WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.720 Imagine you are standing in a field in rural 00:00:03.720 --> 00:00:06.900 Ireland, the late 19th century, and you're not 00:00:06.900 --> 00:00:09.179 alone out there. Who am I with? Standing right 00:00:09.179 --> 00:00:12.660 next to you is this highly educated man of science, 00:00:13.140 --> 00:00:15.980 maybe a physicist, someone who deeply understands 00:00:15.980 --> 00:00:20.339 electromagnetism, thermodynamics, all the cutting 00:00:20.339 --> 00:00:22.739 edge mechanics of the visible world at that time. 00:00:22.820 --> 00:00:25.100 Got it. So a real strict rationalist. Exactly. 00:00:25.480 --> 00:00:28.059 And you are both watching a woman hang her laundry 00:00:28.059 --> 00:00:30.870 on a line. Okay, seems normal enough. Right, 00:00:30.989 --> 00:00:33.189 but suddenly, without even a breath of wind, 00:00:33.390 --> 00:00:36.109 the clothes just lift off the rope. Whoa. Yeah, 00:00:36.229 --> 00:00:38.570 they don't just blow away, they actually levitate. 00:00:38.630 --> 00:00:41.869 Like straight up? Deliberately up into the sky, 00:00:42.130 --> 00:00:44.950 just hovering there against all the laws of gravity. 00:00:45.109 --> 00:00:47.649 I can imagine the physicist is having an absolute 00:00:47.649 --> 00:00:50.929 meltdown. Oh, completely. He's utterly baffled, 00:00:51.310 --> 00:00:53.689 frantically trying to, I don't know, calculate 00:00:53.689 --> 00:00:55.950 invisible wind currents or some kind of freak 00:00:55.950 --> 00:00:58.869 magnetic anomaly. Naturally. Because his worldview 00:00:58.869 --> 00:01:01.710 demands a physical explanation. Right. But then, 00:01:02.009 --> 00:01:03.829 the local farmer who is standing on your other 00:01:03.829 --> 00:01:06.209 side, he just nods. It's not surprised at all. 00:01:06.530 --> 00:01:10.310 Completely unfazed. And he just says, ah, the 00:01:10.310 --> 00:01:11.870 fairies are taking them. They'll bring them back. 00:01:12.030 --> 00:01:14.829 That is amazing. And a few minutes later, the 00:01:14.829 --> 00:01:17.329 clothes gently float back down and just drape 00:01:17.329 --> 00:01:20.069 themselves right back over the line. You know, 00:01:20.069 --> 00:01:22.250 it really is the ultimate collision of worlds 00:01:22.250 --> 00:01:25.010 right there. It really is. You have this rigid, 00:01:25.430 --> 00:01:28.349 newly minted scientific method crashing head 00:01:28.349 --> 00:01:32.750 first into a belief system that is, well, literally 00:01:32.750 --> 00:01:35.349 thousands of years old. Yeah. And the profound 00:01:35.349 --> 00:01:38.189 question that comes out of that is, who actually 00:01:38.189 --> 00:01:41.230 has the better vocabulary to explain what just 00:01:41.230 --> 00:01:44.069 happened? Welcome to the Deep Dive. We've got 00:01:44.069 --> 00:01:46.409 a massive stack of source material sitting right 00:01:46.409 --> 00:01:48.450 here on the desk in front of us today. We really 00:01:48.450 --> 00:01:52.030 do. And today, we are taking you, our listener, 00:01:52.430 --> 00:01:54.329 completely off the edge of the physical map. 00:01:54.549 --> 00:01:56.969 We're leaving the visible world behind. We are 00:01:56.969 --> 00:01:59.849 looking at a foundational, honestly paradigm 00:01:59.849 --> 00:02:03.530 -shifting text by an Oxford scholar named W .Y. 00:02:03.650 --> 00:02:05.790 Evans -Wentz. It's titled, The Fairy Faith in 00:02:05.790 --> 00:02:08.090 Celtic Countries. Yes. And I have to say, this 00:02:08.090 --> 00:02:10.240 isn't just a book of folklore. Not at all. It's 00:02:10.240 --> 00:02:13.240 a meticulously documented collection of historical 00:02:13.240 --> 00:02:16.689 records, ethnographic field notes, interviews 00:02:16.689 --> 00:02:20.569 with seers. And surprisingly, a whole lot of 00:02:20.569 --> 00:02:23.349 very intense modern scientific parallels. Which 00:02:23.349 --> 00:02:26.030 is the craziest part. But we need to establish 00:02:26.030 --> 00:02:28.509 our ground rules right away, don't we? We really 00:02:28.509 --> 00:02:31.110 do. Because when you hear the word fairy today, 00:02:31.569 --> 00:02:34.629 your brain immediately defaults to a very specific 00:02:34.629 --> 00:02:36.870 commercialized image. Oh, absolutely. I mean, 00:02:36.870 --> 00:02:39.449 we think of Tinkerbell. Right. We think of animated 00:02:39.449 --> 00:02:42.550 movies, little magical beings with wands granting 00:02:42.550 --> 00:02:45.569 wishes to princesses. Or maybe the Tooth Fairy. 00:02:45.789 --> 00:02:48.310 Exactly. It's entirely relegated to the realm 00:02:48.310 --> 00:02:50.669 of children's bedtime stories. Which is a modern 00:02:50.669 --> 00:02:53.669 tragedy, really. Because the original ancient 00:02:53.669 --> 00:02:56.449 Celtic fairy faith is something entirely different. 00:02:56.530 --> 00:02:59.310 It's completely alien to that modern Disney concept. 00:02:59.430 --> 00:03:02.310 It is. And our mission today is not to recount 00:03:02.310 --> 00:03:05.569 fairy tales. We are going to analyze this massive 00:03:05.569 --> 00:03:07.689 body of evidence to see if the ancient Carchetic 00:03:07.689 --> 00:03:10.830 belief system actually aligns with modern scientific 00:03:10.830 --> 00:03:12.849 theories. Specifically theories of consciousness, 00:03:13.169 --> 00:03:15.400 right? Right. Yes. theories of consciousness, 00:03:16.000 --> 00:03:18.479 psychical research, and the worldwide concept 00:03:18.479 --> 00:03:21.960 of animism. So we are essentially putting the 00:03:21.960 --> 00:03:25.120 fairy realm under a microscope. Or honestly more 00:03:25.120 --> 00:03:27.460 like a psychological MRI. I like that because 00:03:27.460 --> 00:03:29.599 if you look closely at the notes Evans -Wentz 00:03:29.599 --> 00:03:31.979 compiled, these ancient traditions aren't just 00:03:31.979 --> 00:03:34.680 quaint superstitions. No, they appear to hold 00:03:34.680 --> 00:03:37.840 a highly sophisticated pre -scientific understanding 00:03:37.840 --> 00:03:40.360 of the human mind. And the survival of the soul. 00:03:40.419 --> 00:03:43.650 Right. And the invisible forces of nature. They 00:03:43.650 --> 00:03:45.509 might have been describing quantum mechanics, 00:03:45.750 --> 00:03:47.969 non -local consciousness, and advanced psychology 00:03:47.969 --> 00:03:50.990 centuries before we even had the sterile clinical 00:03:50.990 --> 00:03:53.050 vocabulary to talk about those things. They were 00:03:53.050 --> 00:03:56.129 trying to explain the unexplainable, the genuinely 00:03:56.129 --> 00:03:58.990 anomalous phenomena of human existence. Exactly, 00:03:58.990 --> 00:04:02.009 but they were doing it using the language and 00:04:02.009 --> 00:04:04.189 the cultural symbols available to them at the 00:04:04.189 --> 00:04:06.449 time. What is staggering to me as we go through 00:04:06.449 --> 00:04:10.009 this material is how closely their ultimate conclusions 00:04:10.009 --> 00:04:12.629 map onto the absolute cutting edge question. 00:04:12.490 --> 00:04:15.389 that physicists and neurologists are asking right 00:04:15.389 --> 00:04:17.970 now. It's eerie how well it aligns. Okay, let's 00:04:17.970 --> 00:04:20.089 unpack this. Where should we start? Let's start 00:04:20.089 --> 00:04:22.790 by completely dismantling the modern definition 00:04:22.790 --> 00:04:25.850 of fairyland, because Evans -Wentz makes it very 00:04:25.850 --> 00:04:28.129 clear that the ancient Celts were not talking 00:04:28.129 --> 00:04:31.269 about a physical place. No, they were not. So 00:04:31.269 --> 00:04:33.870 what actually was the fairy faith to them? Well, 00:04:34.029 --> 00:04:36.970 to the Celts, the fairy faith is, at its core, 00:04:37.490 --> 00:04:39.949 A Doctrine of Souls. A Doctrine of Souls, okay. 00:04:40.290 --> 00:04:42.649 Right. Fairyland, which the Irish refer to as 00:04:42.649 --> 00:04:45.329 Tir Na Nog, the Land of Youth, is not a geographical 00:04:45.329 --> 00:04:47.970 location. So I can't just find it on a map? No. 00:04:48.269 --> 00:04:50.550 You cannot sail a boat westward and eventually 00:04:50.550 --> 00:04:53.189 hit its shores. You can't dig a hole deep enough 00:04:53.189 --> 00:04:55.610 into a green hill to find a subterranean city. 00:04:55.790 --> 00:04:59.170 Right. It is entirely a subjective, super normal 00:04:59.170 --> 00:05:01.310 state of consciousness. So it's an inner state, 00:05:01.509 --> 00:05:03.750 not an outer physical dimension. It is an inner 00:05:03.750 --> 00:05:06.189 state, yes. But we have to be really careful 00:05:06.189 --> 00:05:09.569 here not to equate inner with imaginary. That's 00:05:09.569 --> 00:05:12.089 a huge distinction. It is. Because to the seers 00:05:12.089 --> 00:05:14.449 who interacted with this state, it is as real, 00:05:14.509 --> 00:05:17.430 if not realer, than the physical world. And the 00:05:17.430 --> 00:05:19.610 beings that inhabit this state of consciousness, 00:05:19.949 --> 00:05:21.670 they're called the side here, right? Pronounced 00:05:21.670 --> 00:05:25.490 she, yes. Or the Tuatha de Danann. Okay, and 00:05:25.490 --> 00:05:28.310 the Irish Seers, the people who claim to have 00:05:28.310 --> 00:05:32.709 this second sight, they describe them in a very 00:05:32.709 --> 00:05:35.790 specific, almost paradoxical way. They do. They 00:05:35.790 --> 00:05:38.439 say these beings are like mortals. but they are 00:05:38.439 --> 00:05:40.980 not mortals. What does that mean exactly? Well, 00:05:41.300 --> 00:05:44.480 to our objective physical world, they are completely 00:05:44.480 --> 00:05:46.920 invisible and immaterial. You can't touch them. 00:05:47.040 --> 00:05:49.759 Right. But to the subjective world, to the realm 00:05:49.759 --> 00:05:52.939 of pure consciousness, they are fully conscious, 00:05:53.079 --> 00:05:55.800 living, intelligent entities. They really blur 00:05:55.800 --> 00:05:58.959 the lines between psychology and physics, don't 00:05:58.959 --> 00:06:00.939 they? They absolutely do. They are like this 00:06:00.939 --> 00:06:03.019 invisible architecture holding up the world. 00:06:03.209 --> 00:06:05.829 Now, obviously for the last hundred years or 00:06:05.829 --> 00:06:08.129 so, anthropologists have tried very hard to explain 00:06:08.129 --> 00:06:10.649 this away. Of course. That's what academia does. 00:06:10.730 --> 00:06:12.730 Right. And when I first started reading through 00:06:12.730 --> 00:06:15.430 the history of how academics tackled this, I 00:06:15.430 --> 00:06:17.629 assumed what most people assume. Which is what? 00:06:17.949 --> 00:06:20.410 That early humans just made up stories to explain 00:06:20.410 --> 00:06:22.790 things they didn't understand. Like, I don't 00:06:22.790 --> 00:06:24.529 know why lightning strikes, so there must be 00:06:24.529 --> 00:06:27.870 a giant lightning spirit. Ah, yeah. You're describing 00:06:27.870 --> 00:06:30.959 what scholars call the naturalistic theory. Okay. 00:06:31.240 --> 00:06:33.420 It was the dominant academic explanation for 00:06:33.420 --> 00:06:36.319 a long, long time. The idea is that primitive 00:06:36.319 --> 00:06:38.779 people just personified nature. Because they 00:06:38.779 --> 00:06:41.699 lacked science. Exactly. They didn't understand 00:06:41.699 --> 00:06:44.160 why rivers flowed, or why the wind howled at 00:06:44.160 --> 00:06:46.939 night, or why the seasons changed. So they just 00:06:46.939 --> 00:06:49.300 invented nature spirits to fill in the gaps. 00:06:49.860 --> 00:06:52.199 And to be fair to those anthropologists, the 00:06:52.199 --> 00:06:54.920 environment absolutely does shape how the fairies 00:06:54.920 --> 00:06:57.870 are described. Oh, completely. Evans -Wenz points 00:06:57.870 --> 00:07:00.629 this out brilliantly in the text. He does. He 00:07:00.629 --> 00:07:03.089 compares the descriptions of fairies in Ireland 00:07:03.089 --> 00:07:06.290 to those in Scotland, and the contrast is wild. 00:07:06.430 --> 00:07:09.089 It gets night and day. Like in the gentle green 00:07:09.089 --> 00:07:12.610 rolling hills of Kwaitamara in Ireland, the good 00:07:12.610 --> 00:07:15.689 people are described as beautiful, gentle, and 00:07:15.689 --> 00:07:17.509 happy. They play music and dance in the moonlight. 00:07:17.670 --> 00:07:19.870 Yeah, exactly. It's very pastoral. But have you 00:07:19.870 --> 00:07:21.850 traveled to the Scottish Highlands? Oh, man. 00:07:22.029 --> 00:07:23.990 It's a completely different vibe. It really is. 00:07:24.089 --> 00:07:26.810 The landscape there is rugged. The locks are 00:07:26.810 --> 00:07:30.009 deep and dark. The weather is just brutal and 00:07:30.009 --> 00:07:32.689 unforgiving. And the fairies there reflect that 00:07:32.689 --> 00:07:34.430 perfectly. They are terrifying. You have these 00:07:34.430 --> 00:07:37.110 terrible water kelpies that drown trash. and 00:07:37.110 --> 00:07:40.629 a much dreaded spirit host that moves violently 00:07:40.629 --> 00:07:42.870 through the air at night, literally sweeping 00:07:42.870 --> 00:07:45.509 people away. Right, so the naturalistic theory 00:07:45.509 --> 00:07:47.689 successfully proves that the physical environment 00:07:47.689 --> 00:07:50.910 colors the belief. It dictates the mood of the 00:07:50.910 --> 00:07:53.730 fairies. Okay, that makes sense. But Evans -Wentz 00:07:53.730 --> 00:07:56.870 demonstrates why this theory ultimately fails. 00:07:56.910 --> 00:08:00.209 Why is that? Because it completely fails to explain 00:08:00.209 --> 00:08:03.149 the actual origin of the belief. Oh, I see. It 00:08:03.149 --> 00:08:05.189 doesn't explain why a person walking home at 00:08:05.189 --> 00:08:08.660 night actually hallucinates or experiences a 00:08:08.660 --> 00:08:11.759 vivid interaction with a conscious conversational 00:08:11.759 --> 00:08:14.319 entity. Right. Personifying a thunderstorm doesn't 00:08:14.319 --> 00:08:16.699 explain why a farmer has a three -hour conversation 00:08:16.699 --> 00:08:19.680 with a glowing figure in his barn. Exactly. The 00:08:19.680 --> 00:08:21.959 naturalistic theory only explains the clothes 00:08:21.959 --> 00:08:24.639 the entity is wearing. So to speak. It doesn't 00:08:24.639 --> 00:08:26.660 explain the entity itself. OK, so if they aren't 00:08:26.660 --> 00:08:28.399 just metaphors for the weather, what about the 00:08:28.399 --> 00:08:30.360 physical evidence? What physical evidence? Well, 00:08:30.439 --> 00:08:32.559 I remember reading about archaeologists finding 00:08:32.559 --> 00:08:36.139 these tiny ancient underground dwellings and 00:08:36.139 --> 00:08:39.259 tiny flint arrowheads across the British Isles. 00:08:39.340 --> 00:08:42.419 Ah, yes. Didn't some scholars argue that fairies 00:08:42.419 --> 00:08:45.259 were just a folk memory of an actual historical 00:08:45.259 --> 00:08:48.259 race of tiny humans? Like a prehistoric pygmy 00:08:48.259 --> 00:08:50.809 race. Yeah. Like a race that got driven underground 00:08:50.809 --> 00:08:53.509 when the taller, more aggressive Celts arrived. 00:08:53.730 --> 00:08:57.210 Yes, that is the pygmy or ethnological theory. 00:08:57.730 --> 00:09:00.970 It was heavily championed by a Victorian scholar 00:09:00.970 --> 00:09:04.090 named David McRitchie. It's an incredibly seductive 00:09:04.090 --> 00:09:06.850 theory, honestly, because it feels so grounded. 00:09:07.070 --> 00:09:09.110 It gives you something physical to point to. 00:09:09.330 --> 00:09:12.230 Right, we have tiny arrowheads, we have legends 00:09:12.230 --> 00:09:14.590 of little people hiding in mounds. It seems like 00:09:14.590 --> 00:09:16.769 a perfect match. It does seem perfect, until 00:09:16.769 --> 00:09:18.610 you actually look at the text. Right, because 00:09:18.610 --> 00:09:20.690 Evans -Wince just tears it apart. Completely 00:09:20.690 --> 00:09:24.159 dismantles it. The pygmy theory falls apart the 00:09:24.159 --> 00:09:26.340 moment you zoom out and look at the global evidence. 00:09:26.700 --> 00:09:29.740 How so? Well, there are places in the world where 00:09:29.740 --> 00:09:32.519 we know definitively through fossil records and 00:09:32.519 --> 00:09:36.019 archaeology that no pygmy race ever existed. 00:09:36.639 --> 00:09:38.659 Like certain reasons of North America, for instance. 00:09:38.919 --> 00:09:41.440 And yet the indigenous people living in those 00:09:41.440 --> 00:09:45.480 exact regions have identical deeply entrenched 00:09:45.480 --> 00:09:49.580 beliefs in tiny magical nature spirits that live 00:09:49.580 --> 00:09:52.299 in rocks and streams. Oh wow, so the physical 00:09:52.299 --> 00:09:54.970 explanation doesn't hold up globally. Exactly. 00:09:55.389 --> 00:09:57.870 You see the exact same beliefs among the Inuit 00:09:57.870 --> 00:10:00.490 and the Sami people in the Arctic living in environments 00:10:00.490 --> 00:10:03.549 that make the whole hidden cave -dweller historical 00:10:03.549 --> 00:10:06.230 narrative physically impossible. Not to mention 00:10:06.230 --> 00:10:08.929 the actual abilities of the fairies in the lore. 00:10:09.029 --> 00:10:11.149 Right. If I'm remembering my history correctly, 00:10:11.330 --> 00:10:14.129 being a short human who hides in a cave doesn't 00:10:14.129 --> 00:10:16.429 automatically grant you the power to turn invisible. 00:10:16.450 --> 00:10:19.529 Or fly through the air. Or read minds or paralyze 00:10:19.529 --> 00:10:22.250 a cow with a single glance. A physical pygmy 00:10:22.250 --> 00:10:24.990 simply cannot do those things. That is exactly 00:10:24.990 --> 00:10:28.090 the point Evans -Wentz makes. The legends explicitly 00:10:28.090 --> 00:10:31.309 describe a non -human, shape -shifting, ethereal 00:10:31.309 --> 00:10:33.250 race. So the scholars were just cherry -picking. 00:10:33.330 --> 00:10:35.509 Yes. They grabbed the small size detail because 00:10:35.509 --> 00:10:37.649 it fit their physical evidence and completely 00:10:37.649 --> 00:10:39.970 ignored the overwhelming descriptions of supernatural 00:10:39.970 --> 00:10:42.889 power. Okay, so if they aren't metaphors for 00:10:42.889 --> 00:10:45.789 nature and they definitely aren't physical pygmies, 00:10:46.850 --> 00:10:50.009 were they just a distorted memory of the druids? 00:10:50.129 --> 00:10:52.580 The druids. Yeah, I mean, the druids were these 00:10:52.580 --> 00:10:55.779 powerful, mysterious priests who dealt in magic 00:10:55.779 --> 00:10:58.620 and the unseen. Could the peasants have just 00:10:58.620 --> 00:11:01.259 exaggerated their memories of them over the centuries? 00:11:01.820 --> 00:11:04.120 You know, the druid theory is perhaps the easiest 00:11:04.120 --> 00:11:07.200 one to dismiss. Really? Why? While the druids 00:11:07.200 --> 00:11:09.740 were indeed powerful figures who performed rituals 00:11:09.740 --> 00:11:12.850 and claimed to interact with the unseen, the 00:11:12.850 --> 00:11:15.350 folklore is very, very careful to distinguish 00:11:15.350 --> 00:11:17.429 between them. So the lore doesn't mix them up? 00:11:17.610 --> 00:11:19.929 Not at all. The legends explicitly state that 00:11:19.929 --> 00:11:22.789 the fairies are a distinct non -human race, often 00:11:22.789 --> 00:11:25.149 considered older and far more ethereal than the 00:11:25.149 --> 00:11:27.750 human priests. Oh, I see. The druids were the 00:11:27.750 --> 00:11:29.710 practitioners who communicated with the unseen. 00:11:30.289 --> 00:11:32.830 They were not the unseen beings themselves. Right. 00:11:33.230 --> 00:11:35.309 Suggesting fairies are just remembered. Druids 00:11:35.309 --> 00:11:37.789 is like suggesting a modern radio broadcaster 00:11:37.789 --> 00:11:40.389 is actually the radio wave itself. That's a great 00:11:40.389 --> 00:11:43.000 analogy. It completely confuses the medium with 00:11:43.000 --> 00:11:46.059 the message. OK, that makes sense. So that leaves 00:11:46.059 --> 00:11:50.279 us with the last major academic excuse. The mythological 00:11:50.279 --> 00:11:52.870 theory. Right. This is the idea that fairies 00:11:52.870 --> 00:11:56.990 are just the old grand pagan gods who got demoted 00:11:56.990 --> 00:11:59.769 over time. Yes, as Christianity swept through 00:11:59.769 --> 00:12:02.309 the Celtic lands. Right. The mighty gods of the 00:12:02.309 --> 00:12:04.769 Tuatha de Danann were supposedly watered down 00:12:04.769 --> 00:12:07.370 into little sprites hiding in the woods just 00:12:07.370 --> 00:12:09.690 to survive the theological shift. And out of 00:12:09.690 --> 00:12:12.330 all the conventional theories, This one actually 00:12:12.330 --> 00:12:15.230 holds the most significant grain of historical 00:12:15.230 --> 00:12:18.509 truth. Oh, it does. Yes. If you track the names, 00:12:19.090 --> 00:12:21.350 many of the fairy queens and kings and later 00:12:21.350 --> 00:12:24.769 Celtic lore are the exact same names as the old 00:12:24.769 --> 00:12:27.370 pagan gods of pre -Christian Ireland. OK, so 00:12:27.370 --> 00:12:29.470 there is a linguistic connection there. Definitely. 00:12:29.929 --> 00:12:31.950 But Evans Wentz says it just kicks the can down 00:12:31.950 --> 00:12:33.950 the road. How do you mean? Well, it's a linguistic 00:12:33.950 --> 00:12:36.370 explanation, not a psychological one. If fairies 00:12:36.370 --> 00:12:38.509 are just diminished gods, we still have to ask 00:12:38.509 --> 00:12:41.549 the root question. Which is, why did human beings 00:12:41.549 --> 00:12:43.710 believe in those gods in the first place? Exactly. 00:12:43.769 --> 00:12:46.210 What was the original experiential spark? More 00:12:46.210 --> 00:12:49.929 importantly, the mythological theory entirely 00:12:49.929 --> 00:12:53.129 dismisses the lived experiences of the Percipients. 00:12:53.509 --> 00:12:55.809 The people who are actually seeing them. Yes. 00:12:56.039 --> 00:12:58.019 the people living in the 19th and 20th centuries 00:12:58.019 --> 00:13:00.100 who were still claiming to interact with them 00:13:00.100 --> 00:13:02.240 on the daily basis. Right, because when a peasant 00:13:02.240 --> 00:13:04.220 wakes up in the middle of the night and sees 00:13:04.220 --> 00:13:06.200 a luminous figure standing at the foot of their 00:13:06.200 --> 00:13:08.980 bed, they aren't having an academic encounter 00:13:08.980 --> 00:13:11.480 with a diminished mythological concept. Exactly. 00:13:11.580 --> 00:13:14.799 They're having a direct, visceral, sometimes 00:13:14.799 --> 00:13:17.759 absolutely terrifying psychological experience. 00:13:17.960 --> 00:13:21.899 So all four of these academic theories, naturalistic, 00:13:22.279 --> 00:13:25.460 pygmy, druid, and mythological, They only explain 00:13:25.460 --> 00:13:27.960 the cultural clothing of the fairies. They explain 00:13:27.960 --> 00:13:30.120 the shape of the container, but they completely 00:13:30.120 --> 00:13:32.940 ignore the liquid inside it. Which brings Evans 00:13:32.940 --> 00:13:35.360 -Wentz to the only theory that encompasses all 00:13:35.360 --> 00:13:38.659 the data, both historical and modern. The psychological 00:13:38.659 --> 00:13:42.100 theory. Yes. This theory posits that a real unseen 00:13:42.100 --> 00:13:45.519 psychological germ or object exists in the world 00:13:45.519 --> 00:13:48.279 waiting to be acted upon. Okay, unpack that for 00:13:48.279 --> 00:13:51.519 me. What is a psychological germ? It means there 00:13:51.519 --> 00:13:54.740 is a genuine external phenomenon happening in 00:13:54.740 --> 00:13:57.539 human consciousness. A real psychical force. 00:13:57.580 --> 00:14:01.840 Yeah. And the human mind then dresses that force 00:14:01.840 --> 00:14:05.539 up in the imagery of nature. or ancient races 00:14:05.539 --> 00:14:08.220 or old gods, just to make sense of it. Okay, 00:14:08.379 --> 00:14:09.960 I have to push back here. Go for it. Because 00:14:09.960 --> 00:14:11.460 I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of the 00:14:11.460 --> 00:14:13.980 people actually experiencing this. Okay. If this 00:14:13.980 --> 00:14:16.200 is entirely a state of mind, if it's all just 00:14:16.200 --> 00:14:19.940 psychological... Why do people experience fairyland 00:14:19.940 --> 00:14:23.980 as an external objective world? That's the million 00:14:23.980 --> 00:14:26.220 dollar question. Like if I have a weird psychological 00:14:26.220 --> 00:14:28.419 feeling I say I feel anxious or I had a strange 00:14:28.419 --> 00:14:30.419 thought but these people don't say that. No they 00:14:30.419 --> 00:14:32.799 don't. They say I saw a physical being standing 00:14:32.799 --> 00:14:35.759 in my field or I heard music coming from that 00:14:35.759 --> 00:14:38.360 specific hill over there. If it's an internal 00:14:38.360 --> 00:14:41.740 state why is it violently thrust outward into 00:14:41.740 --> 00:14:44.259 the physical space? That is the crux of this 00:14:44.259 --> 00:14:46.850 entire investigation. And to understand it, we 00:14:46.850 --> 00:14:49.190 have to completely expand our definition of what 00:14:49.190 --> 00:14:51.389 constitutes reality. Because we're so used to 00:14:51.389 --> 00:14:54.070 measuring things. We are so trained to believe 00:14:54.070 --> 00:14:57.070 that if we can't measure it with a physical instrument, 00:14:57.350 --> 00:14:59.690 it simply doesn't exist. You know, I found an 00:14:59.690 --> 00:15:01.769 analogy while reading the text that really helped 00:15:01.769 --> 00:15:04.230 me wrap my head around this. Oh, what was it? 00:15:04.330 --> 00:15:07.470 Think of fairyland, like the dark matter of the 00:15:07.470 --> 00:15:09.409 psychological universe. Oh, I like where this 00:15:09.409 --> 00:15:12.509 is going. Right. In astrophysics, scientists 00:15:12.509 --> 00:15:14.970 cannot see dark matter. They can't look through 00:15:14.970 --> 00:15:17.169 a telescope and spot it. They can't capture it 00:15:17.169 --> 00:15:19.450 in a jar. It literally doesn't interact with 00:15:19.450 --> 00:15:22.309 light. But they know it's there. They know, mathematically, 00:15:22.590 --> 00:15:25.690 that it is absolutely real. How? because they 00:15:25.690 --> 00:15:28.789 can observe its massive gravitational pull on 00:15:28.789 --> 00:15:31.750 the visible universe. They can see galaxies bending 00:15:31.750 --> 00:15:34.549 and moving in ways that definitively prove a 00:15:34.549 --> 00:15:37.850 massive invisible force is there. That is a phenomenal 00:15:37.850 --> 00:15:40.450 way to conceptualize it. Right. In the same way 00:15:40.450 --> 00:15:42.929 we can't see fairyland with our physical eyes, 00:15:43.210 --> 00:15:46.009 a biologist can't like dissect a fairy on a table. 00:15:46.029 --> 00:15:48.970 No. But if we look at human history, we can observe 00:15:48.970 --> 00:15:51.769 the massive gravitational pull this unseen force 00:15:51.769 --> 00:15:55.929 has on human culture. folklore and on the individual 00:15:55.929 --> 00:15:58.610 minds of the people who experience it. It has 00:15:58.610 --> 00:16:01.690 a profound weight to it. It exerts a force that 00:16:01.690 --> 00:16:04.610 actively bends human behavior and perception. 00:16:05.110 --> 00:16:08.009 It is a force acting upon human consciousness 00:16:08.009 --> 00:16:12.480 from the outside. And if fairyland is indeed 00:16:12.480 --> 00:16:14.980 this invisible dimension of consciousness, this 00:16:14.980 --> 00:16:18.220 psychological dark matter, it leads us to a staggering 00:16:18.220 --> 00:16:21.139 realization. Which is? If this was just an isolated 00:16:21.139 --> 00:16:23.460 weird thing that happened in a few counties in 00:16:23.460 --> 00:16:26.039 Ireland and Scotland, we could easily write it 00:16:26.039 --> 00:16:28.679 off as local superstition. But it's not. No, 00:16:28.679 --> 00:16:30.940 it's not. Which brings us to the global scale 00:16:30.940 --> 00:16:33.519 of this phenomenon. Right. If this is a real 00:16:33.519 --> 00:16:37.029 invisible dimension of consciousness, How did 00:16:37.029 --> 00:16:40.370 human beings across the entire globe, separated 00:16:40.370 --> 00:16:43.029 by oceans and thousands of years of history, 00:16:43.470 --> 00:16:46.490 come up with the exact same framework to describe 00:16:46.490 --> 00:16:48.970 it? The sheer universality of this is what makes 00:16:48.970 --> 00:16:51.490 it impossible to ignore. It's everywhere. The 00:16:51.490 --> 00:16:53.870 Celtic fairy faith is not an anomaly. It is just 00:16:53.870 --> 00:16:57.230 one branch. of a massive worldwide tree of animism. 00:16:57.330 --> 00:16:58.990 We should probably define animism for a second 00:16:58.990 --> 00:17:00.610 because it's a word that gets thrown around a 00:17:00.610 --> 00:17:03.090 lot in anthropology, but it's vital to understand 00:17:03.090 --> 00:17:05.490 the worldview here. Animism isn't just believing 00:17:05.490 --> 00:17:08.529 in ghosts. No. It's the core belief that the 00:17:08.529 --> 00:17:11.519 entire universe is alive. Everything. Rocks, 00:17:11.519 --> 00:17:15.640 rivers, trees, animals, the wind itself has a 00:17:15.640 --> 00:17:19.660 living conscious soul inside it. Right. To an 00:17:19.660 --> 00:17:21.299 animist, the universe isn't just a collection 00:17:21.299 --> 00:17:23.599 of dead matter that accidentally bumps into itself. 00:17:23.720 --> 00:17:27.259 It is a crowded, breathing, conscious ecosystem, 00:17:27.640 --> 00:17:30.180 both visible and invisible. And when you look 00:17:30.180 --> 00:17:32.640 at the world through that animistic lens, you 00:17:32.640 --> 00:17:35.400 find the exact same entities everywhere. Evans 00:17:35.400 --> 00:17:38.019 once draws evidence from completely disconnected 00:17:38.019 --> 00:17:40.200 cultures. He does. Look at the Orunta people 00:17:40.200 --> 00:17:42.579 of Central Australia, for example. They were 00:17:42.579 --> 00:17:44.900 geographically isolated for millennia. And what 00:17:44.900 --> 00:17:47.160 do they believe? They believe in what they call 00:17:47.160 --> 00:17:50.160 the Alchiringa beings. Alchiringa? Yes. These 00:17:50.160 --> 00:17:52.680 are ancestral, invisible spirits that inhabit 00:17:52.680 --> 00:17:56.259 specific rocks, trees, and caves. They control 00:17:56.259 --> 00:17:58.640 the natural elements, and they occasionally interact 00:17:58.640 --> 00:18:01.500 with or even take human children. Wow. If you 00:18:01.500 --> 00:18:03.779 translate the details, it is a one -to -one match 00:18:03.779 --> 00:18:05.819 with the Celtic city. And it doesn't stop there. 00:18:05.920 --> 00:18:09.180 In Asia, the Siamese have the Phi Spirits, legions 00:18:09.180 --> 00:18:12.220 of minor deities living in forests and ethereal 00:18:12.220 --> 00:18:16.140 spaces capable of good and bad, constantly interacting 00:18:16.140 --> 00:18:18.759 with the physical world. And Native American 00:18:18.759 --> 00:18:21.420 tribes across the continent have deeply ingrained 00:18:21.420 --> 00:18:25.039 beliefs in the Unagamsuk, or similar entities. 00:18:25.440 --> 00:18:28.119 Little spirits inhabiting rocks, streams, and 00:18:28.119 --> 00:18:31.140 forests. Exactly. Even in ancient Greece, centuries 00:18:31.140 --> 00:18:33.160 before the Celts were recording their myths, 00:18:33.759 --> 00:18:36.460 the Greek peasants believed in nymphs and nereids. 00:18:36.759 --> 00:18:39.319 They left offerings for them, they feared offending 00:18:39.319 --> 00:18:41.460 them, and they claimed to see them in the woods 00:18:41.460 --> 00:18:44.720 in the exact same way a 19th century Irish farmer 00:18:44.720 --> 00:18:47.259 claimed to see a fairy. The whole world is tuning 00:18:47.259 --> 00:18:49.660 in to the exact same frequency. But here's a 00:18:49.660 --> 00:18:51.599 detail that always bothered me, and I was so 00:18:51.599 --> 00:18:53.500 glad the text actually addressed it. What's that? 00:18:53.599 --> 00:18:56.660 Why are they so often described as tiny? If they 00:18:56.660 --> 00:18:59.759 are these powerful, god -like forces of consciousness, 00:18:59.880 --> 00:19:03.559 the actual architects of nature, why are fairies, 00:19:03.619 --> 00:19:06.259 globally, so often depicted as being three inches? 00:19:06.160 --> 00:19:09.359 as tall or the size of a small child? The answer 00:19:09.359 --> 00:19:11.599 to that lies in the mechanics of ancient neurology 00:19:11.599 --> 00:19:13.539 and primitive psychology. OK, break that down 00:19:13.539 --> 00:19:15.839 for me. Well, before we had modern science, before 00:19:15.839 --> 00:19:19.019 we understood the brain stem or synapses, ancient 00:19:19.019 --> 00:19:21.500 peoples tried to conceptualize human life. They 00:19:21.500 --> 00:19:23.500 were trying to figure out how we work. Right. 00:19:23.700 --> 00:19:25.960 They asked, what is the thing inside me that 00:19:25.960 --> 00:19:28.420 animates this meat and bone? What is the soul? 00:19:28.519 --> 00:19:31.000 And what did they come up with? Globally, the 00:19:31.000 --> 00:19:33.519 most common way to conceptualize this invisible 00:19:33.519 --> 00:19:36.640 animator was to imagine it as a miniature replica 00:19:36.640 --> 00:19:39.740 of the person. Oh, like a mannequin or a homunculus. 00:19:40.059 --> 00:19:43.240 Exactly. A tiny, ethereal version of you driving 00:19:43.240 --> 00:19:45.640 the vehicle of your physical body. That's wild. 00:19:45.759 --> 00:19:47.519 Sometimes it was described as being three inches 00:19:47.519 --> 00:19:50.460 high. Sometimes it was envisioned as a tiny pygmy 00:19:50.460 --> 00:19:52.319 with butterfly wings. Wait, really? Is that where 00:19:52.319 --> 00:19:55.559 the classic fairy wings come from? Yes. Remarkably, 00:19:55.579 --> 00:19:57.960 that is exactly where we get the enduring image 00:19:57.960 --> 00:20:01.400 of fairy wings. I had no idea. Because fairies 00:20:01.400 --> 00:20:03.819 were so often equated with the souls of the dead, 00:20:04.119 --> 00:20:06.799 or with the animating spirits of nature, they 00:20:06.799 --> 00:20:10.700 were envisioned in this exact same form, as tiny, 00:20:10.980 --> 00:20:13.500 ethereal beings. So the smallness isn't meant 00:20:13.500 --> 00:20:16.019 to be taken as a literal physical measurement. 00:20:16.119 --> 00:20:18.809 No, it is a psychological symbol the soul. That 00:20:18.809 --> 00:20:21.750 is fascinating. It's literally the visual language 00:20:21.750 --> 00:20:24.809 of the soul manifesting as a tiny being. Yes. 00:20:24.910 --> 00:20:27.890 But then the text goes into some really speculative 00:20:27.890 --> 00:20:30.809 esoteric territory to explain how these beings 00:20:30.809 --> 00:20:33.730 take shape, doesn't it? It does. It brings in 00:20:33.730 --> 00:20:35.890 the alchemical and mystical theories of the Middle 00:20:35.890 --> 00:20:38.990 Ages. Specifically thinkers like Paracelsus and 00:20:38.990 --> 00:20:41.930 the Rosicrucians. Right. These Renaissance thinkers 00:20:41.930 --> 00:20:46.710 took these ancient global animistic beliefs and 00:20:46.710 --> 00:20:49.190 tried to systematize them scientifically. They 00:20:49.190 --> 00:20:51.589 were trying to categorize the unseen. Exactly. 00:20:51.670 --> 00:20:54.490 They categorized these unseen pygmy -like beings 00:20:54.490 --> 00:20:57.569 as elementals. They believed that the invisible 00:20:57.569 --> 00:20:59.789 universe was structured just like the visible 00:20:59.789 --> 00:21:02.480 one governed by the four clouds. elements. So 00:21:02.480 --> 00:21:04.319 they broke them down mathematically. You have 00:21:04.319 --> 00:21:06.380 the gnomes, the elementals who inhabit and govern 00:21:06.380 --> 00:21:08.539 the earth, the silphs, the elementals of the 00:21:08.539 --> 00:21:12.519 air, the undines who govern water, and the salamanders 00:21:12.519 --> 00:21:14.720 who inhabit fire. And Paracelsus made a crucial 00:21:14.720 --> 00:21:18.099 argument about the biology, for lack of a better 00:21:18.099 --> 00:21:19.940 word, of these elementals. What was his theory? 00:21:20.220 --> 00:21:23.079 He argued they were not purely physical, like 00:21:23.079 --> 00:21:25.940 a rock or a dog, but they were also not purely 00:21:25.940 --> 00:21:29.000 spiritual, like God. So they were somewhere in 00:21:29.000 --> 00:21:32.039 the middle. Yes, they existed in a liminal half 00:21:32.039 --> 00:21:35.779 material state. They possessed elastic ethereal 00:21:35.779 --> 00:21:38.819 bodies that could actually change shape. Oh wow. 00:21:39.420 --> 00:21:42.220 And crucially Paracelsus stated that their shape 00:21:42.220 --> 00:21:45.200 changed based on the mind of the person perceiving 00:21:45.200 --> 00:21:47.339 them. Okay, here's where it gets really interesting. 00:21:48.240 --> 00:21:51.359 Because that is the master key to this whole 00:21:51.359 --> 00:21:54.079 thing. How so? Because that perfectly explains 00:21:54.079 --> 00:21:56.900 the social psychology at play in the source material. 00:21:57.460 --> 00:21:59.240 Ah, I see what you're saying. I was laughing 00:21:59.240 --> 00:22:00.880 reading some of these accounts because whenever 00:22:00.880 --> 00:22:03.819 people see fairies, the fairies always look and 00:22:03.819 --> 00:22:05.980 act exactly like the people who believe in them. 00:22:06.160 --> 00:22:08.220 They really do. Like the Irish fairies are seen 00:22:08.220 --> 00:22:10.099 playing hurling, holding wakes, and listening 00:22:10.099 --> 00:22:13.019 to bagpipes. Right. But the Breton fairies in 00:22:13.019 --> 00:22:16.079 France spin wool and weave garments. They have 00:22:16.079 --> 00:22:19.599 kings, queens and standing armies completely 00:22:19.599 --> 00:22:22.819 mirroring the feudal systems of Europe. So if 00:22:22.819 --> 00:22:25.680 an elemental has an elastic body that responds 00:22:25.680 --> 00:22:30.279 to the mind, are we just projecting our own societal 00:22:30.279 --> 00:22:33.779 structures onto this blank canvas of the invisible 00:22:33.779 --> 00:22:36.140 world? We are just dressing them up in our own 00:22:36.140 --> 00:22:38.940 cultural clothes. Are we? The text confirms your 00:22:38.940 --> 00:22:42.440 suspicion entirely. Yes, there is massive, undeniable 00:22:42.440 --> 00:22:44.759 cultural projection happening. So the bagpipes 00:22:44.759 --> 00:22:47.480 aren't real. The social structures, the clothing, 00:22:47.720 --> 00:22:50.539 the specific types of music, the fairies play. 00:22:50.839 --> 00:22:53.380 That is all the cultural clothing woven by the 00:22:53.380 --> 00:22:55.960 human imagination. OK, so it is just projection. 00:22:56.420 --> 00:22:59.200 But, and this is a massive distinction, Evans 00:22:59.200 --> 00:23:01.420 -Wentz insists we look past that clothing. What 00:23:01.420 --> 00:23:04.539 do you mean? What's fascinating here is that 00:23:04.539 --> 00:23:07.660 if you strip away the bagpipes, the hurling matches, 00:23:07.940 --> 00:23:10.180 the tiny butterfly wings, and the feudal kingships, 00:23:10.740 --> 00:23:12.819 you are not left with nothing. You are left with 00:23:12.819 --> 00:23:15.460 the raw data. Exactly. You are left with an unexplained 00:23:15.460 --> 00:23:17.920 interaction between a human mind and an external 00:23:17.920 --> 00:23:20.160 invisible stimulus. So the cultural projection 00:23:20.160 --> 00:23:23.319 is just how the brain desperately tries to translate 00:23:23.319 --> 00:23:25.240 an encounter with something it fundamentally 00:23:25.240 --> 00:23:29.170 cannot comprehend. Yes. The brain sees an invisible 00:23:29.170 --> 00:23:32.950 force, panics, and overlays a familiar image, 00:23:33.309 --> 00:23:36.509 like a tiny man playing a bagpipe, just to process 00:23:36.509 --> 00:23:39.250 the data safely. So if we strip away all that 00:23:39.250 --> 00:23:41.329 cultural clothing, we are left with a core set 00:23:41.329 --> 00:23:45.069 of unexplained raw phenomena. The raw data. Right. 00:23:45.269 --> 00:23:47.609 And this is where the deep dive gets really clinical. 00:23:47.990 --> 00:23:50.849 Because how does modern science handle the raw 00:23:50.849 --> 00:23:53.650 data that absolutely cannot be dismissed as mere 00:23:53.650 --> 00:23:56.630 imagination or cultural projection? Well, in 00:23:56.630 --> 00:23:59.549 any rigorous scientific experiment, When you 00:23:59.549 --> 00:24:01.950 account for all known variables, when you strip 00:24:01.950 --> 00:24:04.410 away the fraud, the delusion, the cultural bias, 00:24:04.509 --> 00:24:07.349 and simple optical illusions, if there is something 00:24:07.349 --> 00:24:09.990 left over, a stubborn piece of data that defies 00:24:09.990 --> 00:24:12.109 explanation, you call it the X quantity. The 00:24:12.109 --> 00:24:14.569 X quantity, the unexplained residuum. Exactly. 00:24:14.670 --> 00:24:17.869 And in the fairy faith, this X quantity is incredibly 00:24:17.869 --> 00:24:21.450 persistent, well documented, and frankly terrifying 00:24:21.450 --> 00:24:23.069 to the scientific establishment. Because we're 00:24:23.069 --> 00:24:24.930 talking about things like collective hallucinations, 00:24:25.190 --> 00:24:27.829 right? Yeah. Where multiple people standing in 00:24:27.829 --> 00:24:30.460 a field together see the exact same impossible 00:24:30.460 --> 00:24:33.279 thing at the exact same time. Or the movement 00:24:33.279 --> 00:24:36.480 of physical objects without any physical contact, 00:24:36.819 --> 00:24:38.440 like the laundry you mentioned at the very beginning. 00:24:38.700 --> 00:24:41.500 Right. We're talking about supernatural wrappings, 00:24:41.920 --> 00:24:44.779 noises, and poltergeist activity. This is where 00:24:44.779 --> 00:24:47.880 rural folklore violently collides with rigid, 00:24:48.039 --> 00:24:50.460 psychical research. And Evans -Wentz doesn't 00:24:50.460 --> 00:24:53.160 rely on local gossip for this, does he? Not at 00:24:53.160 --> 00:24:55.799 all. He brings in the heavy hitters of science 00:24:55.799 --> 00:24:58.640 to look at the X quantity. We're not talking 00:24:58.640 --> 00:25:00.819 about fringe theorists here. No, we're talking 00:25:00.819 --> 00:25:03.319 about pioneering foundational scientists of the 00:25:03.319 --> 00:25:05.680 late 19th and early 20th centuries. Like Sir 00:25:05.680 --> 00:25:08.359 William Crookes. Yes, a brilliant chemist and 00:25:08.359 --> 00:25:10.519 physicist who discovered the element thallium. 00:25:10.779 --> 00:25:13.920 And Sir Oliver Lodge, who was a pioneer in radio 00:25:13.920 --> 00:25:16.599 and electromagnetic theory. Right. The French 00:25:16.599 --> 00:25:19.799 astronomer, Camille Flammarion. the highly respected 00:25:19.799 --> 00:25:22.460 anthropologist Andrew Lang. These were serious 00:25:22.460 --> 00:25:26.539 men. Very serious. Men who applied rigorous skeptical 00:25:26.539 --> 00:25:29.299 scientific methods to the unseen. Let's look 00:25:29.299 --> 00:25:31.380 at some of the specific cases they investigated. 00:25:31.759 --> 00:25:34.480 Because they read exactly like fairy tales, but 00:25:34.480 --> 00:25:38.079 they are sworn documented evidence in courtrooms 00:25:38.079 --> 00:25:40.539 and laboratories. Let's hear one. Take the events 00:25:40.539 --> 00:25:43.119 at Sidville, France in the mid -19th century. 00:25:43.359 --> 00:25:46.180 Oh, the Seidel phenomena is a classic case. What 00:25:46.180 --> 00:25:49.329 exactly happened there? Well, In a parish house 00:25:49.329 --> 00:25:52.250 surrounded by reputable witnesses, including 00:25:52.250 --> 00:25:54.690 a magistrate, a priest, and local officials, 00:25:55.809 --> 00:25:58.309 impossible things happened. Like what? There 00:25:58.309 --> 00:26:00.789 were documented instances where heavy pillows 00:26:00.789 --> 00:26:03.829 and coverlets floated away from a bed where children 00:26:03.829 --> 00:26:06.109 were actively trying to sleep. Just floated away? 00:26:06.509 --> 00:26:09.309 Yes. Furniture in the house moves violently across 00:26:09.309 --> 00:26:12.279 the room without anyone touching it. There were 00:26:12.279 --> 00:26:14.220 intelligent knocking sounds that would actually 00:26:14.220 --> 00:26:16.420 respond to questions. And it's not just France. 00:26:16.619 --> 00:26:18.740 There's the story from Ireland of a woman named 00:26:18.740 --> 00:26:21.220 Mrs. Margaret Quinn, which is where I got the 00:26:21.220 --> 00:26:23.480 intro to this deep dive. Ah, the laundry story. 00:26:23.619 --> 00:26:25.599 Yeah. She was hanging her clothes on a line, 00:26:25.920 --> 00:26:27.779 and suddenly the clothes lifted off the line 00:26:27.779 --> 00:26:30.200 and floated away into the air. Right. And the 00:26:30.200 --> 00:26:32.460 fascinating part isn't just the levitation, it's 00:26:32.460 --> 00:26:35.200 the reaction of the crowd. How did they react? 00:26:35.259 --> 00:26:38.150 Yeah. The people standing around didn't panic. 00:26:38.269 --> 00:26:40.869 They didn't scream about demons or witches. They 00:26:40.869 --> 00:26:43.450 just casually said, God bless the good people. 00:26:43.509 --> 00:26:45.309 They will bring them back. Because it was just 00:26:45.309 --> 00:26:47.869 a fact of life for them. Exactly. And sure enough, 00:26:48.049 --> 00:26:51.589 the clothes slowly floated back down to the line. 00:26:52.109 --> 00:26:54.710 Now, when a modern physicist investigates phenomena 00:26:54.710 --> 00:26:57.549 like this, they use terms like telekinesis, or 00:26:57.549 --> 00:27:00.869 they hypothesize the actions of discarnate intelligences. 00:27:01.130 --> 00:27:03.970 They use very sterile language. But to the Celtic 00:27:03.970 --> 00:27:07.299 peasant, This is just the seed at work. It's 00:27:07.299 --> 00:27:10.079 the exact same phenomenon, the exact same X quantity 00:27:10.079 --> 00:27:12.019 just viewed through two different linguistic 00:27:12.019 --> 00:27:14.799 lenses. One uses sterile Greek and Latin roots. 00:27:15.099 --> 00:27:17.700 The other uses ancient mythology. Precisely. 00:27:17.779 --> 00:27:20.160 And then there's the concept of telepathy. Right. 00:27:20.319 --> 00:27:22.819 The idea that a mind can communicate with another 00:27:22.819 --> 00:27:25.400 mind across physical space without speaking. 00:27:25.839 --> 00:27:28.059 I always like to think of telepathy like a biological 00:27:28.059 --> 00:27:29.799 radio transmitter. That's a good way to look 00:27:29.799 --> 00:27:32.640 at it. If the human brain acts as a transmitter. 00:27:33.039 --> 00:27:35.859 capable of sending a telepathic stimulus or a 00:27:35.859 --> 00:27:38.799 thought to another human brain, which these psychical 00:27:38.799 --> 00:27:40.640 researchers were actively running experiments 00:27:40.640 --> 00:27:44.559 on, could an entirely non -human invisible intelligence 00:27:44.559 --> 00:27:48.000 broadcast on that exact same frequency? That 00:27:48.000 --> 00:27:50.779 is the exact hypothesis proposed by researchers 00:27:50.779 --> 00:27:54.019 like Sir Oliver Lodge. Really? Yes. His work 00:27:54.019 --> 00:27:56.740 in early radio technology deeply informed his 00:27:56.740 --> 00:28:00.440 view of the mind. How so? If we accept the premise 00:28:00.440 --> 00:28:03.119 that human minds can interact invisibly across 00:28:03.119 --> 00:28:05.660 space, emitting and receiving signals, there 00:28:05.660 --> 00:28:08.299 is zero logical reason to assume that only human 00:28:08.299 --> 00:28:10.799 minds exist in that invisible spectrum. Oh, wow. 00:28:10.960 --> 00:28:12.980 If the radio waves are there, why assume we are 00:28:12.980 --> 00:28:15.390 the only ones broadcasting? Exactly. But wait, 00:28:15.509 --> 00:28:17.569 I have a question about this. How do we differentiate 00:28:17.569 --> 00:28:20.609 between a normal, mundane hallucination like, 00:28:20.809 --> 00:28:23.049 I ate something bad, I have a high fever, and 00:28:23.049 --> 00:28:25.269 I suddenly see a pink elephant in my room, and 00:28:25.269 --> 00:28:27.869 what the Celts call the second sight, or an ecstatic, 00:28:27.869 --> 00:28:30.289 genuine vision of a fairy? That is a crucial 00:28:30.289 --> 00:28:32.750 distinction, and the psychical researchers drew 00:28:32.750 --> 00:28:35.730 a very hard line here. Where is the line? A normal 00:28:35.730 --> 00:28:38.390 hallucination is entirely generated from within. 00:28:39.009 --> 00:28:41.599 It is a visualized image pulled from your own 00:28:41.599 --> 00:28:44.319 memory or subconscious due to a physiological 00:28:44.319 --> 00:28:47.700 glitch. Like a fever dream. Yes. Your brain misfires, 00:28:48.019 --> 00:28:50.240 maybe due to illness or exhaustion, and projects 00:28:50.240 --> 00:28:53.500 an image outward. But the researchers argue that 00:28:53.500 --> 00:28:56.400 a genuine vision, the second sight of a natural 00:28:56.400 --> 00:28:59.099 seer, is not generated internally. It's not a 00:28:59.099 --> 00:29:01.930 misfire. No. It is triggered by an outside force. 00:29:02.269 --> 00:29:03.950 So it's the difference between my television 00:29:03.950 --> 00:29:06.890 glitching and showing random static versus my 00:29:06.890 --> 00:29:08.869 television suddenly picking up a crystal clear 00:29:08.869 --> 00:29:11.089 broadcast from a hidden station I didn't even 00:29:11.089 --> 00:29:14.369 know existed. Precisely. The genuine hallucination 00:29:14.369 --> 00:29:17.390 of a phantom or a fairy is a telepathic or psychical 00:29:17.390 --> 00:29:19.589 stimulus acting upon your nervous apparatus from 00:29:19.589 --> 00:29:22.710 the outside. It is a real external force interacting 00:29:22.710 --> 00:29:24.849 with human consciousness, forcing your brain 00:29:24.849 --> 00:29:28.470 to process an image. Yes. The delusion and imposter 00:29:28.470 --> 00:29:31.240 theory. The lazy academic idea that everyone 00:29:31.240 --> 00:29:32.980 who has ever seen a fairy is either lying for 00:29:32.980 --> 00:29:35.359 attention or clinically insane simply fails to 00:29:35.359 --> 00:29:38.059 account for the sheer volume of collective verifiable 00:29:38.059 --> 00:29:40.680 phenomena. It's intellectually dishonest to just 00:29:40.680 --> 00:29:44.099 yell fraud at everything that breaks your scientific 00:29:44.099 --> 00:29:48.819 model. It really is. To receive these broadcasts 00:29:48.819 --> 00:29:51.740 from the unseen world, to tune your biological 00:29:51.740 --> 00:29:55.200 radio to the fairy frequency, your mind usually 00:29:55.200 --> 00:29:57.640 has to be in a highly receptive altered state. 00:29:57.900 --> 00:29:59.579 You don't usually see a fairy while you're doing 00:29:59.579 --> 00:30:01.500 your taxes or chopping wood in broad daylight. 00:30:01.779 --> 00:30:04.019 No, you see them at twilight or in the moments 00:30:04.019 --> 00:30:06.740 between waking and sleeping. Right. And this 00:30:06.740 --> 00:30:09.900 leads us to the profound connection between fairyland 00:30:09.900 --> 00:30:12.539 and the architecture of human consciousness itself. 00:30:12.680 --> 00:30:15.200 Because the state of mind of the person experiencing 00:30:15.200 --> 00:30:18.609 this is just as important as the phenomenon itself. 00:30:19.049 --> 00:30:21.329 Absolutely. One of the most consistent details 00:30:21.329 --> 00:30:23.490 in all fairy lore, and frankly one of the most 00:30:23.490 --> 00:30:26.349 existentially terrifying, is the massive distortion 00:30:26.349 --> 00:30:29.490 of time. The time dilation. Yes. You read these 00:30:29.490 --> 00:30:31.650 stories of a mortal wandering into a fairy ring, 00:30:31.789 --> 00:30:33.650 they hear beautiful music, they go inside, they 00:30:33.650 --> 00:30:35.769 dance for what feels like maybe an hour or two. 00:30:35.910 --> 00:30:38.329 And then? Then they walk back out, and a hundred 00:30:38.329 --> 00:30:40.650 years have passed in the physical world. Everyone 00:30:40.650 --> 00:30:43.220 they know is gone. Their friends are dead. Their 00:30:43.220 --> 00:30:45.480 house is a ruin. They are a complete stranger 00:30:45.480 --> 00:30:48.839 in the future. Or, conversely, they think they've 00:30:48.839 --> 00:30:51.920 been taken away for years, enduring lifetimes 00:30:51.920 --> 00:30:54.859 of labor in fairyland, and they wake up under 00:30:54.859 --> 00:30:57.299 a bush and it's only been five minutes. And again, 00:30:57.500 --> 00:30:59.359 Evans -Wentz points out that this time dilation 00:30:59.359 --> 00:31:01.799 is not just a convenient fairy tale trope used 00:31:01.799 --> 00:31:04.519 to create drama. No, it is a well -documented 00:31:04.519 --> 00:31:07.500 psychological phenomena. He provides intense 00:31:07.500 --> 00:31:09.920 scientific parallels from dream psychology to 00:31:09.920 --> 00:31:12.740 show that The human mind naturally does this, 00:31:13.099 --> 00:31:15.240 right? He does. The example that really blew 00:31:15.240 --> 00:31:18.460 my mind was Thomas de Quincy. Ah, the famous 00:31:18.460 --> 00:31:21.720 19th century author. Yes, the guy who wrote Confessions 00:31:21.720 --> 00:31:24.880 of an English Opium Eater. He recorded having 00:31:24.880 --> 00:31:27.859 these profound opium -induced dreams where he 00:31:27.859 --> 00:31:30.039 literally lived out 60 entire years within a 00:31:30.039 --> 00:31:32.579 single night's sleep. 60 years in one night. 00:31:32.670 --> 00:31:35.690 He experienced the passage of every single day, 00:31:35.890 --> 00:31:38.869 the aging process, the sprawling emotional weight 00:31:38.869 --> 00:31:41.970 of an entire lifetime, all while his physical 00:31:41.970 --> 00:31:44.730 body lay motionless in bed for eight hours. And 00:31:44.730 --> 00:31:47.009 there are documented clinical cases beyond drug 00:31:47.009 --> 00:31:49.390 use, too. Like what? He cites a man named Huna 00:31:49.390 --> 00:31:52.789 who fell into a magnetic sleep. A magnetic sleep. 00:31:52.970 --> 00:31:55.430 What's that? What modern medicine might call 00:31:55.430 --> 00:31:59.450 a deep hypnotic coma or a cataleptic state. He 00:31:59.450 --> 00:32:01.950 fell asleep in January and finally woke up in 00:32:01.950 --> 00:32:04.509 May. Oh my goodness. And he genuinely believed 00:32:04.509 --> 00:32:06.869 he had only lain down to rest the day before. 00:32:07.549 --> 00:32:09.710 The intervening months simply did not exist for 00:32:09.710 --> 00:32:12.930 him. Time just stopped. Or consider the famous 00:32:12.930 --> 00:32:15.609 Cirrus of Prevorst, a German woman who spent 00:32:15.609 --> 00:32:18.990 years in a deep trance state, experiencing massive 00:32:18.990 --> 00:32:22.220 spans of time as a single continuous day. So 00:32:22.220 --> 00:32:24.759 when a Celtic farmer claims they were taken by 00:32:24.759 --> 00:32:26.920 the fairies into the hills, it aligns perfectly 00:32:26.920 --> 00:32:29.180 with what clinical psychologists call trance 00:32:29.180 --> 00:32:32.099 states, somnambulism or states and ecstasy. What 00:32:32.099 --> 00:32:34.319 does that actually mean mechanically? It means 00:32:34.319 --> 00:32:37.220 the consciousness is perceiving objects, experiencing 00:32:37.220 --> 00:32:39.900 vivid events, and processing time completely 00:32:39.900 --> 00:32:42.000 independently of the physical nerve apparatus. 00:32:42.240 --> 00:32:44.339 So the physical brain and the ticking clock are 00:32:44.339 --> 00:32:47.079 entirely bypassed. If we connect this to the 00:32:47.079 --> 00:32:49.440 bigger philosophical picture, it suggests that 00:32:49.440 --> 00:32:51.559 consciousness is not entirely bound by the physical 00:32:51.559 --> 00:32:55.460 body. Or by linear ticking time. Right. In a 00:32:55.460 --> 00:32:58.660 trance, the consciousness steps outside the normal 00:32:58.660 --> 00:33:02.180 steady flow of physical time and enters the subjective 00:33:02.180 --> 00:33:05.059 fluid time of the fairy realm. The fairy realm 00:33:05.059 --> 00:33:07.880 is timeless because consciousness itself, when 00:33:07.880 --> 00:33:10.480 freed from the physical brain, is timeless. Exactly. 00:33:10.500 --> 00:33:12.339 But I have to push back here. Okay, what's bothering 00:33:12.339 --> 00:33:15.319 you? We've been talking about this in very clinical, 00:33:15.599 --> 00:33:19.359 almost peaceful, academic terms, dreams, trances, 00:33:19.660 --> 00:33:21.799 time dilation. Right. But what about the dark 00:33:21.799 --> 00:33:25.279 side of this? Because fairy folklore is incredibly 00:33:25.279 --> 00:33:27.859 dark. It definitely is. What about the changelings? 00:33:28.079 --> 00:33:30.920 How does this psychological framework explain 00:33:30.920 --> 00:33:34.160 the very sinister, very prevalent belief that 00:33:34.160 --> 00:33:36.460 fairies will steal a healthy human baby from 00:33:36.460 --> 00:33:38.900 its crib or steal a healthy adult. Right. And 00:33:38.900 --> 00:33:41.779 leave behind a withered, sick, evil little imp 00:33:41.779 --> 00:33:43.880 in their place because that isn't just a dream. 00:33:44.039 --> 00:33:46.079 No, it's a nightmare. That is a physical, horrific 00:33:46.079 --> 00:33:48.099 reality where a mother looks at her child and 00:33:48.099 --> 00:33:50.339 genuinely says, this is a monster. This is not 00:33:50.339 --> 00:33:52.819 my baby. The changeling belief is undoubtedly 00:33:52.819 --> 00:33:55.619 the darkest, most tragic and most complex part 00:33:55.619 --> 00:33:57.960 of the fairy faith. How does Evans -Wentz handle 00:33:57.960 --> 00:34:01.240 it? He tackles it head on with incredible empathy 00:34:01.240 --> 00:34:06.180 and scientific rigor. First, he immediately dismisses 00:34:06.180 --> 00:34:09.400 the old sociological theories. Which ones? The 00:34:09.400 --> 00:34:12.199 idea that this is just a folk memory of ancient 00:34:12.199 --> 00:34:15.300 rival tribes kidnapping children, or a memory 00:34:15.300 --> 00:34:17.719 of ancient human sacrifice. Oh, I've heard those 00:34:17.719 --> 00:34:20.099 theories. While those brutal things may have 00:34:20.099 --> 00:34:22.380 happened historically, they don't explain the 00:34:22.380 --> 00:34:24.780 psychological terror of the changeling. The belief 00:34:24.780 --> 00:34:27.219 that the physical body is still there, but the 00:34:27.219 --> 00:34:31.280 person inside is gone. Exactly. Instead, he connects 00:34:31.280 --> 00:34:34.219 the changeling belief to a deeply scientific 00:34:34.219 --> 00:34:37.369 cross -cultural phenomenon. Demon possession. 00:34:37.590 --> 00:34:39.190 Wait, I need you to explain that because demon 00:34:39.190 --> 00:34:41.630 possession doesn't sound like a scientific phenomenon 00:34:41.630 --> 00:34:43.710 to me. I know, the term is loaded. But in the 00:34:43.710 --> 00:34:46.130 realm of 19th and early 20th century psychology 00:34:46.130 --> 00:34:48.929 and anthropology, it was a recognized category 00:34:48.929 --> 00:34:51.389 of profound mental shift. Okay, give me an example. 00:34:51.769 --> 00:34:54.570 Evans Wentz cites extensive practices from China, 00:34:55.010 --> 00:34:56.969 where they kept detailed records of individuals 00:34:56.969 --> 00:34:59.809 whose personalities suddenly, violently, and 00:34:59.809 --> 00:35:01.809 permanently changed. And in modern psychology. 00:35:02.059 --> 00:35:04.179 We have different terms for this today. We might 00:35:04.179 --> 00:35:06.780 call it dissociative identity disorder. Ah, okay. 00:35:06.880 --> 00:35:10.579 Or we might recognize it as a sudden severe pathological 00:35:10.579 --> 00:35:13.579 illness like the catastrophic onset of childhood 00:35:13.579 --> 00:35:16.059 schizophrenia. Or some kind of devastating form 00:35:16.059 --> 00:35:19.099 of severe epilepsy or paralysis. Exactly. Oh, 00:35:19.099 --> 00:35:22.739 I see. So a healthy, vibrant child suddenly develops 00:35:22.739 --> 00:35:26.300 a severe neurological condition. Overnight. Overnight, 00:35:26.440 --> 00:35:28.719 they stop speaking. They begin having violent 00:35:28.719 --> 00:35:31.860 seizures. Their physical body wastes away due 00:35:31.860 --> 00:35:34.460 to an undiagnosed illness. And their previously 00:35:34.460 --> 00:35:37.380 sweet personality completely vanishes. Replaced 00:35:37.380 --> 00:35:40.889 by screaming or catatonia? Right. And to a pre 00:35:40.889 --> 00:35:43.869 -scientific mind, without access to an MRI or 00:35:43.869 --> 00:35:46.369 a neurologist, the child they knew is literally 00:35:46.369 --> 00:35:48.969 entirely gone. That is so heartbreaking. The 00:35:48.969 --> 00:35:51.250 sudden onset of a severe disease is a traumatic 00:35:51.250 --> 00:35:53.369 psychological event for the family. But because 00:35:53.369 --> 00:35:55.329 the Celts view the entire world through the lens 00:35:55.329 --> 00:35:57.929 of animism, they are forced to interpret this 00:35:57.929 --> 00:36:01.210 neurological tragedy as a fairy abduction. The 00:36:01.210 --> 00:36:03.679 logic of their worldview demands it. They believe 00:36:03.679 --> 00:36:05.599 the healthy soul of the child has been pulled 00:36:05.599 --> 00:36:07.599 out of the body and taken into the invisible 00:36:07.599 --> 00:36:11.159 realm, abducted by the city. Yes. And because 00:36:11.159 --> 00:36:14.739 of the economy of nature in their minds, if a 00:36:14.739 --> 00:36:17.659 soul leaves a body, that body can't just be empty. 00:36:18.019 --> 00:36:20.800 Nature abhors a vacuum. Right. Another entity 00:36:20.800 --> 00:36:23.820 has to fill the void. So they believe a malicious, 00:36:24.219 --> 00:36:27.320 ancient, sick fairy spirit has possessed the 00:36:27.320 --> 00:36:30.739 vacant physical shell. Yes. The changeling is 00:36:30.739 --> 00:36:33.340 an attempt to make sense of inexplicable medical 00:36:33.340 --> 00:36:36.679 horror. It is a profound tragedy, but it reinforces 00:36:36.679 --> 00:36:39.079 a central tenet of the Celtic belief system, 00:36:39.239 --> 00:36:41.780 doesn't it? It does. The belief that the physical 00:36:41.780 --> 00:36:44.860 body is merely a vessel. It is a temporary meat 00:36:44.860 --> 00:36:47.440 suit, a conductor for consciousness. The body 00:36:47.440 --> 00:36:49.619 is not the person. Which is the perfect bridge 00:36:49.619 --> 00:36:52.360 to the final major concept of this deep dive. 00:36:52.619 --> 00:36:54.639 Because if consciousness can temporarily leave 00:36:54.639 --> 00:36:57.360 the body to enter this timeless realm of fairyland 00:36:57.360 --> 00:36:59.699 during a trance, and if a soul can be swapped 00:36:59.699 --> 00:37:01.780 out of a body during an illness, what happens 00:37:01.780 --> 00:37:04.179 when the soul leaves permanently at death? This 00:37:04.179 --> 00:37:06.239 brings us to the esoteric heart of the fairy 00:37:06.239 --> 00:37:09.559 faith, the Celtic doctrine of rebirth or the 00:37:09.559 --> 00:37:12.219 evolution of the soul. This is where the text 00:37:12.219 --> 00:37:16.860 elevates from rural folklore into a grand, sweeping, 00:37:17.119 --> 00:37:19.780 cosmological framework. It reads less like peasant 00:37:19.780 --> 00:37:22.679 superstitions and more like speculative, theoretical 00:37:22.679 --> 00:37:24.679 physics. It really does. It blew my mind when 00:37:24.679 --> 00:37:27.579 I read it. Why is that? Because the expert tradition 00:37:27.579 --> 00:37:30.059 among the Celts, the learned Seers, and the ancient 00:37:30.059 --> 00:37:33.960 Druidic lines, they viewed the universe in exactly 00:37:33.960 --> 00:37:36.440 the same way the ancient Greek philosophers like 00:37:36.440 --> 00:37:38.980 Plato did. Ah, the phenomenal versus the numinal 00:37:38.980 --> 00:37:41.889 world. Yes. They believed that the physical, 00:37:42.190 --> 00:37:44.590 visible world, the phenomenal world, is merely 00:37:44.590 --> 00:37:47.449 an effect. The cause of everything, the engine 00:37:47.449 --> 00:37:49.929 running the universe, is an invisible, numinal 00:37:49.929 --> 00:37:52.570 world. To use a classic analogy, the physical 00:37:52.570 --> 00:37:54.550 world is just the shadow cast on the wall of 00:37:54.550 --> 00:37:56.789 a cave. And the spiritual world, the invisible 00:37:56.789 --> 00:37:59.710 realm, is the fire casting the shadow. The cause 00:37:59.710 --> 00:38:02.309 is unseen, the effect is what we live in. And 00:38:02.309 --> 00:38:04.489 to explain how the soul navigates this, Evans 00:38:04.489 --> 00:38:07.389 -Wentz dives deeply into the Welsh bardas manuscripts. 00:38:07.630 --> 00:38:09.940 The bardas? What are those exactly? These are 00:38:09.940 --> 00:38:12.219 the preserved records of the ancient bardic and 00:38:12.219 --> 00:38:15.159 druidic teachings. They describe the entire universe 00:38:15.159 --> 00:38:18.219 as being structured into three distinct, massive 00:38:18.219 --> 00:38:20.519 circles of existence. Let's break those down 00:38:20.519 --> 00:38:22.460 because the mechanics here are fascinating. Let's 00:38:22.460 --> 00:38:25.159 do it. The outermost circle, encompassing absolutely 00:38:25.159 --> 00:38:29.190 everything, is Sagamp. This is the circle of 00:38:29.190 --> 00:38:31.230 infinity. It is the realm of the absolute, the 00:38:31.230 --> 00:38:34.210 uncreated. It is the realm of God alone. So no 00:38:34.210 --> 00:38:37.289 human can go there. No human, no fairy, no created 00:38:37.289 --> 00:38:39.769 soul can ever traverse it or even understand 00:38:39.769 --> 00:38:43.010 it. It's the ultimate, untouchable source code 00:38:43.010 --> 00:38:45.989 of the universe. Exactly. Then inside that infinite 00:38:45.989 --> 00:38:48.829 circle, you have the second circle. The circle 00:38:48.829 --> 00:38:52.099 of abrid. The circle of rebirth. Yes. This is 00:38:52.099 --> 00:38:54.400 the realm we are in right now. The physical world. 00:38:54.619 --> 00:38:56.699 It is the realm of physical existence, of matter, 00:38:56.940 --> 00:38:59.360 of suffering, of learning, and of a constant 00:38:59.360 --> 00:39:02.539 brutal cycle of life and death. The text specifically 00:39:02.539 --> 00:39:05.199 notes an incredible phrase about Abrid. It says 00:39:05.199 --> 00:39:08.119 that here, the dead are stronger than the living. 00:39:08.440 --> 00:39:11.099 Because in Abrid, the physical life is fleeting 00:39:11.099 --> 00:39:13.719 and weak, while the spiritual forces shaping 00:39:13.719 --> 00:39:17.699 it are eternal and powerful. And in Abrid, the 00:39:17.699 --> 00:39:20.679 soul is constantly returning, constantly reincarnating 00:39:20.679 --> 00:39:23.139 into the physical world to gather experience. 00:39:23.480 --> 00:39:25.659 Yes. And the soul doesn't just start out as a 00:39:25.659 --> 00:39:28.400 human being. The bardic doctrine is incredibly 00:39:28.400 --> 00:39:30.840 specific about this. Where does it start? It 00:39:30.840 --> 00:39:33.960 states that the primordial soul begins its journey 00:39:33.960 --> 00:39:37.599 in the lowest, most microscopic possible form. 00:39:37.780 --> 00:39:39.659 What they called a water animal keel. Right. 00:39:39.900 --> 00:39:42.440 A tiny organism at the bottom of the ocean. Wow. 00:39:42.679 --> 00:39:44.780 And through countless lifetimes of struggle, 00:39:45.199 --> 00:39:48.139 it slowly evolves upward, incarnating through 00:39:48.139 --> 00:39:51.239 the plant kingdom, then the animal kingdom, until 00:39:51.239 --> 00:39:53.719 it finally reaches humanity. So think about what 00:39:53.719 --> 00:39:56.039 this means. It sounds exactly like Darwinian 00:39:56.039 --> 00:39:58.380 evolution. It really does. But instead of just 00:39:58.380 --> 00:40:01.400 the physical, biological body evolving through 00:40:01.400 --> 00:40:04.239 natural selection and genetic mutation, it's 00:40:04.239 --> 00:40:06.940 the invisible spiritual soul evolving through 00:40:06.940 --> 00:40:09.800 conscious experience across millions of lifetimes. 00:40:09.960 --> 00:40:12.780 It is spiritual Darwinism. It is an evolutionary 00:40:12.780 --> 00:40:15.579 track for consciousness itself. And humanity 00:40:15.579 --> 00:40:18.389 is the crucial... dangerous turning point in 00:40:18.389 --> 00:40:20.989 this journey. Why dangerous? Because it is only 00:40:20.989 --> 00:40:23.429 in the human state that the evolving soul finally 00:40:23.429 --> 00:40:25.949 gains self -awareness and exercises free will. 00:40:26.389 --> 00:40:28.909 It finally becomes morally responsible for its 00:40:28.909 --> 00:40:31.389 actions. And if the human soul chooses well, 00:40:31.429 --> 00:40:33.690 if it learns from the suffering of abrid, it 00:40:33.690 --> 00:40:36.110 eventually graduates. It breaks the cycle of 00:40:36.110 --> 00:40:38.409 reincarnation and enters the third and final 00:40:38.409 --> 00:40:42.050 circle, Gwynvid. Gwynvid, the circle of liberty 00:40:42.050 --> 00:40:46.070 and perfection. a realm of pure, unhindered consciousness 00:40:46.070 --> 00:40:49.449 where suffering completely ceases. I love the 00:40:49.449 --> 00:40:52.130 analogy the text uses for this evolutionary process. 00:40:52.190 --> 00:40:54.250 Which one? It compares the migrating soul to 00:40:54.250 --> 00:40:57.369 a silkworm. Oh, right. A silkworm weaves a cocoon 00:40:57.369 --> 00:41:00.010 around itself, not randomly, but based on deeply 00:41:00.010 --> 00:41:03.340 acquired, inherited instincts, right? Yeah. In 00:41:03.340 --> 00:41:05.880 the exact same way, the indestructible soul monad, 00:41:06.019 --> 00:41:09.099 the core spark of consciousness, weaves a new 00:41:09.099 --> 00:41:12.239 physical body and a new ethereal body for its 00:41:12.239 --> 00:41:14.719 next stage of evolution. Based entirely on the 00:41:14.719 --> 00:41:16.719 instincts and experiences it gathered in its 00:41:16.719 --> 00:41:20.039 past life. Exactly. This profound cosmic architecture 00:41:20.039 --> 00:41:22.780 raises an incredibly important question for us 00:41:22.780 --> 00:41:26.139 today. What's that? How does this ancient, mystical, 00:41:26.360 --> 00:41:29.969 Celtic doctrine map onto the modern psychology 00:41:29.969 --> 00:41:32.670 and physics we've been discussing. Is there any 00:41:32.670 --> 00:41:35.889 modern equivalent to this? Evans Wentz points 00:41:35.889 --> 00:41:38.130 directly to William James for that. One of the 00:41:38.130 --> 00:41:40.889 brilliant founding fathers of modern psychology. 00:41:41.349 --> 00:41:44.389 Yes. James proposed a concept to explain human 00:41:44.389 --> 00:41:46.949 consciousness that sounds exactly like Celtic 00:41:46.949 --> 00:41:48.929 mysticism. What did he call it? He called it 00:41:48.929 --> 00:41:52.070 the mother sea or a universal reservoir of consciousness. 00:41:52.309 --> 00:41:55.190 The mother sea. James suggested that our individual 00:41:55.190 --> 00:41:58.650 isolated human minds are not separate self -contained 00:41:58.650 --> 00:42:00.670 islands. We aren't just batteries in our own 00:42:00.670 --> 00:42:02.989 little boxes. Right. Instead, we're all dipping 00:42:02.989 --> 00:42:05.460 into the exact same massive, invisible ocean 00:42:05.460 --> 00:42:07.579 of universal consciousness. I remember Joke used 00:42:07.579 --> 00:42:10.219 a brilliant spatial metaphor for this. The fence 00:42:10.219 --> 00:42:13.199 metaphor. He argued that the individual mind 00:42:13.199 --> 00:42:16.019 is just a temporary fence built within this infinite 00:42:16.019 --> 00:42:19.079 mother sea. And the fence exists to limit the 00:42:19.079 --> 00:42:21.780 flood of universal consciousness, allowing us 00:42:21.780 --> 00:42:24.019 to function in the physical world without being 00:42:24.019 --> 00:42:26.260 overwhelmed. Because if we let it all in, our 00:42:26.260 --> 00:42:29.340 brains would just break. Exactly. When the body 00:42:29.340 --> 00:42:32.659 dies, the fence is simply removed and the droplet 00:42:32.659 --> 00:42:34.920 of individual consciousness returns to the larger 00:42:34.920 --> 00:42:37.880 sea. Yes. And in the context of the fairy faith, 00:42:38.039 --> 00:42:40.940 this is the grand unifying theory. How so? It 00:42:40.940 --> 00:42:44.699 means that fairies, the elementals, human souls, 00:42:44.840 --> 00:42:48.079 the spirits of the dead, they are all just individual 00:42:48.079 --> 00:42:51.179 units, different droplets of this universally 00:42:51.179 --> 00:42:54.880 diffused soul stuff or mana. So they're all made 00:42:54.880 --> 00:42:57.199 of the same material. Yes. Some droplets are 00:42:57.199 --> 00:42:59.760 heavily fenced in embodied in dense physical 00:42:59.760 --> 00:43:02.239 human forms. Like us. And some droplets have 00:43:02.239 --> 00:43:04.619 lighter fences existing in the invisible, the 00:43:04.619 --> 00:43:07.539 elastic, ethereal forms of the ceta. But fundamentally, 00:43:07.860 --> 00:43:10.480 at their core, they are all the exact same substance. 00:43:10.519 --> 00:43:13.000 Which means the entire Celtic doctrine of rebirth 00:43:13.000 --> 00:43:15.460 and the existence of the fairy world is not just 00:43:15.460 --> 00:43:18.280 a collection of random ghost stories. No, it 00:43:18.280 --> 00:43:21.380 is a highly elaborate, internally consistent 00:43:21.380 --> 00:43:24.579 philosophical framework designed to explain the 00:43:24.579 --> 00:43:26.460 journey of consciousness through the cosmos. 00:43:26.719 --> 00:43:28.880 The fairies are simply consciousness functioning 00:43:28.880 --> 00:43:31.300 in a different state. vibrating on a different 00:43:31.300 --> 00:43:34.340 frequency within the exact same universal ocean. 00:43:34.639 --> 00:43:36.960 We have journeyed so far today. We really have. 00:43:37.139 --> 00:43:40.059 We started standing in a field in Ireland, watching 00:43:40.059 --> 00:43:42.619 a pile of laundry float in the air, listening 00:43:42.619 --> 00:43:45.199 to stories of little people playing bagpopes. 00:43:45.380 --> 00:43:48.539 And we have ended up at the very edges of modern 00:43:48.539 --> 00:43:51.769 physics. speculative biology, the psychology 00:43:51.769 --> 00:43:54.630 of trauma, and the ultimate evolutionary destiny 00:43:54.630 --> 00:43:57.289 of the human soul. It is time to bring this massive 00:43:57.289 --> 00:43:59.730 synthesis home for you, the listener. What we 00:43:59.730 --> 00:44:01.429 have ultimately discovered is that the fairy 00:44:01.429 --> 00:44:04.429 faith has been profoundly misunderstood by modern 00:44:04.429 --> 00:44:06.869 society. Completely. It is not a collection of 00:44:06.869 --> 00:44:09.730 groundless childish superstitions. It is a highly 00:44:09.730 --> 00:44:13.130 complex, robust, pre -scientific framework. The 00:44:13.130 --> 00:44:15.789 ancient Celts designed it to explain genuine 00:44:15.789 --> 00:44:18.409 psychical phenomena, altered states of consciousness, 00:44:18.829 --> 00:44:20.989 pathological illnesses, and the spiritual evolution 00:44:20.989 --> 00:44:24.489 of humanity. They were observing real, anomalous 00:44:24.489 --> 00:44:27.469 things in the world and building a grand functional 00:44:27.469 --> 00:44:30.349 theory to explain them. But why should you care 00:44:30.349 --> 00:44:32.849 about this today? I mean, you're probably not 00:44:32.849 --> 00:44:34.969 worried about an invisible elemental stealing 00:44:34.969 --> 00:44:37.010 your laundry and you aren't leaving saucers of 00:44:37.010 --> 00:44:40.050 milk out to appease the side. Probably not. But 00:44:40.050 --> 00:44:42.369 look at our modern world. In our current era 00:44:42.369 --> 00:44:45.030 of constant relentless information overload, 00:44:45.510 --> 00:44:48.530 of glowing screens, algorithms, and endless sterile 00:44:48.530 --> 00:44:50.909 data, we suffer from a complete and devastating 00:44:50.909 --> 00:44:53.510 loss of sympathetic contact with nature. We really 00:44:53.510 --> 00:44:56.469 do. We look at the universe solely as a resource 00:44:56.469 --> 00:44:59.269 to be extracted, as dead matter just bumping 00:44:59.269 --> 00:45:01.590 in the void. Understanding the deep roots of 00:45:01.590 --> 00:45:04.210 the fairy faith serves as a radical reminder. 00:45:04.469 --> 00:45:07.849 It reminds us that the human mind has vast, untapped, 00:45:08.010 --> 00:45:10.510 unmapped dimensions. It reminds us that there 00:45:10.510 --> 00:45:12.849 is a profound mystery to consciousness that we 00:45:12.849 --> 00:45:15.150 have not even begun to solve with all our technology. 00:45:15.309 --> 00:45:17.909 It demands that we remain open, critical, and 00:45:17.909 --> 00:45:20.269 curious about the X quantities in our own lives. 00:45:20.429 --> 00:45:23.889 The moments of deep intuition, the strange synchronicities, 00:45:24.230 --> 00:45:27.389 the dreams that feel too real to just be random 00:45:27.389 --> 00:45:30.630 firing synapses. It asks us to humbly recognize 00:45:30.630 --> 00:45:32.929 that the visible world we measure so carefully 00:45:32.929 --> 00:45:35.730 might merely be the thinnest skin of reality. 00:45:35.809 --> 00:45:38.449 And that beneath it lies a churning, infinite, 00:45:38.670 --> 00:45:41.400 conscious universe. So, I want to leave you with 00:45:41.400 --> 00:45:43.980 a final provocative thought to mull over on your 00:45:43.980 --> 00:45:46.440 own as you go about your week. It builds on everything 00:45:46.440 --> 00:45:49.000 we've synthesized today. Think about how modern 00:45:49.000 --> 00:45:51.900 psychical research, quantum physics, and speculative 00:45:51.900 --> 00:45:54.579 biology are currently using terms like telepathic 00:45:54.579 --> 00:45:58.340 stimulus, subconscious visualization, non -local 00:45:58.340 --> 00:46:01.179 consciousness, and the universal mother sea. 00:46:01.239 --> 00:46:04.659 Very scientific terms. Are we, with all our advanced 00:46:04.659 --> 00:46:07.400 university degrees, our particle accelerators, 00:46:07.420 --> 00:46:10.940 and our laboratories, Simply inventing modern 00:46:10.940 --> 00:46:14.199 clinical sterile jargon for the exact same invisible 00:46:14.199 --> 00:46:17.360 forces that a Celtic peasant sitting by a peat 00:46:17.360 --> 00:46:19.519 fire a thousand years ago intuitively understood 00:46:19.519 --> 00:46:22.039 and called the Sid Hey. Are we just rebranding 00:46:22.039 --> 00:46:24.780 the fairies? It is an incredibly humbling question 00:46:24.780 --> 00:46:27.159 to consider. It really is. Thank you so much 00:46:27.159 --> 00:46:29.500 for taking this immense deep dive into the source 00:46:29.500 --> 00:46:31.840 material with us today. We hope it makes you 00:46:31.840 --> 00:46:34.800 look at the visible world and the quiet invisible 00:46:34.800 --> 00:46:37.079 spaces around you just a little bit differently 00:46:37.079 --> 00:46:39.860 today. Remember, the map is not the territory. 00:46:40.260 --> 00:46:42.760 And sometimes, the most important fundamental 00:46:42.760 --> 00:46:45.539 forces in the universe won't show up on a scientific 00:46:45.539 --> 00:46:48.440 instrument. Until next time, keep diving deep.