Visible souls....

[davem]

Originally Posted by LmP

Is not the medieval or pre-medieval the "stuff" of fairy tale?

You've set me off on a strange train of thought...

It is now but it wasn't then. That was the way people thought, the way they understood themselves & others. If it is the 'stuff of fairy tale then maybe so are we. But that opens the question up, because then we have to ask, if we're the stuff of fairy tale, if fairy tale is a true reflection of our psyches, then what has happened to the world. How have we ended up where we are now? In fact, another question occurs - are we actually living in a fairy tale right now - a dark, unpleasant one in many ways, I admit, but with gleams of light & flashes of true beauty for those with eyes to see it.

Perhaps what we call 'reality' isn't all that 'real' after all. Perhaps what we think of as our hard nosed, materialistic, 'Freudian' reality is the bad dream of we wanderers in Faerie, from which, with luck (& a little blessing) we may soon awaken. Maybe this is the 'fantasy'. Perhaps we respond to Middle earth so strongly not because it offers an escape into a fantasy world, but because it offers an escape out of one, & an 'awakening' from our bad dream...