La Fae Medicine Woman

[uktena]

Your definition of "spirit" is probably the one most people would go for. My own use of the word is quite group-specific, and I don't expect anyone to follow me on that one.     

I found your misunderstanding about "fairy doctoring" amusing, and I loved your comment about what is the best way to transport the fairies.  I understood immediately what was meant, because of how old timers use the word "doctoring":  power doctoring, yarb doctoring, and so on.  Still, some of these people are so out there, I wouldn't put it past any of them to claim to be offering medical services to the fairy-folk.    Don't worry about getting confused, this stuff can be hard to follow, and those of us who think we know something about it still throw up our hands from time to time and say, "What's it all mean, anyway?"

My question about how many fairies will fit into a paper bag was a gag on the old Western scholastic argument about how many angels can stand on the head of a pin, and had to do with the Victorian ideas about fairies that I had brought up earlier.  Victorian fairies are teeny tiny intsy wintsy things, so you could pack quite a number of them in an average paper bag; fairies of folklore tend to be larger, ranging usually from dwarf-size to giant-size, and so probably you'll need a bigger bag. 

Far from being a catch-all, the word "angel" has a very specific meaning inside the Abrahamic religions, and is improperly used outside of that context.  It's the baneful influence of Newagers again, who took the word and slapped it onto what appears to be any number of invisible beings.  It's something like what Kathryn describes that the Findhorn people did with the word "deva", improperly taking it from its Hindu context and using it to describe a different class of beings altogether.  Newagers can't seem to say enough bad things about Christianity, but if they like something we have, they will not hesitate to appropriate that too, claiming that it is more "ancient" than Christianity (in the case of angels, this is certainly true), and that therefore they have the right to add it to their laundry list of "ancient" spiritualities (the thing speaks for itself).  Thank goodness we don't have that much that appeals to them, but looks to me that these days Judaism had better keep an eye out for them. 

[critter - a white non-ndn person]

Hmm.  Well, I don't know really about any of this history of Victorian fairies or what nots.  Cherubs I have seen pictures as dwarf sized angels.  And angels as human sized or larger. 

I don't know all of what exists ..  I tend to believe that entities can arrive in many shapes and sizes, and yet others prefer no shape or size.  I don't know.  I do know it's not possible for me to say all these entities, fairies, elves, angels, whatnots, do not or can not exist.  I just don't believe that they are waiting hand and foot on humans, to do their bidding and 'doctoring'.  And I don't believe people like this woman and the many many many others I have seen are at some state of (being? consciousness? gifted?) their self, to contract with such entities for their own personal 'services' and 'fortunes' to be made by 'using' such entities.. as though these entities are at their disposal. It's just not real..  and I believe the abuse of such is well, going to have a pay back.  Such as the horrible situation in the DeathRay thread.  Mis use and abuse, intentional or not, is wrong. Period.

Yes, the 'new agers' mix mash the good ideals of Christianity.  But then, what goes around comes around, as I believe when the Christians came on the world scene, they incorporated a bit of the pagan, such as Dec. 25th.  And then wiped out what wouldn't convert.  In my belief, that's a lot of karma, for lack of better term.

I strongly believe in the keeping of the indigenous peoples' cultures and traditions intact. Those that have survived, and still hold strong against the whitewashing and conversion practices of any invading belief systems.  I feel it important, and a must. It just has to be.