Fairies Exist: A Christian Inquiry

A Guest Essay by Hunter Coates

Naiad Nymph of the Euphrates. 1st - 2nd cent. Zeugma Mosaic Museum (Gaziantep, Turkey).

Publisher’s Note: Hunter Coates is a young and ambitious scholar who shared this essay with me given that it overlaps somewhat with my “Why Everyone (and Especially Christians) Should Believe in Fairies” essay from a couple years ago. I do not generally plan to post guest content in my newsletter, but I was too flattered and delighted not to share this with others. Coates has undertaken a substantial journey with his own reading and writing here, and his work is filled with interesting findings and bold connections. Even when I don’t agree with (or know what to think about) particular points or details, these are the fruits of a labor that I’m honored to share. Before moving to the essay from Coates, however, here is one favorite passage that I came across recently (set down now as a literary talisman against any fair folk who might be unhappy with the extensive inquiry that follows):

The Chain of Being has fallen so far from memory, I suppose, because it is not scientific. But then it never claimed or pretended to be scientific in our sense of that term. Probably no scientist has ever seen an angel, let alone caught and dissected one. Angels are known to be extremely shy and given to flight at the approach of objective observers. They fear cameras and recording machines of every kind. That I have never seen one myself is no doubt owing to the notebook and pencil that I always have in my pocket. (Wendell Berry, The Need to Be Whole)

About the Author: Hunter Coates is an undergraduate student and aspiring Orthodox Christian academic, originally from Dunwoody, Georgia. He is pursuing a double history and philosophy B.A. at Georgia College and State University. In February 2023, Hunter published Conspiracy and the Subject: A Lacanian Enterprise (GGV Publishing). This book responds to the modern phenomena of conspiracy theories within a Lacanian psychoanalytic framework. By the end of 2024, Hunter plans to publish Grace Abounds: A Holistic Case for Universal Salvation (publisher forthcoming). This expansive text argues the case for universalism from Scripture, Holy Tradition, and philosophy. After graduation in December 2024, Hunter plans to begin his PhD in theology in the Fall.

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Fairies Exist: A Christian Inquiry

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Definitions and Clarifications

3. Origen and Fairies

4. Examples of Fairies in Medieval Christianity

5. Lewis and Tolkien on the Origin of Fairies

6. Spirits or Science: An Irreconcilable Duality?

7. A Limit to Science: To Infinity and Beyond?

8. A Cosmic Re-Enchantment: The Revival of Christian Intellectualism

9. Appendix: A Pascalian Wager and Pragmatic Belief in Magical Creatures

Introduction

There is a pernicious disregard among modern Christians toward a belief in fairies, even though this was shared by a variety of ancient Christains as well as a few recent Christians thinkers. The modern Christian is expected to view narratives about fairies as nothing more than a collection of naive superstitions and folk tales. This certainly defies the collective consciousness of East and West Christendom. Historically, Christians around the world believed that fairies exist and interact with humans. In this paper, I discuss relevant evidence surrounding the existence of fairies and why Christians should be more open to believing in their existence for doctrinal and practical reasons. 

Definitions and Clarifications

A brief definition for fairies is in order. Fairies are, broadly, nature spirits. Henceforth, these are synonymous terms as I will explain below while considering their relation to daemons and all other intermediary beings. They may take an anthropomorphized form, they may have wings, they often can be described as good but also perhaps mischievous, crafty, playful, or maybe even helpful to a person who comes across them. Or their goodness, playfulness, and helpfulness could all just be a cover for the evil darkness that lies inside of them. Likely, whatever the representation fairies take in our perception of them is radically different from however they actually look, exist, interact with creation, etc. Fairies may live together, in groups of some sort, rather than living alone away from others. The home of fairies may be called “fairyland” or more classically, “land of the fayes.” Fairies could spend their days around beautiful waterfalls and other feats of nature if they are in a geography where waterfalls are not found, such as a desert. They like beautiful feats of nature because in some sense they may be there to protect the beauty of nature. They are there to protect the sublime vibrancy of God’s creation. Whether they actually do this or not depends on the account given of course. 

The diverse geography that a fairy can live in has to be taken into account when discussing these entities. Stories of fairies can be found in regions all around the world, from arid to temperate, and so they must have an unexplainable feature which allows them to bear many distinct climates. Finally, fairies are not too worried with what is going on in human society, as they stick to their own kind, but sometimes they interact with humans. It is mostly through these interactions that we mostly know about fairies. Whatever else fairies do or don’t do in their fairyland is up to speculation. Fairyland is the articulation of an Other that we know nothing about. Then again, most of this is.

Origen and Fairies: A Match Made in Heaven and a High Point in Patristic Cosmology

Origen of Alexandria – one of the greatest Christian exegetes of Scripture ever – offers one of the first explicit mentions of nature spirits in the Christian world. In Contra Celsum he writes, “We indeed also maintain with regard not only to the fruits of the earth, but to every flowing stream and every breath of air…that the air is kept pure, and supports the life of those who breathe it, only in consequence of the agency and control of certain beings whom we may call invisible husbandmen and guardians; but we deny that those invisible agents are demons.”¹ Living in the early third century, Origen, a Christian convert, was well aware of pagan beliefs in nature spirits; also known as the daemonic realm, as it was called in Hellenistic thought. Besides this quote, he also mentions them in First Principles. Writing about the atemporal Fall of creation in the Garden of Eden, he groups daemons, human souls, and angels together as beings who were pure before the beginning of time before some turned towards rebellion. 

Besides these two mentions, there is a speculative quote in Proclus’s Commentary on Timaeus of there being a certain Origen who interpreted the myth of Atlantis to mean that daemons are varying in excellence, goodness, and strength which leads to opposition among them. Whether this is referring to Origen of Alexandria or another Origen of the time in Alexandria (so-called Origen the Pagan) is debated, but there is a solid case to be made that Proclus is referring to the Christian Origen here as is Porphyry in Life of Plotinus.² Personally, I accept the one-Origen hypothesis.³ But whether or not you agree with me is irrelevant. It is clear from just the first two citations alone that rather than viewing this aspect of paganism as mere superstition, Origen recognized that these intermediary beings known broadly as daemons do exist, and while some are genuinely evil spirits, as he says elsewhere in Celsum, the “invisible husbandmen” or nature spirits have a proper and benevolent presence in the world. 

Origen’s stance was certainly not out of the ordinary for his time, but it was also not without critics either. Modern Christians seem to forget that early Christians did not share the same cosmological sensibilities as post-Galilean thought. Earth was understood to be the center of the universe and the planets and stars above were governed by intermediary beings who control the rotation of these bodies around the earth. Much of this was due to an import of Hellenistic philosophy during the Second Temple Jewish period, notably Plato’s dialogues like Timaeus and Symposium which inspired the vibrant cosmology seen in Jewish texts like 2 Enoch; a text that played an explicit role in St Paul’s cosmology and the cosmology of the pastoral epistles. This cosmology taught there to be seven heavens above the earth, the first being the physical planets and stars, and each heaven ascended upward until reaching the throneroom of the Father which was the highest of heavens; this was where Enoch encountered God the Father (2 Enoch 22:2-3) and like Ezekiel he did not see a face but rather a great flame in his encounter (Ezek 10).⁴ For our purposes, the most relevant theological innovation that Second Temple Judaism inherited from Hellenistic thought was the belief that intermediary beings not only govern the heavenly bodies above but also the various kingships around the world and the forces of our natural world on earth. Taking Emma Wasserman’s notable study as my cue, the cosmic order for Second Temple Jews looked a lot like a divine political hierarchy with God the Father at the top and a plurality of divine beings that work for Him, necessarily, so that His will can be carried out across the vast cosmos.⁵

This cosmic schema plays a vibrant and decisive role in Paul’s overall theology in his undisputed letters as well as later letters attributed to him.⁶ The rulers [ἀρχαί] that God appointed to serve over the various kingships of the world have gone astray (Rom 13:1), Paul did not differentiate between “earthly” ἀρχαί and the “heavenly” ἀρχαί that controlled the actions of these earthly rulers. The current law of the cosmos was given by an intermediary being but that being had given a corrupt law (Rom 8:37-40; Gal 3:19; Eph 6:12). Some of these heavenly beings may even be trying to deliver false gospels to the people (Gal 1:8).⁷ This is why the coming of Jesus is a necessity. The Incarnation of Jesus marked the descent of the transcendent God the Father, “appearing in the form of God…and taking the form of a servant” (Phil 2:5-7) to dwell among men. Jesus had come to give the right law, the law of the Father, and to finally put all the powers of the heavens under His feet (1 Cor 15:27; Eph 1:22-23). This is because Jesus is the proper intermediary as Wisdom, whom the Father has known since before the beginning of the world (Prov 8:22; 1 Cor 2:7; Col 1:26; 2 Tim 3:15), as well as being the Angel of the Lord (Gal 4:4; 1 Thess 4:16) who, according to the New Testament, mediates the Father to the created world by being a perfect personalization and expression of Him who shares in His glory. Jesus had come to dispel the heavenly powers and principalities from their corruption over the cosmos which had led to the disastrous state of the Jews and gentiles who could not recognize the true Messiah, ordained by the Father, and would rather follow the false god of the age instead (2 Cor 4:4). 

Unfortunately, we are still in this messianic age. The ἀρχαί still reign and we see this manifested in the oppression of people by corporations and governments, the continuance of sin, and the falling away from the Church. We must hold out hope, as did Paul, that Christ will eventually end this state of death and decay by restoring creation to its proper order. Paul was wrong that Christ would return before the end of his lifetime (1 Thess 4:15) but later scribes influenced by Paul and/or his letters were clear to draw out the paradoxical nature of His return: As Paul said, Christ will return as a thief in the night (1 Thess 5:2) but before this the man of lawlessness will be revealed (2 Thess 2:3) and there will be great difficulties where people are prideful and lovers of money (2 Tim 3:1-4). Despite the difficulties that will ensue before the dramatic return of Christ, there is a magnificent end awaiting all of creation. As Paul himself penned, God will be all in all (1 Cor 15:28). Hope is the basis for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, back to the issue at hand.

Those who did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah were repeatedly cursed by Paul in his letters (Gal 1:9; 1 Cor 5:3).⁸ When read aloud, these curses immediately caused detrimental effects to the souls of his opponents (Rom 7:24); sometimes the letters themselves were even “magical” in that an unrighteous person with possession of them would be unconditionally cursed, the Letter to the Galatians was considered this.⁹ Or the person would be immediately blessed, this could come about through vocally combining χριστός [Messiah/Anointed One] and κύριος [Lord] together (Rom 10:9). Pagans often received the most dramatic curses out of all Paul’s opponents. Rather than just recognizing the existence of the daemonic realm, like everyone else in the ancient world did, pagans worshiped these intermediary beings and in doing so, they were in effect, making sacrifices to evil beings. Sacrifice must only be given to the God of Israel. “There are many gods and lords yet for us there is one God and one Lord” (1 Cor 8:5-6). This is Paul’s central quibble with paganism.

Belief in the daemonic realm is also a relatively apparent theme of Paul’s non-autobiographical life, recorded by St Luke. In Acts 17, Paul shouts out to the people of Athens that although they are very religiously minded [deisidaimonesterous],¹⁰ they do not realize that the statue with the inscription of the “Unknown God” is the God of all things. Paul is clear to not denounce the people for their belief in other divine beings altogether. He applauds them for being religiously minded, yet is worried that they are putting too much time into thinking about other heavenly beings that help God govern, as well as presumably some beings that resist the governing of God, rather than putting time into worshiping the Father Himself.¹¹ Thus, Paul does not deny the validity of the people’s belief that intermediary beings exist, but he hates that they are worshiping these beings. His goal is to reshape their theological framework into the burgeoning one that teaches Jesus is the Messiah and God is His Father. 

Throughout his letters and in this non-autobiographical account, Paul does not merely rename the entities being worshiped by pagans, he reclassifies them and issues an ontological distinction that corrects what was the incorrect appropriation of these entities by pagans.¹² This amounts to saying, you may keep your belief in intermediary entities – the daemonic – just don't worship these entities. And be wary of those entities in the daemonic realm who cause great disorder; entities that later Christians starkly separated into the category of “demons.” In short, Paul synthesized the two traditions together, just as he synthesized Platonism and Stoicism with the Jesus tradition that he was swept up into following his mystical encounter of the crucified Savior on the road to Damascus.

Other than Origen, the lack of discussion in Christian circles explicitly about nature spirits until the fourth century, excluding the negative portrayal of nature spirits from Tertullian around the late second century, is pretty much part and parcel for the course.¹³ It is almost as if (and it very well could be) fairies choose large portions of time when and where not to be seen by humans. Sometimes, there are few discussions about fairies for hundreds of years since there are no recorded sightings. Other times, there are discussions about fairies that dominate public and intellectual life. In the Canterbury Tales, written in the late fourteenth century, it is remarked by Chaucer that the elf-queen used to dance in England but due to the charity and prayers of monks, there have not been fairies for many years. The monks drove out the fairies through their prayers and supplications towards God which would seem to indicate these specific fairies were mischievous or maybe even devilish. This is just one of many examples where authors have remarked that there have not been any sightings of fairies for an extended period of time.¹⁴

There are three patristic witnesses in the fourth century that are relevant to our purposes: St Basil the Great (330-379), St Gregory of Nyssa (335-395), and St Augustine of Hippo (354-430). I chose the fourth century since it was the first century that marked Christian rule of the Roman Empire. Some may be led to the conclusion that Christians after this were much more opposed to tolerating what they viewed as pagan elements in their theology than before. After all, Constantine the Great ensured a total conversion to Christianity and banned all public pagan worship. Yet this hypothesis does not seem to line up with several great patristic witnesses of the period. It does seem true that it was more common for Western Fathers to oppose so-called pagan elements but the Eastern Fathers do not seem as opposed to these elements in their theology. Perhaps this is because Rome was the hotbed of pagan temples and idolatry in the fourth century and so Western Fathers were more wary of a pagan resurgence in Christianity. But that's an aside. These patristic writers maintain a strong opposition to polytheistic worship while still holding a balanced view on the recognition that intermediary beings do exist and some serve God while others have gone astray.

St Basil the Great was not opposed to a delicate import of pagan elements into Christianity. His Hexaemeron is very influenced by Plato’s Timaeus and Aristotle’s Physics. Basil relied on these texts for both their scientific and theological value. Like the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria who wrote several years after the birth of Christ, as well as Origen later, Basil believed that Plato had gotten quite a lot right with his creation story and the detailed similarities between the Genesis narrative and Timaeus were undeniable. His most relevant essay, “To the Young, How to Profit from Pagan Literature,” is a necessity for any Christian approaching this topic. Towards the middle, he writes, “We [Christians] ought not take everything [from pagans] without exception, but only such matter as is useful.” For Basil, the pagan authors provide virtue and wisdom to those who responsibly read them by checking what they say with the Scriptures. Basil is often vague with what he takes to be useful matters but one of them is made explicit. It is good for Christians to believe in “mythological” heroes who slayed beasts of all sorts and battled it out in the great coliseums of old. He does not pay much attention to whether this is true or not (nor did the pagans who taught these stories). For Basil, these stories are useful to Christianity because they inspire valor and strength in Christians who must battle against evil forces. 

As expected, Basil’s main concern with paganism is its polytheistic belief in many gods. First, he argues that the pagans had inverted the truth about good divine beings by claiming that their Greek gods would sleep with one another, kill one another, and would often just rile each other up for no apparent reason. Second, he argues that worship and sacrifice to many gods is entirely against Christian thought and should not be accepted by Christians willing to accept certain pagan ideas. Christians issue sacrifice and offer worship only to the one God who has sovereignty over the cosmos. Although Basil is relatively vague about what he thinks about the non-evil spirits in the daemonic realm, it is possible to parse out a central thesis: The natural world is governed by beings that pagans often worship but they wrongly choose to worship these beings when they should be worshiping God who has power over them all. 

St Gregory of Nyssa provides one of the most explicit acceptances of the daemonic realm besides Origen in the patristic age. By the fourth century, many Christians had separated certain daemons into a category of their own, namely, fallen angels who are now evil spirits.¹⁵ This identification was first given by Tatian the Syrian in the late second century and expanded on heavily by Origen, who, we have noted, did not group all daemons into the fallen angel category. Gregory was seemingly aware of this separation because he used daemons in the Tatianian way throughout his writings but at times he also used daemonic in a more Hellenistic-Pauline sense where it refers broadly to spiritual beings in general who are not fallen angels. In Life of Gregory The Wonderworker, Nyssen records many aspects of the Wonderworker’s life as they had come down to him from multiple sources. There are several instances of the Wonderworker encountering daemons who were causing deception among people, sewing dissent at churches, and swiftly overtaking them by a vocal invocation of Christ and the sign of the cross. These entities are clearly not the daemons that I have considered nature spirits to be. These are evil spirits whom we refer to in English as demons. 

However, there are also mentions of daemons which fit much more along the lines of the Hellenistic import. In one key instance, Gregory says that the injunction to “Know Yourself” which comprises all wisdom is attributed by the great philosophers to daemons. The editor of the text for the Catholic University of America notes in the footnote that this is broadly referring to spiritual forces and not the daemons who are evil spirits.¹⁶ If we trust the editor here, Gregory is following the line of early Christians who signify daemonic with two different references but use the same time in both cases. It is clear that Gregory agrees with the philosophers that this is the basis of wisdom and it would surely be odd to claim as a Christian that you agree with a teaching which was given by evil spirits (demons). Hence, Gregory uses daemonic with two different referents. This trend was probably started by Plutarch who always left the term daemon as ambiguous in that it broadly refers to beings who can be either good or bad but are not solely good or bad. In any case, to claim that the editor is wrong prima facie because a different word is not used instead, is simply a word-concept fallacy. Making use of the Greek appropriate to his time, Gregory trusted his readers to know the distinction between daemons who were evil malicious spirits (demons) and daemons who were other spiritual beings who may be bad or good and who are neither angels nor what we call demons. 

St Augustine of Hippo in Contra Faustum is another Father who did not deny the existence of the daemonic but strongly disagreed with pagans because they worship the daemonic rather than God. The text is a response to Faustus of Mileve who was a Manichean. Manichaeism was a third century religion that was composed of Christian, Zoroastrian, and Jewish teachings. Emphasis was given to the idea that there is an eternal dualistic battle between the forces of light (Good) and the forces of darkness (Evil). In Book XX, Augustine compares the broad theology of paganism to Manichaeism. He says that the Manicheans are much worse than pagans because pagans worship things that exist but should not be worshiped while Manicheans worship things that do not exist.¹⁷ For instance, pagans worship trees with prayers but this is the wrong way to pay honor to a tree. The right way to pay honor to a tree is to improve it by cultivation and letting it grow freely. Augustine follows much of Hellenistic thought in believing there are intermediary beings who govern what we would now refer to as the natural process of growth and development. Like Paul and others, he did not differentiate between the “physical” thing itself (tree) and the agencies governing it (daemons). By paying honor to the tree by letting it cultivate and grow, humans make the first step to plant and water trees, and then its growth is maintained by unseen forces. 

Thus, the issue with pagans is that they issue worship and sacrifice to the trees. Worship was created to be directed towards God. Trees were created to be directed towards beautifying nature and providing materials for humans. Since pagans worship trees and yet trees were not created for this reason, pagans distort the proper telos of worship and the proper telos of a tree. It is obviously not good to distort the telos of a thing, since it then does not serve the Good who is God, and so, pagan worship is not good. Similar to Origen’s account, Augustine offers a patristic witness to the fact that intermediary beings exist who are meant to serve God rather than be served for their own sake (as pagans wrongly do). 

Examples of Fairies in Medieval Christianity

Moving beyond the patristic period, one of the most famous accounts of fairies given in the first millennium is found in Voyage of Saint Brendan, a text first written in the eighth-century but heavily added on throughout the Middle Ages.¹⁸ The text portrays the narrative of St Brendan who sailed the seas with several monks from his Irish monastery, all searching for Paradise. They sailed many places and ended up on several islands, with their own host of mysterious creatures, a place occupied by angels, and then finally ended up in Paradise.¹⁹ The journey was a great success. The place occupied by the angels greatly mirrors the new experimentations occurring throughout the Middle Ages in Western theology on the cosmographical notion of purgatory as a middle-place that was not heaven or hell. Some angels, at this point in Latin theology, seem to themselves also be consigned in a third-place that was not heaven (where the good angels were) nor was it hell (where the fallen angels were).²⁰ The angels that Brendan encountered were made to live outside of the heavens due to their decision of not siding with God in the great battle of the heavens but they were not forced to endure eternal damnation because they did not side with Lucifer. This notion of “neutral angels” is famously reproduced in Dante’s Inferno. 

The description of these angels has a lot in common with the definition of fairies I explained earlier, and as we will see below, fairies and angels were often grouped together or were given similar origin stories by Christians. The angels in the Voyage of Saint Brendan narrative were seen with wings, frolicking in pretty green areas, they were even glowing in some sense, etc. The reason why this text stands out in Christian tradition is due to it locating several fallen angels as not in hell, nor in some purgatorial other-worldly place, but truly on this earth; albeit, in an odd liminal space on the earth. Brendan just sailed for a while and made it to their abode. While these angels are not identified anywhere explicitly in the text as fairies, the similarities abound and the text shows a clear synthesis being made between Irish paganism and Christianity. 

A verdict like this tracks with what we know about the explicit attempts by Renaissance authors to import ideas into Christianity taught by classical pagan authors.²¹ It also tracks with what we know about explicit attempts by Christians during the Renaissance to synthesize past pagan deities with the Christian identification of sainthood. An example is the pagan import of the Irish goddess Brigit into Christianity who then took on the moniker St Brigid of Kildare. Whether Brigid ever existed outside of hagiographical accounts is a question left to historians. For our purposes, this example is a clear demonstration of how Christian orthodoxy was not afraid of importing the idea of pagan deities into Christianity. And this attitude is maintained, in some sense, to this day. On February 1st 2024, Irish Christians commemorated the 1,500th anniversary of Brigid’s death. Her death was declared a national public holiday in Ireland for the first time in history. Is this not an admirable expression of a measured syncretic attitude towards paganism that Christians should take?

Lewis and Tolkien on the Origin of Fairies: Angels, Devils, or Something Else? 

Now we can move on to the question of what fairies are, or rather, how a Christian framework can understand fairies as a category of beings. C. S. Lewis offers some words of wisdom. He gives four hypotheses to explain the origin of fairies: (1) Fairies are a third rational species but distinct from angels and men. (2) Fairies are a special class of angels. (3) Fairies are some special class of the dead. (4) Fairies are fallen angels, devils.²² 

Lewis does not say which hypothesis he agrees with most nor does he commit himself to the existence of fairies.²³ Above all else, these are a series of speculative hypotheses – that he learned through his study of medieval Europe in The Discarded Image and other texts – as the four most common claims from ancient and medieval accounts. These are not meant to be taken as determinants of his personal view on the subject but I think it is telling that there is not a single good fairy character in the Chronicles of Narnia; the only time “fairy” is explicitly mentioned is in context to someone in our world having “fairy-blood” in them, and yet there are a series of bad small creatures like sprites and whatnot who work for the White Witch and could easily be grouped in with fairies. The absence of good fairies in Narnia leads me to associate the Lewisian view of fairies as closer to fallen angels rather than good angels or perhaps another rational class of beings. In any case, I shall expand upon these hypotheses, provide reasons why a respective view may have been held and possible arguments in favor of and against it, and explain afterward which one I align with the most.

Hypothesis one views fairies in a positive light. They are seen as rational beings, presumably endowed with similar potentialities for glorification as those made in the image of God, and seem to have a prepared and proper role for them in nature. This hypothesis seems to allow us to retain the Origenist stance: Nature spirits are ordained by God and fill a necessary role in ensuring the regularity of the natural world here on earth. Although much of what we have been examining is Western, rather than Eastern Christianity, the Origenist hypothesis still seems to fit; albeit, the particularly Western concept of the fairy is prima facie more specific than the category of nature spirits. And I prefer the latter term. It’s probably best to be less specific rather than more when discussing a puzzling topic like this. This leaves less room for error and also allows us to avoid odd claims that we are trying to identify nature spirits with a taxonomic classification. Obviously, to speak as if there are identifiable “species” of nature spirits or trying to fit nature spirits under the classification of “order” or “class” is simply anachronistic. Fairies are nature spirits. Nature spirits are fairies. I shall leave it at that.

Hypothesis two views fairies in a fairly positive light as well. If fairies are angels of some sort, they are beings who serve the will of God, yet they do not have the same potential for glorification as humans. Angels were never created for the purpose of divinization [theosis], that is, the complete and total union with the Godhead through the Second Hypostasis of the Trinity. This hypothesis seems to fit more along the lines of the depiction of angels seen in Voyage of Saint Brendan. The fairy-angels here are not “neutral” as in the narrative mentioned but they likewise share the same nature as angels. 

This hypothesis also fits with several other Irish stories about fairies. A fascinating one assigns fairies the role of carrying away young men and women who were remarkable for their beauty to fairy mansions “under the earth” where they were wedded to fairy queens or princes.²⁴ While there is nothing in medieval Roman Catholic angelology or even Biblical angelology which follows this exactly, it was thought to be true that angels would carry away the souls of humans who were remarkable in one way or another. Rarely, at least I don't think so, was this based on the physical beauty of the person, rather it was based on them being remarkable in virtue or another quality associated more with the soul and goodness. There is also a difference in that these angels did not carry the souls underground, it was the exact opposite. The angels would carry the souls to the heavens and of course there would not be any marriage with angels, which the symmetry with the story would imply. 

The Jewish text Assumption of Moses (5-30 AD) may provide an example of the difference between the above Irish narrative about fairies and a Jewish one about angels. The text records that at the end of Moses’s life, there was a dispute between Satan and St Michael the Archangel over who deserved the body of Moses; this is attested to in Jude 9 as well. The dispute did not arise due to the beauty of Moses, which, in at least Orthodox icons, he appears to be a normal looking guy, the dispute arose for two reasons: (i) Satan thought he was lord over matter and so the body belonged to him; (ii) Since Moses was a murderer, the body belonged to him. Michael corrects Satan on both accounts and reaffirms the goodness of Moses’s soul. Moses’s body is then left in the wilderness but his living spirit is given to heaven. Despite these stark differences which make the Irish narrative appear almost like an exact inversion to the Jewish one, there is a core similarity in terms of the role that angels and fairies play: Both carry away dead humans who are remarkable in some sort of way. 

Hypothesis three is perhaps the most alien view of fairies that we have seen up to this point. This is a particularly Irish view on the origin of fairies (though it may be seen elsewhere such as in Iceland and parts of England) and can be split up into two views: (i) Fairies are the souls of dead human children. (ii) Fairies are the souls of dead humans who had another distinguishable qualification. 

Those who believed fairies are the souls of dead human children often came from a Roman Catholic perspective, which at the time of the Middle Ages, taught that all those who are unbaptized Christians and non-Christians of course will go to hell, including newborn infants. This view gave adherents to Roman Catholicism a much nicer alternative: Rather than going to hell, the departed newborn has been given a new life as a fairy out in fairyland. Perhaps a living person will be lucky enough to stumble upon a fairy while out for a brisk walk in the forest near their village. Maybe they will even be lucky enough to learn the fairy they found is their long lost child or a child of someone close to them. 

Those who believed fairies are souls of dead humans with other distinguishable qualifications often thought this qualification was present in the person’s life before they died. They may have had some sort of spiritual power of some sort or another indication that they were seen as distinguished by the gods or God. As one can see from this brief description, the second option was much more likely to be seen in the non-Christian pagan Irish world than the first which was more common among Roman Catholics. Since our focus is on the Christian world, the second option is largely irrelevant to our purposes (though, it still probably had some overlap with Christians as there always is with these types of things). 

Hypothesis four paints fairies in the worst light out of all the other hypotheses. Fairies are evil maleficent spirits who are not just mischievous, who will not just steal some corn from an English farmer in good tidings, but will perhaps steal your children, suck your blood, and cause wanton destruction to a village. An example of this can be seen in an Irish story related to Whitsuntide (Pentecost).²⁵ During Whitsuntide, it was believed that fairies, thought to be evil spirits of some sort, were very active and would kill cattle, carry off children never to be seen again, and kill anyone who catches them in the act of doing this. Another example of this attitude is seen in the late fourteenth century text Canterbury Tales. Chaucer remarks that the elf-queen used to dance in England but due to the charity and prayers of monks, there have not been fairies for many years. He explains that this is because the monks drove out the fairies through their prayers and supplications towards God. If the monks felt the need to drive out the fairies, this would seem to indicate that these fairies were devilish in some sense. In both accounts, then, fairies do not protect nature or ensure the normal functions of natural processes. Rather, they are under the control of the evil one. They are under the dominion of chaos. Their goal is to sow disaster and destroy the natural order. 

This hypothesis was probably appealing to the Roman Catholics across Europe who did not wish to synthesize the pre-Christian pagan beliefs of their land, be it the British Isles or Germania, with Christian tradition. Viewing nature-spirits as fallen angels allowed for further polemics against those who were still pagan in the area and it allowed for polemics against the potential for a pagan uprising, that is, it guarded Christians from the potential of there being a growth in the popularity of pagan beliefs once again. Certainly, this would have been a valiant effort, if indeed there was a fear of paganism actually rising to prominence again. Yet this was not a genuine problem, at least, by the time Christianity had settled in as the almost dominant religion of Western Europe by the second millennium. Regardless, this view of fairies maintained a strong hold over those who feared the spread of paganism.

Since I rarely pretend to be unbiased in my commentary, I shall just put all my cards on the table: Hypothesis one is the position I agree with the most. Unlike Lewis, who was wary of claiming which one he abides by, if any, I think it is only obvious that the first option is the most accurate. Fairies exist yet they are not angels nor any of these other categories that have much more in common with Roman Catholic medieval angelology than the depiction and understanding of divine beings in the New Testament. We need to recover some categories of divine beings found in the New Testament that certainly do not fit the later and tidy Christian classification of “angels.” Fairies are an entirely different order of creation from humans and other rational beings. Whatever fairies may be, and they could be many things, they are some sort of intermediary being that serves a protective function. 

In several unpublished writings, the great J. R. R. Tolkein offers a less exact account than Lewis on the origin of and debate about the existence of fairies.²⁶ His account is more speculative and is even in conflict with Lewis at times. In “Bodleian Tolkien MS. 14 Folio 37,” he refers to the fairy-story as the Good News.²⁷ We believe in fairies because we believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Tolkien’s most detailed commentary on fairies is found in “Bodleian Tolkien MS. 6 Folios 6-8.” He begins by lamenting those who think cultural “fairytales” have anything at all to do with how fairies actually look and act. The anthropomorphic representation they take in accounts given by witnesses, even when wings are mentioned, is probably comported to be familiar to us by the fairies rather than being an accurate representation of how they really look and act. He goes on to broadly classify them as “spirits.” They are not a branch of humans, nor angels, nor fallen angels, nor spirits of the dead. A fairy is an agent of the divine who helps shape creation by taking agency over a very specific part of creation. He provides the example of a tree. The fairy could have helped shape the immaterial Form known as a “Tree” in our minds or the fairy could have agency over particular trees out in nature or both.²⁸ What Tolkein seems to be clear about is that these creatures are immortal insofar as the world continues to exist. Presumably, at the end of time, these creatures await a particular fate. He leaves it as an open but stated question what that fate is.

Although this text is very short, it is absolutely fascinating. There is so much rich theology in the summary I gave above. The disagreements he has with Lewis are not hard to notice. Where Lewis was open to hearing out the claims that fairies could be angels, fallen angels, or spirits of the dead, Tolkein has no time for these “human ideas” as he calls it. Tolkein wants to leave the origin of fairies as a mystery. None of these “human ideas” comport with the sheer magnitude and importance of these creatures in God’s plan. These creatures could be the ones shaping our mental images of Platonic universals. Although there is a bit of ambiguity whether Tolkein believes fairies could be influencing all Platonic universals or just the ones related to nature, this is still an eye-opening statement. Even if fairies are only influential in shaping the Platonic universals related to the natural world, their place is necessary and they are dutiful members that take part in the divine. Now if fairies are influential in shaping all Platonic universals – from the cup to the chair to the flower – there are no words available to describe the level of glorification that these creatures have. Truly, our minds cannot comprehend their presence in this world, and we should not try too. Yet even if fairies are only influential in protecting “this” particular tree, rather than shaping our epistemic access to all Platonic universals or just the universals related to the natural world, their place is still necessary in the cosmos, and they are valued creatures that glorify God’s order. In all of these cases, Tolkein is clear that fairies are rational participants of the divine life that shape the world we know.

Fairies are an idea of wonder and amazement. What fairies are, objectively that is, we simply do not know. Broadly, as I have said, fairies in the popular imagination are a culturally-formed representation of nature spirits. I do not doubt that nature spirits exist. Yet if our story-book portrayals of fairies are always tainted by representations, how do we know that fairies exist? To use a Kantian term, is the fairy a thing-in-itself? Is the fairy only able to be conceptualized through the epistemic mediation provided by the mind yet, behind all the fluff and dust, there is a real but inaccessible entity? This question already presupposes a speculative metaphysics which we must rid ourselves of. The mistake of the modern is to think that existence deals solely with what is guaranteed by inductive practice, that is, what is experienced in the world is what is real and whatever exists in the mental realm, in the minds of people, is purely imaginative and has no bearing on the “world” which is thought to be synonymous with reality qua reality. But this will be returned to later.

Spirits or Science: An Irreconcilable Duality?

Nature spirits (fairies, elves, etc.) have been shown to be best understood in Christian terms as the postulation of a mysterious Other that is unexplainable and defies all known categories of taxonomic classification. But this does not mean that the tools used by science have no bearing on how we can possibly grasp these beings. The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment did a lot of good and a lot of bad, as did most intellectual movements in history. The Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart has helped to revive the belief in fairies among some Christians with help from others like the Anglo-Catholic theologian John Milbank. Hart writes, “Fairies and gods, if they exist, occupy something of the same conceptual space as organic cells, photons, and the force of gravity, and so sciences might perhaps have something to say about them, if a proper medium for investigating them could be found.”²⁹ The truth may not be that we lack “reliable” evidence of fairies because they do not exist. The truth could be that we do not have the scientific medium for determining the existence of fairies because we have not opened our minds up to the possibility of there being a conceptual category to understand what fairies are. If we had the proper scientific medium, which would first come about through opening our minds to a new conceptual category, then perhaps we could determine the existence of fairies. 

Think about it like this. Before the development of the microscope in the late sixteenth century, there was so much of the world that was unknown. Anything that was too small to be seen by the naked eye, more or less, did not exist in the public consciousness. While several figures in history did speculate on the existence of discoveries that have now been verified by the microscope, such as the Greek philosopher Democritus with his ontology of atomism (which although the modern understanding of atoms is not what he taught, it shares odd similarities), many philosophers in pre-modern times simply disregarded these figures as teaching something that they had no basis to draw conclusions on. Plato and Aristotle are two notable examples of great minds who dismissed the arguments of Democritus because he was speculating on a finding that was unable to be proven. And both philosophers were right. Democritus was speculating on a finding that he was unable to prove. Democritus had no proof of his claims, but he arrived at them through opening up his mind to there being a category of reality that was imperceptible by the naked eye. 

Indeed, the microscope was not invented in some sort of unexplainable historical singularity. It did not come to be out of thin air with no prior scientific innovations. The microscope was only able to be invented because enough people had already opened their minds to the idea that there was a part of the world which was only accountable on the microscopic scale. That is to say, enough people had already accepted that there existed the conceptual category of a microscopic realm. That there were things in existence which could not be seen by the naked eye but perhaps could be seen by a potential scientific medium in the future. To accept this, before the microscope was invented, meant to accept an ontological postulation of which you lacked empirical evidence of. To accept this, meant to take the Democritan leap of faith. 

The same could be true when it comes to fairies. We lack the scientific medium to discover fairies, not because they don’t exist, but because we have not committed ourselves to the view that they exist which would then allow us to develop/discover a scientific medium to verify their existence. With this said, however, the methodology involved with a hypothetical scientific medium would have to differ from the standard scientific method in a key way. The scientific method requires that an experiment can be replicated by anyone at any time if they meet given physical and experimental conditions. The observation of fairies does not meet the scientific requirement of replicability. Fairies out in nature are not perceived in the same way that beakers in a lab are perceived. The experience of fairies is much more immediate, more intuitive, than mere sense-perception. The experience of fairies involves much more than our five biological senses and to some extent, is shaped according to our own past experiences, expectations and even categories of thought. Therefore, while it may be possible to study, using some sort of scientific medium, the vast array of representations that nature spirits take across human culture and human history (including that of our own day), such studies may need to allow for variation in the scientific method; namely, that the axiom of replicability cannot be taken as necessarily gospel in all inquiries. The development of certain physical equipment may aid the scientist in empirically proving the existence of fairies, but the development of equipment alone is not enough. Meaningful innovations to the scientific method and other standard scientific methodologies must be undergone in tandem. Then, and only then, will it be scientifically rational to affirm or deny the existence of fairies. 

Until we reach this point, affirming or denying the existence of these creatures is taking an unjustifiable position on an empirical statement about the world. Whether or not these creatures exist is a scientific question and cannot be proven nor disproven by a philosopher sitting in their armchair. One who denies the existence of nature spirits should probably have some evidence backing their reasoning. I would hope for their sake that this evidence does not amount to “we don't have any verifiable claims of one existing,” since this would just be a circular argument that resorts back to the issue above.  

Suppose I am a late sixteenth-century scientist who is just hearing about these new discoveries called molecules being found by something called a microscope. I have never used one myself, nor do I know the scientific description of how it finds what it finds, but my friends at the academy keep talking about all these molecules around us that a microscope helps us find. As a good scientist who keeps hearing about a molecule – a mysterious unknown – that I lack the conceptual categories to grasp, I decide to simply deny its existence altogether. Why would I not? After all, we don’t have any verifiable claims of a molecule existing. All we have is hearsay from my friends in the academy but they could just be deceiving me. After all, many people just want fame, fortune, and to be noticed by others. And if these molecules really existed then surely in all the scientific development we have had in history, there would have been some sort of realization of their existence. There is no way that all the most educated scientists who came before me are wrong. Thus, am I not acting rational for denying the existence of molecules? 

I think it is relatively clear from this brief reductio that the person who considers themselves scientifically inclined should leave their mind open about the existence of nature spirits and other mysterious creatures who exist in the world. Like centaurs or unicorns or mermaids and whatever else we want to posit. Leaving our mind open to the existence of them, and in fact, maybe even committing ourselves to the existence of them, is the only way in which we will be able to develop and discover scientific mediums which could verify the existence of these entities. 

This is not the same as leaving your mind open about the existence of God, which of course I think you should do, but the question of whether God exists or does not exist is not an empirically verifiable question. As G. W. F. Hegel quipped, of course the infinite cannot be found on the plain of the finite.³⁰ The French astronomer Lalande claimed to search the entire heaven and did not find God. Yet Lalande engaged in a category error about God, as do many Christians and atheists today. God is not a being who exists in some spatial proportions, “out there” somewhere, God is the ultimate reality, the Good, that all beings are oriented towards. He is beyond-being in any sense of the term. But one can very well believe in the existence of these creatures without a belief in God. I just happen to think that the proof of magical creatures is an outflow from one’s belief in God. After all, these are spiritual beings in some sense and spiritual beings, if they exist, must serve a greater spiritual being. Why not God? He who is beyond the categories of servitude itself.

To cut matters short, I am done addressing my non-Christian readers. I engaged with you a fair bit but, frankly, I don’t think the naturalistic (or mechanistic or materialist) worldview (if one can paradoxically call it that)³¹ has much going for it in argumentative rigor or intuitional attractiveness. It is helpful to some Christians as well, however, to engage a mechanistic vision of reality because we often fail to see how we adopt its assumptions. Anyway, I will leave those debates up to philosophers who care to engage with them.

A Limit to Science: To Infinity and Beyond?

What if we have been thinking about this all wrong? Let us tentatively trek a new path forward and see where it leads us. Suppose we ask whether in our modern state-of-being there is an onto-epistemic barrier that prevents us from being able to experience certain phenomena even if we were to encounter it in the world. Perhaps our lack of adequate scientific tools and our unwillingness to believe in the conceptual categories that would stimulate belief in fairies is due to a far more foundational problem that prevents us from experiencing the presence of these entities or at least makes it abundantly more difficult.

Many know the narrative of the Noahic flood as it is recorded in Genesis. While some are led to interpret this event as referring to a literal world-destroying flood, this is a poor reading of the text. To argue that Scripture claims there was a flood long ago that covered the whole globe is itself anachronistic. The scribes who wrote Genesis had no idea the world was a globe, nor did they know how much water was on the earth, nor did they know about all the different types of animals that existed around the globe. Nor did any of the New Testament authors or Fathers of the patristic age who cite this story mean it to be taken as worldwide in our modern understanding of the world as globe. They too had no idea that the world was a globe. All these figures roughly believed that the earth was flat, stood at the center of the cosmos, and was surrounded by a clear dome that allowed the light of the sun, moon, and stars to shine through. Rather than reading the text as teaching a literal world-destroying flood, it makes much more sense to understand the Noahic flood as referring to a very large regional flood that swept over all known civilizations of the time. For the scribes of Genesis, Gilgamesh, as well as other ancient flood narratives,³² this meant Mesopotamia and the broader Arabian peninsula. The flood was devastating to all human civilizations that ancient scribes were aware of, but it certainly did not cover the globe.

The belief that societies before some sort of great flood were robust civilizations with secret technology, stretches back to before known writing. An early example of this is in Plato’s Critias where he records a very ancient tradition about a lost society known as Atlantis that was destroyed in a massive flood. Whether Atlantis itself did or did not exist is a separate question altogether, but what is clear is that many ancient writings mention ancient civilizations like this and record the great heights they reached before the flood that wiped out mankind. Various traditions associated with this also make their way into the Old Testament, primarily dealing with the Nephilim. 

Joseph de Maistre – an anti-Enlightenment political theorist of the eighteenth century – speculates on there being a foundational problem with science due to the Noahic flood. Citing Maistre is risky here, because I do not want any reader to think I am wholesale buying into his political prerogatives. I cite him because he has something to say that contributes to this discussion, not because I am ideologically inclined with him; as for the most part, I am not. Maistre argued that at the time science was first developing in ancient civilizations, there was a knowledge present among the ancient peoples around the world who made the first leaps in science that is greater than our own. He goes on to say, “This is why science at the beginning was mysterious and confined within the temples, where the flame finally burned out when once it had no purpose other than to burn.”³³ Maistre alludes to the fact that ancient science was not merely engaging with empirical tools of this world but engaging with tools of the supernatural so as to touch upon more primordial truths than what science can provide us today. This was possible because science was only practiced by esoteric groups, far away from pleasant society, in temples that prevented onlookers. Science was free since there were no boundaries to what constituted proper scientific reasoning. Science today is no longer free because the boundaries and categories we have created under the influence of invisible forces of evil.

In the twentieth century, Martin Heidegger took up a similar, albeit less spiritually inclined stance, that may soften the blow of such a speculative claim. Like Maistre, I do not cite Heidegger because I find his political prerogatives intriguing or because they are worthwhile to entertain. For many years, Heidegger was a loyal member of the NSDAP. While he may have lightened up on certain attitudes towards Jewish people later in his career, he never once apologized for his membership in the NSDAP and never once recanted his statements recorded in the infamous Black Notebooks. I cite Heidegger because he has valuable insight here. 

Heidegger came from a Roman Catholic background, had a brief stint as a Protestant in his early adult years, but was a committed atheist by the middle of his career. Unlike Maistre who argues there is a more primordial reason for the failures of science and tracked this back to the loss of wisdom after the Noahic flood, Heidegger only tracks the history of science back to Greek society. And for Heidegger, as for Friedrich Neitzsche before him, “Greek society” was a heavily loaded term that in its referent has barely any resemblance to historical Greek society. Although disagreeing when science began, or at least when he sees it beneficial to speak of, he agrees that science at its terminus never tried to be precise or exact since it allowed for much more freedom among its participants.³⁴ He considers it the essence of science that it allows for openness and freedom. But unfortunately something has gone awry in modern science. The essence of modern science is research which is based on a series of procedures that are given blind adherence by participants. Participants in scientific research are taught to never question the procedures and presuppositions that accompany their research. Rarely, is there meditation on the procedures involved since that would produce nothing of “value” for “scientific research.”³⁵ The scientific participant is expected to accept all the procedures involved so that research can be done on a very particular topic that they themselves likely had no say in choosing. 

The onset of modern science, as a distinct essence from that of ancient science, brought with it the reign of modern technology as well. The essence of modern technology is similar because it is certainly nothing technological.³⁶ The essence of modern technology manifests in the widespread belief that nature is entirely calculable, should be separated into distinct categories of being, and is properly viewed as a standing-reserve, that is, elements of nature exist solely for the benefit of humans to seize upon it.³⁷ An open-ravine has no value to it other than being a sign of a good place for a group of humans to come along and build a bridge if they so desire. In short, the sovereignty of modern science and modern technology over the world has been an utter disaster and it has taken us away from the truths which only ancient peoples understood about creation.

Briefly exploring these two thinkers has provided us with some useful insights about the origin of science and how far we have fled from what used to be science. While much of what Maistre and Heidegger say is speculative, and if taken at face value certainly is not an accurate retelling of history, I argue the basis of what they claim is true. There is a fundamental difference between our world today, or more precisely, how our minds shape our experience of the world today, in comparison to how the minds of ancient peoples interpreted the world. This allows us to return to what I said at the end of the last section. 

We must rid ourselves of the Kantian tendency to view the world as a static machine open to the reception of humans that is then influenced on by the categories of our understanding that already have an enshrined unexplained transcendental unity with the world. F.W.J. Schelling hit on this in his early critique of Kant’s philosophy of nature (or lack thereof); but the tendency remained with Schelling as it did with Hegel as well, that is, to view the world as an “out there” and our mind as an “in here;” put otherwise, this is the basis of most modern theories of subjectivity, which Heidegger sought to overturn with his concept of Dasein by emphasizing the being-in-the-world that Dasein as a being with an openness towards Being must endure. And unfortunately what Hegel failed to correct, Ludwig Wittgenstein in the Tractatus popularized, with even less erudition than Kant. Now the world is defined as the totality of facts about reality and the role of subjectivity is altogether erased from the picture at hand. 

All of this is to say that there is a long tradition in post-Enlightenment philosophy of restricting the mind from being that which fundamentally shapes our experience of the world. Neither Kant’s epistemology, Hegel’s onto-epistemology, nor Wittgenstein’s positivist turn can account for there being differing experiences of Being over time due to forces beyond our human control. Heidegger stands out for resisting this, in one way, and for this he should be applauded, but in another sense, perhaps more deafening than the former, he should be criticized. In an attempt to close the book on metaphysics, Heidegger could not allow for the transcendent gratuitous role of the subject to fit in his atheistic system. The subject became Dasein, stripped of divine glory, as he became simply a detective trying to solve the mystery of Being; a mystery that, by nature, must be left open. Dasein is the worst detective to have ever lived since never once has Dasein succeeded in solving the mystery of Being. But I digress. Since ancient peoples explained the world’s phenomena with categories involving the positioning of daemons, gods, and a God as mutually interior to our being-in-the-world, it only makes sense that their day-to-day experience of the world was fundamentally distinct from ours. 

The atheist rationalist may be happy to accept this proposition as is. They may respond, “Well yes, their experience of the world was distinct because they harbored all these superstitions which prevented them from viewing the world as it is in its materiality. Lucky for us, we have overcome many of these superstitions which allow us to see the world as it really is.” Yet this is entirely what I seek to avoid. What if there is no experience of phenomena available for the peoples at this time without these superstitious attitudes since the existence of these attitudes shaped the way phenomena was experienced? Perhaps these attitudes are not something we can toss away, they fundamentally (I know I am using this word a lot) shaped what reality was in the ancient world. If this is true, we have lost something that the ancient world had onto-epistemic access to that we do not have today for whatever reason. I don’t know what that is, I wish I did, but if what I have said so far has even a tinge of truth, the modern world is missing something that goes far beyond reviving a cognitive shift in attitude towards developing new scientific tools that allow us to account for the existence of fairies. Maybe our presupposition that development can progress us further along in scientific discovery is the issue altogether. What if there is a process of revealing reality that goes beyond what scientific developments can provide?

The Transfiguration of Christ is the perfect gospel scene that illustrates what I am getting at here. This event is recounted in all the synoptic gospels and a brief review can follow. Jesus took St Peter, St James the brother of Jesus, and St John up to Mount Tabor. Suddenly while they were praying, He became transfigured and His face shone like the sun and His clothes became as white as the dazzling light of the sun. Moses and Elijah appeared there as well, talking with Jesus. God the Father then spoke that He was well pleased with His Son. The three disciples fell on their knees, unable to physically stand through the glory that they were witnessing. When they looked up, they saw nobody but Jesus who told them to get up and then He took them down the mountain. 

Throughout the history of the Church, this event has properly been understood as not the “change” or “transformation” of Christ Himself but rather the reveal of His divinity that was shielded from the world up to this point in His life. This is to say that nothing changed in Christ here, what changed was in the hearts of the disciples who witnessed this miracle. There was an onto-epistemic veil that covered the hearts of all those in the world (2 Cor 3:15) and this prevented the people who interacted with Jesus in His earthly life from perceiving Him as this glorious Uncreated Light. But in the moment of the Transfiguration, the three pillars of the Church (Gal 2:9), out of all His other disciples, and out of the whole world, were granted access to see Him as He sees them; as St Paul wrote, to know as you are known (1 Cor 13:12). The disciples took an active rather than passive participation in the Transfiguration. This is the point of Christ’s ultimate reveal and the greatest eschatological promise to humanity. All of humanity will eventually be united to the Uncreated Light of Christ in the same way that the pillars of the Church were able to on this fateful day. As the Doxology sung on the Feast of the Transfiguration reads, “In your light we shall see light.”³⁸

The focal point of the Transfiguration is seen in the act of Christ revealing that His presence on earth has always been as an Uncreated Light but was purposely hidden because the hearts of the world were not ready. Heidegger plays with this notion of revealing by using the Greek term aletheia, which literally means the “disclosure of truth.” For (at least) post-Being and Time Heidegger, truth is a disclosure of Being, that is, what was always-already there.³⁹ Drawing from Hegel, largely, his late philosophy views Being to be at the beginning of any philosophical investigation since it is that which is the presence of the present.⁴⁰ The presencing of the present is all that there is ontologically until one posits ontic distinctions among Being such as the multitude of beings in our world. Until the classification of beings in the world into categories like “chairs,” “cups,” “electrons,” all we are left with is primordial Being. Ontological Being is the beginning before all ontic classifications.  

Heidegger’s innovation to think of all truth as a disclosure of Being ties nicely into the Transfiguration. Some people’s tendency to view the event as a change in Christ is not only a heretical move that strikes against Chalcedonian Christology – that Christ is two natures in one person – but it also limits the theological insight to be garnered from this event. Christ’s presence on earth when viewed mind-independently was always this gratuitous expression of light and love. It is only when He believed the time to be right that He took it upon Himself to remove the onto-epistemic barrier preventing the world from viewing Him as He is in Himself. Three men were given the “trial-run” of this, but all shall eventually receive it. Thus, it is through viewing the Transfiguration in the patristic manner, which correlates with the Heideggerian reading, that we arrive at an accurate account of the Transfiguration. 

Now we can attempt to answer the question poised above. Our desire to reveal the world through scientific development may very well be the issue at hand. Trying to peel back the curtain, rather than let the curtain peel back itself, is perhaps the issue with the mindset that scientific discovery will one day prove the existence of fairies and other magical creatures. The hearts of men are veiled today in thinking that these magical creatures do not exist. Rather than attempting to take it upon ourselves and reveal this reality, it could be the case that this only distances us further away from it being revealed. In our attempt to de-mysterize the mysterious elements of the cosmos, and show them to be non-mysterious and rather totally rational, we simply repeat the failures of modern science that we have been critiquing. Just as Christ revealed Himself in the Transfiguration, and the onlookers participated but did not cause the reveal Christ themselves, perhaps it is best if we wait for the magical creatures to be revealed. Or for a more balanced view, at least, we should not be surprised if the tools of science never reach a point of being able to retreat back to their (alleged) ancient standards. Perhaps there will always be an element of the emanating cosmos that eludes our grasp. I, for one, can reconcile with this.

A Cosmic Re-Enchantment: The Revival of Christian Intellectualism

It is no secret that organized religion is on the decline. While Christianity still is spreading – albeit, the fastest-growing tradition is Pentecostalism which, in all its profundity and claims of holiness, would lead the great Fathers of the Church to sob at the foot of the cross – there are still vestiges of religious hope that the modern world contains. Christianity led to nihilism due to the contradictions inherent in the particularly Protestant message being taught – that is, an embracement of ontological individualism and a high regard for personal sanctity over societal praxis – but hopefully Christianity will be able to overturn its most successful invention, that is itself, its greatest failure. But I digress. It is clear that something in Christianity needs to change. I claim that we should return to an enchanted view of the cosmos where each and every lifeform is viewed imbued with the spirit, plants and animals alike, and there is a recognition that intermediary beings exist and while some of them are maleficent forces of chaos, others, perhaps most of them, are under the dominion of Christ our Lord. And if not currently under His dominion, are continuously being brought further to the point of being under His dominion; “every knee shall bow and every tongue shall joyfully confess” (Phil 2:10-11). 

Drastic moves must be made. Just as when Christian was first becoming an identity – recorded in Acts 11 – there were many actions taken by early Christian or “Nazarene” groups (as Josephus likes to say) to stand out from the Jewish orthodoxy and pagan tribes they were fleeing from. Debates were held on what to do and eventually the Council of Jerusalem was held to hash out many of these disagreements (Acts 15).⁴¹ Yet before this time many questions were up in the air. There had to be a way for Christians to stand out from society and ensure the spread of their local movement to other parts of the Near-East. This was primarily accomplished by identifying themselves as a resurrection-religion and basing all early creeds on the death by crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus (1 Cor 15:1-7; Phil 2:6-11; Col 1:15-20). 

While obviously Christians today are not at the same crossroads as the apostles, we are confronted with a materialist-secular orthodoxy that pushes back on us at every turn. Instead of capitulating to this establishment, I take it that we should embrace the “extreme,” the “crazy,” the “wacky,” and the “anachronistic.” The open belief in creatures like nature spirits, mermaids, and other “magical creatures,” will lead some to respond with ridicule. After all, aren't these all “folk tales,” so they say? Yet many, I believe, will see the beauty in this worldview. This is the beauty that shines through when one sees all of creation as a theophany of the Lord; that all of creation is an immeasurably important participatory member in God. 

Creation can no longer be viewed as something that happens outside of us, we are in creation as active participants and creation responds to us. I mean this literally, which is to say that as our brain is processing the world it is not passively receiving but shaping and abstracting away the conceptual categories being experienced by a person. Since creation as a whole responds to us as it is itself a soul-filled being, perhaps what Plotinus refers to as the soul of the cosmos is apt, it only makes sense that spiritual beings exist in the cosmos who ordain and direct the soul of the cosmos, that is, all of creation as an organism, towards communion with God. These fairies work in and through the soul of the cosmos and reflect the ongoing providence that God has over all creation. This approach is enlightened by heavenly wisdom not worldly wisdom (James 3:15) and I cannot see why any Christian would wish to reject it. See my Pascalian wager about this in the appendix.

I share in the vision of the prominent Native American spiritual writer Robin Kimmerer. She writes, “I dream of a world guided by a lens of stories rooted in the revelations of science and framed with an indigenous worldview—stories in which matter and spirit are both given voice.”⁴² The indigenous worldview, which for her involves precisely the recognition of nature spirits, is something that all Christians should want to reach towards; of course with the caveat that these beings are merely conduits and theophanies of the Lord. Let us take back the spirit of our age from secularism and restore a proper Christian and, thus, Platonic view of the cosmos. I shall close with the inspiring words of John Milbank. While speculating on an alternative history where it was a broadly Catholic theology (i.e. not Protestant) which rose to prominence in Anglo-Saxon countries, he writes: 

Why is it not legitimate to imagine “another” Christian modernity that would be linked to the universal encouragement of mystical openness and productivity, rather than the separation between a forensic faith and an instrumentalizing reason?⁴³

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I hope this brief dialogue was beneficial for those who had further questions about this paper and wanted more detailed explanations on certain topics. Looking towards the future, I would like to write more on this topic by exploring more patristic witnesses to nature spirits and overall the view of the daemonic taken by scribes in the Bible and early Fathers. The case has been made for the existence of fairies. I hope this has been an edifying journey for those who made it this far in the paper and I look forward to further debates over this fascinating topic. For now, it's back to writing about eschatology and Church history. Fairies are begrudgingly quite low on the list of my writing commitments.

Appendix: A Pascalian Wager and Pragmatic Belief in Magical Creatures

Note: I couldn't find anywhere to fit this in the essay but I thought it would be a fun read so I included it at the end!

I want to lay out a Pascalian wager for why as a Christian you should be receptive to the belief in fairies. Pascal’s wager is routinely thrown out by Christians who probably don't have a deep philosophical background in Christian apologetics against atheism. In terms of its argumentative rigor in favor of God, the argument is pretty poor, as are several popular arguments in favor of God’s existence, but this one is probably the worst of the bunch. Nevertheless, a brief review of it can follow to the extent that is needed for the audience to grasp what is to come. 

Blaise Pascal argues that human reason cannot tell us whether God does or does not exist. This leads him to say that instead of using reason to decide if God exists, one must place a gamble on whether God exists. You cannot believe that God both does and does not exist due to a violation in the laws of logic (A=A), and so one must choose whether they are to believe God does or does not exist. As a gambler himself, Pascal was well aware that every option in gambling brings with it a loss and gain. To Pascal, there is infinite gain in believing that God exists, little gain in believing that God does not exist, and infinite loss in believing that God does not exist. If the believer is right and God exists, they inherit that infinite happiness and joy associated with being in heaven. If the believer is wrong and God does not exist, they have only sacrificed a finite number of things in life (time, money, etc.) that pale in comparison to the chance at the time of there being a God who will grant them infinite everlasting happiness and joy. If the non-believer is right and God does not exist, they only gain a finite number of things (time, money, etc.) that they substituted in life instead of behaving as if God exists. If the non-believer is wrong and God does exist, they suffer eternal damnation. To Pascal, the choice was obvious: Behave in life as if God exists, which will lead you to believe He does, which will then ensure you a spot in heaven. 

There are hundreds of issues with this argument but I will lay out my three personal favorites, which are not necessarily the ones usually harped on by scholars. 

(1) The argument does not make a case for God’s existence. This is a psychological argument for why someone would want to believe in God’s existence but has no bearing on the question of whether God does or does not exist. 

(2) The argument presupposes that the mainline Protestant soteriology is true. The mainline Protestant soteriology, held by many Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists, and even Baptists, teaches that salvation is a “thing” one has or does not have due to them being faithful or not being faithful towards God. The argument, then, completely overlooks the predominant soteriology of Eastern Christianity which views salvation as an ongoing dynamic process known as theosis. I obviously take the latter to be true, which would make the former false. 

(3) The argument presupposes that infernalism is true, that is, that anyone will suffer eternal damnation. As a universalist, I obviously reject this; which makes the possible loss of the atheist also finite as is their gain in this life. Since the kicker for this argument is that the loss of the atheist is infinite, yet their gain in this life is finite, a universalist soteriology denies the core of the argument. This is a fascinating problem with Pascal’s wager that I have never seen explored in formal scholarship. But that’s a topic for another time. 

Moving on from the propositions involved with Pascal’s wager itself, I take the logical structure of the argument in what follows to show why Christians should pragmatically hold to the belief that fairies exist. 

Holding a belief in the existence of fairies or not holding a belief in the existence of fairies is a gamble. One cannot believe that fairies both do and do not exist. Since it is true that reason alone cannot tell us whether these beings exist or not, that is, until we discover the scientific tools to empirically verify these creatures, one must either choose to believe or not believe. Unlike believing in God, believing in the existence of fairies does not cause any loss in a person’s life. There are no activities that take exorbitant or even incremental time and money that will necessarily be done by someone who believes in the existence of fairies. Also unlike believing in God, believing in the existence of fairies does not cause any loss or gain in the afterlife. There is nothing, then, which pragmatically should lead a Christian to not believe in these and other types of creatures. 

But there not being any reasons against a Christian believing in the existence of fairies does not itself make an argument in favor of why Christians should believe in the existence of fairies. In other words, if a Christian is to believe that (x) exists, there should be affirmative reasons in favor of believing that (x) exists. This takes us back to the last section of the paper above. The goal of cosmic re-enchantment is the Pascalian gain per se, of believing in fairies over not believing in fairies.

1. See Jesse Hake, “Why Everyone (and Especially Christians) Should Believe in Fairies” from May 24, 2022 and also shared on ClassicalU from May 31, 2022.

2. Ilaria Ramelli, “Origen, Patristic Philosophy, and Christian Platonism Re-Thinking the Christianisation of Hellenism,” Vigiliae Christianae 63, no. 3 (2009): 217–63, https://doi.org/10.1163/157007208x377292. As an article published over ten years ago, that pushes against the scholarly consensus which claims there to be two academics named Origen in third-century Alexandria – one being Origen the Christian and the other being Origen the Pagan – it is not surprising to see there are many critiques of Ramelli’s scholarship. But I think her arguments hold up. Many critics fail to notice that Origen of Alexandria distinguishes between different types of beings in the daemonic realm. Origen holds to there being evil spirits under this term daemon, what we would today call demons in English, and spirits that are neither intrinsically good or evil, what these “invisible husbandmen'' or nature spirits are in Contra Celsum. Critics overlook this implicit distinction given by Origen which leads them to argue that Origen the Pagan’s statements about daemons are incompatible with Origen the Christian’s statements about daemons. This leads them to the conclusion that there must have been two Origens.

3. See Ramelli, “Origen and the Platonic Tradition,” Religions 8, no. 2 (February 10, 2017): 21, https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8020021. After writing the above footnote, I found this article and realized she dutifully points out what I said and further expands on her argument.

4. All citations of Scripture are based on the NKJV. Certain words may be changed in a sentence if I believe there is a more accurate translation.

5. Emma Wasserman, Apocalypse as Holy War: Divine Politics and Polemics in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018), 3.

6. Later in the paper, I discuss how God is absolutely immanent and absolutely transcendent. He is beyond-being in any definable sense of the term “being.” This apophatic approach to God is necessary to keep in mind when it comes to Paul’s theology and in later sections where I explore this.

7. David Bentley Hart, The New Testament: A Translation (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2023), 270.

8. Roger S. Busse, The Enemies of Paul: Demons, Satan, Betrayers, and Apostles: Risk Analysis and Recovery of Paul’s Opponents in Thessaloniki, Galatia, and Corinth in the Context of the First Century (Eugene, OR: Resource Publications, 2018), 29.

9. Busse, Jesus, Resurrected: Risk Analysis and Recovery of Nine Post-Crucifixion Encounters with Jesus in the Contemporary Setting of First-Century Palestine and Haunted Galilee (Eugene, OR: Resource Publications, 2017), 214.

10. Several prominent English translations render this as “superstitious” which would make it seem like Paul is wholesale criticizing the people of Athens. He does no such thing. The context clearly shows Paul means this with a relatively positive connotation.

11. R. Dean Anderson, essay, Paul and the Giants of Philosophy: Reading the Apostle in Greco-Roman Context, ed. Joseph R. Dodson and David E. Briones (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, an imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2019), 161.

12. Josef Lössl and Hector M. Patmore, Demons in Early Judaism and Christianity: Characters and Characteristics (Leiden: Brill, 2022), 123.

13. Tertullian adopted the hypothesis from St Justin Martyr, who drew from 1 Enoch, that demons who prowl the earth are the disembodied souls of dead Nephilim (giants) who died in the Noahic flood. Although he distinguished between fallen angels and demons, he saw all non-angelic spirits as either fallen angels or demons. Both were considered evil spirits. This is to say, (contra Plutarch) neutral spirits did not exist and (contra Origen later) spirits did not exist on a continuum between good and evil.

14. Another reason why there may not be many discussions about nature spirits until the fourth century, could be because their existence was so widely accepted that there was no need to preach about them or spend much time thinking about them at all. As E.R. Dobbs says in his classic study, “Virtually every one, pagan, Jewish, Christian or Gnostic, believed in the existence of these beings and in their function as mediators, whether he called them daemons or angels or aions or simply spirits.” E.R. Dodds, Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety: Religious Experience from Marcus Aurelius to Constantine (Cambridge: Cambridge, 1965), 38. This could perhaps explain the utter absence of nature spirits being discussed in St John Chrysostom’s demonological writings, which we know were heavily influenced by Plutarch. Thus, we would expect the category of the non-specified daemonic to play more of a role.

15. Dale Martin, “When Did Angels Become Demons?,” Journal of Biblical Literature 129, no. 4 (2010): 676–79, https://doi.org/10.2307/25765960.

16. St Gregory of Nyssa and St Gregory the Wonderworker, Life and Works of Saint Gregory of Nyssa, ed. Michael Slusser (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1998), 114.

17. Though it is not said, I get the feeling that Augustine makes this claim due to his Neoplatonic view of being which views the existence of something as an intrinsic good. Since the pagans worship things that exist while the Manicheans worship things that do not exist, the pagans are intrinsically better (more good) than the Manicheans in context to their worship practices.

18. Benedeit, The Anglo-Norman Voyage of Saint Brendan, ed. Ian Short (Manchester: Univ. Press, 1979), 17. This edition includes the eleventh-century French manuscript of the text.

19. The motif of a Paradise that is only reachable by sea has very ancient roots. The idea became famous after the Greek historian Herodotus speculated on the existence of Hyperborea, as it had been discussed by poets for quite some time, but did not confirm nor deny its existence. Hyperborea was thought to be somewhere far away in the North. Magical creatures of all sorts could be found there and it was so spectacular that, as Pliny the Elder reports, Apollo the son of Zeus himself vacationed there for parts of the year and the sun shined for twenty-four hours a day. A recent commentator writes, “The imaginary people of an invisible land, the Hyperboreans were objects of fascination, cult and reverence for the Greeks, distant figures of alterity who were long instrumental in thinking identity and origins, Greek centrality, the location of knowledge, and the complex webs that linked the opposite poles of humanity.” See Renaud Gagné, Cosmography and the Idea of Hyperborea in Ancient Greece (Cambridge University Press, 2021), 69–70.

In early Christian circles, the idea of Hyperborea never caught on (it may have even been mocked by St Athanasius of Alexandria). However, cosmographical associations with Hyperborea became later applied to “the North” in Latin texts from the Middle Ages like Cosmographia (eighth century). This was written by an anonymous Italian Christian and “narrated” by St Jerome the Great. There is also some evidence that Byzantine writers often referred to “northern” colloquially as hyperboreios. See ibid., 399–401.

20. Michael Ostling, ed., Fairies, Demons, and Nature Spirits: “Small Gods” at the Margins of Christendom (Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 108.

21. Ibid., 171.

22. See Jesse Hake, “Why Everyone (and Especially Christians) Should Believe in Fairies” from May 24, 2022 and also shared on ClassicalU from May 31, 2022.

23. As Jesse Hake informed me, in a letter that Lewis wrote to a friend, he enthusiastically explained the speculations he had with Tolkein about the existence of nature spirits when they met for lunch. [From a letter that C. S. Lewis wrote to Arthur Greeves on June 22, 1930.]

24. Lady White, Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland (London: Ward and Downey, 1888), 140.

25. Ibid., 204.

26. I first learned about Tolkein’s comments on fairies from Fr Andrew Stephen Damick’s blog post on Ancient Faith Ministries.

27. Tolkien J R R., Tolkien on Fairy-Stories, ed. Verlyn Flieger and Douglas A. Anderson (London: HarperCollinsPublishers, 2014), 295.

28. Ibid., 255.

29. David Bentley Hart, “God, Gods, and Fairies” in First Things, June 1, 2013.

30. Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Basic Outline, ed. Klaus Brinkmann and Daniel O. Dahlstrom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 111.

31. As Slavoj Zizek likes to say, a materialist ontology is always an ontology of incompleteness because there can never be a “whole reality” from which a subject is situated in to then speak of a “whole reality.” Our experience of reality is always individualized and hence reality is incomplete from the perspective of a materialist.

32. It is no secret that Gilgamesh and many other ancient Near-East flood narratives have similarities with Genesis. On the seventh day of the flood, Gilgamesh sent out a dove from his boat and it came back to him (Gilgamesh XI). After the forty days of the flood was over, Noah sent out a dove and the dove came back to him (Gen 8). Then a raven was sent out by Gilgamesh and it flew around until the waters subsided. Then a raven was sent out by Noah and it flew around back and forth across the earth until the waters subsided. Similarities abound between the texts. For a less critical eye, this could mean that both scribes of the respective texts were pointing to the same event and there is much more to the story than simply a literary copy artist.

33. Joseph Marie Maistre, The Generative Principle of Political Constitutions: Studies on Sovereignty, Religion, and Enlightenment, trans. Jack Lively (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2012), 202.

34. Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays (New York: Garland, 1977), 117.

35. Heidegger, The Event, trans. Richard Rojcewicz (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013), 241.

36. Question, 4.

37. Heidegger, Bremen and Freiburg Lectures: Insight into That Which Is and Basic Principles of Thinking (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012), 41.

38. “‘Lord, It Is Good for Us to Be Here” from the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America by Fr. Peter A. Chamberas.

39. Question, 21.

40. The Event, 45.

41. Most likely, the Council recorded in Acts 15 is a historical compression of events which takes moments from several councils and perhaps related documents and compresses the occurrences into a single occurrence for the purpose of brevity to the reader.

42. Robin W. Kimmer, Braiding Sweetgrass (Milkweed Editions, 2020), 346.

43. John Milbank and Slavoj Žižek, The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic (MIT Press, 2011), 116.