Welcome to Gaia! ::

I'm a fairy! *prances off in pink dress with rainbows and flowers about* (gay joke...)

Again, thanks for the griffon info a while back gyver, lol.

hehe I still call myself otherkin even though in the realms I look human ^_^

Yeah pretty much only subspecies exist... There are of cource some pure bloods left. They are way more rare though then dragons and I believe more rare then phoenix's. Phoenix's of cource being more rare then dragons only peraps 1000 or so pure blooded phonix's in existance and lets say a couple thousand dragons. Of cource that isn't taking into account subspecies and mixes of either.

Then there is of cource the rareity of certain clans of each and how certain clans have died out... Leaving perhaps one or two in existance of certain subspecies...

To be honest, I see little evidence to validate the claims of Otherkin and/or Therians.

I'm just saying it as a general statement. lol It wasn't directed at any particular person.

The basic reasoning I have heard for Otherkin:

- Astral self
- Phantom limbs
- Past life "memories"
- Does not feel "right"

Astral self: From what I've always been told (Granted, I haven't really taken time to try and project however.) you can make your astral self whatever the hell you want. I imagine that on the astral plane, altering your astral self would take minimal effort and could probably be done subconciously.

Phantom limbs: Simply knowing how muscles feel when they move, I can imagine wings on my back, the movement of a tail, and a longer neck than I have. lol

Past life "memories": Dreams, wishful thinking, self induced delusions. Take your pick. I don't know about you, but I can influence my dreaming so far as to actually pick what I dream about. Well, at least I could, but that's another story. lol

- Assuming they're actual memories: I would go with the Hindu or Buddhist version of reincarnation. You have a soul. It's not a human soul, it's not an animal soul, it's sure as hell not a dragon soul. It's just a soul. So yes, perhaps you remember a past life incarnated as a racoon or something, however that doesn't mean you have a "raccoon soul". It just means you were a total jackass in a past life and Karma knocked you down a few pegs.

Does not feel "right": Some people just don't fit in socially. Rather than accept it and either work to fix it or just not care, they try to rationalize it. Pairing this with teenage identity crises that run rampant in the youth of the world, it's not improbable that when rationalizing they'd try to pick a reason that makes them "special" or "unique". I really see it as little different than the vast majority of teen goths, emos, Satanists, Wiccans, anarchists, and various other things associated with angst induced "rebellion".

The best part? Nobody can really invalidate your claims. You can't prove or disprove that you're an Otherkin or even that Otherkin exist at all (No, this quote doesn't bite me in the a**. I already realize I can't disprove it.). Thus you can make all the claims you want. Who is to tell you that you're wrong? So they indulge you. Before long you may even alter your self perception and reality so that you truly, truly believe it. It's not that hard to do, I've made up lies that later got mixed with reality before.

In general, I just consider the idea of Otherkin as self deceitful and wishful thinking for a select group of people. Like I said, I can't prove that I'm right or that anyone else is wrong and am not looking to create a war over this. Just in case anyone reads this and is spoiling for a fight...

Most religious things can't be proven or disproven, that's what seperates them from scientific facts. For instance, I say there's a flying pink and purple spotted leprachaun that rules the earth and created everything as we know it. You say, "where is he."
I say, "he is everywhere and nowhere at once, he is everything and nothinng."
you say, "prove it"
I say, "he transcends mortal knowledge, it's impossible."

Same basic argument, but this one doesn't force its beliefs on others.(except my brother who is adamant that I'm elfkin for some reason)

That's not really some great angle to this belief system from what I see, it's just religion. I gave up on faith years ago, though.

So, if you were supposed to drop the burdens of your past life, why should you go back to carrying them?

My main thorn with Otherkin and the like is that a large number of people who believe they are insert creature here are "trapped" within a human body. In my perspective, you are not put into a form willy-nilly (of course, I consider there to be purpose to life; this would not hold if one sees the universe as being simply there). You have a body for a reason. Perhaps you are supposed to do something for the species you are in, or you are supposed to learn a certain lesson. Perhaps, if it is a lesson to learn, it is to learn how to deal with your past life experiences while in a different form. I am fairly irritated by the individuals who cling to their past life forms and, essentially, go wacko over it. This is not to say that I see everyone who calls themself Otherkin to be crazy; people could see my Eclectic Pagan path as nuts and not reconciable.

The smaller issues I have are the fantastic elements and inability to reasonably support them. I can believe that, out in the universe, there may very well be dragons, elves, and fairies. These could very well be eretheral creatures that people are able to interact with on this planet. But because these things are found within our myths, I do not see much credit in them. It could be considered that, because these figures occur within our mythologies, that it is reasonable, that the peoples that wrote the myths were interpreting information from their past lives. However, and anthropologists note this, many of the ancient creatures were exaggerations of known creatures, or, such as in the case of the Chimera, were made up of parts of creatures, and these beings represented concepts within the culture.

Further, humans have the ality to psyche themselves out to an incredible degree. While I see the parallel between Otherkin and transvestites, which have a form that can be percieved in the shared reality, I also see a parallel between them and hypocondriacs. The second group, through some way, beleive so strongly that they are sick that they do start showing symptoms of the disease they believe they are carrying. It could be said, then, in the case of phantom limbs, that a person may start to believe so strongly that they are supposed to have a tail or ears that they start to experience the missing limb sensation.

So, why would someone have an affinity to a creature? The factors could either lie in development or, oddly enough, past lives. In the first case, someone may be exposed to a strong connection with a concept or creature when they are younger. The extreme of this is seem with feral children, who are abandoned by their parents and (in some instances) raised by animals. Feral children are not only known to act and believe that they are an animal or the like, but it has been documented. In the second instance, it is possible that a strong connection between a creature/concept was developed in a past life that the incomplete transfer of information may confuse the current life. Now, I need to cross-reference my information, but this was the circumstance persented to me. I have cat-like tendencies, features and attitudes; my mother even dreamed that she was giving birth to a kitten rather than a baby. When I referred to a psychic, they put forth that I was not actually a cat, but I had been, essentially, a crazy cat lady in a past life. I looked to my cats for comfort and strength, and just as we may emulate those we look up to, I may have well emulated my cats.

Finally, on the note that the souls are those from creatures somewhere in space... I have yet to meet someone who's claimed to be a slime-slug or a galatic roach. The creatures I am presented with are all majestic, graceful, or in some way attractive to the human mind. I find this very odd, considering we're supposed to be recieving souls from the universe, which is immeasureable.