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