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This thread isn't meant to be offensive; I'm actually hoping some people could provide some useful feedback with this issue. Otherkin is a concept I have trouble wrapping my head around, probably because of how I tend to view spirits and souls as well as my rejection of the Great Divide (see below). Also a factor is consequences: how any belief can affect one's self-appraisal.

Often in discussions of otherkin, there's talk of "human souls" and "animal souls." This talk distresses me. I have this strong gut feeling that a soul is a soul is a soul. There's no "human" soul anymore than there's any "animal" soul. Souls are just souls. They don't have any tag-marker on them that sets their identity based on their physical shells. They're just souls. The concept just fundamentally doesn't make sense to me. At all. What makes more sense to me, is that otherkin are simply individuals who have a strong connection to nonhuman creatures. That doesn't make their soul "animal" in my mind.

Perhaps part of what I dislike about the concept of otherkin is that it furthers the alleged Great Divide that exists between humans and nonhuman animals. It doesn't exist. It scientifically doesn't exist. So why are people perpetuating it with spirits and souls as well? It irks me, I guess. Humans ARE animals. On the majority of levels, we're not that different from them at all. Why set up another "us" versus "them" group that's a breeding ground for disagreement and misunderstanding? Souls are souls are souls.

I won't get into the self-appraisal consequences right now, save that the fundamental question it asks is "Why do you believe this?"

Ahahaha.

I always saw Vampires as part of otherkin.

That's another thing that could be talked about forever. I think one needs to look at the person's behavior. Do they use their otherkinism as an excuse for their shortcomings? Stuff like that. Again, there is no cut and dry method of evaluating people, especially on the Internet.

1.) I'm not sure of much of the theory behind otherkin. I've simply come to accept who and what I am. With all the talk of "animal", it makes it sounds like only weres are covered in this thread. There's more than just them, though there are a lot of 'em. (Whole guild, in fact.)

2.) As for the justification of shortcomings, it was this otherkin side of me that helped me to realize a shortcoming of mine that I am working to deal with. It didn't justify it but brought it to my attention.

3.) Koemiko, your avatar is pretty nifty. 4laugh

It makes sense to me. How many people subscribe to that view is a different story.

my way of thinking and many of my friend's ways of thinking, is that the otherkin's feelings in their souls and astrals are echos of what was. but then there is a lot of evidence that that couldnt be true... but still...

*hums talk by coldplay*

there is speculation to certain aspects of this, as to if the souls are recycled, then all otherkin are supposedly telling the truth or something very close to it.

That's... slightly.... confusing....
But I really want you to explain that further for me, I'm interested now. I want to understand your beliefs on this.

Anywho, I had a thought. What if I person that memories of being an animal in a past life, but considering it's an animal, these memories form differently than a human's would. Animal memories would hold more raw emotion and earthly connection to the simple things around it. Or at least, I would think it would. So they miss that feeling and long to be that animal again. So they become re-attached to those feelings and feel that is what they are SUPPOSED to be and thus believe it must be in their soul. When the whole time they were just nostalgic.

That's possible. But I am not one who believes in this "Great Divide" between humans and nonhuman animals. Scientifically, it doesn't exist, and its idea has been perpetuated by outdated Western philosophies going back centuries before the advent of science. The idea of this great barrier of difference between humans and nonhuman animals is more religious than scientific. So I suppose I'm disputing the exact nature of the memory differences. I think, aside from the past two centuries (ie, post industrialism), nonhuman animal memory would NOT hold more raw emotion and earthy connection. It is only more recently that Westerners have become so caught up in their metal and glass skyscrapers and jobs that they barely acknowledge the sun rising and setting everyday. For the majority of human history, we were all Pagans, and that means reverence and respect for nature. Perhaps what is *really* happening here, is a basal desire to return to a more "natural" state? (shrugs)

As for detailing the theories on souls I have... (sighs) it IS complicated, but using a system of metaphors I'll try to make it brief yet understandable.

Picture a soul like a line (now, it isn't really a line, but let's just follow the metaphor from the begining first). It's a line without a begining or end, or, if you prefer, it is a line which forms a circle. But to keep it simpler, just worry about the infinte line, not the circle. Every little point on this soul line is a moment in time. And at every little point on this line, everything that occured within the existence of this soul is recorded. In a sense, every point on the line is like an expandable flippy-triangle that contains immense amounts of data. So then, this "line" isn't really a line, but a single line with an infinate number of lines coming off it. To make it MORE complicated, within each of the lines that represent every moment of time, are MORE expandable flippy-triangles that contain more specific information about that moment in time. Lines coming off lines coming off lines... etc. And this goes on and on to infinity. That's the basic model.

The key is, that this web of data which is the soul has data overlaps with OTHER soul lines. In short, two soul lines can have similar threads of data describing the same things and sittuations. These overlaping data threads are not DUPLICATES, but the SAME thread line. In other words, a particular set of data can only exist once, so those souls that share this data in essence share a connection to each other. These are places where the two souls interacted in some way, either on a physical plane or elsewhere. They are also the places where soulbonds are made. The more data overlaps there are, the greater the two souls are intertwined and the stronger the soulbond is.

From this model, otherkin are not "humans with animal souls" but something more like "humans that have shared experiences similar to those of animals." And given what I've said above about the vast similarities between humans and nonhuman animals, this is actually very common. For starters, we all life on planet Earth. That alone creates huge zones of shared data strings. Then if you add to that knowledge about nonhuman animals, nature, and a dose of empathy, you get more shared data strings and a stronger soulbond.

So, this sort of thing integrates both ideas Joshua noted. The soul line is BOTH a collection of memories, experiences, and characteristics as WELL as fundamentally indestructable. The soul line, as mentioned, has no begining or end and has, essentially, always existed (of course if you get into the circular model, the conclusion is a bit different, but I'm going to keep to the linear model for now). Really, though, one almost shouldn't be talking at ALL about souls as "lines" for as alluded to above, there so interconencted and overlapping that they're really just one big unified blob. You could compare this to the Hindu Brahma, I suppose, except in Hinduisn the starting point is that you're seperate from the "world soul" and in this model, you never were seperate from it to begin with.

But the whole unity-multiplicity thing is... not going to be discussed now. whee