Initial Encounter

[The following excerpt was taken from Conversations with the Sidhe by David Spangler and describes David’s initial contact with the Sidhe. - Ed.]

"Jeremy [Berg, Editor and Publisher of Lorian Press - Ed.] ... asked if I’d like to create a card deck about the Sidhe. I was intrigued, but unlike John [Matthews] or R.J. Stewart or Orion Foxwood, two other friends and authors who have written several books about the Faery realms, I knew very little about these beings. While I have had extensive contact for nearly seventy years with the invisible, subtle worlds of spirit and those who dwell upon them, I had had virtually no communication with the Sidhe or indeed with any Faery being that I knew of. So I told Jeremy that I didn’t feel I was capable of such a task. It seemed that the Sidhe’s request would go unfulfilled.

In the winter of 2011, however, something unexpected happened that changed everything. Taking a break from writing, I was sitting on the sofa in my living room and just staring out the window at the trees and bushes beyond when I felt a presence in the room behind me. Turning around, I saw in my mind’s eye a swirling, shifting, radiant mist in the air near the fireplace. At the same time I felt another mind in touch with my own and heard it say, “I am one of the Sidhe, and I’ve come to help you with the card deck.” This being no sooner said this than there flashed into my mind a complete picture of what a Sidhe card deck would look like when laid out and the major components of what such a deck should contain. There were few details—they came later—but the basic pattern was very clear.

The initial contact was very brief, lasting no more than five minutes, but it was long enough and comprehensive enough that I knew beyond any doubt that I could create a Sidhe-oriented card deck. With this newfound confidence, I phoned Jeremy, explained what had happened and asked if he was still interested in publishing a Sidhe deck. He certainly was, and so the project began.

In the previous card decks I had done, Jeremy’s daughter Deva had been the artist, and she had been truly inspired. But she had become a new mother and was unable to undertake another project. So Jeremy, who had done no painting at all up to this point, decided he would try to paint all the cards. As it turned out, just as the Sidhe inspired me with the overall structure and use of the cards, they inspired Jeremy with the images for the cards, who proceeded to produce a beautiful and powerful set of images.

In the process, a remarkable three-way partnership unfolded between Jeremy and me and the Sidhe. The ones who came to me were a woman and two male associates or companions. For the most part, she was the spokesperson, the one guiding the project, but occasionally, one or another of the two men would communicate with me.

The nature of this contact was different from anything I had experienced before and initially was difficult to maintain. But over time, it became easier as both the Sidhe and I adjusted to each other’s energy characteristics. However, it was evident to me that whatever the Sidhe might be, they were not subtle beings or beings of spirit such as I was accustomed to perceiving. There was a strong sense of physicality about them, even though it was obviously a different wavelength or frequency of physicality than that of my body. Initially, they seemed to me wispy and diaphanous, hard for me to focus upon and hold, like trying to grasp quicksilver. I would sense movement, like white banners or ribbons wrapping around me and then fading away, but surrounding me with a definite sense of presence. They interacted with my own energy in a way I had not previously known, and it required me to adjust my own methods of attunement and perception to this new experience. But as we worked together, it became easier to maintain the contact. It even came to the point where I could perceive their forms, something I had not been able to do at the beginning of our engagement together. Interestingly, this difficulty of contact and the fact that I had to work for it was one factor that convinced me it was genuine.”