The Mythic Imagination

COURSES ON THE MYTHIC IMAGINATION
AND NEOPLATONIC PHILOSOPHY
by Jules Cashford and Patrick Harpur
in Dorset, England

The courses re-evaluate 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 cultural transition. The Greeks called it the ‘daimonic’ tradition.

● They include talks about myth, philosophy and folklore throughout the ages, examining worlds where imagination is key – from the Egyptians and Pythagoreans through the Renaissance Magi, to Shakespeare, the Romantic poets, Jung, and T.S. Eliot.
● They aim to show how the idea of the daimonic, together with the analogous ideas of soul and imagination, provides a tool – the faculty of insight – for seeing beneath the waves of history to the undercurrents of myth by which our changing world-views are formed.

The courses are high-powered but at the same time informal and fun. The next sequence take place in September, October and November 2010 and comprises talks, discussions, films and field trips in the exceptionally beautiful landscape of undiscovered West Dorset. For more information see www.mythicimagination.info

					Jules Cashford read philosophy at St. Andrews and did post-graduate research in literature at Cambridge, on a Carnegie Fellowship, studying for a Ph D on Tragedy in the novels of Joseph Conrad. She was for some years  a Supervisor in Tragedy at Trinity College, Cambridge. She studied Psychology of Consciousness with Max Cade and lectured on Mythology at Birkbeck College of Extra-Mural Studies, University of London. She has also trained as a Jungian Analyst and is a member of the International Association of Analytical Psychology. She is author of The Moon: Myth and Image (Cassell Illustrated, 2003), and has translated The Homeric Hymns for Penguin Classics (2003). She is the co-author, with Anne Baring, of The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image (Penguin 1993). She writes and lectures on Myth and Literature. www.julescashford.com
					Patrick Harpur read English at Cambridge and is a writer, novelist and Hermetic philosopher. His non-fiction works include Daimonic Reality: a Field Guide to the Otherworld and The Philosophers’ Secret Fire: a history of the  Imagination. He has also published an alchemical tract, Mercurius: or, the Marriage of Heaven and Earth. He writes and lectures on Hermetic philosophy and The Golden Chain, in Britain and the USA. He has given talks at the Temenos Foundation and taught at Schumacher College. Forthcoming books include Soul: A Complete Guide to be published by Rider, an imprint of Ebury Publishing, in June 2010. www.harpur.org