Of Salfarro: An otherkin in the world
jarandhel: salfarro: My responses are in bold because Tumblr is being annoying and I can’t figure out how to make it break the quotes the way I used to do it… so… BLAH. Fixing this for you. jarandhel: salfarro: So one can only be otherkin now if you can “bring something to the table”, preferably only unskeptical magical belief systems? Try not making straw men, salfarro.  I think you’re quite well aware that spiritual beliefs need not be unskeptical.  If not, you should be. In the same way that you have seemed to only experience psychological otherkin being the cause of “stop criticizing others’ identities!” I experienced the exact opposite. In the forums and mailing lists I frequented, it was the magic-based “otherkin” who constantly whined and cried when anyone questioned their identity and demanded everyone to stop doing it to others. I found that most (not all, but most) magic-based otherkin found it difficult to question others because it put their own beliefs on the table to be questioned, much like how fictionkin make many otherkin uncomfortable and how one can ask what is the difference between otherkin and furry? I don’t find that to have been the case, and frankly find it difficult to believe that was your experience.  We may not have been on every forum together, but even just your experience on LJ’s otherkin community should have shown you a different picture than that.  Is it possible your early days in Permanent may have biased you, since you and your friends spent so much time trolling the community in an attempt to enforce your idea of logic?  Or the fact that you started the “anti-fluff dragonkin” group which described itself in part as: Are you tired of the kids under 18 (hell, and even some older!) whose biggest problems are normal HS-related crap? Looking for a place with adult conversation?  By the time I was invited into Permanent, I was pretty much not involved in any otherkin forms. From time to time I popped into one but, I got pretty busy getting pregnant and having a kid. I don’t recall ever doing much with Permanent. I became associated with them because in a forum blowout, a bunch of people assumed I was *with* one of the members and that person apparently found me interesting or awesome because of it and invited me. I joined because I was curious about it. But  ”joining” for me was just being in their private chat group. Sometimes if they were talking about a thread or something on OK I checked it out but mostly the threads were going on for pages and pages so I never bothered to read them and I almost never involved myself in what they were doing in forums or IRC. There was really only a couple times I got deeply involved later in a particular drama but that was more about real-life concerns (i.e. a creeper trying to attract a teen to emigrate and move in with him), nothing to do with cynicism or skepticism or trolling. Permanent’s chat’s itself did involve a fair amount of talk about magic-based otherkin identities. Other than the, I think, 2 members who weren’t otherkin in any sense and one who was straightening out his identity, I was the only member who criticized them for being “fluffy”.. or perhaps I should say, I pointed out that for them and certain other people who believe in magic and criticize other believers in magic that “fluff” seems to only be defined by how much someone talks about their beliefs publicly. I assure you that when I started that “anti-fluff” group when I was a kid, it did not cause me to bias my experiences, it was a result of the way I felt at the time. There were many cases of folks with very little introspection and lots of whining whenever they were criticized, whining by them and whining by many established members of the community. This is when I first started seeing people tell others to just accept the identities of others, by magic-based otherkin (unless it was a without-question overblown Elven Princess Syndrome). It was also part of my youthful “joyous” process of growing up and trying to discover myself, wanting to be important (back then, I thought “running a website” or “moderating a forum” or “running a mailing list” made someone important)… trying to identify the source of these confusing feelings and sensations. Eventually I had a little bit of a breakdown when I was both experiencing extreme stress from study abroad and having hit a wall in my draconity and left the community for a bit to try to straighten myself out. I think fairly close to when I made that comm, TrueWyrm had also made itself a splitoff group. I can’t remember when I got active in the otherkin LJ group. I was mostly unremarkable to me. What I recall most was a point where there was a lively collection of trolls and some possible not trolls and ones who weren’t trolls but were under suspicion of being trolls. I enjoyed their posts because they tended to be the “make you think” kind of posters. But eventually they widdled down to one or two trolls who were banned. Once they were gone the otherkin LJ community was pretty much dead, since a lot of members had already been driven away. Or.. are you an athiest or agnostic and getting a bit put out because everyone else is some sort of neopagan?Fluffiness is not allowed here. If you need to know what fluffiness is, check out Why Wiccans Suck.    I was very clearly asking what the two groups get from associating with one another, from using the same terminology, to describe two very different experiences.  Can you answer that? I don’t find the experiences very different. It’s just a different lens. I’d say having memories vs experiencing “mental shifts” and uncontrollable behaviors is a fairly different experience, not just a different lens. Obviously, if a bunch of otherkin want to get into an in-depth discussion of magical beliefs they hold literally true there is going to be a problem. But so can the same be said of Christian otherkin talking to pagan or atheist, or even a dragon speaking to an elf. Even naturalist otherkin can experience the sensations of memories and such, but they are interpreting the origin of those feelings differently. Ok, let’s say for the sake of argument that was the case - you don’t see that interpretation as setting up a barrier to discussion?  Because if one group is talking about memories and seeking shared information and understanding because they believe those memories to be real, and another group doesn’t expect anything in their memories to match because they believe it’s just in their head, what’s the use of the two groups even discussing what they remember together?  Hell, why would the latter group ever discuss memories period even if they have them?  They’re just fantasies or delusions, right?  Confabulations?  With no actual significance.   I’m not actually sure what you mean by “that was the case.” But I have seen conversions. I’ve seen magical otherkin become “psychological”, I’ve seen “psychological” become magical. The whole point of discussions, of community, is looking at these things and hashing them out. Some are less interested than others, and many of those move on on either interpretation. Some don’t ever change their minds. And that’s fine (if you can believe me saying that, I am not the kid I was when I made “anti-fluff dragonkin”, back in the day when I thought atheism and naturalism were the same thing). Let me ask you a question. Do you believe all “psychological” otherkin are furries in denial or do you believe at least some of them are actually otherkin in denial of the supernatural? In my experience, that would take some fairly strong denial.  Ignoring/discounting one’s own memories, ignoring/discounting any similar memories you hear of that might verify them as having some objective validity, ignoring external validations of things you couldn’t possibly have known if the memories weren’t real, etc.  I don’t see that being effectively maintained over a long time, though I suppose it’s theoretically possible to some extent.  I would say certainly psychological therians who do experience memories are likely in denial of the existence of past lives.  Whether such are accurately described as “supernatural” is another subject. Many psychological otherkin don’t ignore their memories, but they struggle to find a naturalistic explanation for them. I think the difference between you and I, is, I few our experiences of being otherkin as being similar, if not identical. But I believe that different groups are interpreting the source differently, like laying a different kind of blanket over the same kid. Sure, one blanket might be wooly and scratchy, one might be soft, one too warm, but it’s the same kid underneath. You, on the other hand seem to view that one group has a kid, and the other has a doll. I don’t usually speak of this opinion because I have long since lost interest for the most part in worrying about if others are interpreting their experiences “correctly.” Whether or not either group can “add” to the discussion is a self-correcting problem. I’ve struggled for many years with my identity. When I had my breakdown it was after trying to completely deny it. I had a similar thought 8 years ago… what if I was just a dressed-up furry? Or just fooling myself? Could I just “stop” believing and walk away. It was one of the most mentally painful things I had done, and at probably the worst time. I won’t bore you with my clumsy attempts to explain what it felt like. When I stopped trying to deny it, I felt a lot better except for one thing. I still had not settled my personal explanation of my experiences. I still felt like I didn’t know “who” I was or “why” I felt this way. I had experimented a bit and had visions. But in the same way that I can not “drop” my draconity, I could not “drop” my naturalism (and believe me, I have wanted to for years. Being able to either drop my draconity or drop my naturalism would be such a blessing). So, instead of confronting this I ignored it to avoid the pain. A few years ago I read an essay about cladotherianthropy which inspired me to start over. I made a resolution to not worry if people thought I was roleplaying as I tried to sort myself out, in identity and in world-view and to explore the furry angle again. But, I have ended up just… putting it aside again. Most of my explorations have been private instead of online, for fear of someone looking at something I wrote years ago and saying something like “Well, you wrote this years ago so it obviously has TOTAL bearing on your here and now” or accusing me of being a hypocrite or whatever. And I really just can’t get into the furry thing. In a local fur group, someone who was more familiar with my online presence thought that my avatar was a fursona of some sort. It actually freaked me out pretty badly, I had a very negative reaction to my identity being used that way. I ended up creating a fursona just to avoid the problem in the future. But like all RPG characters, no matter how funny or interesting or intricate, it is a “dead” thing. It has no meaning to me. I find, just like my experience in Permanent, that a lot of “psychological” otherkin are simply more cautious about slapping a definitive supernatural narrative out there. Many do have very private, very personal supernatural beliefs that they recognize as unfalsifiable. Not all, of course. Honestly I don’t think the stuff you’re seeing is due to the “ris ae of psychological otherkin” (most of whom in my experience frequently criticized other otherkin’s beliefs to the point that spiritual otherkin were leaving communities and bitching about it in droves). Then why are the same patterns visible in the therian community since psychological therianthropy took over from spiritual?  The reduction in discussions of spirituality and past lives, the increase in discusion of shifting, of non-human behaviors, of so-called “species dysphoria”, etc? They are not islands from each other. No, they’re not.  But the therian community showed this pattern years prior to the otherkin community, coinciding with the takeover of psychological therianthropy from spiritual therianthropy.  Now psychological otherkin are becoming more prevalent, and we’re seeing the same things on the rise here.  I don’t believe that to be a coincidence. I think what you are seeing is simply the rise of popularity of otherkin and therians. An influx of new with their own ideas. A lot of the more critical and skeptical otherkin have since left. You know, the ones who would have asked “why do you think you are otherkin.” Except, you just told us that the skeptical, psychological otherkin criticized other otherkin’s beliefs to the point that spiritual otherkin were leaving communities in droves.  So wouldn’t they be the ones left behind, in the communities, to ask such things?  But experience shows that they don’t, that it’s not being asked as much now as it was when the otherkin community was pretty much 100% spiritual. It was not meant to be interpreted as a simultaneous occurrence. I am speaking of things that occurred over a 10+ year period. First the one, then the other. But I also don’t think we overlapped much on the forums we were on. And to clarify again, not all forums of course shifted at the same time, some held out longer than others as members bounced around trying to find the haven they agreed with.  So what you’re saying is that the skeptical otherkin came on, forced the spiritual otherkin off, themselves left for some reason and were replaced by new younger spiritual otherkin, and these are the source of the new credulity?  Do I have that right now?  Because that still doesn’t match what I’m seeing.  I see more self-described psychological otherkin than ever, and less questioning of the “identities” of newcomers than ever. It’s so hard to describe what was going on because it wasn’t some linear transition that just hit every group, everywhere at the same time. In the way that you suppose I am biased from my point of view (presumably by that you mean, that I focused more on the instances of magic-based otherkin being credulous.. I could think the same may be true of you). I would not say that psychological otherkin are not on the rise, but I don’t believe psychological otherkin themselves are the explanation for credulity. Both can have some pretty dang credulous members, but I think it is the rise of otherkin and therian in general that causes the least questioning problem. When I describe these changes in the groups I was part of, with the skeptical (not necessarily nonmagical, but the more critical of the community) driving off a lot of magic-based newbie otherkin (and in some cases unknown otherkin because they didn’t stick around long enough, and eventually the least thick-skinned of the magic-based otherkin) what I saw happen was, first off, of course, was the elders in the comms leaving because the conversations ceased to be interesting and because all of the fluffy newb members were driven off before they even had a chance to mature. When I got a little older and wiser, myself, I regretted a lot of the way I had behaved. Dragons and elves, I think, have vastly different experiences in their communities. At least when I was most active, there was really no such thing as dragons discovering others that shared their memories. It was so exceedingly rare (although much wished for), I think I can only think of once instance of a thread where I actually saw a pair of lovers who briefly joined a forum I was on, and quickly left. There may have been a few brief flashes here or there of people claiming such but never of any of the core members of the communities. If it has changed it’s been a recent thing.

jarandhel:

salfarro:

My responses are in bold because Tumblr is being annoying and I can’t figure out how to make it break the quotes the way I used to do it… so… BLAH.

Fixing this for you.

jarandhel:

salfarro:

So one can only be otherkin now if you can “bring something to the table”, preferably only unskeptical magical belief systems?

Try not making straw men, salfarro.  I think you’re quite well aware that spiritual beliefs need not be unskeptical.  If not, you should be.

In the same way that you have seemed to only experience psychological otherkin being the cause of “stop criticizing others’ identities!” I experienced the exact opposite. In the forums and mailing lists I frequented, it was the magic-based “otherkin” who constantly whined and cried when anyone questioned their identity and demanded everyone to stop doing it to others. I found that most (not all, but most) magic-based otherkin found it difficult to question others because it put their own beliefs on the table to be questioned, much like how fictionkin make many otherkin uncomfortable and how one can ask what is the difference between otherkin and furry?

I don’t find that to have been the case, and frankly find it difficult to believe that was your experience.  We may not have been on every forum together, but even just your experience on LJ’s otherkin community should have shown you a different picture than that.  Is it possible your early days in Permanent may have biased you, since you and your friends spent so much time trolling the community in an attempt to enforce your idea of logic?  Or the fact that you started the “anti-fluff dragonkin” group which described itself in part as:

Are you tired of the kids under 18 (hell, and even some older!) whose biggest problems are normal HS-related crap? Looking for a place with adult conversation? 

By the time I was invited into Permanent, I was pretty much not involved in any otherkin forms. From time to time I popped into one but, I got pretty busy getting pregnant and having a kid. I don’t recall ever doing much with Permanent. I became associated with them because in a forum blowout, a bunch of people assumed I was *with* one of the members and that person apparently found me interesting or awesome because of it and invited me. I joined because I was curious about it. But  ”joining” for me was just being in their private chat group. Sometimes if they were talking about a thread or something on OK I checked it out but mostly the threads were going on for pages and pages so I never bothered to read them and I almost never involved myself in what they were doing in forums or IRC. There was really only a couple times I got deeply involved later in a particular drama but that was more about real-life concerns (i.e. a creeper trying to attract a teen to emigrate and move in with him), nothing to do with cynicism or skepticism or trolling.

Permanent’s chat’s itself did involve a fair amount of talk about magic-based otherkin identities. Other than the, I think, 2 members who weren’t otherkin in any sense and one who was straightening out his identity, I was the only member who criticized them for being “fluffy”.. or perhaps I should say, I pointed out that for them and certain other people who believe in magic and criticize other believers in magic that “fluff” seems to only be defined by how much someone talks about their beliefs publicly.

I assure you that when I started that “anti-fluff” group when I was a kid, it did not cause me to bias my experiences, it was a result of the way I felt at the time. There were many cases of folks with very little introspection and lots of whining whenever they were criticized, whining by them and whining by many established members of the community. This is when I first started seeing people tell others to just accept the identities of others, by magic-based otherkin (unless it was a without-question overblown Elven Princess Syndrome).

It was also part of my youthful “joyous” process of growing up and trying to discover myself, wanting to be important (back then, I thought “running a website” or “moderating a forum” or “running a mailing list” made someone important)… trying to identify the source of these confusing feelings and sensations. Eventually I had a little bit of a breakdown when I was both experiencing extreme stress from study abroad and having hit a wall in my draconity and left the community for a bit to try to straighten myself out. I think fairly close to when I made that comm, TrueWyrm had also made itself a splitoff group.

I can’t remember when I got active in the otherkin LJ group. I was mostly unremarkable to me. What I recall most was a point where there was a lively collection of trolls and some possible not trolls and ones who weren’t trolls but were under suspicion of being trolls. I enjoyed their posts because they tended to be the “make you think” kind of posters. But eventually they widdled down to one or two trolls who were banned. Once they were gone the otherkin LJ community was pretty much dead, since a lot of members had already been driven away.


Or.. are you an athiest or agnostic and getting a bit put out because everyone else is some sort of neopagan?

Fluffiness is not allowed here. If you need to know what fluffiness is, check out Why Wiccans Suck.

 

 I was very clearly asking what the two groups get from associating with one another, from using the same terminology, to describe two very different experiences.  Can you answer that?


I don’t find the experiences very different. It’s just a different lens.

I’d say having memories vs experiencing “mental shifts” and uncontrollable behaviors is a fairly different experience, not just a different lens.

Obviously, if a bunch of otherkin want to get into an in-depth discussion of magical beliefs they hold literally true there is going to be a problem. But so can the same be said of Christian otherkin talking to pagan or atheist, or even a dragon speaking to an elf. Even naturalist otherkin can experience the sensations of memories and such, but they are interpreting the origin of those feelings differently.

Ok, let’s say for the sake of argument that was the case - you don’t see that interpretation as setting up a barrier to discussion?  Because if one group is talking about memories and seeking shared information and understanding because they believe those memories to be real, and another group doesn’t expect anything in their memories to match because they believe it’s just in their head, what’s the use of the two groups even discussing what they remember together?  Hell, why would the latter group ever discuss memories period even if they have them?  They’re just fantasies or delusions, right?  Confabulations?  With no actual significance.  

I’m not actually sure what you mean by “that was the case.” But I have seen conversions. I’ve seen magical otherkin become “psychological”, I’ve seen “psychological” become magical. The whole point of discussions, of community, is looking at these things and hashing them out. Some are less interested than others, and many of those move on on either interpretation. Some don’t ever change their minds. And that’s fine (if you can believe me saying that, I am not the kid I was when I made “anti-fluff dragonkin”, back in the day when I thought atheism and naturalism were the same thing).

Let me ask you a question. Do you believe all “psychological” otherkin are furries in denial or do you believe at least some of them are actually otherkin in denial of the supernatural?

In my experience, that would take some fairly strong denial.  Ignoring/discounting one’s own memories, ignoring/discounting any similar memories you hear of that might verify them as having some objective validity, ignoring external validations of things you couldn’t possibly have known if the memories weren’t real, etc.  I don’t see that being effectively maintained over a long time, though I suppose it’s theoretically possible to some extent.  I would say certainly psychological therians who do experience memories are likely in denial of the existence of past lives.  Whether such are accurately described as “supernatural” is another subject.

Many psychological otherkin don’t ignore their memories, but they struggle to find a naturalistic explanation for them. I think the difference between you and I, is, I few our experiences of being otherkin as being similar, if not identical. But I believe that different groups are interpreting the source differently, like laying a different kind of blanket over the same kid. Sure, one blanket might be wooly and scratchy, one might be soft, one too warm, but it’s the same kid underneath. You, on the other hand seem to view that one group has a kid, and the other has a doll. I don’t usually speak of this opinion because I have long since lost interest for the most part in worrying about if others are interpreting their experiences “correctly.” Whether or not either group can “add” to the discussion is a self-correcting problem.

I’ve struggled for many years with my identity. When I had my breakdown it was after trying to completely deny it. I had a similar thought 8 years ago… what if I was just a dressed-up furry? Or just fooling myself? Could I just “stop” believing and walk away. It was one of the most mentally painful things I had done, and at probably the worst time. I won’t bore you with my clumsy attempts to explain what it felt like.

When I stopped trying to deny it, I felt a lot better except for one thing. I still had not settled my personal explanation of my experiences. I still felt like I didn’t know “who” I was or “why” I felt this way. I had experimented a bit and had visions. But in the same way that I can not “drop” my draconity, I could not “drop” my naturalism (and believe me, I have wanted to for years. Being able to either drop my draconity or drop my naturalism would be such a blessing). So, instead of confronting this I ignored it to avoid the pain. A few years ago I read an essay about cladotherianthropy which inspired me to start over. I made a resolution to not worry if people thought I was roleplaying as I tried to sort myself out, in identity and in world-view and to explore the furry angle again. But, I have ended up just… putting it aside again. Most of my explorations have been private instead of online, for fear of someone looking at something I wrote years ago and saying something like “Well, you wrote this years ago so it obviously has TOTAL bearing on your here and now” or accusing me of being a hypocrite or whatever. And I really just can’t get into the furry thing. In a local fur group, someone who was more familiar with my online presence thought that my avatar was a fursona of some sort. It actually freaked me out pretty badly, I had a very negative reaction to my identity being used that way. I ended up creating a fursona just to avoid the problem in the future. But like all RPG characters, no matter how funny or interesting or intricate, it is a “dead” thing. It has no meaning to me.

I find, just like my experience in Permanent, that a lot of “psychological” otherkin are simply more cautious about slapping a definitive supernatural narrative out there. Many do have very private, very personal supernatural beliefs that they recognize as unfalsifiable. Not all, of course.

Honestly I don’t think the stuff you’re seeing is due to the “ris ae of psychological otherkin” (most of whom in my experience frequently criticized other otherkin’s beliefs to the point that spiritual otherkin were leaving communities and bitching about it in droves).

Then why are the same patterns visible in the therian community since psychological therianthropy took over from spiritual?  The reduction in discussions of spirituality and past lives, the increase in discusion of shifting, of non-human behaviors, of so-called “species dysphoria”, etc?

They are not islands from each other.

No, they’re not.  But the therian community showed this pattern years prior to the otherkin community, coinciding with the takeover of psychological therianthropy from spiritual therianthropy.  Now psychological otherkin are becoming more prevalent, and we’re seeing the same things on the rise here.  I don’t believe that to be a coincidence.

I think what you are seeing is simply the rise of popularity of otherkin and therians. An influx of new with their own ideas. A lot of the more critical and skeptical otherkin have since left. You know, the ones who would have asked “why do you think you are otherkin.”

Except, you just told us that the skeptical, psychological otherkin criticized other otherkin’s beliefs to the point that spiritual otherkin were leaving communities in droves.  So wouldn’t they be the ones left behind, in the communities, to ask such things?  But experience shows that they don’t, that it’s not being asked as much now as it was when the otherkin community was pretty much 100% spiritual.

It was not meant to be interpreted as a simultaneous occurrence. I am speaking of things that occurred over a 10+ year period. First the one, then the other. But I also don’t think we overlapped much on the forums we were on.

And to clarify again, not all forums of course shifted at the same time, some held out longer than others as members bounced around trying to find the haven they agreed with. 

So what you’re saying is that the skeptical otherkin came on, forced the spiritual otherkin off, themselves left for some reason and were replaced by new younger spiritual otherkin, and these are the source of the new credulity?  Do I have that right now?  Because that still doesn’t match what I’m seeing.  I see more self-described psychological otherkin than ever, and less questioning of the “identities” of newcomers than ever.

It’s so hard to describe what was going on because it wasn’t some linear transition that just hit every group, everywhere at the same time. In the way that you suppose I am biased from my point of view (presumably by that you mean, that I focused more on the instances of magic-based otherkin being credulous.. I could think the same may be true of you). I would not say that psychological otherkin are not on the rise, but I don’t believe psychological otherkin themselves are the explanation for credulity. Both can have some pretty dang credulous members, but I think it is the rise of otherkin and therian in general that causes the least questioning problem.

When I describe these changes in the groups I was part of, with the skeptical (not necessarily nonmagical, but the more critical of the community) driving off a lot of magic-based newbie otherkin (and in some cases unknown otherkin because they didn’t stick around long enough, and eventually the least thick-skinned of the magic-based otherkin) what I saw happen was, first off, of course, was the elders in the comms leaving because the conversations ceased to be interesting and because all of the fluffy newb members were driven off before they even had a chance to mature. When I got a little older and wiser, myself, I regretted a lot of the way I had behaved.

Dragons and elves, I think, have vastly different experiences in their communities. At least when I was most active, there was really no such thing as dragons discovering others that shared their memories. It was so exceedingly rare (although much wished for), I think I can only think of once instance of a thread where I actually saw a pair of lovers who briefly joined a forum I was on, and quickly left. There may have been a few brief flashes here or there of people claiming such but never of any of the core members of the communities. If it has changed it’s been a recent thing.

Reblogged 6 days ago from jarandhel (Originally from jarandhel)
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Tagged: otherkin, .
jarandhel: salfarro: I’ve honestly never seen much difference between furries who create entire fantasy worlds in their heads which they build with other people and otherkin who create fantasy worlds in their heads and build them up with other people. It is simply that the one group takes it far more seriously and literally than the other. Thank you for standing up as a psychological otherkin who doesn’t see a difference between their experience of being otherkin and furries, then.  Even if you did try to use it as a back-handed insult against those who have memories, and imply that those who do are constructing “fantasy worlds”. There is a third option. I’m sure someone could think of a fourth.

jarandhel:

salfarro:

I’ve honestly never seen much difference between furries who create entire fantasy worlds in their heads which they build with other people and otherkin who create fantasy worlds in their heads and build them up with other people. It is simply that the one group takes it far more seriously and literally than the other.

Thank you for standing up as a psychological otherkin who doesn’t see a difference between their experience of being otherkin and furries, then.  Even if you did try to use it as a back-handed insult against those who have memories, and imply that those who do are constructing “fantasy worlds”.

There is a third option. I’m sure someone could think of a fourth.

Reblogged 1 week ago from jarandhel (Originally from jarandhel)
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Tagged: otherkin, .
My responses are in bold because Tumblr is being annoying and I can’t figure out how to make it break the quotes the way I used to do it… so… BLAH. jarandhel: salfarro: So one can only be otherkin now if you can “bring something to the table”, preferably only unskeptical magical belief systems? Try not making straw men, salfarro.  I think you’re quite well aware that spiritual beliefs need not be unskeptical.  If not, you should be. In the same way that you have seemed to only experience psychological otherkin being the cause of “stop criticizing others’ identities!” I experienced the exact opposite. In the forums and mailing lists I frequented, it was the magic-based “otherkin” who constantly whined and cried when anyone questioned their identity and demanded everyone to stop doing it to others. I found that most (not all, but most) magic-based otherkin found it difficult to question others because it put their own beliefs on the table to be questioned, much like how fictionkin make many otherkin uncomfortable and how one can ask what is the difference between otherkin and furry?  I was very clearly asking what the two groups get from associating with one another, from using the same terminology, to describe two very different experiences.  Can you answer that? I don’t find the experiences very different. It’s just a different lens. Obviously, if a bunch of otherkin want to get into an in-depth discussion of magical beliefs they hold literally true there is going to be a problem. But so can the same be said of Christian otherkin talking to pagan or atheist, or even a dragon speaking to an elf. Even naturalist otherkin can experience the sensations of memories and such, but they are interpreting the origin of those feelings differently. Let me ask you a question. Do you believe all “psychological” otherkin are furries in denial or do you believe at least some of them are actually otherkin in denial of the supernatural? Honestly I don’t think the stuff you’re seeing is due to the “ris ae of psychological otherkin” (most of whom in my experience frequently criticized other otherkin’s beliefs to the point that spiritual otherkin were leaving communities and bitching about it in droves). Then why are the same patterns visible in the therian community since psychological therianthropy took over from spiritual?  The reduction in discussions of spirituality and past lives, the increase in discusion of shifting, of non-human behaviors, of so-called “species dysphoria”, etc? They are not islands from each other. I think what you are seeing is simply the rise of popularity of otherkin and therians. An influx of new with their own ideas. A lot of the more critical and skeptical otherkin have since left. You know, the ones who would have asked “why do you think you are otherkin.” Except, you just told us that the skeptical, psychological otherkin criticized other otherkin’s beliefs to the point that spiritual otherkin were leaving communities in droves.  So wouldn’t they be the ones left behind, in the communities, to ask such things?  But experience shows that they don’t, that it’s not being asked as much now as it was when the otherkin community was pretty much 100% spiritual. It was not meant to be interpreted as a simultaneous occurrence. I am speaking of things that occurred over a 10+ year period. First the one, then the other. But I also don’t think we overlapped much on the forums we were on. And to clarify again, not all forums of course shifted at the same time, some held out longer than others as members bounced around trying to find the haven they agreed with. 

My responses are in bold because Tumblr is being annoying and I can’t figure out how to make it break the quotes the way I used to do it… so… BLAH.

jarandhel:

salfarro:

So one can only be otherkin now if you can “bring something to the table”, preferably only unskeptical magical belief systems?

Try not making straw men, salfarro.  I think you’re quite well aware that spiritual beliefs need not be unskeptical.  If not, you should be.

In the same way that you have seemed to only experience psychological otherkin being the cause of “stop criticizing others’ identities!” I experienced the exact opposite. In the forums and mailing lists I frequented, it was the magic-based “otherkin” who constantly whined and cried when anyone questioned their identity and demanded everyone to stop doing it to others. I found that most (not all, but most) magic-based otherkin found it difficult to question others because it put their own beliefs on the table to be questioned, much like how fictionkin make many otherkin uncomfortable and how one can ask what is the difference between otherkin and furry?

 I was very clearly asking what the two groups get from associating with one another, from using the same terminology, to describe two very different experiences.  Can you answer that?


I don’t find the experiences very different. It’s just a different lens. Obviously, if a bunch of otherkin want to get into an in-depth discussion of magical beliefs they hold literally true there is going to be a problem. But so can the same be said of Christian otherkin talking to pagan or atheist, or even a dragon speaking to an elf. Even naturalist otherkin can experience the sensations of memories and such, but they are interpreting the origin of those feelings differently.

Let me ask you a question. Do you believe all “psychological” otherkin are furries in denial or do you believe at least some of them are actually otherkin in denial of the supernatural?

Honestly I don’t think the stuff you’re seeing is due to the “ris ae of psychological otherkin” (most of whom in my experience frequently criticized other otherkin’s beliefs to the point that spiritual otherkin were leaving communities and bitching about it in droves).

Then why are the same patterns visible in the therian community since psychological therianthropy took over from spiritual?  The reduction in discussions of spirituality and past lives, the increase in discusion of shifting, of non-human behaviors, of so-called “species dysphoria”, etc?

They are not islands from each other.

I think what you are seeing is simply the rise of popularity of otherkin and therians. An influx of new with their own ideas. A lot of the more critical and skeptical otherkin have since left. You know, the ones who would have asked “why do you think you are otherkin.”

Except, you just told us that the skeptical, psychological otherkin criticized other otherkin’s beliefs to the point that spiritual otherkin were leaving communities in droves.  So wouldn’t they be the ones left behind, in the communities, to ask such things?  But experience shows that they don’t, that it’s not being asked as much now as it was when the otherkin community was pretty much 100% spiritual.

It was not meant to be interpreted as a simultaneous occurrence. I am speaking of things that occurred over a 10+ year period. First the one, then the other. But I also don’t think we overlapped much on the forums we were on.

And to clarify again, not all forums of course shifted at the same time, some held out longer than others as members bounced around trying to find the haven they agreed with. 

Reblogged 1 week ago from jarandhel (Originally from jarandhel)
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jarandhel: theladypagan:   But the thing is jarhandel, past life memories or not, this can not be proven in any way whatsoever. I consider people sharing memories to a large degree, with details held back for verification purposes, fairly conclusive proof.  Particularly when some of these people have been of different generations, and nationalities with no prior contact between us. I identify psychologically as a dragon because that is what makes sense to me. I don’t want to jump into the spiritual wagon when I have experienced no such thing of my own. I would contend that calling such psychological identification being “otherkin” is jumping into the spiritual wagon.  It wasn’t psychological otherkin who coined the term. Since dragons do not physically exist, we have no idea of how they might’ve behaved, so we make our own conclusions, psychologically or spiritual. I’ve been in the otherkin community for seven years; I’ve seen and known a lot of dragonkin, and I still do, with everyone of them having their own deffinition of a dragon. In my deffinition, a dragon is a very animalistic and not very wise animal, while for others, the dragon is a wise and magical being. I am a dragonkin because I have always felt and indentified as(in my own deffinition) a dragon, from when I was around five years old, and at the time had no idea about spirituality or psychology. I am not a furry in anyway whatsoever, as I don’t enjoy humanized or antromorphic animals. Nor is my identity a fandom to me. Alright, then let me rephrase: how is it different from choosing a dragon persona to roleplay as, if it’s entirely based on what you imagine a dragon might be like? I’m just saying, I don’t need spirituality in my life to feel fullfillment; or as an explanation to my otherkin identity. It just is. It’s there. it exist, in some form. And I would continue to contend that psychological identification as otherkin is inherently shallow and based on caricatures and stereotypes of what it means to be nonhuman, rather than actual knowledge.  You can identify as whatever you like, but no amount of identifying as a dragon in your head is going to give you even the briefest memory of what it’s actually like to fly as one.  To know how your wings and muscles move, to feel the wind pass over you.  To know how particular movements in flight are used as body language, and what those mean on an instinctive or cultural level.  Because for a psychological otherkin, who doesn’t believe in dragons, none of those details actually exist.   (also, I want to mention that I have seen way more fluffy and roleplaying people in the spiritual part of the community than I have in the psychological one. ) I continue to see more psychological otherkin and therians trying to act nonhuman in the present - essentially LAPRing as their kintypes - than to understand what it actually means to be nonhuman.  I don’t typically see that from the spiritual side of the community - the few who do are generally called out for things like Elven Princess Syndrome, or Psychic Warfare Syndrome. Seeing basically a bunch of humans arguing about which of them is the “real deal” nonhuman is just… I mean, seriously, only humans could pull this kind of shit off with a straight face.

jarandhel:

theladypagan:

 

But the thing is jarhandel, past life memories or not, this can not be proven in any way whatsoever.

I consider people sharing memories to a large degree, with details held back for verification purposes, fairly conclusive proof.  Particularly when some of these people have been of different generations, and nationalities with no prior contact between us.

I identify psychologically as a dragon because that is what makes sense to me. I don’t want to jump into the spiritual wagon when I have experienced no such thing of my own.

I would contend that calling such psychological identification being “otherkin” is jumping into the spiritual wagon.  It wasn’t psychological otherkin who coined the term.

Since dragons do not physically exist, we have no idea of how they might’ve behaved, so we make our own conclusions, psychologically or spiritual. I’ve been in the otherkin community for seven years; I’ve seen and known a lot of dragonkin, and I still do, with everyone of them having their own deffinition of a dragon. In my deffinition, a dragon is a very animalistic and not very wise animal, while for others, the dragon is a wise and magical being. I am a dragonkin because I have always felt and indentified as(in my own deffinition) a dragon, from when I was around five years old, and at the time had no idea about spirituality or psychology.

I am not a furry in anyway whatsoever, as I don’t enjoy humanized or antromorphic animals. Nor is my identity a fandom to me.

Alright, then let me rephrase: how is it different from choosing a dragon persona to roleplay as, if it’s entirely based on what you imagine a dragon might be like?

I’m just saying, I don’t need spirituality in my life to feel fullfillment; or as an explanation to my otherkin identity. It just is. It’s there. it exist, in some form.

And I would continue to contend that psychological identification as otherkin is inherently shallow and based on caricatures and stereotypes of what it means to be nonhuman, rather than actual knowledge.  You can identify as whatever you like, but no amount of identifying as a dragon in your head is going to give you even the briefest memory of what it’s actually like to fly as one.  To know how your wings and muscles move, to feel the wind pass over you.  To know how particular movements in flight are used as body language, and what those mean on an instinctive or cultural level.  Because for a psychological otherkin, who doesn’t believe in dragons, none of those details actually exist.  

(also, I want to mention that I have seen way more fluffy and roleplaying people in the spiritual part of the community than I have in the psychological one. )

I continue to see more psychological otherkin and therians trying to act nonhuman in the present - essentially LAPRing as their kintypes - than to understand what it actually means to be nonhuman.  I don’t typically see that from the spiritual side of the community - the few who do are generally called out for things like Elven Princess Syndrome, or Psychic Warfare Syndrome.

Seeing basically a bunch of humans arguing about which of them is the “real deal” nonhuman is just… I mean, seriously, only humans could pull this kind of shit off with a straight face.

Reblogged 1 week ago from jarandhel (Originally from jarandhel)
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jarandhel: bitches-have-birthdays: I suppose I’m comparing the Awereness forums with the likes of Wulf Howl and modern Werelist. The comparison is like night and day sometimes. The only thing that hasn’t changed is that shifting and other experiences of feeling animal are considered one of the main topics. I think this is more to do with the difference between most therians and most otherkin than to do with anything psychological. A lot of spiritual therians don’t have past life memories of any kind, and those that do tend to have the absolutely riveting memories of sniffing the ground, peeing, running. I’m hardly surprised the therian communities don’t have extensive past life discussions. It isn’t my recollection that they ever did. I’m more comparing the modern version of Werelist and AHWW, personally.  And from what I’ve seen of therians with past life memories, they do consider the experience of actually remembering and understanding it rather riveting.  If it’s not, and that’s the reason for lack of discussion on the subject, how is discussion of current mental shifts in which you want to run around, sniffing the ground, and pee on things somehow more riveting? I can’t speak as to otherkin communities, really. I do think you may be right though, as the focus on past lives is, I believe, one of the reasons I avoided otherkin groups like the plague until recently. The fact that past lives are now only one of several areas of discussion that are common in otherkin communities is, to me, a change for the better, as it allows for people without extensive “memories” to sign up and chat without feeling they’re in the wrong place. I’d argue they are in the wrong place, though.  There’s a reason we used to have the lostkinproject as a list for otherkin without memories.  And even then, they believed they were spiritually nonhuman - not just someone who identified, all in their head, as nonhuman.  And they were trying to find ways to recover their memories. Signing up and chatting about being nonhuman without memories to draw on is a lot like signing up for a list to chat about your experiences in France when you’ve never been there.  You might “identify” with the French, you might learn the language and read every book you can find on their history and culture, every account you can get your hands of that tells what it’s like to live there.  But what are you adding to the discussion of France by being there?  What can you offer, from your own experiences? It may not be a change you enjoy as much, which is fair enough. I don’t think psychological kin are to blame, and I think it’s very presumptuous to act like the… “overenthusiastic” newcomers are mostly psychological kin, or that psych kin are little different to LARPers and furries. It’s a change that very much coincides with the rise of psychological otherkin in the community.  I haven’t said anything about overenthusiastic newcomers mostly being psychological kin - some of the examples I mentioned are from people who have been around quite a while and are very much not newcomers.  And I have yet to hear a clear explanation of how psychological kin aren’t like LARPers or furries.  If you are creating an image of what a dragon means for you, based entirely on your imagination and the media you’ve consumed on the subject, and “identifying” as that image - how is that different from adopting any other roleplay persona? I’ve honestly never seen much difference between furries who create entire fantasy worlds in their heads which they build with other people and otherkin who create fantasy worlds in their heads and build them up with other people. It is simply that the one group takes it far more seriously and literally than the other.

jarandhel:

bitches-have-birthdays:

I suppose I’m comparing the Awereness forums with the likes of Wulf Howl and modern Werelist. The comparison is like night and day sometimes. The only thing that hasn’t changed is that shifting and other experiences of feeling animal are considered one of the main topics. I think this is more to do with the difference between most therians and most otherkin than to do with anything psychological. A lot of spiritual therians don’t have past life memories of any kind, and those that do tend to have the absolutely riveting memories of sniffing the ground, peeing, running. I’m hardly surprised the therian communities don’t have extensive past life discussions. It isn’t my recollection that they ever did.

I’m more comparing the modern version of Werelist and AHWW, personally.  And from what I’ve seen of therians with past life memories, they do consider the experience of actually remembering and understanding it rather riveting.  If it’s not, and that’s the reason for lack of discussion on the subject, how is discussion of current mental shifts in which you want to run around, sniffing the ground, and pee on things somehow more riveting?

I can’t speak as to otherkin communities, really. I do think you may be right though, as the focus on past lives is, I believe, one of the reasons I avoided otherkin groups like the plague until recently. The fact that past lives are now only one of several areas of discussion that are common in otherkin communities is, to me, a change for the better, as it allows for people without extensive “memories” to sign up and chat without feeling they’re in the wrong place.

I’d argue they are in the wrong place, though.  There’s a reason we used to have the lostkinproject as a list for otherkin without memories.  And even then, they believed they were spiritually nonhuman - not just someone who identified, all in their head, as nonhuman.  And they were trying to find ways to recover their memories.

Signing up and chatting about being nonhuman without memories to draw on is a lot like signing up for a list to chat about your experiences in France when you’ve never been there.  You might “identify” with the French, you might learn the language and read every book you can find on their history and culture, every account you can get your hands of that tells what it’s like to live there.  But what are you adding to the discussion of France by being there?  What can you offer, from your own experiences?

It may not be a change you enjoy as much, which is fair enough. I don’t think psychological kin are to blame, and I think it’s very presumptuous to act like the… “overenthusiastic” newcomers are mostly psychological kin, or that psych kin are little different to LARPers and furries.

It’s a change that very much coincides with the rise of psychological otherkin in the community.  I haven’t said anything about overenthusiastic newcomers mostly being psychological kin - some of the examples I mentioned are from people who have been around quite a while and are very much not newcomers.  And I have yet to hear a clear explanation of how psychological kin aren’t like LARPers or furries.  If you are creating an image of what a dragon means for you, based entirely on your imagination and the media you’ve consumed on the subject, and “identifying” as that image - how is that different from adopting any other roleplay persona?

I’ve honestly never seen much difference between furries who create entire fantasy worlds in their heads which they build with other people and otherkin who create fantasy worlds in their heads and build them up with other people. It is simply that the one group takes it far more seriously and literally than the other.

Reblogged 1 week ago from jarandhel (Originally from jarandhel)
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jarandhel: bitches-have-birthdays: Incoming wall of text. I am very sorry, followers :( I have “past life memories”, and I have experiences in the present. The latter is much more interesting to me, and mostly what I want to discuss on forums. My memories, although much more than just running around, are in the past. They’re also static, for the most part. A memory of running is a memory of running. Woo. Exciting. I think I’ll discuss it over and over in thread upon thread for the next few decades. Or, you know, not. See, I don’t find my memories to be “static”.  I’m always finding new pieces, building up a better picture of what happened in the past.  It’s like putting together an incredibly complicated jigsaw puzzle, with time as an factor.  A random flash of memory from years before, just a few seconds long, might one day become the start of something much larger and more complex.  And even still, I’m limited to my t perspective in each life - they need to be placed together with the memories of others to get a better idea of what was going on from a wider standpoint - the “big picture” so to speak.  That’s one of the things that was useful about otherkin lists in the past - finding others who remembered the same people, places, events you did.  Putting things together to understand the cultural contexts, the history, the larger picture.  Even memories of entirely different species who encountered one another. I Whereas current experiences are something that people often want to know how to deal with, and they are a living, evolving thing. They may feel like getting new ideas for how to indulge their urges constructively. They may be interested in whether other people want to try a group idea they’ve had. It’s not vastly more interesting, but it’s an ongoing thing. I don’t really see that.  Instead I see things like “what music brings out your inner animal” or “how do you handle car rides, good or bad?” or “how do you EXPRESS your therioside”?  That last one I really hate the most - not everything which is part of your personal identity needs to be “expressed”.  Being bi is part of my identity but I don’t go around “expressing” it.  Most people don’t know unless the subject of relationships/significant others comes up.  Which, frankly, is about a bazillion times more likely than a spontaneous discussion of the nature of your souls OR your psyches.   Unless someone’s memories are traumatic or they’re continually remembering new material, there isn’t a huge amount to talk about. In my experience, most people with memories are continually remembering new material.  Not necessarily just from the same life, either.  I know of a couple exceptions, people I’ve been told have run into a mental block concerning their memories, but for the most part the people I knew 14 years ago who were discussing their memories back then are still discussing new stuff now.   There’s also no remote guarantee that anyone will have anything to say about your memories, or empathise with them in the slightest. My experience of the community has not shown this to be true.  The majority of people with memories did find others who remembered the same people and events.  I can think of a very small number of people who were the only one of their kind, back in the day.  Off the top of my head, only one really springs to memory - Tocasar.  He’s no longer around, he was a walk-in who moved on to his next incarnation, but since then I’ve run into someone who seems to remember similar people and events.  Without having knowledge of Tocosar.   When applied to shifting and present day things, this is why I tweak my discussions of my experiences to fit into a framework some therians are more likely to “get”. But I feel “Guys I’m having a day where I really want to hunt something” is easier for people to relate to than talking about specific old-life memories. Easier, perhaps.  But which has more depth?  Talking about having a day where you really want to hunt something, or talking about memories of hunting something specific - the tactics you used, the tactics the prey used, the feeling as you moved, the landscape around you, the way you finally made the kill or the prey finally escaped?  I’d rather hear about the latter, personally, than about vague feelings of wanting to hunt.  The latter would also offer more opportunities to check what you remember - if your theriotype can be found in an area matching that description, if the prey animal is also found there, if they’re common or even occasional prey for your kintype in nature, if those are actually the tactics your kintype would use, etc.   Otherkin shouldn’t be on otherkin forums because they don’t have past life memories. … Okay, that’s a new one. Out of curiosity, do you apply this to all otherkin? Because I’m interested to know what memories and what input to memory discussions you feel a spider should have. And whether you think them not having a detailed memory about how fun it was to spin webs means they shouldn’t be on forums and should instead be told their experience is like LARPing or creating a fursona. Yes, I do.  Frankly, I find the emphasis on so called mental shifts or phantom shifts to be detrimental to the therian community.  I’d rather hear their memories of being a spider than to hear how they’re just SO therian that they can’t control the instinct to eat flies.  And if we’re about to talk about the size of spider brains and how long they’re likely to retain memories, I trust you’ll realize that we’re already talking about non-biological means of memory storage and retrieval if we’re discussing past lives? Being otherkin is more like being something than being from somewhere. Except, for psychological otherkin, there is no “there” to be from. Mostly because a lot of what makes someone “French” is the culture of France. A lot of what makes someone otherkin is what they are now. There are people with past lives who don’t identify as Whatever They Were because that isn’t what they are now. People in recent times have tried to engage in essay collection about what being otherkin means, as opposed to having been otherkin. What does it feel like to be X, what does it truly mean in one’s day to day life, how does it feel different from not being otherkin, as opposed to discussions about memories. The day I stop feeling like otherkin I will, memories or no memories, cease to be otherkin. The past does not make me otherkin. The present does.   That’s another area where we differ.  I don’t believe there’s a point where I could “cease to be otherkin”.  It’s not something that can be turned on or off for me - it’s something I am.  Full stop.  If I suddenly developed amnesia and lost all of the memories I have recovered I would still be otherkin, whether or not I was involved with the community, just one that would need to reawaken.   As bad as the comparison you’ve chosen is, otherkin to me is more like signing up to chat about being a French person who is now naturalised in another country. Where are you from, what do you miss, what was your childhood like, these are important discussions. But so are questions about how you feel being bilingual, what restaurants do you like here, are there any foods from this new country that remind you of home, how do you express your sense of identity in this environment, how do you feel about the climate and how do you deal with it, do you find it harder to make friends than others and if so how have you gone about finding folks you like. That, to me, is what otherkin is more about, and that’s why there’s plenty for otherkin to discuss even if they don’t have a long list of detailed memories (whether due to not having them or due to those memories simply not ever being likely to exist thanks to their ‘kintype). It’s why a long list of memories is, IMO, not a requirement to be otherkin. Except everything you just described is predicated on there actually being a real objective past to remember.  From what you miss there and what your childhood was like there, to knowing what it feels like to be bilingual in the present or knowing how the climate compares.   I feel I have gained a lot from talking to people with little to no memories, and people who do not share anything like my kintype, and I have gained this without sharing my own memories to any great extent. Not everyone will enjoy such discussions, but plenty of people (clearly) do. I do not participate in sub-forums for memory discussion, but I appreciate the fact that they are there, as for some people talking about their memories is far more of interest than other subjects. I don’t feel like I’ve gained much from talking to those with little to no memories.  At best, they’re up front about not really having much to add.  At worst, they’ll hold up their particular imaginary and often two-dimensional archetype of a particular kintype as the objective standard for real x-nonhuman-critter in the here-and-now and talk in great depth about what it means to live according to that archetype.   Correlation does not equal causation. If psychological otherkin were the only example, no, but I’ve seen the same trends take over the therian community when spiritual therianthropy was replaced by psychological therianthropy.  History is repeating in the two communities.   The majority of people I’ve seen who latch onto bizarrely formed lists or use their being kin as an excuse to act out have been young and/or new, and either leave or mature out of it. I accept that there are bad apples, I just don’t see that they’re worth judging an entire group over. The problem is the person, not the label they’re using. I’ve seen people my age (32) and older doing it, and who have been in the community for quite some time, not just the kids or the newbies.  I believe it’s the mindset itself that is detrimental. The main difference between ‘kin and LARPers/furries is the fact that otherkin do not “adopt” it. They are, and then they recognise what they are. A lot of people would describe “discovering their fursona” in the same way.   The “original” of my system always was the way she is, and one day found that other people were the same way, and that this was called being otherkin. She identifies as psychological kin for the most part. There was no point at her life where she sat down and thought “You know, I think I’ll invent a new species and then identify as it for the forseeable future”. *nods* Does she experience the same type of flashbacks you do? In the same way, as I stated previously, I have had unexpected kinesthetic flashbacks. These were of memories, memories I had never, ever, considered that I might have, let alone should have. Because there was no audio or visual element to what I experienced, it took me a while to recognise, or rather accept, what the flashback even was. I identify mostly as psychological kin. I simply believe that my mind is capable of doing these kinds of things, of fabricating memories, fears, and even mental disorders, sometimes on the spot and without any concious consideration. I admire and respect the power that the mind has, and accept that my experiences likely originate within it. Someone recently mentioned the term “confabulation”, which is essentially false or distorted memories that come about without any intent to lie. LARPers and furries create with intention. Psychological otherkin, for the most part, do not. Except, in actual confabulation - and there have been studies of this - one doesn’t just wake up spontaneously with outlandish memories.  Generally, false memories are of relatively familiar places and events, just mixed up together.  That’s why it’s easy to get someone to remember being lost in a mall - particularly when the described experience includes personal details from family and friends who knew them as a child - or seeing Bugs Bunny at Disneyland but hard to get someone to remember an embarrassing and painful enema that never happened.  Much less memories of an entirely different life as something other than human.  If confabulation were the source of such memories, it wouldn’t be occurring by itself in otherwise healthy individuals - for confabulation of that degree to take place, you’d expect to see disorders on the level of Alzheimers as the cause.  And that would not be an “identity” or the basis for one, it would be a mental disorder. Similar to my experience was the original’s experience of sudden phantom legs. I do not feel too bad about calling this phantom limbs, because this was not by any stretch her simply imagining something. Something in our body’s brain glitches, and she would have fallen if she weren’t next to a handrail to grab. At no point did she consider that this was supposed to happen, or that she wanted it to happen. It simply did, and it thankfully has not repeated itself. So a one-time event becomes the basis for an identity?  Or did the identity exist first and the glitch happen later?  Because there are studies of supernumerary phantom limbs which have been created using techniques as simple as a mirror to reflect an additional arm.  Visualization has a very powerful effect on the mind. Another difference could be considered that unlike furries and LARPers, otherkin do not always consider their identity to be fun, and neither think on it nor “work” on it, as it were. I don’t feel that this is as large of a difference as the previous two stated, though. I see an awful lot of people in the community who do consider their identities fun, and both think on it and “work” on it.  I’ve even run into people who act like they’re having problems with their otherkin forms and ask for help, who later call the whole thing “thought experiments”.  Aka roleplaying.  Though you are right that’s not restricted to just psychological kin.  They have been much more prevalent since the rise of psychological kin, though, and challenges to their behavior are more often met now with “how dare you question someone’s identity??” than during the era of spiritual otherkin. As an aside, I consider myself a furry. I find myself unable to mistake what it’s like to be a furry and what it’s like to be otherkin. The two experiences have been very dissimilar for me. *nods* But at least part of that difference, for you, has been the existence of memories - whether you attribute those memories to past lives or confabulation, no? I’m afraid that if after considering the idea that psychological otherkin have sudden, unwanted, and unwilled experiences, and the fact that there are kintypes which may find it impossible to have any memories at all even if they identify as spiritual, you still feel that psychological otherkin are not otherkin and that memories are a requirement to be useful participants in ther otherkin community, there’s not much else people can likely do. I hope that I have helped to answer some of your questions about psychological otherkin, at the very least. I use too many commas to break up horrendous run-on sentences. I know. I apologise. I can accept that they have sudden, unwanted, and unwilled experiences.  I’m just not convinced that describing those experiences in terms of particular animals or mythological creatures - absent memories of actually being those things, or even belief in their existence in many cases - is at all useful, nor that it is useful for them to join under the umbrella of “otherkin” with the existing spiritual otherkin. What does someone who experiences mental shifts that they describe as a dragon bring to the table for a discussion with someone who has memories of being a dragon?  What can they take away from such discussion, if they believe the latter is deluding themselves?  Where is there actual common ground to build on?  I don’t see it. Likewise, without memories - even if one believes their “soul is a dragon” - what can one bring to the table of an otherkin discussion?  Vague feelings of alienation?  What teenager hasn’t felt that? So one can only be otherkin now if you can “bring something to the table”, preferably only unskeptical magical belief systems?Honestly I don’t think the stuff you’re seeing is due to the “ris ae of psychological otherkin” (most of whom in my experience frequently criticized other otherkin’s beliefs to the point that spiritual otherkin were leaving communities and bitching about it in droves).I think what you are seeing is simply the rise of popularity of otherkin and therians. An influx of new with their own ideas. A lot of the more critical and skeptical otherkin have since left. You know, the ones who would have asked “why do you think you are otherkin.”

jarandhel:

bitches-have-birthdays:

Incoming wall of text. I am very sorry, followers :(

I have “past life memories”, and I have experiences in the present. The latter is much more interesting to me, and mostly what I want to discuss on forums. My memories, although much more than just running around, are in the past. They’re also static, for the most part. A memory of running is a memory of running. Woo. Exciting. I think I’ll discuss it over and over in thread upon thread for the next few decades. Or, you know, not.

See, I don’t find my memories to be “static”.  I’m always finding new pieces, building up a better picture of what happened in the past.  It’s like putting together an incredibly complicated jigsaw puzzle, with time as an factor.  A random flash of memory from years before, just a few seconds long, might one day become the start of something much larger and more complex.  And even still, I’m limited to my t perspective in each life - they need to be placed together with the memories of others to get a better idea of what was going on from a wider standpoint - the “big picture” so to speak.  That’s one of the things that was useful about otherkin lists in the past - finding others who remembered the same people, places, events you did.  Putting things together to understand the cultural contexts, the history, the larger picture.  Even memories of entirely different species who encountered one another.

I Whereas current experiences are something that people often want to know how to deal with, and they are a living, evolving thing. They may feel like getting new ideas for how to indulge their urges constructively. They may be interested in whether other people want to try a group idea they’ve had. It’s not vastly more interesting, but it’s an ongoing thing.

I don’t really see that.  Instead I see things like “what music brings out your inner animal” or “how do you handle car rides, good or bad?” or “how do you EXPRESS your therioside”?  That last one I really hate the most - not everything which is part of your personal identity needs to be “expressed”.  Being bi is part of my identity but I don’t go around “expressing” it.  Most people don’t know unless the subject of relationships/significant others comes up.  Which, frankly, is about a bazillion times more likely than a spontaneous discussion of the nature of your souls OR your psyches.  

Unless someone’s memories are traumatic or they’re continually remembering new material, there isn’t a huge amount to talk about.

In my experience, most people with memories are continually remembering new material.  Not necessarily just from the same life, either.  I know of a couple exceptions, people I’ve been told have run into a mental block concerning their memories, but for the most part the people I knew 14 years ago who were discussing their memories back then are still discussing new stuff now.  

There’s also no remote guarantee that anyone will have anything to say about your memories, or empathise with them in the slightest.

My experience of the community has not shown this to be true.  The majority of people with memories did find others who remembered the same people and events.  I can think of a very small number of people who were the only one of their kind, back in the day.  Off the top of my head, only one really springs to memory - Tocasar.  He’s no longer around, he was a walk-in who moved on to his next incarnation, but since then I’ve run into someone who seems to remember similar people and events.  Without having knowledge of Tocosar.  

When applied to shifting and present day things, this is why I tweak my discussions of my experiences to fit into a framework some therians are more likely to “get”. But I feel “Guys I’m having a day where I really want to hunt something” is easier for people to relate to than talking about specific old-life memories.

Easier, perhaps.  But which has more depth?  Talking about having a day where you really want to hunt something, or talking about memories of hunting something specific - the tactics you used, the tactics the prey used, the feeling as you moved, the landscape around you, the way you finally made the kill or the prey finally escaped?  I’d rather hear about the latter, personally, than about vague feelings of wanting to hunt.  The latter would also offer more opportunities to check what you remember - if your theriotype can be found in an area matching that description, if the prey animal is also found there, if they’re common or even occasional prey for your kintype in nature, if those are actually the tactics your kintype would use, etc.  

Otherkin shouldn’t be on otherkin forums because they don’t have past life memories. … Okay, that’s a new one. Out of curiosity, do you apply this to all otherkin? Because I’m interested to know what memories and what input to memory discussions you feel a spider should have. And whether you think them not having a detailed memory about how fun it was to spin webs means they shouldn’t be on forums and should instead be told their experience is like LARPing or creating a fursona.

Yes, I do.  Frankly, I find the emphasis on so called mental shifts or phantom shifts to be detrimental to the therian community.  I’d rather hear their memories of being a spider than to hear how they’re just SO therian that they can’t control the instinct to eat flies.  And if we’re about to talk about the size of spider brains and how long they’re likely to retain memories, I trust you’ll realize that we’re already talking about non-biological means of memory storage and retrieval if we’re discussing past lives?

Being otherkin is more like being something than being from somewhere.

Except, for psychological otherkin, there is no “there” to be from.

Mostly because a lot of what makes someone “French” is the culture of France. A lot of what makes someone otherkin is what they are now. There are people with past lives who don’t identify as Whatever They Were because that isn’t what they are now. People in recent times have tried to engage in essay collection about what being otherkin means, as opposed to having been otherkin. What does it feel like to be X, what does it truly mean in one’s day to day life, how does it feel different from not being otherkin, as opposed to discussions about memories. The day I stop feeling like otherkin I will, memories or no memories, cease to be otherkin. The past does not make me otherkin. The present does.

  That’s another area where we differ.  I don’t believe there’s a point where I could “cease to be otherkin”.  It’s not something that can be turned on or off for me - it’s something I am.  Full stop.  If I suddenly developed amnesia and lost all of the memories I have recovered I would still be otherkin, whether or not I was involved with the community, just one that would need to reawaken.  

As bad as the comparison you’ve chosen is, otherkin to me is more like signing up to chat about being a French person who is now naturalised in another country. Where are you from, what do you miss, what was your childhood like, these are important discussions. But so are questions about how you feel being bilingual, what restaurants do you like here, are there any foods from this new country that remind you of home, how do you express your sense of identity in this environment, how do you feel about the climate and how do you deal with it, do you find it harder to make friends than others and if so how have you gone about finding folks you like. That, to me, is what otherkin is more about, and that’s why there’s plenty for otherkin to discuss even if they don’t have a long list of detailed memories (whether due to not having them or due to those memories simply not ever being likely to exist thanks to their ‘kintype). It’s why a long list of memories is, IMO, not a requirement to be otherkin.

Except everything you just described is predicated on there actually being a real objective past to remember.  From what you miss there and what your childhood was like there, to knowing what it feels like to be bilingual in the present or knowing how the climate compares.  

I feel I have gained a lot from talking to people with little to no memories, and people who do not share anything like my kintype, and I have gained this without sharing my own memories to any great extent. Not everyone will enjoy such discussions, but plenty of people (clearly) do. I do not participate in sub-forums for memory discussion, but I appreciate the fact that they are there, as for some people talking about their memories is far more of interest than other subjects.

I don’t feel like I’ve gained much from talking to those with little to no memories.  At best, they’re up front about not really having much to add.  At worst, they’ll hold up their particular imaginary and often two-dimensional archetype of a particular kintype as the objective standard for real x-nonhuman-critter in the here-and-now and talk in great depth about what it means to live according to that archetype.  

Correlation does not equal causation.

If psychological otherkin were the only example, no, but I’ve seen the same trends take over the therian community when spiritual therianthropy was replaced by psychological therianthropy.  History is repeating in the two communities.  

The majority of people I’ve seen who latch onto bizarrely formed lists or use their being kin as an excuse to act out have been young and/or new, and either leave or mature out of it. I accept that there are bad apples, I just don’t see that they’re worth judging an entire group over. The problem is the person, not the label they’re using.

I’ve seen people my age (32) and older doing it, and who have been in the community for quite some time, not just the kids or the newbies.  I believe it’s the mindset itself that is detrimental.

The main difference between ‘kin and LARPers/furries is the fact that otherkin do not “adopt” it. They are, and then they recognise what they are.

A lot of people would describe “discovering their fursona” in the same way.  

The “original” of my system always was the way she is, and one day found that other people were the same way, and that this was called being otherkin. She identifies as psychological kin for the most part. There was no point at her life where she sat down and thought “You know, I think I’ll invent a new species and then identify as it for the forseeable future”.

*nods* Does she experience the same type of flashbacks you do?

In the same way, as I stated previously, I have had unexpected kinesthetic flashbacks. These were of memories, memories I had never, ever, considered that I might have, let alone should have. Because there was no audio or visual element to what I experienced, it took me a while to recognise, or rather accept, what the flashback even was. I identify mostly as psychological kin. I simply believe that my mind is capable of doing these kinds of things, of fabricating memories, fears, and even mental disorders, sometimes on the spot and without any concious consideration. I admire and respect the power that the mind has, and accept that my experiences likely originate within it. Someone recently mentioned the term “confabulation”, which is essentially false or distorted memories that come about without any intent to lie. LARPers and furries create with intention. Psychological otherkin, for the most part, do not.

Except, in actual confabulation - and there have been studies of this - one doesn’t just wake up spontaneously with outlandish memories.  Generally, false memories are of relatively familiar places and events, just mixed up together.  That’s why it’s easy to get someone to remember being lost in a mall - particularly when the described experience includes personal details from family and friends who knew them as a child - or seeing Bugs Bunny at Disneyland but hard to get someone to remember an embarrassing and painful enema that never happened.  Much less memories of an entirely different life as something other than human.  If confabulation were the source of such memories, it wouldn’t be occurring by itself in otherwise healthy individuals - for confabulation of that degree to take place, you’d expect to see disorders on the level of Alzheimers as the cause.  And that would not be an “identity” or the basis for one, it would be a mental disorder.

Similar to my experience was the original’s experience of sudden phantom legs. I do not feel too bad about calling this phantom limbs, because this was not by any stretch her simply imagining something. Something in our body’s brain glitches, and she would have fallen if she weren’t next to a handrail to grab. At no point did she consider that this was supposed to happen, or that she wanted it to happen. It simply did, and it thankfully has not repeated itself.

So a one-time event becomes the basis for an identity?  Or did the identity exist first and the glitch happen later?  Because there are studies of supernumerary phantom limbs which have been created using techniques as simple as a mirror to reflect an additional arm.  Visualization has a very powerful effect on the mind.

Another difference could be considered that unlike furries and LARPers, otherkin do not always consider their identity to be fun, and neither think on it nor “work” on it, as it were. I don’t feel that this is as large of a difference as the previous two stated, though.

I see an awful lot of people in the community who do consider their identities fun, and both think on it and “work” on it.  I’ve even run into people who act like they’re having problems with their otherkin forms and ask for help, who later call the whole thing “thought experiments”.  Aka roleplaying.  Though you are right that’s not restricted to just psychological kin.  They have been much more prevalent since the rise of psychological kin, though, and challenges to their behavior are more often met now with “how dare you question someone’s identity??” than during the era of spiritual otherkin.

As an aside, I consider myself a furry. I find myself unable to mistake what it’s like to be a furry and what it’s like to be otherkin. The two experiences have been very dissimilar for me.

*nods* But at least part of that difference, for you, has been the existence of memories - whether you attribute those memories to past lives or confabulation, no?

I’m afraid that if after considering the idea that psychological otherkin have sudden, unwanted, and unwilled experiences, and the fact that there are kintypes which may find it impossible to have any memories at all even if they identify as spiritual, you still feel that psychological otherkin are not otherkin and that memories are a requirement to be useful participants in ther otherkin community, there’s not much else people can likely do. I hope that I have helped to answer some of your questions about psychological otherkin, at the very least.

I use too many commas to break up horrendous run-on sentences. I know. I apologise.

I can accept that they have sudden, unwanted, and unwilled experiences.  I’m just not convinced that describing those experiences in terms of particular animals or mythological creatures - absent memories of actually being those things, or even belief in their existence in many cases - is at all useful, nor that it is useful for them to join under the umbrella of “otherkin” with the existing spiritual otherkin.

What does someone who experiences mental shifts that they describe as a dragon bring to the table for a discussion with someone who has memories of being a dragon?  What can they take away from such discussion, if they believe the latter is deluding themselves?  Where is there actual common ground to build on?  I don’t see it.

Likewise, without memories - even if one believes their “soul is a dragon” - what can one bring to the table of an otherkin discussion?  Vague feelings of alienation?  What teenager hasn’t felt that?

So one can only be otherkin now if you can “bring something to the table”, preferably only unskeptical magical belief systems?

Honestly I don’t think the stuff you’re seeing is due to the “ris ae of psychological otherkin” (most of whom in my experience frequently criticized other otherkin’s beliefs to the point that spiritual otherkin were leaving communities and bitching about it in droves).

I think what you are seeing is simply the rise of popularity of otherkin and therians. An influx of new with their own ideas. A lot of the more critical and skeptical otherkin have since left. You know, the ones who would have asked “why do you think you are otherkin.”

Reblogged 1 week ago from jarandhel (Originally from jarandhel)
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Untitled: Outdatedkin? »

etath:

In my first post on Tumblr, I ought to mention that I am a very busy person. With my duties and my projects I am rarely given time to write deep and reflected writings that are not documentation of whatever I have been working with. I used to be fairly active in the dragonkin community from 1999,…

In my experience many many of the older members sort of drop off the Internet whether they become “ex” kin or not. They’re tired of all the “what color were your scales” posts, etc. So maybe they just hang with the friends they accumulated but don’t post so much to forums or about otherkin experiences anymore. I know some who have almost entirely only IRL interactions.

I feel the intersection of furry and otherkin is just an artifact of wider exposure of both the otherkin and furry concepts, and for many otherkin who wish to “act out” their kin type socially it is one of the few acceptable venues.

I don’t let it bother me. I once had a labelling crisis but, it became less important over time.

Som

Reblogged 1 week ago from etath
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Tagged: otherkin, .

What does being otherkin mean to you, personally?

Posted 1 month ago
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