be met by a visionary tradition that runs through Western culture, from Greek philosophy and Renaissance alchemy to Romantic poetry and modern depth psychology. This hidden tradition, according to Harpur, places our soul at the center of the universe and emphasizes imagination, the collective unconscious, and an "otherworld" or afterlife; above all, it teaches us how to know ourselves and how to recover a sense of meaning largely lost today. Harpur shows how this tradition drives the literature of otherworld journeys, from the flights of shamans and the dreams of psychoanalysis to the mystic imagination of Romantic poets and the visions of those having near-death experiences. The Secret Tradition of the Soul is the first book to gather together all the threads of the soul tradition and weave them into a bigger, clearer picture, presenting a worldview at once ancient and revolutionary.