You gotta have Soul

I'm just nearing the end of Patrick Harpur's latest book 'A complete guide to the soul: Who am I? What's my life's purpose? Where am I going when I die?'

The subtitle is a bit naff and 'New Agey', and did put me off initially, but the weight of serious, good reviews on the book and Harpur's earlier work finally cajoled me into obtaining a copy (Edinburgh libraries are sublime, you can get almost anything).


Harpur has a really smooth, earthy writing style and he's definitely produced a pretty comprehensive overview of how numerous cultures - from the ancient Greek's to the present day - have attempted to interpret, project, express, depict, manifest and commune with, that often elusive and most sacred aspect of our human nature...the soul.

In his book, Harpur journey's through Greek and Norse myth, neo-Platonism, Renaissance alchemy, Shamanic societies (ancient and modern), scientific materialism and the depth psychology of Freud and Jung.
The author spotlights how our imagining of the soul has been translated or corrupted (and many other things) by church, state and folk culture across the ages.

Harpur's book is not something I can sum up that accurately in a blog post; his ideas are too complex, subtle and poetic, they have to grow on you, be absorbed over time, understood through many examples and contrasting traditions. Basically, you need to read the book to feel the truth rather than intellectually grasp it.

I found the two most powerful threads running through the book, were the concepts of personal and collective Daemon's and the important distinction Harpur makes between 'spirit' and 'soul' - the latter have, over time, become somewhat interchangeable an
misattributed.



Since Socrates' daemon was first mentioned by Plato, through the Roman notion of 'Genius' to the psychiatrist Carl Jung's Philemon; writers, artists, poets and other assorted shaman of every cloth, have, over the millennia, spoken of a spiritual companion or guide who has manifested physically or metaphorically (in dreams and synchronicity's for example) at certain crucial moments in their lives to warn, inspire or lead them to a deeper understanding of the world and their place within it.
Christian theologian's (as they did with so many things) morphed the original multifaceted pagan daemons into the sanitized, mono-tasking bores of Biblical legend called 'Angels'.

Daemon's often do take on the popular conceptions of a particular time and culture of course - in a strongly Judaeo-Christian culture they will often appear to us as winged Cherubim and Seraphim's - sort of Disney-fied older brothers and sisters. 'Angelology' seems to be a growth industry these days.

In more tribal and traditionally shamanic cultures, daemon's tend to be shape-shifters, animal-human hybrid's (the North American Indian deity 'The Trickster/Coyote is a good example), and this is mirrored of course in Greek myth with Pan and friends, and the Ibis-headed Egyptian god Thoth among many others too numerous to mention here.

For Harpur, it is Hermes, the Greek messenger of the Gods and guide to the Underworld, the patron of travellers, boundaries and crossroads who is the invisible thread between the macrocosm and the microcosm. Hermes is the webmaster for the World Soul, connecting diverse and seemingly unrelated phenomena to reveal that everything is merely a shadow and mirror of everything else - if we are only sensitive enough to look for and hear his signs and whispers.

Hermes puts us in touch with Jung's mythical 'archetypes' (The Hero, Wise old man, Eternal Mother, Trickster etc), that possess us as demon's or 'daemon's', to drag us violently sometimes, deep down into the underworld, the unconscious, where we negate the individual ego/spirit/daemon and merge with the Soul of the World.

This journey is the soul's journey, to remember and 're-cognize' its grounding in every aspect of reality: Individuation or Oneness with the totality - or as the Alchemists would say, as above so below.
This merging can be metaphorical, poetic and imaginative in many different ways, and there are many many diverse paths and journeys which can lead to this communion with the great 'It-ness'.

As Harpur illustrates throughout 'A Complete guide to the Soul', since the Enlightenment we have neglected and even been repelled by the dark mystery that the soul represents, we have instead championed the daylight world of Spirit in an instrumental way: Self-improvement as in New Age therapies, 'progress', ego development, hierarchies and vertical thinking.
We have made those important Hermetic messages, symbols, synchronicity's and subtleties of Spirit/Daemonology far too 'literal', and excommunicated the depth of the soul in the process.



In the postmodern world of pastiche and irony we have fixed and channeled the masculine aspect of spirit into lifestyle choices, health fascism, personal gurus, 'finding oneself' through Twelve step guides and so on; its as if we're still scared of the dark and have to illuminate everything in the airy, Apollonian light of reason, make it material... but we don't even scratch the surface of the Underworld, the realm of Dionysus.

The soul is a twilight world, feminine, labyrinthine, medieval, archaic - it is the repository of the unconscious, dreams, genealogy, history, narrative, myth and mystery.
A journey to the underworld is always challenging, instructive and ultimately cathartic, it shows us where we came from and where we are going, and how to be truly alive and sensitive to everything. Its also a helluva a lot more fun than contemplating crystals or attempting to translate Dolphin squeaks into the Queen's English - or any other of those stress-free, Bourgeois method's of soul-seeking.

As Patrick Harpur argues, we need to re-cognize the important messages that spirit is telling us and not be afraid of hooking up with the soul on a more long-term basis.

If you think about it, Harpur's book is actually a metaphorical gateway to the Underworld via his spirit or Daemon, or Hermes rather - that wing-footed transgressor who likes to connect all the dots.

Getting in touch with soul is often hard and unpleasant, scary and sometimes life and sanity threatening, but that's what you get if you want some kind of genuine, authentic existence.

As the writer, criminal and ex-jailbird Jean Genet replied when asked why he chose the life of a thief:

"For the sake of depth".