How to actually meet the fae | Jo Hickey-Hall on Modern Fairy Sightings, Orbs, and Sacred Place

What’s Jo’s Favorite Fairy Sighting? This week, Jordan finally gets to ask the host of the singular Modern Fairy Sightings Podcast the most annoying question he can come up with, and she does not disappoint. Jo Hickey-Hall has been collecting these stories for years. And the one she leads with is hers: a stick being made of literal sticks, running down a beach in Jersey with a gait so strange it made everyone watching laugh. Years later, a man in northeast England describes seeing almost exactly the same thing. We talk about why these things, these beings, whatever they are, resist being accurately described or depicted. They’re so vivid in the moment, but as soon as you start to try to put words on them, they seem to slip away. But we’re doing our best. You can come judge for yourself. Highlights: Jo Hickey-Hall, folklorist, social historian, host of The Modern Fairy Sightings Podcast (also find her at scarlettofthefae.com and preorder her book here) Nerd Critic Jo’s favorite fairy sighting The shadow-cutters A stick being made of sticks The Brazilian Ent (a tree trunk that walked, then tried to become a man, and didn’t quite get it right) The disconnect between perception and description “I can see it in my head, but it just doesn’t seem to translate into words or drawings” Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy Mysterium tremendum and mysterium fascinans Why one guy runs away and the other is filled with awe Conditioning, inheritance, and the holding place we make for the uncanny Orbs in the context of UFOs, fae, and consciousness Conscious plasma :) Different witnesses, different filters/stations/signals How to learn to see auras (try it at a conference with a white screen behind the speaker) The Genius Loci Two strangers see the same being in the same place, twenty years apart “Your daemon is really driving you” How to actually meet the fae Picking up litter is an offering Thresholds: doorways, dawn and dusk, the line where the beach meets the sea, the transitions in your own life Theosophy and the elemental beings — Blavatsky, Steiner, Paracelsus The London flat haunted by goblins (near a crossroads, near water) Are the fae hitching lifts on trains and trucks? Fairies as emergent phenomena of place (this is what humans are, actually) Part two maybe? (with Mal (and Tom???)) And in the epilogue… A disembodied head in a kitchen window Why you can’t tear down a house to make a haunting go away How UFOs are seen so often over a Neolithic burial chamber that locals don’t bother to look up anymore *** SpectreVision Radio is a bespoke podcast network at the intersection between the arts and the uncanny, featuring a tapestry of shows exploring creativity, the esoteric, and the unknown. We’re a community for creators and fans vibrating around common curiosities, shared interests and persistent passions. spectrevisionradio.com linktr.ee/spectrevisionsocial Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices