Seeing Fairies

by Marjorie T Johnson

  (2) Heather Guy remembered the following in an email, 27 Mar 2014. I include it here because it gives some idea of how Marjorie operated: “The week before she received this good news [about publication with Aquamarin] she told me that she was giving up trying to find a publisher. Her actual words were ‘I’m going to get the manuscript back and give it a decent burial!’ The next week when I went to see her she told me of a dream she’d had the night before. She was struggling up a big hill and Dorothy [her sister] (who had passed away several years before) and groups of fairies were urging her to keep going to the top. I remember this very clearly as the next week when I calledin, she said ‘I have wonderful news!’ and told me about Leslie Shepard’s success in finding a publisher. She was convinced that this dream was the fairies way of telling her to keep going and the book would be published.”

  (3) Young, “A History,” 146-147, and Simon Young “Necrolog: Marjorie Johnson,”Fortean Times292 (September 2012), 26-27.

  (4) Young, “A History,” 140-145.

  (5)Ibid., 139.

  (6)Ibid., 145-148, note that the date 1950 comes from the blurb (written by Marjorie Johnson) and included on the back of the present volume. The letter from the little girl appears in theFairy Investigation Society News-letter4 (Summer 1959). The membership lists are reprinted in Young, “A History,” 151-153.

  (7) MacGregor, “Letter to the Editor” inThe Listener53 (1955), 526 andFolk-lore66 (1955), 302.

  (8) An email from Heather Guy, 14 Feb 2014.

  (9) This account came in a phone interview with Rose Gordon 12 Jul 2012: note that a similar account is to be found in this volume from another home-help, Maureen, who saw “a little shining thing” in Marjorie’s house, p. 168.

  (10) pp. 100-101.

  (11) Jones,The Appearance, 65-66.

  (12) Evans-Wentz,Fairy Faith, 72-73

  (13) pp. 54-55.

  (14) p. 45.

  (15) A very rare exception to this is to be found in Simon Young “Three Notes on West Yorkshire Fairies in the Nineteenth Century,”Folklore123 (2012), 223-230

  (16) A study on fairy wings is badly needed. The most interesting comment known to me appears in Katharine Briggs,The Anatomy of Puck: An Examination of Fairy Beliefs among Shakespeare’s Contemporaries and Successors(London, Routledge and Kegan Paul 1959), 9-10. An intriguing early instance from semi-traditional (?) lore is to be found in Abraham Elder, “A Legend of Puckaster, Isle of Wight,”Bentley’s Miscellany4 (1839) 368-380.

  (17) For “entities” always stimulating (and occasionally outrageous) are the writings of Hilary Evans:Gods, Spirits, Cosmic Guardians: A Comparative Study of the Encounter Experience(Aquarian Press 1987); andVisions, Apparitions, Alien Visitors: A Comparative Study of the Entity Enigma(Thorsons, 1984).

  [*] Dr. Simon Young is a British historian living in Italy. He has written extensively on the middle ages and on fairy lore and fairy belief.

  For rich-veined Orpheus sweetly did rehearse

  How that the seeds of fire, air, water, earth,

  Were all locked in the vast void universe;

  And how from these as firstlings all had birth…

  — Virgil, Eclogue VI

  DEDICATED

  to my sister DOROTHY

  who shared with me so many interesting experiences

  And to

  ALASDAIR ALPIN MACGREGOR

  Who collaborated with me in collecting reports of fairies during the years 1955-1957

  And to

  The radiant being who gave me the fairies’ permission to compile this book, and who helped me to obtain a few true stories up to the time I met Alasdair Alpin MacGregor

  And to

  LESLIE SHEPARD for his extraordinary efforts in finding a publisher for this book.

  Foreword

  by Capt. Sir Quentin C.A. Craufurd**

  Fairies! Who am I to write a foreword to such a book? I have been asked to do so because I have approached the subject from a different angle. I have conducted a host of researches and have arrived at the conclusion that the so-called Fairy Race exists. Its Kingdom is very vast and embraces creatures of varying intelligence, some of which are very close to humanity.

  I have no extended vision in the sense that is generally understood. So in place of clairvoyance I have had to lumber along with scientific instruments, those and the blinkers imposed on me by textbooks and a college training.

  I was brought up to the Navy, and being of a scientific leaning I took a course of physics in Greenwich College. It has been my hobby, as far back as I can remember, to trace the action of mind upon matter, believing, as I do, that nothing is completely unconscious of its Creator. This biologist’s study of material may be faultless, but the invisible part, which propels the mind of a creature, remains a secret.

  One gets on intimate terms with wild creatures on shipboard. In the confines of a small cabin, little derelicts, which have lost their way on migration, settle down wearily and become happy in snug quarters. Very often it happens that a wild or frightened bird grows curiously content if it has slept close to you and you also have slept. What occurs during sleep, one does not know, but the desire to get on friendly terms penetrates the creature’s armour so to speak, or it may be that contact is made with its group spirit in other regions. At least, that is the explanation given in the East. Through these derelict or injured wayfarers I made, as I believe, my progress towards Faerie.

  When at last I had swallowed the anchor and retired to have a garden of my own, with time and opportunity I carried out private researches. With my electrical appliances I pushed on from warm-blooded, warm-hearted little creatures, who played about in my laboratory and workshop, and through the expanse of cold-blooded creatures and even insects, to the kingdom of the flowers, the Vegetable Kingdom.

  I was well equipped to follow on the lines of Sir J. C. Bose, the eminent director of the Bose Plant Institute of Calcutta, India, and one of the earliest radio pioneers. I myself was early in radio about the time when Marconi brought his first experiment to England. Where Bose had paved the way, I could copy and explore. He traced the nerve response of animals down through the Vegetable Kingdom. In flowers he found responses that could be equated with pleasure, fear, and pain. You may detect the passing of living matter between two polarised plates of zinc. It may be visible: a casual bird assistant; a mouse prospecting for a tit-bit; or something strangely living that you cannot see. And so on, from mere echoes, or response to stimulus, until at last there comes reflection from some mind of will—a fairy call.

  In my case I began with an electrical apparatus of my own design and a nearly worn-out torch-battery, and one day I heard fairy music, the sound of harps and bells. “Something” knew I was incredulous and yet delighted.

  It answered to my voice. “Something” present in the laboratory could answer with intelligence; could be amused at my incredulity; could obligingly repeat the signals for a guest, so that two people heard the same thing in different telephone receivers.

  There were, then, fairies who could find amusement in two human beings who did not believe in fairies! One of my early questions was: “Are there, then, such creatures as fairies?”

  The reply came: “They are all around you.”

  “Then why cannot we see them?”

  “Your minds are not tuned!”

  “How do you mean ‘tuned’?”

  “Your ether machine is tuned and you are not.”

  “Ether machine? Do you mean that box over there?” I pointed to the wireless.

  “Of course,” came the prompt reply.

  So that was that! We had to tune in to what was about us or remain ignorant.

  Later they said, “We are under a different set of natural laws, but we can appreciate yours.”

  For five years, 1927 to 1932, nine of these little elves (they told us they were marsh fairies) played with us and other utterly incredulous visitors, who came to be converted or to attempt to expose some base illus
ion. The fairies triumphed. In the workshop and laboratory, in our drawing room or garden, they gave evidence of their mischief and their power. They also gave evidence of their knowledge. They would write for us and use strange words of ancient Saxon for which we had to find the meaning—words such asblid, the root of “blithe,” meaning “full of life” such as a fresh-plucked flower, which they could delight in as against a bunch, which had been kept in water for some days. They also showed how they could affect and change the growth of flowers in a garden, and how they could pass through walls and closed doors. They also told of ancient remains buried far under the ground, in some cases confirmed where it was practicable.

  My tame jackdaw could see them. They teased him, and he seemed jealous and regarded them with grave suspicion. Sometimes he would move his head about oddly, following something we could not see at all, and the fairies told us they had been dancing to the music of our wireless. At our request, they danced on the flowers by the cupboard and made them move in time with the music.

  As I say, I had no psychic sight, but there were others who had clairvoyant vision and who could see them. One of these was Mr. Bernard Sleigh, who had written a book calledThe Gates of Horn, which was recommended to me by a psychic friend. Mr. Sleigh had conceived the idea of a “Society for the Investigation of Faery Fact and Fallacy,” around which he had written accounts of fairy tradition, and so on. I liked the book and got into communication with him, and in 1927 we decided to form such a society to be called “the Fairy Investigation Society”: he with fairy vision and I with a pair of crutches called modern science.

  In those days certain religious communities were against us. But since then it has come to light that even some of the clergy and bishops have seen the fairy folk and proved for themselves that these are not, after all, evil beings, but are radiant little creatures working with humanity under the Divine Will of our mutual Creator.

  Mrs. Claire H. Cantlon, a fairy seer, was then the Hon. Secretary, and a few of us met at first at a house in London. Those were the halcyon days.

  It was the policy of the Society to remain rather secret, for we heard accounts from members who wished to hide their identity since they held high official positions, and we heard enough to know how strongly fairy-vision was established. But other members got restive and wished to move into publicity and on commercial lines, and there were a few rather foolish people drawn by a love of the sensational. We had not all the same motives and the same language, and the Society disintegrated like the walls of the Tower of Babel.

  The original few held together until the advent of the Second World War, when meetings had to be abandoned altogether, and in 1940 the records in my possession were scattered by enemy action. Out of the salvage I was beginning to try to piece something together with the idea of a book when, by one of those chances that seem to be design, Marjorie T. Johnson and I were brought together. She had been collecting for some time just the very things we had hoped to collect for the Society’s records, accounts from those who claimed to possess “the fairy sight,” and she became Honorary Secretary of a resurrected Fairy Investigation Society.

  In a book of this kind it is difficult to know what to present and what to withhold. My advice would be to withhold nothing. Let the reader pick and choose.

  For myself, I have crossed the Rubicon. I know that fairies exist, and this book has my hearty approval and bears herewith my personal congratulations.

  [**] Capt. Sir Quentin C.A. Craufurd, BT, M.B.E. R.N. (Retd.). F.R.S.A., F.I.N.T.P., A.M.I.E.E. etc., was president of the Fairy Investigation Society. He passed away on May 8, 1957, age 82, before the completion of this book. Since then, many other accounts have been added that were not from members of the now-defunct Fairy Investigation Society. — Marjorie Johnson

  Introduction

  by Marjorie T. Johnson

  I would like to express my gratitude to all contributors, young and old, who have made this book possible. They have written from many parts of the British Isles and overseas, and the general tone of their correspondence has been one of mingled pleasure and relief, for many of these men and women have kept their fairy experiences a closely guarded secret owing to the ridicule and scepticism they received from their relatives and friends, or anyone to whom they had mentioned the subject. One lady wrote: “It is so nice to know that someone else has seen fairies besides myself. I saw them when I was a child, but I was laughed at so often that gradually I ceased to go where they were, and did not speak of them again, though my belief in them has never faltered.”

  This feeling is shared by hundreds of fairy seers, some of whom are now between 80 and 90 years of age, yet they still cherish the memory of their lovely visions of Faerie. As Mrs. Dorothy Jenner wrote in a letter to Prediction in 1971: “Only the most stubborn cynic would suggest that hundreds of observers were either mistaken or deliberately dishonest.”

  It must indeed have been an “eye-opening” experience for the angler in Australia who turned round to see quite close to him a tiny creature with a Desert Pea flower for a hat and leaves from the same plant for its dress; the lady who came upon a busy group of elves in the woodlands, collecting twigs and tidying-up their haunts; and the twin sisters who saw a fairy whose colouring was “of a delicate blue surrounded by tinkerbell light, and glowing like a little star in the evening shadows.”

  It is sad when parents refuse to listen sympathetically to a child’s babble, for children at an early age are still closely linked with the invisible worlds, and the etheric part of their eyes is not yet fully coordinated with the physical, so they think there is nothing unusual about seeing fairies and perhaps playing with them.

  My own belief in them was fully justified at the age of six, when a friendly little elf invited itself into our house, and as I grew older I became filled with a burning desire to keep the Fairy Faith alive and to know more about this fascinating evolution that runs parallel to and merges with our own. I was helped in this by the kindness of the late Mr. S. Carlyle Potter, who put his library of antiquarian and modern books at my disposal, and from these I learned that a knowledge of the existence and work of these nature spirits was part of the Ancient Wisdom, and was extant in the literature and teachings of the Theosophical, Anthroposophical, Rosicrucian, and other Mystery Schools, esoteric societies, and certain religious organizations, orders, and trusts, including the White Eagle Lodge with its Publishing Trust and the Iona and Findhorn Communities. The Chalice Well gardens in Glastonbury contain many fairies and water spirits, according to the Founder of the Trust, the late Major W. Tudor Pole.

  Fairy lore is certainly not a childish subject; it is deep and boundless, and the more one studies it, the more one realises how limited is one’s knowledge of something that is so vitally important, not only to the human race but to the whole of creation. Thomas à Kempis spoke truly when he said: “If thou thinkest that thou understandest and knowest much, yet know that there be many more things which thou knowest not.”

  Paracelsus and the ancient philosophers classified these spirits of the elements of Earth, Water, Air, and Fire under four main groups—Gnomes, Undines, Sylphs, and Salamanders, respectively. There are, of course, many different kinds under the various headings, and the graceful little flower-fairies are a type of Sylphs.

  All these beings are the manipulators of the forces of Nature. They are active in the Mineral, Vegetable, Animal, and Human Kingdoms, and play an essential part in the Divine Plan. Their bodies are fluidic and self-luminous, and they can assume different forms, but mostly imitate the human. They may also be seen as pulsating clouds of colour, or as tiny etheric lights. Some of them have wands, which are a symbol of authority in the Fairy World. All these nature spirits are part of the Angelic Hierarchy and evolve eventually into Angels.

  Every flower and tree contains within it the archetype, or Divine Idea, of what it is to become, and it is the nature spirits who help to bring this into manifestation. They are ready and willing to coop
erate with us in every aspect of human life if we will learn to obey Nature’s fundamental laws.

  Because our bodies are composed of the solids, liquids, gases, and ethers of the elements, there is constant action and reaction between us and this elemental life, which is all around and within us. I have been asked why it is that some people can see fairies while others cannot. The faculty is latent in everyone, but in many cases, for various reasons, it has not been unfolded or used in this present incarnation, so those who are able to “see” should not think that they have been endowed with a special gift that raises them above others!

  Some have only transitory flashes of clairvoyance in times of stress or of great joy, or when they are thinking of “nothing in particular,” which has been the case with several of my contributors. In others it has been developed through constant prayer and meditation, and there are also those who have direct intuitive spiritual perception.

  It is always dangerous to try to force the psychic faculty, and my contributor Mrs. Emma S. King, whose accounts of fairies and angels are in this book, gave the following words of wisdom: “True occultism to me is living whole-heartedly what one learns from the daily tasks, no matter how difficult or monotonous they may be; and thinking steadily on a widening field of love and tolerance. Therein lies spiritual progression, and the best and surest means of opening the doors of clairvoyance and clairaudience safely, as and when a person is ready.”

  Mrs. King had full, conscious control of the inner vision, and she told me that when she had these experiences during a church service, she usually kept her full physical consciousness, although active and alert on the other planes. She looked inward from the mental body and noted what was happening astrally, while her physical body just sat quietly awake on the church seat.