He goes far beyond Jung… This book is uniquely useful. It is rare to find an author who can expound with such authority on a subject whose very existence is known only to a few initiates. “Each of its 479 mystical pages needs to be closely read, for the dramatic turns in this extraordinary alchemical novel are so well hidden that one dare not skip a single sentence for fear of missing an essential key to the developing mystery. It was hailed as “the most explicit account of the alchemical art ever published” by the Literary Review and described as “an authentic spellbinder” by The Guardian. Mercurius or, the Marriage of Heaven and Earth, a partly fictional account of the Great Work of alchemy, was published by Macmillan in 1990.
This was followed by a novel about an autistic child, The Rapture (Macmillan, 1986 Coronet, 1986). His first book was a ‘theological thriller’ entitled The Serpent’s Circle (UK Macmillan, 1985 Coronet, 1986, and US St Martin’s Press, 1985 Warner, 1986). Since the mid-eighties Harpur has fashioned an impressive catalogue of books and has become known for dealing with such topics as Forteana, Folklore, Daimonic Reality, and various portents of the Western Mystery traditions -Alchemy, Neoplatonism, Hermeticism and Depth Psychology.
Between 1978 and 83, he was a researcher and then an editor with a book-packaging company. Subsequently he did much of the reading and research that he would eventually use in his books, and wrote poetry, stories and plays by way of practice, while supporting himself with part-time jobs, such as teaching, market research, gardening, computer personnel etc. Previously, he had travelled for a year in Africa before going to St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, to read English. Born in Windsor, Patrick Harpur began writing professionally in 1983, aged 33.
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