This
book is dedicated to Oberon and Morning Glory for always having the
courage to dress up and come out to play. You are an inspiration to
us all.
Thank
you H M J Van Geel for your superb review on Amazon:
“I just finished reading this wondrous book Living the Personal
Myth. It was a very good experience.
The description of acts of Active Imagination, from another point
of view is as like me, consulting my Guides, or even, like him, being
with my Faerie Lover.
The book is very well wrought , never invented, from introduction
to conclusion, it is a Shamanic Journey, as he states hirs'elf ever
and again.
I was shocked when he told about the 2 or 3 year old Zardoa, falling
in love with the little Fae (did he show them his, like they showed
him theirs ?). It is exactly as it was with me. And then , during
puberty, too shy to talk to a girl....
This book gave me the miracle of art and science to relate to Magic.
There is a sneaky play by him with truth and lying, with living to
the limits, it'made me sometimes raise an eyebrow...
To conclude, this book would by an aid to any one, seeking themselves,
and especially for those feeling to be Otherkin.”
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Sample
from the Appendix, page 217-218
The Quest for Immortality
Nearly all stories about Elfin say that we are either immortal or
nearly so. This interestingly is also the case of the mythos of the
vampire (whom we consider in most cases to be Unseelie or dark elven).
The difference is that vampires must drink blood to live, whereas
elves have obtained immortality without the need to deprive others
of life or blood. The vampire mythos parallels, we believe, humanity’s
own progress from meat eating, and in some cases cannibalism, to non-killing/vegetarian
diet. Although, we should point out that before mankind became meat
eaters that they were mostly likely vegetarians, eating fruit and
leaves from trees and bushes.
In fact, the story of Cain killing Abel in the Bible from our elven
point of view seems to be about the progress from vegetarianism to
meat eating. Cain kills Abel because he sacrificed an animal (currently
regarded by general society as a demonic act), which was previously
forbidden. However, the god of the Bible found the sacrifice pleasing,
thus condoned the killing of animals, although He condemned the killing
of humans, even when they thems’elves had killed, and put a mark
on Cain to signify that he was not to be killed, was under His protection,
even though he was exiled. This would seem to be an argument against
capital punishment, although it seems few would construe it so.
Currently, the topic most likely to cause the most heated arguments
among elves and otherkin in this era concerns vegetarianism vs. meat
eating. Yet, these elves believe that we cannot live forever as long
as we kill to live. The Vampire existence prolongs life provisionally.
To become immortal we must give up killing. This would seem to be
in accord with an Aquarian movement toward mutual tolerance. At the
same time, we cannot stop people from killing animals; we can only
suggest that doing so will lead to a better and healthier life for
nearly everyone.
Tymlyre (Leary, 1982) prophesied that as we move into space we will
also be unlocking the genetic code that controls aging, and we will
in due course of time become immortal. But immortality without s’elf
actualization merely leads to horror and misery and therefore to a
living hell. It is an underlying principle of the Aquarian and Seelie
Elven philosophy that we cannot be happy if our happiness is obtained
by depriving others. For to be immortal and still kill to live is
to infuse the world with misery, a misery that because we caused it
is ultimately, in a magical and karmic sense, our own.
As we noted earlier, many of the novels we’ve cited are about
the merging of the normal human and faerie realms. Our move toward
immortality is not a one-way endeavor. We are not merely becoming
more powerful as physical beings, but we are also becoming in a way,
less physical and more ethereal (Freda Warrington’s novels, Elfland,
Midsummer Night and Grail of the Summer Stars are called the Aetherial
Tales). Just as our personal myth is made real by uniting it with
the “real” world, so too does the living of our myth, spiritualize,
etherealize our lives. We are learning through our magic, through
our imaginal process, through lucid dreaming and other techniques,
to live in those alternate realms of reality, those Quantum Realms
of possibility.
The purpose and power of Myth then, as we propose it, is to show us
beings who are not mere human beings with all our failings and frailties
but with greater or special powers, but rather to show us beings who
are more intelligent, more kind, more loving; just a couple of steps
beyond us, so that in reaching toward them we become better, greater,
more powerful beings ours’elves. For as we become more effective,
‘elf actualized beings, we will inevitably create Faerie all
about us.
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Sample
of book from Chapter 3, pages 53-56:
CHAPTER
3: The Development of My Personal Myth
Welcome to My World
James Hillman (1997), Jungian analyst and the originator of archetypal
psychology, argues that the generally accepted opinion, which holds
that the parents, particularly the mother, is the most formative power
in a person’s life, is inaccurate. He offers instead the idea
that there is the archetypal daimon who guides us and drives us toward
fulfillment of our true nature and calling. This daimon is in the
form of a guiding force or guardian angel who holds the image of what
we are meant to be. Of this he writes, “Yet all along a little
elf whispers another tale: ‘You are different; you’re not
like anyone in the family; you don’t really belong.’ There
is an unbeliever in the heart. It calls the family a fantasy, a fallacy.”
I heard that elf. It whispered to me: You are one of us.
I am an elf. I realize that must sound strange to some readers, since
from the popularly accepted point of view, elves are fictional beings
who do not and, being a product of fiction/fantasy/fairy tales/folk
lore, cannot exist. However, the intelligent reader, like yourself,
will ask, what do you mean by that statement? And my reply is multifold.
When I say I am an elf, I mean, in part, that I am a theorist and
practitioner of what I call the Elven Way (see our book of that title),
which is a spiritual practice. Therefore, when I say I am an elf,
I’m using it in the same way someone might say, I’m a practitioner
of Buddhism, or Hinduism, or Catholicism or Judaism.
However, as you will see, for mys’elf, I also use my identification
as an elf in both a genetic sense and a cultural one. Thus I could
say to you that I am a descendent of the Scottish, English, Welsh,
French and Dutch, but as I trace the ancestry of those peoples further
back, I find I am equally entitled to tell you I am a descendent of
the Pixies, Elves, Brownies, and Fae or Faery Folk. Just as some modern
Italians could say they are descended from the Romans and some might
argue before that the Trojans, so I tell you I am descended from the
folks who were once known as the Elves, Pixies. Brownies and Fae.
And just as the stories of Troy where once thought to be purely fictional
or mythological until the late 1870’s, so are the stories of
my ancestors currently considered in just this way.
And I also use the term elf culturally. So when I say I am an elf,
I also mean that I carry on many of the traditions and fashions that
have been passed on through the ages by my people. However, I don’t
ask you to believe I am an elf. I simply ask to you to understand
and accept that this is the culture, people and tradition, with whom
I identify. And it is this culture that is at the heart of my personal
myth.
Religion or Culture?
If you tell someone that you are a Buddhist, a Catholic, a Jew or
even an agnostic or atheist, while they might not agree with your
choice, they at least, for the most part believe it to be a real one.
If you tell someone your ancestors were Italian or Japanese or Cherokee
or even some tribe from Africa that they’ve never heard of, they
will accept what you say without question. Try telling someone you’re
an Elf.
If you tell someone you are descended from elves, they will, A. think
you’re crazy, or B. think you are pulling their leg, or C. think
that you have taken Dungeons and Dragons a mite too seriously which
brings us back to A.
If you tell someone you are on the Elven Path rather than claiming
any other religious affiliation they will think you are, A. crazy,
B. pulling their leg, or C. part of a weird cult, which brings us
back to A.
Because, in the minds of most people, elves do not and have never
existed except in Faery Tales. The very words Fairy Tale is defined
by the dictionary (Soukhanov, 1984) as a story that is fanciful or
fictitious.
So are we, as elves, a religion and thus some form of new age cult,
or are we a culture descended from a people who never existed except
in the imagination of fanciful people, and in tales told to children
before they are old enough to realize what the world is really like?
The answer is neither. The Elven Path is animistic in nature. Nearly
all tales about us say that we are the Elder Race (Evans-Wentz, 1966;
Tolkien, 1977b), the original people. Our path is aboriginal and thus,
as Frazer (1951/1922) points out, shamanistic and pre-religious. Ours
is a spiritual path, not a religion. We have no dogma, doctrine nor
specific rituals, although every elf is free to follow whatever religion
or believe whatever they choose concerning religion, the Universe
and the world.
Is it a path we’ve inherited or is it one we’ve created?
To me that doesn’t matter; for all spiritual paths began somewhere,
sometime. All things, all religions, all cultures, are created. So
for the longest time I would tell people that if there never were
a historical people called elves, there are now! Yet, I always felt,
deep, deep within, that I was descended from elves. For who else but
elves would even wish to claim to be an elf?
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