The Ancients of various cultures knew that wonders lay behind every aspect of the universe. Often they attributed these to life-forms that were invisible to the casual observer: gods and goddesses, spirits and elementals- fairies and fae- energies and forces that possessed intelligence and motives of their own. They ruled aspects of the natural world, and were believed to exist outside of the Time/Space that we occupy, even though they were able to influence us within it.
As we progress in our understanding of the workings of the universe and the nature of "reality" we begin to see that in fact the ancients were far wiser than we have long believed. The “primitive” world view was in fact, very sophisticated, and simplistic symbolic explanations of their beliefs concealed a far more profound understanding held by many of the mystics of their various cultures.