In this months episode of The Hagstone, Chaise Levy sits down with Chad Andro of Radical Elphame to explore what Chad calls fairy apologetics, a reexamination of fairy lore that pushes back against fear-based, extractive, and overly dualistic approaches to the Otherworld. Drawing from folklore, Romantic poetry, animist philosophy, entheogenic experience, and personal practice, the conversation challenges the modern tendency to demonize or sentimentalize fairies, arguing instead for a relational and ecological understanding rooted in openness and transformation.
Together, they explore the collapse of strict boundaries between this world and the Otherworld, critique capitalist and colonial mindsets that seek to control spiritual experience, and trace how Romantic figures such as William Blake preserved a vision of fairy as a force of fullness that holds joy and terror, innocence and experience, creation and destruction in dynamic balance. The episode ultimately asks what it would mean culturally and spiritually to re-engage fairy not as danger or fantasy, but as a living mode of relationship with the animate world.
Connect with Chad Andro
Instagram: @radicalelphameSubstack: Chad Andro Podcast: Radical Elphame, available wherever you listen
New Theme Music: Taliesin written and performed on Tenor Guitar and Mandolin by Chaise Levy
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit northernspirithouse.substack.com
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hagstonepodcast.substack.com/subscribe
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