This is something that has been on my mind for some time.

Many scholars and non-spiritual thinkers hold that the intelligent non-humans and creatures from the folk-tales, legends, and myths of our world are nothing more than fantasies concocted by the imaginative minds of primitive men, or are some sort of Freudian expression of mankind's own inner conflicts and impulses.

However, if one reads them in a truly detached and unclouded manner, it is clear that many of the ancient accounts took the existence of these beings completely seriously, and regarded them as just as "real" as anything else in their world. This view can be found even in relatively recent accounts, such as Evans-Wentz's The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries and Robert Kirk's Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies.

Reading these accounts, although superficial details vary, one is struck by the remarkable consistency of certain elements, from the Celtic sidh to the American Indian (Lakota) Can-Otipi, as well as the Japanese Yōkai.

My father told me that his own grandmother, who hailed from the west of Ireland, used to put a dish of milk out for the fairies to drink every night before she retired to bed.

Several years ago, I myself spent some time abroad in some remote areas of Northern Europe and was surprised to meet several educated persons of high integrity (including one university professor), who believed in the absolute reality of these beings.

We also have interesting accounts like the medieval travels of Sir John Mandeville, who reported seeing many unusual creatures on his journey, such as the giant, serpentine "cocodrills" (crocodiles) and the incredible "gerfaunts": "That is a beast, pomely or spotted, that is but a little more high than is a steed, but he hath the neck a twenty cubits long; and his croup and his tail is as of an hart; and he may look over a great high house..." (giraffes). At the time his writings were dismissed as sheer fantasy, but we now know that many of the things he described were real. (Other things he described, such as an isle with "beast-headed men", have yet to be found.)

It makes one wonder: How many of the things dismissed today as sheer fantasy, will one day, or even soon, turn out to be true?

It is also worth noting that sometimes the archaeological evidence actually catches up with the legend, as happened in the particular case of the Indonesian "little people," Ebu Gogo or Homo Floresiensis.

The question that has been on my mind is...where are these beings presently? We seem to hear less about them nowadays, as compared to the accounts of old. Is it because belief in them has faded, and thus there are far fewer individuals who are vibrational matches to meeting or seeing them? Or have these beings actually fled this world, to another plane or dimension?

One channeled source, I forget which--I believe either Bashar or the 9D Pleadians--mentioned that dragons once existed on earth in physical reality, but that they have now moved on to the 5th dimension.

Others, like William Walker Atkinson, have explained the situation thus:

So far as place, or space, is concerned these entities or being dwell upon the earth, just as do the human beings. They vibrate differently from us, that is all. They are also usually of but a microscopic size, and would be invisible to the human eye even if they vibrated on the same plane as do we. The astral vision not only senses their vibrations, under certain conditions, but also, under certain other conditions, it magnifies their forms into perceptible size. Some of these astral entities are known as Nature Spirits, and inhabit streams, rocks, mountains, forests, etc. Their occasional appearance to persons of psychic temperament, or in whom a degree of astral vision has been awakened, has given rise to the numerous tales and legends in the folk-lore of all nations regarding a strange order of beings, to which various names have been given, as for instance: fairies, pixies, elves, brownies, peris, djinns, trolls, satyrs, fauns, kobolds, imps, goblins, little folk, tiny people, etc., etc., and similar names found in the mythologies and legends of all people. The old occultists called the earth entities of this class by the name of "gnomes;" the air entities as "sylphs;" the water beings as "undines;" and the fire, or ether, beings as "salamanders." This class of astral entities, as a rule, avoid the presence of man, and fly from places in which he dwells - for instance they avoid large cities as men avoid a cemetery. They prefer the solitudes of nature, and resent the onward march of men which drives them further and further into new regions. They do not object to the physical presence of man, so much as they do his mental vibrations which are plainly felt by them, and which are very distasteful to them. A certain class of them are what may be called "good fellows," and these, once in a while, seem to find pleasure in helping and aiding human beings to whom they have formed an attachment. Many such cases are related in the folk lore of the older countries, but modern life has driven these friendly helpers from the scene, in most places.

Quoted from The Astral World, by Swami Panchadasi

So what you all think? Answers, suggestions, speculation?

Thanks.

Above: Fresco recovered from Pompei, depicting a centaur as a wedding guest.