Part 3 in my series on modern myths is looking at how the Other came to be in our reality, as it has been relayed to me.
Let me emphasize that this is MY OWN gnosis, and should be taken as such. It is repeated in a story format as that is generally how I receive it.
"Long ago there was much crossover from the Otherworld to the human world, and some had such interest in the earthly realm that they chose to make permanent homes there, creating settlements and establishing communities. The Other, children of the Queen of Apples, flourished within both worlds, using their skills and knowledge and magic to shape the reality around them.
When the humans of earth encountered the Other initially they lived in harmony, each wary of the other but respectful. The Other had magic and Power that humans lacked but humans had boundless creativity and an ability to innovate; each harnessed their own gifts to their advantage and each learned from the Other.
But this harmony was not to last. Just as the Other had found a place in the earthly realm so to had the basdán, the Children of the Transfixed One, beings of decay and unmaking. And while the Other were willing to live with humanity and even exchange with them the basdán understood only death and destruction. And humans rarely differentiated between the two types of being, seeing only that which was foreign to their reality and that which had Power. The basdán spread suffering where they went and stirred up turmoil, sowing misery like wheat into fresh turned soil.
This led to humans seeing all that was Other as dangerous and deadly to them, and they fought back in their own defence, attacking the Other and the basdán equally. The harmony between the groups was unwoven and replaced with enmity.
The Other had magic and Power but humans had creativity and innovation and more than that, they had far superior numbers. The Other reproduced rarely and with difficulty, but human populations quickly grew; population to population it was over before it began, and the Other knew that it was futile to try to fight. Earth was not their world, no matter how much some had grown to love it, and every one of Them killed was a deep loss for their entire community, a voice in the eternal song that was taken forever, because while they were immortal in the Otherworld, a spirit that could shed its shape and regain it, this was not so in the earthly realm, which is why they called it the mortal world - mortality stole away all who died there, unmaking them and absorbing their spirit.
To avoid these conflicts and risks the Other withdrew their communities back to their own world, leaving bridges and gateways through which they could travel back and forth. Earth became not a home but a foreign land that could be travelled and explored and interacted with with less risk to the most vulnerable among them. when they were in the mortal world they wove spells around themselves to hide from human eyes and they wove glamours around themselves to pass as human when the need arose. And so a new balance was found, for a time. A balance born of subterfuge rather than cooperation.
This new uneasy peace lasted for a time, with the Other still interacting with humans, but in a way that they controlled. Sometimes they were helpful sometimes dangerous and stories of Them became legends and folktales among humans. Still alliances were forged and relationships and even deeper bonds; sometimes a human would be brought into the Otherworld to find a new home and sometimes - less often - one of the Other would choose to live a mortal life. Children were born who belonged to both worlds, and while conflicts did occur, there was a balance.
Then things changed again, as humans harnessed the power of the basdán, just as they had learned to use a small bit of the Power of the Other, and began a focused effort to drive them all out, to cut them off from the mortal world. They had called the Other Gods once and spirits and fairies but now they called them demons, and fear replaced respect."
