Fallen Angels
“Not of the seed of Adam are we, nor is Abraham our father; but of the seed of the Proud Angel, driven forth from Heaven.”
W. Y. Evans-Wentz, The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries
Celtic folklore tells us that faeries are the angels who were pulled down with Lucifer when he left heaven and were unable to return, the doors to heaven being shut after them to prevent any more angels from following. Since they did not wish to live in hell either, they made a home in earth’s hollow places. Since this lore is passed down through obviously biased Christian priests, to whom the Faery race were, for the most part, devils and at best to be pitied, it is easy to dismiss this origin theory as being simply anti-Pagan propaganda. It is interesting to note, however, that there is a very similar tale within Muslim culture of the origin of the djinn, a race of fiery, airy beings who are the Arabic equivalent of the faerie race and the origin of the wish-granting genie we are all familiar with. When God orders the angels in heaven to bow down and worship the newly created man, the leader of the angels, Iblis (the Islamic equivalent to Lucifer), refuses and is cast out to become the leader of the Shaytan, the race of fallen djinn from whom the name Satan derives.
There are undeniable connections between the angel, demon, and Faery races, and if we can free ourselves from prejudice and preconceptions and approach the subject with a curious and open mind, we can learn much of the deeper mystical nature of our Faery cousins and their function within the world and the cosmos.
On the most obvious level, the parallels are clear. Both Faery beings and angels are powerful, shining beings, possessed of their own inner source of luminescence. Both are credited as being sources of inspiration and are particularly associated with inhumanly beautiful music and dancing, and they are both most popularly portrayed and perceived as winged beings. Angels and Faery beings both have a resonance with the light of the stars, though the angels are seen to dwell there, whereas the Faery race dance beneath the stars and sing to them, and emit something of that stellar power into our green world. This takes us into a deeper level and adds some spiritual credence to the fallen angel theory.
Looking beyond the Judeo-Christian and Islamic religious framework and seeing the Faery and angelic races as beings of cosmic energy who are far older than any human theological concept, if angels are the agents of cosmic energies and messengers of a spiritual source from above, then Faery beings can be seen as angels of the inner earth, having brought that energy from the source down into the centre of the earth, breathing spiritual life into its centre and now radiating that energy outwards from within, connecting the earth to the web of the universe and enabling sentient spiritual life to evolve. It must not be overlooked that the core of our planet itself radiates its own cosmic energy—it is the star within our earth that illuminates the otherworld.
Lisa Hunt, “Djinn”; www.lisahuntart.com
(reproduced with kind permission
of US Games Systems, Inc.)
The name Lucifer means “light bringer,” so returning to the folklore with the added dimension gained by looking beyond it, we can see the wisdom hidden behind the dogma. If “God” is, in fact, the source of spiritual light, then Lucifer is, in fact, the agent of this light sent to earth. There are also parallels, therefore, between Jesus (as the son of God sent to earth to redeem humankind) and the fall of Lucifer, which, though seemingly straying from the subject of Faery Craft, gives interesting food for thought. (Quite literally food for thought when we consider Lucifer’s connection to the apple of the Tree of Knowledge, which first brought wisdom to humanity, and how the primal beauty of Faery can be compared to the Garden of Eden.)
The Reverend Robert Kirk, who was both a man of God and one who truly loved the Faery race, observed in his indispensable The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns, and Fairies that they “are said to be of a middle nature betwixt man and angel.” By their very nature as spirits connected to earth, they are indeed closer to us than the cosmic energy of angels. Within the same work he also observed the great sadness that is an undeniable part of the nature of Faery, which is the shadow that lives alongside the light of their abundant joy: “Some say that their continual sadness is because of their pendulous state, as uncertain what at the last revolution will become of them.”
By the “last revolution” he means the day of the Last Judgment, when it is said that the sidhe are expecting salvation, at last able to return to their celestial origins at the end of days. Again, in the context of Faery beings as being spiritual forces of inner earth, this makes sense, as if life on earth did, indeed, end, they would return to the source. However, there are other possible interpretations. If we interpret the many omens of Judgment Day as being the herald of a new stage in our spiritual evolution as opposed to an ending, then it may be that these prophecies, in fact, refer to a time when Faery will be seen again on the surface of the world.
Returning to Evans-Wentz’s Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries, there are several accounts that hint at this possibility, stating that “before the consummation of the world they will be seen as numerous as ever.” Since these predictions are accompanied by similar biblical images such as the dead rising from the grave and angels being seen on earth, it is not a huge stretch of the imagination to suggest that instead of the dead literally crawling
