Response to rubycona
rubycona made a post today that I'd like to address. However, since it's not clear how much of the entry is in her words (I think she might be quoting lupabitch's book when she gives her example) and I'd like the right people to read my response; since my response is likely to be rather long, and since I'll get lots of extra attention this way (:P), I decided to make a separate post rather than a comment.
rubycona or lupabitch wrote:
Fact is, this person was actually having conflict with hir nature, dealing with the inherent conflict between good and evil that goes on within all of us. Claiming that angelic/demonic heritage simply validated hir, making hir believe that there could be no conclusion to this battle, since it was hir nature. Choosing to believe that s/he was otherkin actually slowed hir mental and emotional healing process.
Hold up. Did it slow this person's healing process? Did you compare a sample of otherkin going through this with a sample of non-otherkin experiencing similar things? How strong was the statistical correlation? You're making some pretty big assumptions here, which - though they seem to be commonsense - may not actually be true.
For example, what would Jung say about this? It's pretty clear that in the first place he would regard the otherkin condition as a case of archetypal overshadowing or possession. When do such overshadowings tend to occur? Precisely at those times when one is being forced to deal with potent and sometimes repressed psychic contents. From a Jungian point of view,* it is quite possible that this person's beliefs actually helped them come to equilibrium: it gave them a frame of reference in which to understand what they were going through, and when they were finished going through it they moved on.
Of course, this raises a somewhat disturbing (to otherkin) question: are longer-term (or "permanent") otherkin missing the point? Are they clinging to their identities long after they've become useless, long after the psychic irruptions that sparked them have faded away? Of course many 'kin will jump up and say "Well, no! My case is different, because I'm actually a pixie dragon." But hey, think about it: I've seen, and I'm sure you've seen, a lot of well-respected members of the otherkin community who are obviously locked into a quite rigid set of behaviours and ideas, all centred around their otherkin identity. These otherkin (the reader not included, of course) react violently against anything which calls their beliefs into question. And it's understandable why that would be the case: after having made the initial jump of irrationality into the contents of the unconscious, and after having landed, to their surprise, in a warm and welcoming community, most otherkin aren't going to be too keen to give up what they've found and make the leap again.
Don't get me wrong: this really isn't so terrible. It's just another kind of ego; and everyone's got an ego, so no big deal. But I do think that recognizing it as such may be an important step for the otherkin community to take. Having realized this, inevitably there will be some otherkin who will try to get past the ego, in any one of the usual methods. This need not spell the end of otherkin; indeed, the experiences of these daring individuals could ultimately add new mystic depths to the otherkin mythos and praxis.
*Jung was not the only psychologist to suggest this: R.D. Laing, for example, saw schizophrenia (of which archetypal overshadowing is often a symptom) as a healing process which was ineffective only because we stick schizophrenics in mental institutions and/or drug the hell out of them. Many transpersonal psychologists also hold similar views.
rubycona or lupabitch wrote:
Fact is, this person was actually having conflict with hir nature, dealing with the inherent conflict between good and evil that goes on within all of us. Claiming that angelic/demonic heritage simply validated hir, making hir believe that there could be no conclusion to this battle, since it was hir nature. Choosing to believe that s/he was otherkin actually slowed hir mental and emotional healing process.
Hold up. Did it slow this person's healing process? Did you compare a sample of otherkin going through this with a sample of non-otherkin experiencing similar things? How strong was the statistical correlation? You're making some pretty big assumptions here, which - though they seem to be commonsense - may not actually be true.
For example, what would Jung say about this? It's pretty clear that in the first place he would regard the otherkin condition as a case of archetypal overshadowing or possession. When do such overshadowings tend to occur? Precisely at those times when one is being forced to deal with potent and sometimes repressed psychic contents. From a Jungian point of view,* it is quite possible that this person's beliefs actually helped them come to equilibrium: it gave them a frame of reference in which to understand what they were going through, and when they were finished going through it they moved on.
Of course, this raises a somewhat disturbing (to otherkin) question: are longer-term (or "permanent") otherkin missing the point? Are they clinging to their identities long after they've become useless, long after the psychic irruptions that sparked them have faded away? Of course many 'kin will jump up and say "Well, no! My case is different, because I'm actually a pixie dragon." But hey, think about it: I've seen, and I'm sure you've seen, a lot of well-respected members of the otherkin community who are obviously locked into a quite rigid set of behaviours and ideas, all centred around their otherkin identity. These otherkin (the reader not included, of course) react violently against anything which calls their beliefs into question. And it's understandable why that would be the case: after having made the initial jump of irrationality into the contents of the unconscious, and after having landed, to their surprise, in a warm and welcoming community, most otherkin aren't going to be too keen to give up what they've found and make the leap again.
Don't get me wrong: this really isn't so terrible. It's just another kind of ego; and everyone's got an ego, so no big deal. But I do think that recognizing it as such may be an important step for the otherkin community to take. Having realized this, inevitably there will be some otherkin who will try to get past the ego, in any one of the usual methods. This need not spell the end of otherkin; indeed, the experiences of these daring individuals could ultimately add new mystic depths to the otherkin mythos and praxis.
*Jung was not the only psychologist to suggest this: R.D. Laing, for example, saw schizophrenia (of which archetypal overshadowing is often a symptom) as a healing process which was ineffective only because we stick schizophrenics in mental institutions and/or drug the hell out of them. Many transpersonal psychologists also hold similar views.