Test your might.

[davywavy]

Whilst chatting to the eternally gorgeous tzel yesterday I mentioned "Otherkin". For the uninitiated, Otherkin are people who believe that not only do we have reincarnated souls, but they in particular possess the reincarnated souls of mythological creatures. Be those creatures from a lost time of magic on our own Earth (which seems to have been missed from the fossil record), or from other planets where elves, dragons and the like still live, Otherkin possess memories of their previous lives as these fantasic beings. If you can name a creature from myth or legend (but most Otherkin seem to be elves, dragons, or vampires), then it's quite likely that you can find someone, somewhere, who thinks they were one in a previous life.
Fortunately I was alone in the office yesterday afternoon, but I still managed to laugh so loudly that one of the people in the next unit put his head round the door and asked me to keep it down.
Otherkin have conventions, or 'gathers', and a part of me is sorely tempted to go along in a Louis Theroux's wierd weekends sort of way just so I could wander round asking people questions like "So, how many experience points did they get for killing you?" and guessing what people were in their past lives ("Let me guess...a half orc? A Black Pudding? No, wait, I've got it! A Shambling Mound!").

This wasn't really what I was going to talk about today, but I couldn't help it. You see, whilst I was surfing about, I came across someone who described himself as a 'Reiki Master', and I got to wondering about how, precisely, one becomes one of those*.
Once a month I'm lucky enough to get to train with Ninja Master, who is recognised internationally as one of the seven world masters of the form. He was awarded his accolade after winning an all-China full-contact combat championship three years in a row, and I'm sort of wondering if Reiki Masters have to do something similar. In order to become a Reiki master, does one have to defeat someone who already holds that title? I know that in competitive origami, elevation to the rank of master can only be acheived by killing your opponent with folded paper and I'm wondering what form you lot feel that competitive Reiki should take. Is there a course, and how long does it take to earn your Reiki Black belt? Do you have to mend broken boards? Without touching them? The mind boggles.


^{*To my considerable disappointment, I learn that you can be "attuned" and become a Master of Reiki by giving Grandmaster Hawayo Takata and her successors a cheque for US$10,000. I suspect that if I offered Ninja Master a cheque to teach me the death touch when I see him next, it'd go the worse for me.}

Comments

[gnommi.livejournal.com]

It hit me yesterday that I actually *know* an otherkin personally... He's a very nice guy, but whenever I talk to him I always get the "elephant in the room" feeling...

It is somewhat unnerving when he goes off on one about the joys of imperial mating flights, given that he is 1. enormous 2. still lives with his mum aged 35 3. gay and 4. having a necessarily platonic long distance homosexual relationship with his American doppelganger that he refers to as a life-mating). It's not like I can empathise!

Why do reincarnated folks always seem to be some kind of royalty too? Do only mythological or legendary things get to be reincarnated?! Maybe it's only worth remembering if you were something special? Or maybe, if you have some psychological need to feel special which can be fulfilled by developing some kind of MPD phenomenon, you may as well go the whole way and be REALLY special.

Hmm. I'm rambling. *goes off to get Ikebana black belt training*

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

It's the same way that past-life regression always shows people up to be royalty or other famous person. I can only assume that the amount of interest and importance people possess in this life is inversely proportional to the amount they enjoyed in their past live.
With this in mind, I usually insist that all my past lives were peasants.

[madwitch.livejournal.com]

Every now and again, Bonnie and I claim to be reincarnated royalty/famous people. Usually when in the presence of other people who are claiming to be the same famous person, and especially if we know more about the lives of the dead people than whoever it is making a living out of being a reincarnated famous person.

'I'm Anne Boleyn'. 'No, I'm Anne Boleyn...'

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Arrr, marm, oi be a peasant, that oi be.

[madwitch.livejournal.com]

I heard a wonderfully mad scottish woman claiming to be Boadicea once. And stating that as the Queen of a tribe based in East Anglia, she wished she had been buried in Scotland.

Your claim is so much more believable...:)

[wyrdness.livejournal.com]

Or in the case their famous dead person was executed, claim to be the executioner.

[madwitch.livejournal.com]

Oh! What a fantastic idea!

[hiromasaki.livejournal.com]

My father thinks he was a PFC at Gettysburg. Not something he tosses around very often, though.

I have vague memories of something, but I'm not sure what. It's just enough that I believe multiversalism is a possibility, but not enough that I go on about it at length with strangers. (This being an exception since it's the actual present topic of conversation.)

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I have many vague memories of something, but they're usually followed by me rubbing my head the next morning and saying "Oooh, crap, what the hell did I drink last night?"

[hiromasaki.livejournal.com]

Based on my observations, that particular brand of memories and head-rubbing is normally associated with Whiskey or Rum.

Have you been hitting the Rum, Cap'n David?

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I much prefere the Scotch, like my role model:

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

To get your Ikebana black belt, do you have to arrange flowers in such a way that the clash of colours proves fatal to the viewer? "No, no, not the Chrysanthemum next to the Peony! Aieeee!"

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

Like that grass thing at the Chelsea Flower Show?

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Do tell?

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

http://static.flickr.com/54/169828604_180fff0461.jpg?v=0

[gnommi.livejournal.com]

ack aaarghh sellleeeeuuuuuurghhhhhhhh *dies*

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

There's a 'trimmed bush' joke I could make about now, but I shan't as that would be beneath me.

[gnommi.livejournal.com]

one must smite another to the soul (metaphysically) by ones placement of an iris

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

I AM A UNICORN.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Me too. Wanna play with my horn?

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

We'd have to do it on the otherkin magikal plane! The place where faeries live.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I have memories of us doing just that in a previous life.

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

When the Elvin wars were raging and they introduced ketchup gas? Bad times. What about Sparkly Forest Syndrome? Did they ever develop a cure for that?

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

No, the Magic Sparkle trees all died out. That's why there aren't any left now.

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

Poor things, they must have suffered. They had some terrible epilepsy. Me, I miss my house made of gumdrops.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Did I ever mention that I was a house made of gumdrops in a previous life as well? I have memories of you taking a shower in my tummy.
A shame you were a boy unicorn then, really.

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

Our gay love was not to be. Remember when they tore up our purple capes? FOR NO REASON? The bastards.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

Someday Meruk, someday.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I found a picture of you from when you were a unicorn. Just thinking about your beauty and grace then makes me weep tears of joy and sorrow.

[reddragdiva]

A typical example of vile furry propaganda. See how these disgusting people abuse the imagery of normal, wholesome, decent, upright homosexuals in the pursuit of their filthy perversion. The fox depicted is clearly the victim of sexual abuse at the hands of a furry. Ew, furries.

Interestingly, the fox has very pronounced manboobs. Mmm, manboobs.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and his eyes aren't on a level! What sort of pervoid wants to hump an anthropomorphic fox with a squint, eh?

[reddragdiva]

outcastotherkin

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

You should see the results one gets for googling "Otherkin porn"

[tooth-fairy.livejournal.com]

Reiki isn't anything to do with martial arts

It's healing

[tooth-fairy.livejournal.com]

Incidentally. Are you suggesting that Reiki has something in common with these 'otherkin' people?

We did have the Reiki conversation didn't we? I didn't dream it did I?

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

No - I'm just thinking about both today as I was surfing the otherkins and ran across someone who coincidentally described himself as a Reiki Master.

[tooth-fairy.livejournal.com]

Master is just a grade in Reiki

it goes

Reiki 1
Reiki 2
Master

[(Anonymous)]

There are of course the secret higher grades, where the ancient techniques 'no inch punch' and 'death non-touch' are jealously guarded.

[tooth-fairy.livejournal.com]

we don't talk about that

[jonnyargles.livejournal.com]

"When I was stomping about and imprecating about the rude email I just had my 15-year-old daughter told me she had been playing on a collaborative role-playing board devoted to the fantasy universe of Anne McCaffrey where telepathic dragons play the role of ponies in traditional teenage fiction. The whole board was consumed in flames for three weeks after a dispute over which end of a dragon's tail it has its anus at."

[calligrafiti.livejournal.com]

whilst I was surfing about, I came across someone who described himself as a 'Reiki Master', and I got to wondering about how, precisely, one becomes one of those*.

I once met a woman who worked as a Reiki practioner for pets. She'd perform Reiki on the owners if she felt it would help their pets, but on the whole she preferred to work on the animals. I have no idea how (or if) she got accredited, how one even finds training in reiki for pets, and how you can tell if it works.

I'm afraid I haven't met many otherkin. But my dark, cynical side suspects that as many of them think they were elvish princes in a past life as regular reincarnation folks think they were [your cool historical period here] nobility. Millions of dirt-digging peasants in the past and apparently none of them ever got reincarnated. Perhaps they all worked off their Karmic burden as serfs or as the third NPC from the left, killed by the drow.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Did I mention that I was an elf in a previous life, until the party's theif backstabbed me for my Wand of Magic Missiles? I can remember it clearly.

Oh, and if you want to know how accurate your impressions are, go looking for the online photos of Otherkin Gathers. They're pretty easy to find.

[(Anonymous)]

And then you were a near endless procession of dwarves. You never learned.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Poor old Gimli, Thorin, Aborenton, Aborenton's brother, Gimli's Cousin, and all the otehrs. A sad loss to the world.

Thinking about it, the villain of Lumbo's retro adventure should have been Aborenton.

[(Anonymous)]

I think, on one level, he probably was. Just as she was the villain of his.

[gwaunquest.livejournal.com]

I thought you were suposed to be running a company - or planning world domination, it's one or t'other. How do you find time for all this digression?