Sevenfold Silence

Yes, there's cultish behavior in otherkin. I worry about some groups and some people, including some I know.

It is never too late to take a good hard look at the communities you hang out in, and the Bonewits Cult Danger Evaluation Frame, and see what parallels you can draw.

Manipulation is manipulation. Abuse is abuse. It doesn't matter if it's an otherkin doing it. It doesn't matter if they're saying they're your friend, or your buddy in a past life, or that they like you a whole hell of a lot, or that if this group goes under there's nothing.

There's always more. There are always other groups. If need be, go out and make them. Don't put up with dangerous people and dangerous groups.

(cue music and title card: "the more you knoooooow")

I don't 'get' a lot of the hatred and belittling of humans in the otherkin community.

First, I find a lot of the words thrown around to describe vanilla, white-bread, non-otherkin humans to be anywhere between ridiculous to useless to offensive. Muggles--really? You're a Harry Potter character now? Mundanes--are they really that boring? Even the pagans and the wild mystic dreamers? Hoomans--yeah, because you're just mispronouncing a word to refer to a group, one they use for themselves, no less. You're just playing with words. How could that possibly be construed as offensive?

In its worst forms, it honestly pisses me off--pointing out genuine differences isn't awful, but racism, no matter in what direction, no matter who against, is stupid. Why won't the word "non-otherkin" suffice? Why are we so interested in inventing a new and very literally racist slur?

Whether or not you like it, you are, at least--gasp--at the very least primarily biologically human. (You may have dragon blood, but you are almost certainly still a matter of the human race for any practical purposes.) Non-otherkin may be frustrating, they may be short-sighted, but they can also be patently amazing. They make beautiful art and perform amazing acts of lovingkindness. (The great human artists and thinkers may have been startouched and wild, but they're also just that--HUMAN artists and thinkers.)

Are we really so pessimistic that we throw out the baby with the bathwater? Are we so desperate to get in touch with our 'kin sides that we abandon our human sides? (Superficially, that is. The people saying these things still seem to have electricity, computers, and internet connections, so apparently humans don't suck that much.)

Do we hate ourselves so much that we cannot look in the mirror and admit that while we're strangers in a strange land, while we may be different, we still have some part of us--even if it's a superficial biological part, or a societal part--that's human?

One of the big "tipoffs" to being otherkin is supposed to be a particular sensitivity to and ability to manipulate raw magical energy. They don't need complex symbol sets or firm rituals to affect the world magically, in other words; their magic is intuitive and flowing. I get the impression that otherkin I class as 'fey', like fae and elves, are supposed to do this particularly well.

I'm fey and I don't. There are magical things that I do well--like astral travel, possession, and general work with entities--that I attribute at least partially to the fact that I'm otherkin. But pure energy work--particularly outside the confines of my own aura and self--is very hard to me. I have reason to believe it's because I shield myself heavily and unwittingly, and I've been working to knock those psychic barriers down, with some success. But I wouldn't pretend I'm anywhere near adept with this work yet, or that I have any natural talent for it.

So no, I don't think it's a good idea to make generalizations, like that all otherkin are prodigies with energy. Lots of otherkin aren't--maybe we shield ourselves off unconsciously, like I do. Hell, some of us don't even believe in energy--it's not intrinsic to most of the definitions of otherkin I've seen.

Not every fairy has the potential (or desire) to be a Reiki master. Nor are all Reiki masters fairies--or even most of them. To imply otherwise is to make yourself sound like Doreen Virtue, claiming that angelics get into abusive relationships more than regular people. It seems to me like a silly, broad-brush generalization, and another means by which to play "kinner-than-thou" games.

Just because you may or may not be able to do energy work easily doesn't say anything about the status of your soul. Correlation does not equal a direct correlation, much less causation.