What/Who/When are the Radical Faeries?!?
Answers to Queries about Faeries
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If you ask for a definition of "Radical Faerie" from a Radical Faerie you'll undoubtedly receive a statement to the effect that there's no one definition. Radical Faeries respect the myriad ways in which gay men take their spiritual path. One of the most apt descriptions I've heard is that the Radical Faeries are a "flamboyant anti-assimilationist fringe of gay liberation." I like that description a lot. I'd also add that Radical Faeries are non-consumerist earth-centered folk. But then again, it depends on who you talk to.
The modern Faerie movement (I say "modern" because Faeries have existed in one way or another throughout the world and throughout history) started in the late 1970s. Harry "Duchess" Hay, the father of the modern gay movement (The Mattachine Society in the 1940s) was instrumental in the formation of the Faeries.
Also involved in the early Faerie consciousness movement was Mitch Walker, Will Roscoe, Mark Thompson, Don Kilhefner and Hay's partner/lover John Burnside and countless others. But the Faerie movement is not a centralized experience. In fact there are those who claim that the Faerie movement isn't a "movement" at all but the next "development" in Gay consciousness as we know it.
For the ultimate resource guide to all things Faerie, I'd heavily recommend the Dave Kerlick aka Artwit's Radical Faerie Site. Also check the links at the bottom of this page.
What follows is a recent informative article and the some collected quotes:
In The Trouble with Harry Hay Stuart Timmons offers what is perhaps the most concise and tangible description of the Radical Faeries. The Faerie Circle, as the group is commonly referred to, is a "mixture of political alternative, counterculture, and spirituality movement." It is a "networking of gentle men devoted to the principles of ecology, spiritual truth, and, in New Age terms, 'gay-centeredness."' The Radical Faeries was founded in 1979 by Harry Hay, his companion John Burnside, and a small circle of friends. They chose the term "Faerie" in an attempt to transform or reclaim a term used to denigrate gay and transgender men into a term by which to celebrate themselves (ourselves). The added "Radical" inferred an emphasis on radical politics, primarily of an anarchistic, communitarian nature, as well as a casting off of inauthentic identities (such as those assumed by "closet queens") and a psychic return to the root of one's being. On Labor Day Weekend in 1979, the first "Spiritual Conference for Radical Faeries" was held at the site of Sri Ram Ashram in Arizona, with over two hundred men attending. "A spontaneous theme of paganism emerged," relates Timmons; "Invocations were offered to spirits . . . [Hay] called on the crowd to 'throw off the ugly green frogskin of hetero-imitation to find the shining Faerie prince beneath."' Many of the men saw themselves as free spirits rites, certain ritual practices, inspired by Wiccan and communing with each other and with Nature; like Faeries, they were dancing, feasting, and creating spectacle in a natural setting.
While a strong anarchistic tendency militates against the establishment of standardized Native American traditions, have been generally accepted by many Faeries. These include: the creation of sacred space by way of "casting a circle"; the passing of a talisman from one speaker to another in the circle to encourage the direction of others' attention toward that person; ecstatic dance rituals, including the "Kali Fire," which often focuses on the banishing of that which is no longer needed or desired; and communal feasts (typically vegetarian).
Beyond these events, one often finds at gatherings smaller circles devoted to sensuous massage, weaving and other crafts, and divination. Especially at larger gatherings, a tendency to create fantasy environments is pronounced.
The Faerie Circle has become an international movement. Its major voice is the quarterly journal RFD. In recent years, the Faerie Circle has experienced stresses from within which appear to be threatening its continued existence. Criticism has also come from without; e.g., many non-white gay men feel uncomfortable with the Circle's name, evoking as it does the Celtic or British pre-Christian tradition. At the same time, Faeries are encouraged by prospering communal households in Tennessee, North Carolina, Oregon and New Mexico.
The Circle has inspired a variety of artists, including the musicians Charlie Murphy and Lunacy, Heartsinger, Ron Lambe, and Stephen Klein, the poet and filmmaker James Broughton, the filmmakers/video artists Bill Weber and Eric Slade (of the psychedelic-erotic short Sex Life, 1995), the essayists Arthur Evans, Mark Thompson, Mitch Walker, and Will Roscoe, the visual artist Stevee Postman, the ritual-performance artists Keith Hennessy, Jack Davis, Elk, and the connoisseur of chocolates, Jeoffrey J. Douglas, of Rococoa's Faerie Queene Chocolates in San Francisco. One of the most poetic texts expressing the resonance with the fairies of folklore that Radical Faeries have felt appears in Mitch Walker's Visionary Love: A Spirit Book of Gay Mythology (1980), an early "bible" of the Faeries and the Gay Spiritual movement; Walker writes: "Fairies see polarities dancing, changing everywhere, constantly ... This wonderful paradoxical freedom from form ... enables Fairies to fly ... There is an essence, essence of an eternal, hidden, dark, shining, eerie secret: the simultaneous and continuous creation and annihilation of Form ... all shapes, forms, are bendings and corners of this flowing-is ... [Fairies] are not static things but riders of lightbeams, weightless dancers along the edge - indeed are the Dancing itself ... they are flow, the wind."
the preceding comes from Cassells Encyclopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol and Spirit Edited by Connor, Sparks and Sparks (1997)
He called on the crowd to "throw off the ugly green frogskin
of hetero-imitation to find the shining Faerie prince beneath.
Stuart Timmons on Harry Hay's words
at the first Radical Faerie Gathering, Arizona 1979
from The Trouble with Harry Hay by Stuart Timmons [St. Martin's Press]
"Faeries are a pale and motley race that flowers in the minds of decent folk. Never will they be entitled to broad daylight, to real sun. But remote in these limbos, they cause curious disasters which are harbingers of new beauty."
-- Jean Genet
"We are a minority of common spirituality, and
this shared commonality of outlook is a world-view
totally unfamiliar to the accrued experience of our
parent society. It is a view of the life experience
through a DIFFERENT WINDOW!"
--Harry Hay [from Timmons, 251]
"gay people are stewards of the great Mother Earth."
-- Harry Hay
"Remember, the serpent is still living in the Garden of Eden
--- only the heterosexual couple was expelled."
Edward Carpenter
Civilization: Its Cause and Its Cure
"The Faeries need to come together for spiritual renewal,
but their work is in the world."
Harry Hay [from Timmons, 290]
[Harry Hay Page] [My old Zuni Page]
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