Faery Craft: Weaving Connections with the Enchanted Realm

by Carding, Emily

  Faery Paths, Traditions, and Groups

  Faery Craft does not require traditional initiation or membership in any group or religion, nor does it preclude such membership, as it can become part of any path that is wide enough to allow our Faery allies to walk by our side. Naturally, a number of groups and traditions have formed over the years that have particular connection to Faery, so we shall look some of the more prominent and intriguing ones here.

  The Faery Tradition and R. J. Stewart

  There is strong vein of Faery lore and practices that until modern times was passed down orally through tales and folklore. Although the oral tradition has all but faded into the mists, there are resources and teachers who can point the way to not only reclaiming the hidden wisdom inherent in the lore but finding the living and evolving tradition within it that is just as relevant now, if not more so, than it was to our ancestors. One of the most respected teachers of this tradition is the Scottish author, esotericist, and musician R. J. Stewart. He currently has forty books in publication and dedicates a great deal of time and energy to teaching magickal arts and Faery tradition to groups both in the United States and Europe. I was lucky enough to be able to visit him in his home in Glastonbury, England, and gain insight into his perspective and experience of the Faery realm.

  Was there an experience that stands out in your mind as being your first truly otherworldly experience with the Faery realm or like an initiatory experience that came from them as opposed to from other people?

  Well, there’s several. I had lots of experiences on sacred sites in Britain, really from the early 1970s onwards, and then around 1980 I visited Robert Kirk’s Faery hill in Scotland, and as a result of my experiences there I produced a new edition of his famous book The Secret Commonwealth, which is about Scottish Faery tradition, and I wrote a commentary on it. You know, I had a lot of spiritual experiences when I was at Kirk’s Faery hill, as have many other people. It is a powerful place.

  Are there any that you can talk about, or is it all very secret?

  Well, that’s more difficult. What happens with the Faery traditions is the more willing people are to talk about it, the less they’ve experienced, and the less willing they are to talk about it, the more they’ve experienced, which makes it very difficult. You find the same thing hidden within the interviews noted by W. Y. Evans-Wentz, the famous scholar who wrote The Faery-Faith in Celtic Countries. He didn’t speak Irish and he went round interviewing the Irish grandmothers and grandfathers and country people generally, and often he had to go with the local Catholic priest, so he’s not going to get proper answers to his questions. He’d ask them, “Did you ever see fairies?” and they’d say, “No, never seen any. But my uncle used to see them, it was a long time ago, and they were very small.” And that means, “I see them every day, and they’re really big.” There is also something inherent in the Irish language that is difficult for modern English people to understand, for things are often referred to as their opposite in Gaelic. Thus “the little people” actually meant “the big people.” This has been forgotten.

  What do you think the most important qualities are for someone who wants to seriously work with Faery?

  You have to be very honest, because they sense all deception; you can’t hide anything from them. One of the early writings about the Faery realm is that you have to go there without a shadow on your heart, because if you have a shadow on your heart, they’ll tear you to pieces. But if your heart is pure, they’re already your friends, and they will love you. So that’s the old-fashioned way of saying what we would say today—that you have to have integrity, and you have to be truthful and honest, like every fairy tale! In every fairy tale it’s the person who is truthful and honest who does well, and the person who’s deceitful and selfish does very badly.

  You have to have a sense of humour, because they’re very humorous and they make jokes all the time and do all sorts of strange things. And you have to be patient, because some Faery things are very instant, and others take a long, long time.

  What would you say are the big things to avoid when working with Faery?

  Avoid being superior, and avoid thinking of faeries as “little helpers,” and always be respectful. Respect goes a long, long way. Never, ever assume that they will do anything for you, anything at all, because even if they’ve done something for you for years, one day they’ll say, “No, we’ve never done that…we’re not going to do that for you.” So never assume anything. Always expect the unexpected!

  R. J. Stewart

  How important do you think place is—being rooted in a place for connecting with Faery?

  I think it’s very important. There are some things to do with Faery magick that you can do anywhere—anywhere in the world, it doesn’t matter. But there are other things that you can only do when you’re tuned in to one place and tuned in to that place relatively long-term. So I think place is extremely important. And you know that’s true in human life, too. There are people who never leave their hometown and there are people who travel all over the place, and the Faery beings are just like human beings in that respect.

  What would you say the difference is, then, between the kinds of beings who are able to travel with you and those who are tied to a locality?

  This is where it gets interesting, and not enough is known or taught about this due to lack of practical experience in our alternative communities at this time. Especially because there’s a lot of assumptions about what Faery beings are and statements are made about them without really trying to relate to them and come into a proper understanding. Certain Faery beings can move around freely and really have a great sort of independence of energy. Others are closely tied to springs or wells or hills or forests and they can’t move around freely, even if they’re powerful. And so those are two of the quite clear distinctions that you have—the ones that can move freely anywhere and the ones that are really in a location. And really we have to try to understand both.

  I’ve heard from people where they have experienced beings who are clearly deeply connected to the land but seem to take on some qualities of their appearance from the people who had moved to that place from other areas—for example, faeries of Celtic appearance have been encountered in some areas of Canada. Is it that they travelled over with the people or that the people seeing them are perceiving them through some sort of filter?

  I think it’s a mixture of all of these things. Irish mystic AE (real name George William Russell) was actually interviewed by Evans-Wentz anonymously, and he also wrote in his autobiography, which is called The Candle of Vision, that when he was out in the remote parts of Western Ireland, the Faery beings would appear as lights. They looked like oval shapes made of light in the remote places. But when they got closer to human habitation they started to look more like human beings.

  This is significant because they take a form, a visual presentation, from the human memory and from the human imagination. And guess what? They’re always several hundred years out of date. This is why a lot of people think of faeries as looking medieval or sometimes they appear in eighteenth-century costumes. They tend to draw, for some reason, from the collective memory but appear to be several hundred years behind the times. You don’t see them dressed up in the latest Gucci outfits!

  Something that is mentioned in Evans-Wentz and also much more recently in John Matthews’s channelled work, The Sidhe, is that a time is coming when Faery beings will rise to the surface and be seen again by all. Is that something that you see coming in the future?

  I think that it’s a very important idea, and if humanity is going to not destroy itself, we need to come back to this heightened awareness of the spiritual dimensions of the Faery realm. I think that if we’re going to go for something like that, it may take a while for it to happen; I don’t think it’s going to happen quickly, and it really depends on individuals and groups working at it
to open it out. So it’s all down to what we do—what we actually do.

  There seems to be a number of people within the modern Faery community who believe that they are faeries in human form. What do you think about that?

  Well, I don’t see why they shouldn’t be! Why not? One of my teachers, Roberta Gray, who was an astrologer and very knowledgeable in Celtic tradition, used to say—she said this in the late 1960s/early ’70s—that there were more and more beings being born into human bodies that had not been human before. That was very interesting, because she was saying that in the late 1960s, before the New Age movement, before any of the stuff we’re so familiar with today, so that gave it a unique authenticity. It wasn’t just a cool “something” that was around in a book. So I think it’s very possible.

  What do you see the future of Faery tradition being? Do you think practitioners will always be in the minority or do you think it will be more respected and known about in the future?

  I don’t know, I think there are multiple answers to that question. If, for example, our modernist culture breaks down and people start to live in new ways—like new versions of old or ancestral ways, I suppose—then we would see quite a widespread return to relating to the Faery beings and nature spirits, because it’s clear, from tradition, that our ancestors regarded that as essential to survival. If our modernist culture doesn’t break down, and we get more and more attuned to computers and cyber-networks and machines, then we’ll continue to lose that awareness until eventually we lose it altogether. So I suppose the answer is we’ve got to find a middle ground somewhere between those two and hope that the culture doesn’t break down but that people do become increasingly aware. Again, for me, the key is the environmental movement, because that’s what makes people more aware of the spiritual worlds of nature.

  So perhaps it will be the increasing connection with Faery that will stop the breakdown from having to happen?

  That’s a very interesting point, yes, I think there’s a lot of wisdom in that.

  For more information, visit www.rjstewart.net.

  Celtic Shamanism and John and Caitlín Matthews

  Celtic shamanism is a path that embraces the native spiritual practices of the British Isles, honouring the ancestors and spirits of the land. It appeals to those who are drawn to nature-based spirituality and trance techniques and wish to work with the spirits of the Celtic and British landscape or who are of British or Celtic descent. As such, interaction and connection with Faery beings and nature spirits forms an important part of this practice. Shamanism and shamanic techniques in all their forms have become very popular in recent years, and two of the most prolific and respected authors in this field are John and Caitlín Matthews, a husband and wife team who have between them penned over a hundred books on Celtic mythology, shamanism, and related subjects, as well as taught core spiritual practices all over the world. I spoke to them about their relationship with Faery and the use of shamanic practices to strengthen our connection with the unseen realms.

  John and Caitlín Matthews

  (photo by Mark Brome)

  How important is interaction with the Faery realm within Celtic shamanism?

  J: Shamanism works at the level of spirit, and spirit includes the Faery realm, so they are actually very close. I find that the Faery kind show up quite a lot in journey work, though, in a way I can’t really describe, my own encounters with them happen in a different way to normal journeying.

  C: All shamanic traditions interact with different kinds of spirits, but the hidden ones are part of every tradition in every country, not just in Britain and Ireland.

  Our ancestral traditions are informed by Faery lore, music, and wisdom on every level: historically, in the written record as well as in the oral tradition. But it is an ongoing, living lore, not one that has been anthropologically filed and forgotten. Those pathways have not been lost, but every time we journey or meditate or pray, we make “paths through the wheatfield.”

  Whenever we come to the thresholds of place or time, we encounter the hidden ones. As the elder race to humans and our neighbours, Faeries and ourselves have encounters and relationships; sometimes these are not happy relationships—especially when we build upon land without consideration—and these upsets often need to be arbitrated shamanically, for they can have consequences upon our descendants.

  How can we strengthen connection with the Faery realm?

  C: To have a strong relationship with the hidden ones, we need to acknowledge our interdependence with all life forms and live accordingly: with prayer, consideration, and respect. These are the daily duties towards the Faery realms that everyone should have. For myself, the songs I receive from Faery and the offerings that I give make a pathway down which mutual understanding has grown. The Faery allies that work with me in my shamanic practice do so because we enjoy each other’s society and understand that their hearth and my hearth are those of neighbours.

  J: Journey work strengthens any links with the otherworld in whatever form or of whatever type. Depending a lot on the individual, some may get Faery contacts of their own accord, others may have to work harder at it—it is those who could find shamanism a good means to opening doors to the Faery realms.

  What advice would you give to people who wish to work with Faery?

  J: Don’t! Half seriously, I would say if you do so, be wary of all kinds of strangeness and wonder. Your whole life can be turned upside down by these beings, who can be every bit as cruel as they are kind. Of all the inner beings I work with, the Faery folk are the most uncompromising and variable. They can really like you one day, then, apparently, dislike you the next.

  C: Be aware that the hidden ones are not there to grant our wishes: any relationship that we have with them is wrought of faithfulness, honour, and respect. Like humans, faeries can be in many different conditions, so be discriminate and clear in your dealings, with exactly the same street wisdom you would use in daily life—just because I see a man on the street doesn’t mean he’s well disposed to me. It’s exactly the same if you meditate or journey and see a faerie! Beware of acting out of human acquisitiveness and, above all, keep any promises or agreements that you make with them. Don’t claim Faery powers you don’t possess—these belong to the hidden ones, not to you!

  And from you specifically, John, I’d love to hear how working with the glyph has changed your perceptions of Faery.

  J: The great glyph was a gift that really started me on this aspect of the work. It was the first “in” thing they showed me, and when I got to use it, it opened ways between our worlds that were more powerful and direct than any I had known before. I continue to use it, and it has become a constant part of the work I do with Faery beings. They tell me they are very happy that so many people are using it today and look forward to welcoming all who are of good intention to their world.

  For more information, visit www.hallowquest.org.uk.

  Faery Wicca

  Faery Wicca is sometimes found referring to covens and individuals practicing a version of the Wiccan tradition, both initiatory and noninitiatory, with a strong emphasis on Faery beings and elementals and usually within a Celtic or pseudo-Celtic framework. Wicca itself is a popular magickal tradition, which, though relatively modern, has its roots in the grimoires, folk magick, and practices of ancient Greece, Rome, and Egypt. There is a strong aspect of polarity and balance within this tradition, as Wiccans work with a God and a Goddess, often putting much emphasis on the Divine Feminine. Wicca involves working with the elements and their guardians, and encourages a deep respect for nature and her hidden dimensions, so to work closely with Faery within this tradition is a natural extension.

  Radical Faeries

  “We have been a separate people…drifting together in a parallel existence, not always conscious of each other, yet recognizing one another by eyelock when we meet here and there a
s outcasts…Spirit-people in the service to the Great Mother…Shamans…rhapsodes, poets and playwrights, healers and nurturers…visionaries…rebels.”

  Harry Hay speaking at the Spiritual Conference

  for Radical Faeries in 1979

  The Radical Faeries are more of a movement than a group or tradition, based very much around gay sexuality and the freedom of expression, as well as the love of nature and the spirit of the land. Their roots may be found in their first gathering, the Spiritual Conference for Radical Faeries, which was organised by Harry Hay and John Burnside in 1979 and has since grown massively in numbers and reputation. Members of the Radical Faeries place prime importance on the celebration of individuality and “gay spirit,” defining themselves as a race and culture apart and freeing their “inner faerie.” Radical Faeries embrace the word queer as part of their identity, covering both gay men and women as well as transgender and bisexual, seeking to be liberated from what they see as the constrictive expectations and regulations of a heterocentric society. Fey (as some members also call themselves) celebrate the Celtic Pagan festivals in accordance with the wheel of the year as popularised by Wiccan-influenced paths. They hold events and meetings all over the world, and a number have bought land in wild places, such as Faerie Camp Destiny in Vermont, in order to provide retreat centres for members to pursue their magickal and spiritual paths away from the rest of the world.