Lake monsters, Yetis, UFOs, crop circles, guardian angels and visions of the Virgin Mary can all be described as apparitions, and this book weaves together an account of them. It argues that only in the last three centuries or so, and only in Western culture, they're as lively as ever. But, the author suggests, they can be made intelligible again by appealing to a different world-view. Three of the chief models for understanding mind and world are Jung's "Collective World", which is used to illuminate the links between the apparently disparate experiences being dealt with.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Today's Books rates this book a "MUST READ" -- Today's Books - September 2004
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38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
For dedicated students of religion, mythology, & metaphysics,
By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Daimonic Reality: A Field Guide to the Otherworld (Hardcover)
Daimonic Reality: A Field Guide To The Otherworld by Patrick Harpur offers a uniquely holistic and metaphysical perspective concerning otherworldly events such as UFOs, fairies, phantom animals, visions of the Virgin Mary, alien abductions, and more. Presenting the theory of Daimonic Reality, which perceives certain creatures and things to be not literally real (incapable of being unequivocally proven to exist) but rather Daemonically real (always being expressed in one form or another no matter how heavily skeptical opinions proclaim otherwise), Daimonic Reality is a thoughtful and fascinatingly unique look at the realm of the bizarre. Daimonic Reality is a "must read" title for dedicated students of religion, mythology, metaphysics, and paranormal studies.
32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Encyclopedic, learned treatment of a strange subject,
By The Don Wood Files (Fredericksburg, VA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Daimonic Reality: Understanding Otherworld Encounters: A Field Guide to the Otherworld (Arkana) (Paperback)
Harpur gives us a taxonomy of spirits - some will be recognizable to those familiar with this strange field, others might be new. For example, Harpur describes a series of strange,, phantom social workers who visited homes a few years ago in England. One thing about these social workers, and the men-in-black described by John Keel in The Mothman Prophecies, is how they seem to dress and act in ways that are exaggerated stereotypes. The female social workers with their hair in tight little buns, and the MIB's in their improbably starched white shirts. It is as if these characters were dressing for a part, and overdid it just a bit. The serious ghost hunters reference Harpur's book for its thoughtfulness, and often put it up there will Charles Fort and Jacques Valle in its impact. Recommended.......but destined to sit aside lesser works under the New Age banner at your local bookstore. That has always been the problem with this frustrating field - preaching to the chior.
42 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A book of the Anima Mundi,
By OAKSHAMAN "oakshaman" (Algoma, WI United States) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)
This review is from: Daimonic Reality: Understanding Otherworld Encounters: A Field Guide to the Otherworld (Arkana) (Paperback)
This is a book of the Anima Mundi, the living soul of the world. It is this soul (like Jung's collective unconscious) that serves as a great reservoir of primordial images. Prior to the age of rigid religious dogma, and equally rigid scientific materialism, human beings naturally seemed to tap into this living soul that permeates and unites all. Indeed, people actively sought to tap into this "otherworld" to gain guidance and gifts for themselves and the community.
Now, even though modern man no longer believes in such things, this "otherworld" is as potent as it ever was. Perhaps it is more so, for if people ignore and repress this alternate reality, it seems to "break out" into the "real" world with even more insistence. Harpur speculates that such unexplained phenomena as fairies, UFO's, angels, Yetis, crop circles, lake monsters, etc., all represent such breakthroughs by the otherworld. This is indeed an important and ground breaking book, not because it contains anything truly new, but because it reemphasises something quite old- perhaps older than the species itself, perhaps the fount from which we came.... Above all, just because modern men are through with the otherworld does not mean that It is through with us. Not at all.
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