Otherkin News

Briefly, some news of interest to otherkin from 2015 that I haven't previously reported on this blog. In chronological order:

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I have an idea for how I could run this blog in a way that I hope would be efficient enough to be manageable. I could post to our Twitter about news articles as soon as I find them. Then, at the end of each month, I could post a digest to here and to our Tumblr. It would just be a collection of headlines, links, and brief summaries, rather than whole articles of original writing with complete citations. What do you think?

As always, there's a lot of news out there and I can't do this alone, so anyone who can help out by posting news links in this blog as they find them would be very much appreciated.

Content warnings: None.

September: The Silver Elves are a family of elf otherkin, formed in the 1970s. They published their second handbook for using Tarot cards. The new book is The Voice of Faerie: Making any Tarot Deck into an Elven Oracle. See their web-site for an excerpt.

Sources

The Silver Elves, "The Voice of Faerie: Making Any Tarot Deck Into an Elven Oracle." 2013-09-16. The Silver Elves (blog). http://silverelves.wordpress.com/2013/09/16/the-voice-of-faerie-making-any-tarot-deck-into-an-elven-oracle/

The Silver Elves, "The Voice of Faerie: Making Any Tarot Deck Into an Elven Oracle." 2013-09. Elves in Paradise (personal web-site). http://silverelves.angelfire.com/HAvoicefaerie.html

Content warnings: spooky creatures.

A cryptozoologist named Ken Gerhard published a non-fiction book about a certain category of sightings. It's Encounters with Flying Humanoids: Mothman, Manbirds, Gargoyles & Other Winged Beasts. As his colleague Nick Redfern remarked, "this is a topic that is very rarely covered in full-length book form."

Trigger warnings: Publicity.


Last April: Jay Johnston mentions otherkin in another book. It's in the book Religion and the Subtle Body in Asia and the West: Between Mind and Body. The mention is on page 189 (as well as citing Lupa's A Field Guide to Otherkin for that on page 190). A bio at the beginning of Religion and the Subtle Body says that Johnston’s "current scholarly obsessions include trans-species subcultures (especially Otherkin)" (p. xi).

Too little of the relevant passages are visible through Google Books for me to see what the chapter is titled. Gentle reader, if you would please help me out with getting the details on this one, I would appreciate it.



Source

Geoffrey Samuel and Jay Johnston, eds., Religion and the Subtle Body in Asia and the West: Between Mind and Body. New York: Routledge, 2013.

Trigger warnings: None.

Last May, in the Beyond Awakening blog for otherkin: a therianthrope/otherkin named Meirya rounded up a list of otherkin and therian projects that are calling for submissions. In short, this includes:

- Under the skin: Therian community voices, an anthology of short writings about being an animal person.
- Radiant obscurities, an anthology of writings about uncommon types of therianthropes and otherkin.
- The 2013 Therian Census, collecting demographic information about therianthropes.
- Project Shift, an informational site about therianthropy.
- Birds of a Feather, an anthology of writings about identifying as a bird or bird-like creature.

For more details on each project, and how to submit your work to it, see Meirya's post.



Source

Meirya, "Calls for submissions." Beyond Awakening. 2013-05-30. http://thehornedgate.wordpress.com/2013/05/30/cfs/

Summary: News from 2012 regarding topics of interest to otherkin and therianthropes (therians), including: a new study on clinical lycanthropy, an anthology of non-supernatural otherkin and therian romantic fiction, a survey of therians and furries, a Tarot deck for people who were extraterrestrials in past lives, a therian-inspired art exhibit, advances in the technology of wearable animal ears, other transhuman innovations, and the death of Stalking Cat.

Trigger warnings: mental illness, death.

2012-01. A new academic article about clinical lycanthropy was published in The Journal of Psychiatric Practice, focusing on the case study of Ms. A., 47, who believed herself to be a snake.¹ The syndrome of lycanthropy recognized in psychiatry has some traits in common with spiritual therianthropy as discussed in the therianthrope community, in that the subject believes himself or herself to be or become an animal. The syndrome itself isn’t a mental illness, and doesn’t consistently correlate with any specific mental illnesses. Clinical lycanthropy is distinguished by delusions of physical transformation, and presence of other mental illnesses; all but one case of clinical lycanthropy have quickly responded to treatment. People in the therianthrope community, on the other hand, generally don’t believe they physically transform. The new article itself is behind a pay-wall. You can get the gist of the article through an irreverent informal commentary on it in the Neurotic Physiology blog.²

2012-09. Good Mourning Publishing is working on assembling an anthology of short romantic fiction titled Shifting Hearts, "in which at least one of the love interests is Otherkin/Therian. Any identification of otherkin or therian is accepted. No vampires, p-shifting, or paranormal themes; strictly real world depictions. […] The submission deadline is December 31, 2012."³ To my knowledge, this is the first book of its kind. Personally, I’ve heard rumors that a member of the therianthrope community is writing the preface for it; is there a public post by the person in question to confirm this rumor?

2012-09-05. A multidisciplinary team of scientists (sociologists, anthropologists, and social psychologists) called the Anthropomorphic Research Project (ARP) released results for its surveys of furries, bronies (fans of My Little Pony), and therianthropes.⁴

2012-09-05. An interview with Patricia Cori, co-author (with Alysa Bartha) of the Sirian Starseed Tarot. In the interview, Cori said she intended the oracle deck as a tool for “starseed awakening,” to assist the “the starseed [extraterrestrial] beings currently incarnated [in human bodies] on the planet, here to assist in the great transition that we all are beginning to recognize is well underway. […] In the generations of children since the 60’s, I believe, many very special souls are coming into the life experience highly conscious, with many gifts. They are starseeds from other planets and systems that are quite possibly more evolved than ours.”⁵ The starseed community has been active for several decades, but their community remains separate from the otherkin and therianthrope communities.

2012-09-11. Valerie Daval’s art exhibition of paintings inspired by therianthropes, featuring animal-themed reinterpretations of classic paintings. “Therians believe that while they have a human body, some important part of their mind, identity or spirit is that of an animal. […] Therians Dream is a series of portraits about metamorphosis between human and animal form.”⁶ Caution: the linked page includes artistic nudity.

2012-10. Following the release of Necomimi, the wearable cat-like biofeedback ears by Neurowear, an independent business emerged, called Emoki, offering diverse modifications built upon that hardware. Emoki offers the Necomimi headset, plus their own variety of interchangeable animal ears: bunny, bear, and fox, with more to come soon.⁷

2012-10. Transhuman week on Wired magazine, featuring the latest experiments and predictions about high-tech enhancement of the human body and mind. Trigger warnings: surgery, physical injuries particularly to eyes and extremities, vivid descriptions and photos thereof.

2012-11-05. Stalking Cat, 54, died. Famous for modifying his body to resemble a tiger, which he called his totem animal, Stalking Cat was active in the furry community,⁸ but I haven’t found evidence that he was active in the otherkin or therianthrope communities.


- O. Scribner

( Sources )

Trigger warnings: violence, crime, trolling (harassment). Not described in graphic detail.

The following post uses excerpts from my newly updated free e-book, Otherkin Timeline, as well as excerpts from earlier posts on Otherkin News. This isn't a complete overview of everything on Otherkin News in 2011, just a selection of relatively significant events. During the latter half of this year, I became very active with researching current events in or related to the otherkin community, and began posting regularly to the Otherkin News blog. As a result, I have more information about events during the latter half of 2011 than the early half. Would you please help fill in some events from the first half of 2011?

During this year, an otherkin community blossomed on the blog-hosting site Tumblr.com. This includes the creation of a blog called ’Kin Speak, which people can post to anonymously. In the last couple of months of the year, the otherkin community on Tumblr came to be frequently vandalized and trolled (harassed), but the otherkin there didn't falter in their high level of activity. Meirya wrote about how the otherkin community on Tumblr differs from any before.

2011-01: Someone claiming to be from a casting department spammed the otherkin and therian forums to search for someone to interview for a purported documentary TV show about otherkin that would air on the Animal Planet channel. So far, nothing has come of it, but members of the WereList forums are researching it, with trigger warnings for that link: adult topics. Currently, it looks like it's a genuine casting call, not a phishing scam, but the show would also feature some adult topics.

2011-08-14: The first annual Mer-Con 2011, the world’s largest mermaid convention. Some of the attending self-proclaimed mer-people described a lifelong desire to become real mer-people, or assert that they are now real mer-people. Recently, a participant called Mermaid Shelley reflected on this and other events in the mermaid community during 2011. The mermaid community isn’t connected with the otherkin or therian communities, and is news to me and to the rest of the otherkin I've talked to.

2011-08-13?: A vampire crime. Lyle Monroe B., 19, broke into a stranger's apartment and injured the woman living there, and then told the police that he was a 500 year old vampire, but denied it later, claiming that he’d been under the influence of a drug. I haven’t found any follow-up articles explaining what the authorities concluded about him.

2011-08-29: Media. A polite article introducing otherkin to outsiders is published in a Polish-language women’s online magazine, We-Dwoje, which is otherwise mostly about fashion and health. The article is “Otherkin – a quirk, or a fantastic way to live?”

2011-09: A vampire/werewolf crime. Stephanie P., 18, was charged with accessory to the murder of Jacob H., 16 in July. One of six suspects for involvement in the murder, Stephanie told the news station that she believes herself to be part vampire and part werewolf. Later, she was ruled mentally unfit to stand trial. For a collection of all news articles on this topic, see the Atlanta Vampire Alliance (AVA) Media Center forums, with trigger warnings for what the articles describe: murder, rape, violence, blood-drinking, teenagers in a cult, animal sacrifice, some of which is described in graphic detail.

2011-10-04: Media. On Sweden’s channel 5, a TV series titled Outsiders aired an episode about the furry fandom. This includes at least one furry fan who is also a therian. Later, in acknowledgment of this episode, a newspaper editor publicly blogged a joke about killing a child who comes out as trans-species.

2011-11-13: Media. A TV documentary airs on Channel 4 about the Crimson Blood Wolf Pack in Texas, some of whom identify as werewolves, some as vampires. Soon, the vampire community condemned it for showing unsanitary and dangerous blood-drinking practices.

2011-11-17: An early group of elf people called the Silver Elves return one of their books to print: An Elfin Book of Spirits: Evoking the Beneficent Powers of Faerie.

2011-12-05: Ashlyn Nafina prints To Dream, Perchance to Soar, an urban fantasy novel with intentional themes of the otherkin experience.

2011-12-20: The Forest Voice, an independent magazine “for those among us who are nonhuman in nature,” releases its first issue.

- O. Scribner

Trigger warnings: occult.

November 17, 2011. The Silver Elves are a family of elf otherkin. They are one of the earliest known groups of otherkin, having considered themselves elves since 1975. The Silver Elves have now returned another of their books to print. The book is An Elfin Book of Spirits: Evoking the Beneficent Powers of Faerie, offering instructions in a spiritual practice of the authors’ own design. From the book's description:

“An Elfin Book of Spirits contains the sigil and description of 360 spirits, one for each degree of the Zodiac, that can be summoned by evocation to help the magician with whatever he or she desires. It also reveals a system for using stones to find a spirit at random, which is what the authors most often do when seeking the aide of a spirit. These are Elfin spirits, so they command the powers and influences of Faerie and in addition to helping the conjuror fulfill his/her Will, they will also ever seek to guide the magician to the fulfillment of her/his Destiny and the progress toward the perfection of his/her True S’elf.”