The Forest Dark

“A young hunter was sitting in the heart of the Mountains, in a thoughtful mood, beside his fowling-floor, while the noise of the waters and the woods was sounding through the solitude”. The Runenberg (1804)
by Ludwig Tieck, translated by Thomas Carlyle

Can a novella, a fairy tale or a poem better grasp the truth behind visionary experience as a witness account of Ufo-encounters or near-death experiences?

Yes, in a certain way fictional literature or art can be a better tool to understand the realms of the Otherworld rather then mere collections of „supernatural events“ or  „scientific“ research of the paranormal.

Otherworldy experience and the influence of the otherworld seems to happen somewhere in between inner and outer experience of reality. It happens in a realm, which is both „subjective“ or „psychological“ and „objective“. It’s paradox. This is what makes research extremely difficult and why there isn’t an entirely convincing theory for example about Ufo-incidents, which cannot be challenged.

In some fiction however we get the right feeling – particularly in literature we find the most convincing accounts of otherwordly encounters, even the supernatural or the question „is it real or not“ is not the primary concern of the creator or writer.

The best works of fiction, music, films and the arts allow us to see reality through a hyperrealistic filter. We see more than usually meets the eye. We get a deeper understanding of reality since what we think is for real is only part of a larger reality. It’s not like our reality is here and the Otherworld is next door. Our world is part of the Otherworld or the invisible world. Art is one possibility to look through a peeping hole into a larger universe.

In the arts the era of Enlightenment was followed by the epoch of Romanticism with many artists having a strong interest in a sinister and phantastic universe: in the 18th century the old folk tales were rediscovered and became part of the „Kunstmärchen“, fairy tales which weren’t supposed to read to little children before they went to bed. They might not as dark as the Gothic novels but the „dark romance“ looked deep in the „dark forests of the human soul“.

One master-storyteller was Ludwig Tieck who wrote a couple of novellas. One of them is called „The Runenberg“, which has even a Lovecraftian feeling.

We meet Christian, a young hunter who recently left his parents and spends most of his time in nature. In the beginning of the story he appears to be in a sad mood. He is homesick. He does something nearly unconsciously which becomes the inciting incident of the story: “Unthinkingly, he pulled a straggling root from the earth; and on the instant, heard, with affright, a stifled moan underground, which winded downwards in doleful tones, and died plaintively away in the deep distance”. The root is an alraune root or mandragola, which has a certain reputation in connection with the magic. Obviously its somehow the “switch” which opens some gate to the otherworld. Later Christian meets a stranger and tells him his life-story.

The stranger listens attentively and makes him aware of “the Runenberg”:

“while they both wandered on through a dark alley of the wood. They now came out into the open country, and the light of the moon, which was standing with its horns over the summit of the hill, saluted them like a friend. In undistinguishable forms, and many separated masses, which the pale gleam again perplexingly combined, lay the cleft mountain-range before them; in the background a steep hill, on the top of which an antique weathered ruin rose ghastly in the white light.

Our roads part here, said the stranger; I am going down into this hollow; there, by that old mine-shaft, is my dwelling: the metal ores are my neighbours; the mine-streams tell me wonders in the night; thither thou canst not follow me. But look, there stands the Runenberg, with its wild ragged walls; how beautiful and alluring the grim old rock looks down on us! Wert thou never there?

Never, said the hunter. Once I heard my old forester relating strange stories of that hill, which I, like a fool, have forgotten; only I remember that my mind that night was full of dread and unearthly notions. I could like to mount the hill some time; for the colours there are of the fairest, the grass must be very green, the world around one very strange; who knows, too, but one might chance to find some curious relic of the ancient time up there?

You could scarcely fail, replied the stranger; whoever knows how to seek, whoever feels his heart drawn towards it with a right inward longing, will find friends of former ages there, and glorious things, and all that he wishes most”.

Again, here we have the “Werifesteria“ element (wandering longingly through the forest in search of mystery).

This is what Christian is really looking for (maybe for a long time) and the stranger’s words become his “call to adventure”.

As we know some calls to adventure are dangerous, and this one is definitely a dangerous one.

Even in the first place what happens seem to be more an erotic fantasy when Christian climbs the mountains, sees a light in the ruins and then a naked beautiful woman which hands him a tablet of stones. Its clearly an apparition and we do not know exactly if it’s a dream or real: “Suddenly he saw a light, which seemed to move within the ruined edifice. He looked towards the gleam; and found that he could see into an ancient spacious hall, strangely decorated, and glittering in manifold splendour, with multitudes of precious stones and crystals, the hues of which played through each other in mysterious changes, as the light moved to and fro; and this was in the hand of a stately female, who kept walking with a thoughtful aspect up and down the apartment. She seemed of a different race from mortals; so large, so strong was her form, so earnest her look; yet the enraptured huntsman thought he had never seen or fancied such surpassing beauty. He trembled, yet secretly wished she might come near the window and observe him. At last she stopped, set down the light on a crystal table, looked aloft, and sang with a piercing voice”

It’s hard to oversee the similarity between the description of the woman and the entities described by Referend Kirk in “The Secret Commonwealth”. Some elements are even similar to modern descriptions of encounters with humanoid aliens.

The state of mind of Christian after this encounter bears strong similarities of the experience of UFO-abductees or visionary experiences:

„As it were, a dark night, with curtains of cloud, fell down over his soul: he searched for his former feelings, for that inspiration and unutterable love; he looked at the precious tablet, and the sinking moon was imaged in it faint and bluish.

He had still the tablet firmly grasped in his hands when the morning dawned; and he, exhausted, giddy and half-asleep, fell headlong down the precipice.

The sun shone bright on the face of the stupefied sleeper; and, awakening, he found himself upon a pleasant hill. He looked round, and saw far behind him, and scarce discernible at the extreme horizon, the ruins of the Runenberg; he searched for his tablet, and could find it nowhere. Astonished and perplexed, he tried to gather his thoughts, and connect together his remembrances; but his memory was as if filled with a waste haze, in which vague irrecognisable shapes were wildly jostling to and fro. His whole previous life lay behind him, as in a far distance; the strangest and the commonest were so mingled, that all his efforts could not separate them. After long struggling with himself, he at last concluded that a dream, or sudden madness, had come over him that night; only he could never understand how he had strayed so far into a strange and remote quarter“.

What follows is an account which nearly spans the whole lifetime of Christian after this event. It would be too much to get into all the details of the story but the bottom line is this:

The hero of this story never gets over this otherworldly experience. He is wasted for his lifetime even he lives a normal life for a long time after the event: He marries, has a reunion with his father, has children, becomes a popular farmer and could be happy.

But he never forgets the other „immortal“ realm and when someday again a stranger enters his life he is drawn again towards the mysterious mountain.

In the end he has left his family and lives as a madman in the woods together with a hag, which seems to be the same person as the beauty in the ruin. And it appears that also the stranger and the woman are the same person.

There are a couple of remarkable things about this sinister tale. It fascinated scientists and one thing, which makes it so extraordinary is its ambiguity: W. J. Lillyman, an American literature professor wrote in 1970 (University Of California, Santa Cruz,

MfdU, Vol. 62, No 3, 1970):

„’Der Runenberg’ is a highly equivocal tale, its central ambiguity being whether the forces which the hero encounters on the mountain are daemonic and destructive or whether they represent the real divine, the ultimate truth of existence. This ambiguity is brought about and maintained by several artistic devices: the neutral narrator, the Biblical parallels and allusions, the indecision of the hero, the opposing realms of the organic and inorganic. There are no events in the tale, nor statements made by one or the other of the characters which would prove objectively the validity of one of their views of reality”

This might be the key why this tale is also interesting in terms of how we feel about (real) otherworldly encounters and visionary experience:

In the strongest tales we feel a truth, which is known to mankind since its very beginning.

But there is also an uncertainty and an ambiguity about the status of reality in any account of visionary experience. It is this paradox and even contradictionary feeling that we think this is somehow real but in the same moment we don’t know what’s really going on, that makes the strongest tales or accounts of the supernatural convincing.

Then we have remarkable parallels with typical elements of real accounts of visionary experience and witness reports of modern Ufo-Abductees:

“The tablet” – Jacques Vallee who collected the most convincing reports of Alien encounters often found stories where some sort of items or even bread were given by the aliens (or elves or demons in more ancient stories) which either vanish or changed from something very valuable into something useless. The gold of the otherworld is obviously worthless in our realm (the tablet and even gold appears however again in the novel but the gold is obviously cursed and the tablet has a sinister power, which is also a typical quality of items which have a connection with the other world).

The hero is wasted: this happens in endless accounts of otherworldly encounters and modern stories – these encounter can be very dangerous. Even the witness isn’t dead after such an encounter his life is changed forever, even there is a difference here in this story that the hero is able to successfully lead a life and is not an outsider (like many Ufo abductees), but he is on the list and somehow the otherworldly forces “connect” again with his mind.

The mysterious woman and the strangers as shape shifters – this is also a similarity with many accounts however there is usually not so much interaction.

A subterranean world, cold crystals and minerals, cold light: before the inhabitants of the Otherworld become airborne as aliens in our modern times there is a long tradition of inhabitants of a subterranean other world and here the connection with the otherworldly forces is made through old mines and shafts. A cold and crystal world is often an essential part of descriptions in visionary encounters. Even we might assume that Christian sees “Maja” – a deceptive realm of the other world – this imaginary is archetypical for otherworldly visions.

Furthermore what makes “The Runenberg” outstanding is its description of haunted places. The storyteller knows very well about the archetypes in the forest dark and as an artist he describes the stations of our heroes’ journey sometimes in a way which gives us a cold shiver, somehow his hero seems to have been in the “Mountains of Madness”.

“Let us go, that the shadows of the mountains may be soon out of view; it always makes me sorrowful in the heart to see these wild steep shapes, these horrid chasms, these torrents gurgling down into their caverns. Let us get upon the good, kind, guileless level ground again”.

The mountain puts not only our hero Christian under its magic spell it has power over his family. It shows us how our lives are directed by hidden influences and strong uncontrolled forces – a reality also my movie project deals with.

In Tieck’s story we sense also the Great Old Ones and their influence on Earth and we learn about the secrets in the mountains and deep in the forest dark.

Imagine what kind of rituals must have taken place on that mountain.

The Wood-Woman Christian sees sings:
What can the Ancient keep
That they come not at my call?
The crystal pillars weep,
From the diamonds on the wall
The trickling tear-drops fall;
And within is heard a moan,
A chiding fitful tone:
In these waves of brightness,
Lovely changeful lightness,
Has the Shape been form’d,
By which the soul is charm ‘d,
And the longing heart is warm’d.
Come, ye Spirits, at my call,
Haste ye to the Golden Hall;
Raise, from your abysses gloomy,
Heads that sparkle; faster
Come, ye Ancient Ones, come to me!
Let your power be master
Of the longing hearts and souls,
Where the flood of passion rolls,
Let your power be master!

Our modern ideas of the supernatural and the other world are strongly influenced by the famous “Gothic Novels”. Anne Radcliffe among other writers created a new genre in the 18th century. The works of these novelists have a strong influence till today. The gothic literature is usually part of the dark romance, which emerged as part of a counter-movement in the times of the enlightenment. The gothic novels deal with hauntings, murder, demonic characters and passion. In Lewis “The Monk”, one of the most disturbing and strongest works of the Gothic Novel genre, irresistible superhuman evil forces are driving the characters into their doom. Often the hero of the Gothic Novel is damned but also somebody looking for freedom, even no one escapes his fate.

Gothic literature doesn’t necessarily always deal with the supernatural but there are two strong elements we find in most Gothic novels: a certain atmosphere, which gives us an uncanny feeling and a distinct landscape. The landscape is somehow a landscape of the mind even it’s the typical wild romantic places we still find today, which often modelled the landscape of the Gothic novel. The German mountains, wild-cliffs, Dartmoor, a castle or a monastery far away from civilization and of course the forest.

The forest is nearly a stereotype in many elder and contemporary works of gothic literature. Interestingly it describes an idea of the forest, which didn’t even exist so much any more when the genre became successful. In the beginning age of science most European forests had already been cultivated. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe had to do long journeys to find the rural and wild landscapes which inspired “Faust”.

However, if we talk about the strange feelings like „wandering longingly through the forest in search of mystery (Werifestia), we have a certain idea in mind.

And the Gothic forest isn’t necessarily a primeval forest, it can be a place where once a castle or a monastery stood and where the wilderness reigns again. Even more, some of our forests have become Gothic and haunted forests because they are full of remains of human architecture. Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich loved the ruins in the forests he found in his homeland, for example Saxony Switzerland.

„Searching for mystery in the forest“ means also our interest in the afterlife. We find derelict buildings, medieval walls and once proud castles, which lie crumbled in the middle of the forest. These gothic landscapes tell us our destiny. There is something stronger then we. We can cultivate the forest but in these places nature and wilderness have the last world. Maybe one day the whole civilization will become a gothic forest.

Why are we attracted to these places where we find nothing but decay? Why do they create that strong atmosphere we hardly could resist? Why is the gothic forest such an archetypical image?

Some of us love to visit from time to time the ruins in the middle of a dark forest with fallen leaves everywhere, where no sun reaches the ground. Moss and lichen are growing on the stones and walls. These places are sometimes damp and wet with an unhealthy air. Nevertheless, there are even people who sleep in a megalithic tomb in the forest. And yes, sometimes the imaginary of the Gothic Forest is the image of a tomb or graveyard.

Maybe its because they remind us of the larger forces at work on this planet. The reign of humans might not last forever. As we all know any civilization or society has a beginning, a culmination and a time where it declines until it collapses and dies. There is no reason why modern western civilization should not share the fate of the Old Romans despite its technical process and its supreme power. But nothing vanishes. Even we see destruction and decay in the gothic landscapes at work somehow the Gothic Forest as an image could mean also the place where something is stored like in a storehouse of images. Naturally such a place must be haunted, because the end is never the end. It’s certainly no coincidence that the gothic imaginary as part of the Gothic novels or in the paintings of the dark romance became so popular when in 18th century modern science and later modern technology replaced spiritual imagination and drove the old demons out. The Gothic forest might be the appropriate image for what’s missing in the modern world because it represents exactly what we don’t allow us to see in a clean and safe technological environment. Maybe even in Silicon valley where everybody is young, healthy and good-looking there are dreamers who imagine a Gothic Forest from time to time. It’s the wilderness we are longing for.

„Hansel and Gretel“: If it wasn’t already before, the Brother’s Grimm definitely made the forest a most dangerous place. In the fairy tales the forest is not any longer the seat of the Elder Gods but became a place of unspeakable horrors long before the „Evil Dead“. There is no doubt that forest horror has a long tradition, it was feared by the Romans, even it was not so much because of any speculations about supernatural powers but because of the surprise attacks of the German Babarians. Forest lore is full of dangerous or even deadly encounters. There is even a German word „Waldangst“ describing a phobia connected with the forest. Today it seems the opposite when national park managers desperately try to figure out ways to protect our last primeval forests from trampling crowds of tourists and campers. The forest has lost much of its intimidating qualities but maybe also lost its soul.

In our days „forbidden forest“ however has become a different meaning. Take the old English word „Werifestia“ – meaning „wandering longingly through the forest in search of mystery“. It’s certainly not forbidden to do that neither there are any magical forests, which we aren’t allow to enter. But there is only limited thinking allowed about mysteries.

The forbidden forest of our days is the terra incognita which we don’t allow ourselves to think to often about . And somehow I feel the Brother’s Grimm paved the way for that; either we identify the dark forest as the unknown realm of our own psyche (a narcissistic thought) or (in our stories) as the playground of monsters, witches and demons – no need to say that Hansel and Gretel had a lot in common with The Blairwitch Horror. The problem here is we reduce the supernatural realm in a way it becomes minimazed into a thin layer closely connected to our realm. Our realm dominates the world in the modern stories and fairy tales where the magic world appears to be the last artifact of the other world.

Luckily it’s not always the case: Tolkien portrayed the visible world and invisible world in a different way in „Lord Of The Rings“ where unimagible powers seem to hide behind a thin veil and execute an increbible influence in the material world. In ancient spiritual thought and greek philosophy it was common thinking. Plato explained in the Timaeus the world itself as a living creature: . “Wherefore, using the language of probability, we may say that the world became a living creature truly endowed with soul and intelligence by the providence of God” (30a-b). We could say our material world is only a shadow of the real world, the realm of our everyday world the thin layer on the surface of an unknown ocean of consciousness – in the Lord Of The Rings we feel somehow the great thoughts of the Greek philosophers.

It’s certainly true that the forest is often a metaphor for the unknown. But there is no need to reduce it to some little sublevel where the Cenobites or Freddy Kruger wait for us nor to some kind of psychological Bate’s Motel within our brains where we store our innermost fears or neuroses. The universe is beyond our imagination, but the forest has always be the place to connect both with light sides and the dark sides of the cosmical forces. In the best sense it can be the place of transition and development.

Mediators between the Otherworld and the visible realm, humans which are not what they seem, humans which are not aware what they really are, shape-shifters, travellers between the world, daemonic humans with superhuman forces. Are they fiction? Doing further research for my movie project I came across more legends and maybe a hidden reality which leads to disturbing conclusions.

The Sidhe are important figures in Irish Folklore. They are in many ways similar to the Fairies mentioned in “The Secret Commonwealth” by Reverend Kirk and in countless other stories. There are some very interesting aspects about the Sidhe, which makes it worth to take a closer look following the ideas about demons and daimons and how they have not only a close connection with humans but influence on human history . They are supposed to be fallen angels and even they retreated into the Otherworld they are very close to us: “In the realm of folklore we constantly meet with the idea of intercourse between the human and the fairy kingdoms, or the marriage of a human being with a fair spouse, or the theft, or a child by the fairies, an impish changeling being left in its place” (Dion Fortune, Psychic Self-Defense).

Anthropologist and mystic W.Y. Evans-Wentz collected the fairly-lore on his field trips to Scotland, Ireland and other countries and provided us with a description of the Sidhe in his book “The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries”: “They are not a working class, but a military-aristocratic class, tall and noble-appearing. They are a distinct race between our own and that of spirits, as they have told me. Their qualifications are tremendous. “We could cut off half the human race, but would not,” they said, “for we are expecting salvation.” And I knew a man three or four years ago whom they struck down with paralysis. Their sight is so penetrating that I think they could see through the earth. They have a silvery voice, quick and sweet. The music they play is most beautiful. They take the whole body and soul of young and intellectual people who are interesting, transmuting the body to a body like their own. I asked them once if they ever died, and they said, “No; we are always kept young.” Once they take you and you taste food in their palace you cannot come back. You are changed to one of them, and live with them for ever. They are able to appear in different forms. One once appeared to me, and seemed only four feet high, and stoutly built. He said, “I am bigger than I appear to you now. We can make the old young, the big small, the small big”.

We might have nearly forgotten these old belief if not modern stories of alien encounter brought back many of the motives we find in the more frightening aspects of the Sidhe. These fairies are certainly part of the universe of daimons and demons which seem to accompany human kind from its early beginnings. There is a very obvious connection here with modern Ufo-lore.

In Scotland Evan-Wentz found a poem which is supposed to be a song by the fairies:

On certain nights when their bruthain (bowers) are open and their lamps are lit, and the song and the dance are moving merrily, the fairies may be heard singing lightheartedly:–

“Not of the seed of Adam are we,
Nor is Abraham our father;
But of the seed of the Proud Angel,
Driven forth from Heaven.'”

“Fallen angels”, “Fallen from heaven” could means they descended from the skies originally – or some alien planet. It seems wise not to take the historical accounts nor the modern reports too literal. If we would imagine an alien visitor or an alien race only a bit similar to life-forms on Earth the behaviour of fairies wouldn’t make some sense.

However there are some very serious aspects to consider. The Sidhe are different but also mirroring humans in many ways. If we follow the belief-system of fairy-lore they have strong powers; it’s like they can shape reality in a way. They are also close to humans and have mingled with them. But mostly they may have their part in shaping history. The question is if there is a plan behind this? Are they guardian angels or more like a secret sisterhood keeping a strong influence on us like the Bene-Gesserit Order in Frank Herbert’s Dune? A darker variation of the fairies or Sidhe could be found in Northern mythology: the Norns.

“The Norns in Norse mythology are female beings who rule the destiny of gods and men, possibly a kind of dísir, and comparable to the Moirai (also called “The Fates”) in Greek mythology. There were both malevolent and benevolent norns, and the former caused all the malevolent and tragic events in the world while the latter were kind and protective goddesses. Recent research has discussed the relation between the myths associated with norns and valkyries and traveling Völvas (seiðr-workers). The norns were thought to have visited newborn children in the pre-Christian Norse societies. Norns within skaldic references are often seen as negative beings that are mostly associated with transitional situations such as violent death and battle” (Wikipedia).

We might say this is interesting in terms about anthropological research and like the older beliefs became fairy-tales maybe future generations will see some of the alien encounters one day as fairy tales of their ancestors, but the stories are too consistent and even more the striking similarity of stories about the Sidhe with stories in other cultures like India cannot be ignored. Something is going on right here and now even the Sidhe are supposed to have retreated into a forest dark very far away in the age of science. However this is not the case. Their closeness with us suggests that some of them walk among us right now, and some people have a hidden identity they will maybe one day understand.

Our loss of second-sight, of awareness of the invisible world could made us more vulnerable to an impending darkness coming both from the inside and the outside.  The more frightening encounters with the Sidhe (or whoever they are) in modern times in alien abductions could be a result of human ignorance, maybe a warning, since the fairies are ambivalent but certainly not the darkest creatures we might meet one day. One of the most disturbing revelation of alien-abduction researcher Mack was the second identity, an alien identity the abductees discovered in their experiences. This goes along often with severe warnings. We are connected with the fairy kingdoms in a way which seems not really understood til today, and there is a connection which should not be broken.