Reposting this because I keep seeing people saying âOtherkin is believing you were [x] in a past life and now youâre human!â because no! no, it isnât!
Because something Iâve seen more and more recently is people asking if itâs okay to be otherkin without having past life memories, or otherwise freaking out over trying to retrieve past life memories, and Iâve had an unnerving number of people outright say that they didnât know this, I feel like it needs to be said:
Otherkin just means âidentifying nonphysically as something other than human.â Not all otherkin believe in past lives or believe their kintype(s) came from a past life!
There are a ton of explanations for why someone might be otherkin. Generally those fall into the categories of âspiritualâ or âpsychological,â but within each of those broad categories are dozens of more specific explanations. Some believe they were a misplaced soul, meant for the body of their kintype but mistakenly placed into a human body instead by some error. Others believe they are walk-ins, souls that werenât the original inhabitants of the body but who essentially took over after the original soul vacated the premises somehow. Others donât feel they ever were or were even supposed to live a life as their kintype in a literal sense, but instead identify as the archetype of that being. Still others believe they unconsciously imprinted on their kintype at a young age, to the point of it becoming an integral part of their identity. Still others believe their otherkinity is caused by psychological activity in their brains causing them to identify as nonhuman.
The point is, your kintype may not come from a past life, and you donât even have to believe in past lives to be otherkin. There is no one ârightâ way to be otherkin. So donât freak out too much if you donât seem to have any of these âmemoriesâ that the âkin community on Tumblr loves to chat about.
For that matter, even if your kintype does stem from a past life, past life memories are really hard to access for most people. Donât stress too much about it. If you worry about it too much, odds are youâll just end up manufacturing âmemoriesâ because the human brain is remarkably good at that if youâre not careful. Itâll be all right. You donât need to remember anything to be otherkin.
Furthermore, not all past lives are kintypes!
One can have a past life as something, and remember living as that thing, without that thing being a kintype. For something to be a kintype, the criteria is that you still identify as that thing currently, in this life. Say you do a past life regression and remember being a sheep, but you donât still feel connected to that in any relevant or important way in this life. If thatâs the case, youâre probably not a sheep therian. If you believe in past lives, then all of us have lived as many different things - but if we still identified as all those things on an integral level, our identities would be chaos, and odds are it would be almost impossible for most of us to function. Otherkinity is a function of current identity, not just a way of saying âI used to be this in a past lifeâ with no impact on todayâs life.
If I sound a little frustrated, thatâs honestly because I am - I keep seeing this said, and itâs a complete misunderstanding of what otherkinity is. Itâs okay if you didnât know, donât get me wrong! Weâve all made mistakes and been misled and not known things. But please donât keep saying âotherkin is about past lives,â because ultimately, even for those who do believe their kintypes come from a past life, thatâs not the point of the otherkin label - thatâs just the explanation, the âwhyâ youâre otherkin in the first place.
Thank you for your patience and time! Bright Blessings!
andulkaphoto
prguitarman
titsay
stormborns
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