Yes, and No, and NA. I think that the visible fairies are hallucinatory representations of the presence of a kind of intelligence that exists in a way that we cannot easily fathom, and so the mind creates a dreamish hallucinatory representation which is usually aligned with local cultural stories.
Otherwise a human mind can become somewhat temporarily for whatever reason (by means of psychedelics, other substances, extreme fever, extreme stress, lack of sleep, or prolonged fasting) temporarily extra permeable to the influence of such forms of intelligence.
With psychological boundaries weakened, the mind can thereby become somewhat more permeable to / interpenetrated by another intelligence and its will, and while blended one could be coaxed by the “fairy” or some body-less spirit or weirdly embodied diverse form of intelligence to perceive an image that accords with how it prefers to be seen, heard, witnessed, or known.
It’s so hard to generalize. Maybe some “fairies” are wise and honest while others lie and mislead, but each kind is not necessarily super geniuses about all things: they would have gaps in their understanding, and their moral sense is different, and they don’t possess experience-based knowledge about long term material and financial survival in a capitalist society, and they prioritize their own goals, so it’s likely best to doubt their assertions, to presume that while communicating their overriding purpose most likely is by default about influencing / advancing their goals moreso than truth-telling as such, like a charming narcissistic politician might do, funnily enough. And fairies can (like human beings) be confidently wrong.
It might be a trick question or a grammatical fluke as in they “can’t lie” because they can’t tell the truth either... in some cases their whole relation to truth and material reality itself is fundamentally other.
Anyway I can truthfully acknowledge that I have done a few posts about this topic, but it’s been predominately exploratory writing rather than scholarly / historical, and centered around “diverse forms of intelligence” more generally thus far with fairies being more like a niche phenomenon within the overarching potentially unbounded category of diverse forms of intelligence (such as human beings, artificial intelligence, plants, animals, birds, fish, insects, neurons, bacteria, swarms, mobs, ecosystems, economic systems, corporations, spirits including potentially the Holy Spirit, jinn, aliens, UFOs/UAP, fairies, neurons, “anthrobots,” thought-provoking quotes from Michael Levin).
Coincidentally, I can’t say for sure wether my own writing about novel forms of intelligence is “true” either because I haven’t been doing scholarly/historical writing, more like just casually brainstorming while hoping to synthesize a lot of disparate notions that might not actually belong together. And yet it feels like there could be a useful synthesis on the horizon and/or a framework in which they do all fit together relatively well.
Interesting. I like the suggestion that the fairies can't lie but they can't tell the truth either because they are fundamentally other. As far as I can tell, the specific idea that fairies can’t lie is a modern fantasy trope, rather than something rooted in traditional folklore, but speaking of fairies as intelligences or symbolic forces that actually exist, rather than as mere figures of fantasy, is interesting to me and opens up different possibilities.
I have been thinking for a long time about the concept of egregores. It’s something I’m exploring in my fiction. That said, I agree that fairies are much more of a niche phenomenon. Even when thinking in terms of egregores or symbolic forces, they would not be particularly powerful or influential ones. I think their nature as these illusive, ungraspable, unknowable things doesn’t lend itself to the development of a powerful “fairy” egregore, if you see what I mean. The big, powerful egregores tend to be more absolute and sure of themselves.
Even so, I don’t personally see truth as totally malleable or relative, even though I write in the sort of esoteric realm of the fairies. I think even when dealing with symbolic realities, some interpretations are just closer to the mark than others. So, yes I would say fairies can be wrong, and they can deceive, and in fact their nature as presented to us is in some sense deceptive, and that this is acknowledged as willful in folklore. In other words a fairy knows when it’s tricking you and wants to trick you. And sometimes like on Hallowe’en it’s an innocent thing and at others it’s destructive, but it’s a trick nonetheless.
This is all a bit tricky, really. But it comes with the territory.
I want your book
“Can fairies lie?”
Yes, and No, and NA. I think that the visible fairies are hallucinatory representations of the presence of a kind of intelligence that exists in a way that we cannot easily fathom, and so the mind creates a dreamish hallucinatory representation which is usually aligned with local cultural stories.
Otherwise a human mind can become somewhat temporarily for whatever reason (by means of psychedelics, other substances, extreme fever, extreme stress, lack of sleep, or prolonged fasting) temporarily extra permeable to the influence of such forms of intelligence.
With psychological boundaries weakened, the mind can thereby become somewhat more permeable to / interpenetrated by another intelligence and its will, and while blended one could be coaxed by the “fairy” or some body-less spirit or weirdly embodied diverse form of intelligence to perceive an image that accords with how it prefers to be seen, heard, witnessed, or known.
It’s so hard to generalize. Maybe some “fairies” are wise and honest while others lie and mislead, but each kind is not necessarily super geniuses about all things: they would have gaps in their understanding, and their moral sense is different, and they don’t possess experience-based knowledge about long term material and financial survival in a capitalist society, and they prioritize their own goals, so it’s likely best to doubt their assertions, to presume that while communicating their overriding purpose most likely is by default about influencing / advancing their goals moreso than truth-telling as such, like a charming narcissistic politician might do, funnily enough. And fairies can (like human beings) be confidently wrong.
It might be a trick question or a grammatical fluke as in they “can’t lie” because they can’t tell the truth either... in some cases their whole relation to truth and material reality itself is fundamentally other.
Anyway I can truthfully acknowledge that I have done a few posts about this topic, but it’s been predominately exploratory writing rather than scholarly / historical, and centered around “diverse forms of intelligence” more generally thus far with fairies being more like a niche phenomenon within the overarching potentially unbounded category of diverse forms of intelligence (such as human beings, artificial intelligence, plants, animals, birds, fish, insects, neurons, bacteria, swarms, mobs, ecosystems, economic systems, corporations, spirits including potentially the Holy Spirit, jinn, aliens, UFOs/UAP, fairies, neurons, “anthrobots,” thought-provoking quotes from Michael Levin).
Coincidentally, I can’t say for sure wether my own writing about novel forms of intelligence is “true” either because I haven’t been doing scholarly/historical writing, more like just casually brainstorming while hoping to synthesize a lot of disparate notions that might not actually belong together. And yet it feels like there could be a useful synthesis on the horizon and/or a framework in which they do all fit together relatively well.
Interesting. I like the suggestion that the fairies can't lie but they can't tell the truth either because they are fundamentally other. As far as I can tell, the specific idea that fairies can’t lie is a modern fantasy trope, rather than something rooted in traditional folklore, but speaking of fairies as intelligences or symbolic forces that actually exist, rather than as mere figures of fantasy, is interesting to me and opens up different possibilities.
I have been thinking for a long time about the concept of egregores. It’s something I’m exploring in my fiction. That said, I agree that fairies are much more of a niche phenomenon. Even when thinking in terms of egregores or symbolic forces, they would not be particularly powerful or influential ones. I think their nature as these illusive, ungraspable, unknowable things doesn’t lend itself to the development of a powerful “fairy” egregore, if you see what I mean. The big, powerful egregores tend to be more absolute and sure of themselves.
Even so, I don’t personally see truth as totally malleable or relative, even though I write in the sort of esoteric realm of the fairies. I think even when dealing with symbolic realities, some interpretations are just closer to the mark than others. So, yes I would say fairies can be wrong, and they can deceive, and in fact their nature as presented to us is in some sense deceptive, and that this is acknowledged as willful in folklore. In other words a fairy knows when it’s tricking you and wants to trick you. And sometimes like on Hallowe’en it’s an innocent thing and at others it’s destructive, but it’s a trick nonetheless.
This is all a bit tricky, really. But it comes with the territory.