For this session, we were fortunate to collaborate with ALF (Aldeburgh Library Foundation) and the talk was given by one their most popular tutors, Sue Pine. Sue has run courses for ALF on classical philosophy, on other cultures and on philosophy applied to topics such as “the mind”, “climate change” and many others.

Sue Pine is a teacher of philosophy and a dowser, so this talk was bound to contain much interest and present different angles of thought. The topic was deliberately chosen to give us an opportunity to “think outside the box”. So, in true philosophical tradition, Sue helped us first to define our terms “what do we mean by” and then asked the question “why should we be open to the possibility”. She also introduced us to Swinburne (the Oxford philosopher rather than the poet) who has set up a framework for judging if an account may be considered valid evidence; the principle of credulity and the principle of testimony.

She took us through some background, showing that:

• A belief in fairies, or other nature spirits, exists consistently across many different cultures
• There are potentially credible accounts of encounters with nature spirits

Sue then took us through some of the related science. As a dowser, Sue detects earth energy, which is assumed to be on the electromagnetic spectrum. Our brains operate on electrical transmission between neurons and it has been shown that the brain is influenced by magnetic waves. The study of neuroscience itself is a rapidly developing area.

A strand of thinking Sue introduced us to is Panpsychism (“mind is everywhere”), a fairly recent branch of philosophy, which suggests that consciousness is not binary (e.g. humans are conscious, vegetables are not) but may be a continuum allowing for vegetables and even inanimate objects to have a degree of consciousness, though slight.

Sue then talked about some of the ideas of quantum physics. Starting with Einstein’s famous equation linking energy and matter, we raced through the dual behaviour of light as waves and particles and the mysteries of string theory with its multiple dimensions and the consequent appearance and disappearance of particles.

Putting these things together gave context to some of the instances of fairy sightings; especially a well documented example from Mr S from Stowmarket in the 19^th century. This account passed the Swinburne tests so deserves consideration. Sue suggested that some fairy sightings such as that of Mr S may be the human’s way of making sense of something unusual it cannot otherwise recognise. Coming up against unusual patterns of energy may therefore be interpreted as sightings of fairies or other supernatural beings.

Sue then took us through some of the typical fairy behaviours from UK folklore, such as dancing in rings, large troupes of fairies encountered at the equinoxes and the fact that time passes differently in “fairyland” for those who are said to have entered their realm. She also talked about the ways in which nature spirits are experienced in other cultures.

In conclusion, we can say that some sightings of fairies are bona fide. Sue suggested that these may be related to energy phenomena and that some of these may be sufficient to affect the human brain. The unanswered question remains, could these energies be conscious?

So, we might believe in fairies, though perhaps in a different form to the spangly winged beings of Peter Pan. We can also benefit from feeling more connectedness to nature and adopting a less human centric view of the world.

There was much comment and discussion following Sue’s talk, covering crop circles, changelings and other phenomena and including mention of:

• Shinto, which has a belief that there is consciousness and sprit in everything
• The fact that honey bees (and birds) are thought to respond to electromagnetic fields