Fairies: A species of supernatural beings, and one of the most beautiful and important of mythological conceptions. The belief in fairies is very ancient and widespread. Of British fairies there are several distinct kinds, and these differ considerably in their characteristics. In Ireland, where the belief is strongest, the fairies are called "good people," and are of a benevolent but capricious and mischievous disposition. The pixies of England are very similar. The industrious domestic spirit known as Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, is of the fairy kind; so also are the brownies of Scotland. It is supposed that the hard work of the latter has given them the swarthiness from which they take their name, the other being called fairies from their fairness.

Scottish fairy mythology resembles that of Ireland, though of a more somber cast. In Highland Scotland fairies are called daoine sithe or "men of peace," and it is believed that every year the devil carries off a tenth part of them. They steal human children, and leave in their place fairy changelings, fretful, wizened, unchildish things. Flint arrowheads are believed, both in Ireland and Scotland, to be fairy weapons, and the water in which they are dipped is cure for many ills. Fairy music may often be heard in certain spots, and like the fairies themselves it is of exquisite beauty. As in the myth of Persephone, mortals who eat or drink in fairyland are doomed to remain there forever. If a fairy marry with a human being, there is generally some condition imposed on the latter which, being broken, leads to his undoing. Many fairy legends are found all over Europe, varying a little with the locality but identical in their essential points. The conception of fairies is probably animistic. (See Animism)

Fat of the Sorcerers: it was said at one time that the devil made use of human fat for his sorceries. The witches anointed themselves with this fat in order to go to the Sabbath by way of the chimney.

Faust: A magician of the sixteenth century, famous in legend and literature. There is sound proof that such a person existed. Trithemius mentions him in a letter written in 1507, in which he speaks of him in terms of contempt, as a fool and a mountebank who pretended that he could restore the writings of the ancients were they wiped out of human memory, and blasphemed concerning the miracles of Christ. Mudt, a canon of the German Church also alludes to him in a letter as a charlatan. Johann Cast, a Protestant pastor of Basel, appears to have known Faust, and considers a horse and dog belonging to him to have been familiar spirits. Wier, the great protector of witches, mentions Faust in a work of his, as a drunkard who had studied magic at Cracow. He also mentions that in the end Satan strangled him after his house had been shaken by a terrific din. From other evidence it is pretty clear that Faust was a wandering magician or necromancer, whose picturesque character won him wide publicity or notoriety. By the end of the century in which he flourished he had become the model of the mediaeval magician, and his name was for ever linked with those of Virgil, Bacon, Pope Silvester and others.

The origins of the Faust legend are of very great antiquity. The essentials underlying the story are the pact with Satan, and the supposed vicious character of purely human learning. The idea of the pact with Satan belongs to both Jewish and Christian magico-religious belief, but is probably more truly Kabalistic than anything else, and can scarcely be traced further back; unless it resides in the savage idea that a sacrificed person takes the place of the deity, to which he is immolated during the period of life remaining to him before his execution, and afterwards becomes one with the god. The wickedness of believing in the all-sufficiency of human knowledge is a favorite theme with the early Lutherans, whose beliefs strongly colored the Faust legend ; but vivid hues and wondrously carven outlines were also afforded its edifice by the thought of the age in which it finally took shape ; and in the ancient Faust- books we find tortuous passages of thought and quaintnesses of conception which recall to our minds the artistry of the Renaissance.

The Faust-book soon spread over Europe; but to England is due the honor of the first dramatic representation of the story by Christopher Marlowe, who in the Tragicall History of Dr. Faustus produced a wondrous, if unequal drama,—the outstanding passages of which contained most of his best work. Lessing wrote a Faust play during the German revival of the eighteenth century, but it remained to Goethe to crown the legend with the creation of the greatest psychological drama the world has ever seen. The manner in which Goethe differed from his predecessors in his treatment of the story lies in the circumstance that he gives a different character to the pact between Faust and Mephistopheles, whose nature again is totally at variance with the devils of the old Faust-books. From Lessing Goethe received the idea of Faust's final salvation. It may be said that though in some respects Goethe adopted the letter of the old legend he did not adopt its spirit. Probably the story of Faust has given to thousands their only idea of mediaeval magic, and this idea has lost nothing in the hands of Goethe, who has cast about the subject a much greater halo of mystery than it perhaps really contains. (See Goethe.)

Feng Shui: Feng Shui explores rules in Chinese philosophy that govern spatial arrangement and orientation in relation to patterns of yin and yang and the flow of energy (qi); these effects -- both good and bad -- are taken into consideration when designing buildings, arranging furniture, and so forth.

(See Feng Shui)

Fern: The common Fern, it was believed, was in flower at midnight on St. John's Eve, and whoever got possession of the flower would be protected from all evil influences, and would obtain a revelation of hidden treasure. Fern seed was supposed to render one invisible.

Ferho: (Gnostic). The highest and greatest creative power with the Nazarene Gnostics (Codex Nazaraeus).

Fetch: According to Irish belief, the apparition of a living person; the Irish form of the wraith. It resembles in every particular the individual whose death it is supposed to foretell, but it is generally of a shadowy or ghostly appearance. The fetch may be seen by more than one person at the same time and, like the wraith of England and Scotland, may appear to the person it represents. There is a belief, too, that if the fetch be seen in the morning, it indicates long life for the original: but if it be seen at night, his speedy demise may be expected. The Fetch enters largely into the folk-tales of Ireland; and it is hardly surprising that so many tales have been woven around it, for there is something gruesome in the idea of being haunted by one's own " double " which has frequently been turned to account by more sophisticated writers than the inventors of folk-tales.

Fetishism: The term fetishism is employed in more than one sense. Thus it may mean in some cases pure idolatry, or the worship of inanimate objects. Again in older works of travel, it is even used to signify African religion. But taken in its general and more modern sense, it signifies any inanimate object which appears to the savage as the residence of a spirit. Thus a carved doll, a necklace of teeth, a flint stone into which a shaman or medicine-man has succeeded in coaxing a spirit to reside, is regarded by the savage as a fetish. But larger objects are occasionally adopted as fetishes, and in the adoption of these in contradistinction to the smaller fetishes we can trace the evolution of the idol. As a general rule the fetish is an object peculiar in shape or material, for such is considered by the shaman as being more likely to attract a wandering spirit than any more ordinary substance. Thus we find as fetishes peculiarly shaped stones, tufts of human hair and bones, parts of animals and birds, and so forth. Fossils are not uncommonly employed as fetishes, possibly because of their freakish formation.

The origin of fetishism is undoubtedly animistic. The savage intelligence regards everything that surrounds it as possessing the property of life—water, the earth, trees, stones and so forth. But this is modified by the idea that many of these objects are under the power of some spell or potent enchantment. Thus the rocks and trees are the living tombs of imprisoned spirits, resembling the dryads of folk-lore; so that it is not at all strange to the savage mind to perceive an imprisoned intelligence more or less powerful, in any object, no matter how uncommon its form. In fact, according to the savage mind, spirit was dependent to a great extent upon material body. The wandering spirit, according to the barbarian, could not fare much better, materially speaking, than a wandering savage: it would suffer the rigors of hunger and cold, and would be only too agreeable to be at rest for a while where it would be treated with every deference and properly attended to. For this purpose a shaman will either manufacture or search for a fitting residence for this spirit, and he will proceed by various rites to attempt to coax some wandering intelligence to take up its home therein.

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Fiction, English Occult: English literature, as it is known today, really begins with the Elizabethan age; for the writers prior to that time, excellent as many of them are, elicit comparatively little interest nowadays save among experts. And, by the time of Elizabeth's advent, the old "miracle plays" had gone out of fashion; yet tales about the miraculous doings of mythical heroes continued to find favor, and many new things of this kind were written.

A few of the Restoration dramatists dealt in magic and the like, but throughout the Georgian age people were mostly too prosaic, too matter-of-fact, to care for things of that sort, and they were eschewed "by the majority of prominent writers of the day. However, after the great artistic movement commonly styled the Renaissance of Wonder, the old interest in the occult began to revive apace, and, ere the nineteenth century was very far advanced, a literature suitable to this budding taste was being purveyed on a voluminous scale. Among the first to enter the lists, soi disant, was William Godwin, with his novel of St. Truyne the Rosicrucian; while Godwin's daughter, Mary, chiefly remembered nowadays as the second wife of Shelley, merits notice as a mystical writer by virtue of her story of Frankenstein. A little before the advent of this authoress, numerous occult tales had been written by Matthew Lewis, notably Tales of Terror and the drama of Castle Spectre, staged successfully at Drury Lane in 1798 ; while not long after Lewis a further novelist came to swell the muster-roll, Bulwer Lytton, whose taste for the mystic is seen especially in Zanoni, A Strange Story, and Haunters and the Haunted. His essays of this kind, nevertheless, were never very satisfactory in the real literary sense; and as Leslie Stephen once discovered, they too often smacked of the theatrical. But Sir Walter Scott, on the other hand, writing just before Lytton's time, not only showed a keen fondness for occult matter, but frequently utilized it to genuine artistic purpose. In The Monastery a mysterious sylph rises from a fountain; astrology is introduced into Guy Mannering, The Fortunes of Nigel, and Quentin Durward; while a splendid ghost story is told in Redgauntlet, and ghosts figure also in Woodstock. In The Bride of Lammermoor, besides, the author deals incidentally with that firm belief in prophecy which was long a prominent part of Scottish life; while in Waverley, again, he depicts a Highland chief as awestruck and unmanned by the sight of a peculiar omen. Highland superstitions, indeed, appealed with particular potency to Sir Walter's romantic temper; while he was not the only writer of his time who dealt ably with this branch of the occult, another being Susan Ferrier in her novels of Destiny and The Chief's Daughter. Nor should we fail ere leaving this period, to mention Ann Radcliffe, for in almost all her novels the supernatural figures prominently.

While the last-named trio were at work thus in Britain, some good stories in which magic occurs were being written in America by Washington Irving; and, not very long after his day, a second American arose to treat brilliantly of weirdness and wizardry, Edgar Allan Poe. Then, reverting to England, ghosts appear in a few of Dickens' novels, and Charles Reade manifests here and there a love of the occult; while coming to slightly later times, a writer who manifested this predilection abundantly is Robert Louis Stevenson. His Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is among the best of all modern novels in which the supernatural plays a salient role, and many of his short stories pertain also to the category of occult, for example, the tale of the magic bottle in Island Nights Entertainments; while, about the date these were being composed, Oscar Wilde was writing what is one of the most beautiful things dealing with invisible powers, The Picture of Dorian Gray. Much inferior to this masterpiece, yet possessing considerable excellence, are George du Maurier's Peter Ibbetson, Trilby and The Martian, in each of which the supernatural is prominent; while a further work which should certainly be cited is Lafcadio Hearn's Dead Love, a tiny tale of magic which the author thought lightly of, but which future generations are almost sure to prize on account of its lovely wording, at some places worthy of Theophile Gautier himself, who was Hearn's acknowledged master.

These recent authors do not by any means conclude the list, for a wealth of occult fiction has been written since their day. Among its most remarkable items is The Ghost Ship of Richard Middleton, a singularly promising storyteller and poet who died by his own hand lately at the early age of twenty-nine; while many contemporary novelists have introduced magic into their books, for instance, Mr. Rider Haggard in She, the late Mr. Bram Stoker in Dracula, and Mr. F. A. Anstey in Vice Versa and The Brass Bottle. In fact, were one to cite all the living wont to trade in the occult, an article of formidable size would be the result, and accordingly the attempt must be eschewed; but at least it is essential to mention Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton's Aylwin, this reflecting really fine treatment of mystic matter, and being couched throughout in a style of exceptional beauty. Mr. Arthur Symons is another great writer of to-day who loves the borderland between dreams and realities, as witness many pages in his Spiritual Adventures; while the invisible world has always appealed powerfully to Mr. W. B. Yeats, and is employed to good purpose here and there in his stories of the Irish peasantry. It is less the ghost than the fairy which he delights in, true Celt that he is; and his predilection herein sets one dreaming of fairy-tales in general, and summons a curious medley of names. William Morris wrote a host of beautiful fairy-stories, some of them concerned with the promulgation of socialistic ideas, but others innocent of anything of that sort ; while the voluminous works of Ruskin include what can only be denned as a fairy tale, The King of the Golden River. Numerous contemporary writers have likewise done good work in this field—Lord Dunsany, Mr. J, M. Barrie, and more especially Mr. Laurence Housman—while a remarkable fairy play has been written lately by Mr. Graham Robertson, and has been staged with surprising triumph. Then, reverting for a moment to defunct authors, fairies occur in that charming volume by H. D. Lowry, Make Believe, and in Richard Middleton's book, The Day Before Yesterday; while no account of this particular domain of literature would be complete without mention of the work of Lewis Carrol, and also of Jean Ingelow's lovely story, Mopsa the Fairy. This last is possibly the best of all fairy stories, and one which has been most widely and wisely cherished; and it stands out very clearly in the memory of nearly every man of imaginative temperament, reminding him of his own childhood.

Findhorn:

Fire: Many nations have adored this element. In Persia a chimneyless enclosure was made, and into it fire was introduced. Essences and perfumes were cast into the fire by the great persons of the nation. When a Persian king was at the point of death all the fires in the principal towns of the kingdom were extinguished, and were not rekindled until the crowning of his successor. Certain Tartars never accost foreigners who have not purified themselves by passing between two fires; they are also careful to drink with their faces turned to the south, in honor of the element of fire. In some parts of Siberia it is believed that fire is inhabited by a being who dispenses good and evil; they offer him perpetual sacrifices. According to the kabalists, this was the element of the Salamanders.

Fire-ordeal: The fire-ordeal is of great antiquity, and probably arose from the conception of the purifying influence of fire. Among the Hindus, from the earliest times until comparatively recently, those who were suspected of wrongdoing were required to prove their guilt or innocence by walking over red-hot iron. If they escaped unharmed their innocence was placed beyond a doubt. The priestesses of a Cappodocian goddess, Diana Parasya, walked barefooted on red-hot coals, attributing their invulnerability to the powers of the divinity. In Europe trial by fire was of two kinds—traversing the flames, or undergoing the ordeal of hot iron. The latter form comprised the carrying in the hand of red-hot irons, the walking over iron bars or glowing ploughshares, and the thrusting of the hand into a red-hot gauntlet.

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Fire-Philosophers: The name given to the Hermetists and Alchemists of the Middle Ages, and also to the Rosicrucians. The latter, the successors of Theurgists, regarded fire as the symbol of Deity. It was the source, not only of material atoms, but the container of the Spiritual and Psychic Forces energizing them. Broadly analyzed, Fire is a triple principle; esoterically, a septenary, as are all the rest of the elements. As man is composed of Spirit, Soul, and Body, plus a fourfold aspect; so is Fire. As in the works of Robert Flood (de Fluctibus), one of the famous Rosicrucians, fire contains-Firstly, a visible flame (body); secondly, an invisible, astral fire (soul); and thirdly, spirit. The four aspects are (a) heat (life), (b) light (mind), (c) electricity (Kamic or molecular powers), and (d) the synthetic essences, beyond spirit, or the radical cause of its existence and manifestation. For the Hermetist or Rosicrucian, when a flame is extinct on the objective plane, it has only passed from the seen world into the unseen; from the knowable into the unknowable.

Fire Signs: The inspirational signs: Aries, Leo, Sagittarius. v. Signs

Fixed Signs: Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius, constituting the Fixed Quadruplicity. Fixed signs denote bulk, weight, mass, and stability; they give reserve, resistance, power and rigidity. The fixed quality corresponds to intellectuality, moral stamina, and will. v. Signs, Qualities.

Flower Essence Therapy: a therapeutic system that uses specially prepared plant infusions to balance physical and emotional disturbances. (See Bach Flower Remedies)

Flute, Charm of the: The flute is often mentioned in history as being used for the purpose of charming animals, and the serpent seems to have been peculiarly delighted with its music. It is said that adders will swell at the sound of the flute, raising themselves up, twisting about and keeping proper time. A Spanish writer says that in India he had often seen the Gentiles leading about enchanted serpents, making them dance to the sound of a flute, putting them round their necks, and touching them without harm ; and to this day a musical instrument of this nature is used by the snake-charmers of that country. In opposition to this, Hippocrates mentions a man, Nicanor, who fainted whenever he heard the sound of the flute.

Flying Dutchman, The: Sailors in Holland long believed that a certain Dutch skipper, von Straaten by name, was condemned as a penalty for his sins to sail for year after year through the seas beating around he Cape of Storms, this being the old name for the Cape of Good Hope; and crews returning to the Zudyer Zee after voyaging in the region aforesaid, use to declared that they had seen van Straaten's mysterious craft, and had fled from it in terror. The legend is probably a very old one, albeit the exact date at which it became current is indeterminate; and it should be added that the story is found in the folklore of various countries besides Holland, notably Germany. Several German versions call the ill-starred seaman von Falkenberg, and maintain that it was not near South Africa, but in the North Sea that his spectral barque commonly hovered; while some of them contend further that the devil was wont to pay periodic visits to the captain on board his ship, and that frequently the who were seen playing dice on deck, the stakes at issue being von Falkenberg's soul. The tale soon found its way from folk-lore into actual literature, among the greatest of those writers utilizing it being Heinrich Heine, and in his rendering the sailor has a chance of salvation. That is to say, the fates allow him to put foot on terra firma once every seven years; and if, during his period of respite, he contrives to win the affection of an unsullied maiden, liberation from perennial sea wandering will be granted him as reward. Heine's form of the story appealed keenly to Wagner, who was always prone to regard women devoutly as before all else a regenerating force; and accordingly the great composer wrote a musical drama on the subject of "The Flying Dutchman (Der Fliegende Hollander) in which the scene is mostly laid in the North sea, while the sailor himself is called Van Derdecken, and the maiden to whom he advances is Senta. This opera was first staged at Dresden in 1843, and, though it can hardly be said that it won speedy appreciation, at least it did not elicit the scorn meted out originally to the majority of Wagner's works. Marryat also has a novel on the subject.

Flying Saucer:

Fohat: is in Theosophy, the power of the Logos. (See Theosophy, Logos)

Ford, (Arthur):

Fortune-telling: Fortune-telling in Britain, was formerly included 'under the crime of Witchcraft, and was made punishable by death under the Statute of 1563 C. 73. This Act was repealed by 9 George II. C. 5, which ordained that no prosecution should thereafter be made on charge of Witchcraft, also by the said Act all persons professing to occult skill or undertaking to tell fortunes might be sentenced to imprisonment for one year, and to stand pillory and find surety for their future good behavior.

Punishment by pillory is now abolished. By Act 5 George IV. c. 83 fortune-tellers were included along with other vagrants under the general category of rogues and vagabonds, and were liable to imprisonment for three months. This Act was made applicable to Scotland by 34 and 35 Vict. C. 24.

No prosecution occurred under it until the case of Smith (23 R (I.C.) 77). The old Act extended to Scotland asafore-said enacted that " every person pretending or professing to tell fortunes or using any subtle craft, means, or device,, by palmistry or otherwise to deceive, and impose on any of His Majesty's Subjects " shall be deemed a vagabond and rogue within the meaning of the Act and shall be punishable as therein provided. In the case above referred to the complainer, a woman named Jone Lee or Smith, was charged in the Police Court at Glasgow, with a contravention of the above enactment in respect that at a time and place specified, did pretend to tell the fortunes of " a person named " who was thereby induced to pay the accused the sum of sixpence. The accused was convicted of the contravention "as libeled" and brought a suspension. The Court quashed the conviction, holding that the complaint was irrelevant in that it did not set forth that the accused had pretended to tell fortunes with intent to deceive and impose on any one. Lord Young, one of the judges, in the course of his opinion says " It has never been imagined, so far as I have ever heard, or thought, that writing, publishing, or selling books on the lines of the hand, or even on astrology—the position-of the stars at birth and the rules upon which astrologers proceed in telling fortunes therefrom. I say that I have never heard of publishing, or selling such books is an offence, or that reading such books, and telling fortunes therefrom is an offence. Roguery and knavery might be committed that way, but it would be a special case. I am not in any way suggesting that a spae wife or anyone else may not through that means commit knavery and deception, and so be liable to punishment."

It would thus appear that fortune-telling is of itself no offence, unless it is accompanied by fraud, impositions, or intent to deceive. While it might be an offence for the palmist or fortune-teller knowingly to accept payment from a half witted or obviously apparent ignorant person, it can hardly be pretended that the ordinary person who consults a professional fortune teller or crystal gazer and tenders payment in return for then- skill at delineations of character or forecasting of the future, feels that he has been imposed upon should the delineations be at fault, or the forecast turn out inaccurate.

Fox, Sisters: Two American girls who in 1847 practically commenced the practice of spirit-rapping in Arcadia, New York. An account of their doings is given in the article (Spiritualism). They latterly became professional mediums; but were to a great extent discredited.

Freemasonry:  is a worldwide fraternal organization. Its members are reportedly joined together by shared ideals of both a moral and metaphysical nature, and, in most of its branches, by a constitutional declaration of belief in a Supreme Being. Freemasonry is an esoteric society, in that certain aspects of its internal work are not generally disclosed to the public, but it is not an occult system, and in recent years, it has become less and less a "secret society" than a "society with secrets". However, there are numerous reasons for the amount of secrecy which remains, one of which is that Freemasonry uses an initiatory system of degrees to explore ethical and philosophical issues, and that the system is less effective if the observer knows beforehand what will happen. It has often been called "a beautiful system of morality veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols." 

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