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Pegs: So - could people perhaps recount experiences they've had with what they believe to be Fey, as clearly and precisely as possible? What exactly did you see/hear/feel? Was it internal or external or a combination of the two? How exactly are you represent this experience to yourself? How critical have you been about the whole experience?
The way you phrase this makes me brace myself for dissection. I don't generally mind expressing what I've experienced, or anything, but there's something about being asked to explain in excruciating detail and then measure how critical I was that sets me on edge - like you're not trying to gather information about people's experiences, you're merely waiting to bust our myths.
I kind of assume you didn't actually mean it that way?
What I'm interested in is what exactly have you experienced that's made you construct this belief?
The bit about Angels being what they are? I suppose that's more of an intellectual assessment correlating what I've read, and what people whose oppinions I trust have told me about their experiences working with archangels and such. It's not an area of primary focus for me, but I have a pretty clear working defintion.
As for why I believe in them, or at least don't disbelieve?
Well, first of all, and this may sound dumb to you, but to me it means a lot: My name means "Angel", so I've always paid a bit of attention to what They are supposed to be.
Second of all, I grew up a pantheist who believed in ghosts from personal experience, and angels by default. My parents taught me energy work and thought forms, and a few other highly useful general principals, but didn't teach me much of anything about other types of beings beyond that I should always be respectful unless given a reason not to be.
I wanted to believe in the Fey, and I thought the gods sounded slightly more significant than the main character in a really good book, but it wasn't real to me, and there was nothing I could do to really force myself to believe, so I didn't try.
Then, without ever intending to, I started meeting them, and my whole world changed. So I am no longer willing to assume that something as major to so many people as angels simply don't exist.
But I accept the definitions given - that they are the direct servants of a henotheistic/monotheistic god, and that their job is to carry messages, and otherwise do His direct bidding. That description, plus others from ceremonialists I have known, leads me to the conclusion that angels are the sort to follow the rules they are bound by concientiously, and with good-to-neutral intentions.
I suppose as a working definition, I start with the guideline that if they don't fit that fairly basic description, they may not be angels. I'm not going to use this definition to challenge someone else's direct experiences with angels, but it's a guideline for me, should the subject arise.
Slackula: i wonder does this apply to the fey folk? Are their stories of them possessing people.
Well, I don't know if there are stories about it, but I've seen it a few times. There seems to be a lot more of the idea that the Medium is a Window, and a lot less assumed exchange of control. I've never seen one of the fey demand or expect to have full control over the medium's faculties the way a god or other spirit might.
That is how I originally met the Fey. I was spending time with people I know and respect, and noticed that one of them was acting differently than usual, and that her energy felt strange to me. At first I started to think I had done something to offend her, such that she seemed colder than usual, and sharper around the edges. As the evening wore on, I continued to try and figure out what the frell was going on with her, and she seemed more and more amused.
When we were in a private place, and could discuss it more directly, they told me what was going on - that a particular lady Fey they knew was acting through my friend. Their description accounted for both the change in energy and the odd behavior, but I did as I usually do when I'm handed a totally new situation - I accepted the working definition for the time being, until I had the time and space to examine the experience on my own. So I talked with Her for a while longer (as I have several times since then) and then She went on Her way, and I ask my friend a few questions.
The whole thing seemed bizzare to me at the time, but I considered, amongst other things, the experience of the people I was talking to, and my estimation of their honesty, and concluded that they certainly weren't playing a trick on me, or lying to me, and that their description of what they believed made as much sense to me as any other theory, and far more sense to me than anything I could apply from practice.
And I realized at that point that I had already somehow gotten past the hurdle of believing the Fey exist. Something had clicked for me, I'm guessing on an energy level, and the question shifted from "Do they Fey exist?" to "Were the Fey visiting just then?".
A few years later, with little other direct experience with the Fey under my belt, I decided to take some RJ Stewart workshops (wonderful man, beautiful voice, expensive seminars). The first one went okay, I suppose. It was more about techniques than of meeting the fey directly, really. It was basically a way of doing journey meditation, and a way of journeying with the body by walking a certain way (not physically, I mean with a certain energy and intent while you walk). The second seminar was about Healing, and involved a great deal more journeys to meet with the Fey. And certainly there were many kinds of Fey there to meet, from little skittering ones, to relatively plain ancestorly folks, to animals and anthropomorphics (I met one who looked rather a lot like a tall, thin man I was very attracted to, but with antlers), to brightly shining ones. In that sense, I think RJ Stewart and Brian Froud seem to see things similarly.
I was supposed to pick up an animal ally and a fey ally at that seminar, but I didn't - the Fey told me they liked me, but I must GO HOME now. Not wanting to just drop out of a ritual I was already bound into, I did my best to hold up my corner without the allies I was supposed to have, and then I paced anxiously while everyone else meditated on their new friendships, and finally went inside and broke down. RJ told me I should sleep on it, and that I certainly wasn't obliged to return for the second half if I wasn't up for it. I concluded that working with the Fey was not something that I should be doing just then, because I needed more stability in my life, and that was the one thing They were in no position to provide.
That was October. The following May, after many, many other things had happened, I ran into that same tall Antlered Fey during a journey ritual for Walpurgisnacht, and again not long thereafter in another journey that involved gathering around a fire to dance. It seemed I had picked up a Fey ally after all, but not for the purposes RJ had instructed us to expect. Since then AF (for I have no better name for Him) looks more like Himself, and less like the sexy friend of mine, but I have seen Him look like a specific boy somebody else was most attracted to, and have concluded that it's part of who He is, that He takes on the facade of greatest desire.
I have met a handfull of others, here and there, but those are the two major experiences I have to describe. I have no idea how to explain how critical or not I was for these. It's more that I had experiences that I had to categorize, and once I categorized them, I discarded whatever other possibilities came up while I was doing the analysis until they should come up again of their own accord.
I always keep a mental tab on the possibility that these are merely constructs in my own mind, but since it doesn't really help me interact with Them to do so, and it doesn't seem to hurt anything for me to treat Them as if They are what I'm told They are, I let it go.
--Ember-- |
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