You say, "I'm writing about non-humans who'd do anything to have a place in human society..." So what is it about Faery that makes these non-humans want a place in human society? Is Faery no longer a tenable place for them to live? Is it the very soullessness of Faery that makes them want to "pass"?
I'm thinking of The Man In The Leaf Green Coat, from Susanna Clarke's "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell". He's a depiction of the King of Faery that draws heavily on the classical (pre-Victorian -- maybe even pre-Shakespearian? -- fairy tales) where Faery and its beings are dreadful, unknowable, capricious, and above all, without souls; their gifts come with huge hidden price tags. They seem bloodless, unable to feel real love the way humans do, so what makes us human is both our weakness and our strength.
In the old tales, it's the love of the heroine or hero for his/her lover that wins the stolen human back from the grasp of the otherworld. Truly knowing someone enough to love them unreservedly, to pick them out from the false duplicates, being willing to sacrifice oneself (hold on to one's beloved even while the Faery Queen turns him/her into snakes, lizards, fire, etc.) is what wins the day.
---------------- Speaking of Shamans, Salon has an article (http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2007/04/12/castaneda/) on Carlos Castaneda. I haven't read his books -- a deliberate avoidance, since I certainly ran into more than a few people who had when I was running more in neo-pagan circles, and reading the review confirms my suspicions that the man was a huckster. I was silly enough to register for a weekend seminar on Shamanism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Harner) once, and wound up being pretty disgusted with the other registrants. I guess I was hoping for something a wee bit more scholarly, but I should have known better. The room seemed to be filled with people who either were extremely credulous or had the air of wanting to have power over other people. I wound up spending most of the weekend in "people-watching" mode; it was amusing to find the "power-seekers" deliberately choosing locations in the room that gave them prominence.
Interestingly, in traditional Shamanism, the calling to be a shaman is not something most people want. It's often something that one comes to after a long illness or other crisis in life that leaves one no other options. The Otherworld isn't a place you want to deliberately spend a lot of time in; it's a hazardous place, and the job of the shaman is to navigate it (placate the dangerous beings who live there) for the benefit of the people in their tribe.
I think neopagans are attracted to shamanism because they already feel alienated from society as a whole, and are seeking answers -- or power. If they want to deliberately live in Faery, maybe their souls are already well down the road to being lost...
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Date: 16 Apr 2007 12:08 pm (UTC)I'm thinking of The Man In The Leaf Green Coat, from Susanna Clarke's "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell". He's a depiction of the King of Faery that draws heavily on the classical (pre-Victorian -- maybe even pre-Shakespearian? -- fairy tales) where Faery and its beings are dreadful, unknowable, capricious, and above all, without souls; their gifts come with huge hidden price tags. They seem bloodless, unable to feel real love the way humans do, so what makes us human is both our weakness and our strength.
In the old tales, it's the love of the heroine or hero for his/her lover that wins the stolen human back from the grasp of the otherworld. Truly knowing someone enough to love them unreservedly, to pick them out from the false duplicates, being willing to sacrifice oneself (hold on to one's beloved even while the Faery Queen turns him/her into snakes, lizards, fire, etc.) is what wins the day.
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Speaking of Shamans, Salon has an article (http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2007/04/12/castaneda/) on Carlos Castaneda. I haven't read his books -- a deliberate avoidance, since I certainly ran into more than a few people who had when I was running more in neo-pagan circles, and reading the review confirms my suspicions that the man was a huckster. I was silly enough to register for a weekend seminar on Shamanism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Harner) once, and wound up being pretty disgusted with the other registrants. I guess I was hoping for something a wee bit more scholarly, but I should have known better. The room seemed to be filled with people who either were extremely credulous or had the air of wanting to have power over other people. I wound up spending most of the weekend in "people-watching" mode; it was amusing to find the "power-seekers" deliberately choosing locations in the room that gave them prominence.
Interestingly, in traditional Shamanism, the calling to be a shaman is not something most people want. It's often something that one comes to after a long illness or other crisis in life that leaves one no other options. The Otherworld isn't a place you want to deliberately spend a lot of time in; it's a hazardous place, and the job of the shaman is to navigate it (placate the dangerous beings who live there) for the benefit of the people in their tribe.
I think neopagans are attracted to shamanism because they already feel alienated from society as a whole, and are seeking answers -- or power. If they want to deliberately live in Faery, maybe their souls are already well down the road to being lost...