Causes of Feeling Nonhuman that are NOT Therianthropy

I've often seen it written that Therianthropy or Otherkinity are not the only reason a person might feel nonhuman. I'd like to discuss those other possible causes and gather more information about them. Perhaps this info could be helpful to people who do feel nonhuman but who don't feel that Therianthropy or Otherkinity is the answer to why. I know there must be other causes that I'm not thinking of right now, so I'd really like help developing this list.

Here a few that I can start with.

Spirit Animals/Guides/Guardians/Helpers/Teachers/Totems

In the early days of the Therian community when a person formed a bond or working relationship with a spirit guide it was considered Therianthropy. However, from my understanding, we've moved away from that idea because of the distinction that spirit guides are an independent entity and outside influence to feeling animal-like.

I've worked with spirit guides and teachers myself, and for me personally those experiences differ from Therianthropy. Please let me know your opinion on this.

Tulpa

Can creating a tulpa cause a person to feel nonhuman if that tulpa is nonhuman? I'm not very familiar with tulpas, so any input is welcome.

Animal-hearted or Other-hearted

People can obviously feel connected to animals without identifying as nonhuman. Some Animal-hearted people do claim to have shifts similar to Therians though.

Roleplay/Experience Taking

It's fun to create characters and act out being someone or something else. This can be a positive interest or outlet. It's easy to feel connected to anthropomorphic characters like Balto. Mimicking these characters and their animal behavior can and does occur.

Here are a couple sources about Experience Taking.

Norman, Abby. “The Psychology of Fandom: Why We Get Attached to Fictional Characters.” The Mary Sue, 19 Aug. 2015, http://www.themarysue.com/the-psychology-of-fandom/.

Hsu, Christine. “Psychologists Discover How People Subconsciously Become Their Favorite Fictional Characters.” Medical Daily, 14 May 2012, http://www.medicaldaily.com/psychologists-discover-how-people-subconsciously-become-their-favorite-fictional-characters-240435.

Interesting topic.

There are therians who have been pretty deep into shamanic experiences. My reading of shamans is that "normal" shamans who work with animal entities don't feel like nonhuman animals - they feel like shamans. It would be understandable that a therian shaman would feel like a nonhuman. And you know of my position that therians are Neanderthal animal shamans. The difference between a shaman and an animal shaman would be that an animal shaman specializes in working on a nonhuman level of Dreamtime. They don't just work with power animals - they are power animals - that's what the phantom is. It's the therian's presence in Dreamtime.

I've worked with tulpas. They feel exactly to me like dreams and I can't tell the difference until I find out that my dream has affected someone in Realtime. If I go out to create a tulpa, I don't know if I've succeeded until I find out that someone else saw it.

There are two schools of sociology that are sometimes reflected in others social interactions. One says that you can do good research by inserting yourself into an interaction as a participant. Others say that it's bad research because your intervention changes what you are trying to observe. So a person that's interested in wolves my decide that they are going to work at a wolf rescue unit and develop an intimate understanding of wolves by learning to "think like a wolf".

So, yes, I think you're on to something.

I spent a bit of time around a tulpa-focused forum (The Daemon Forum), out of curiosity to investigate how they were different from therians. It seemed like there was an extremely strong, dogmatic sense that they were human and knew it. That's just one community, so I can't speak for everyone who works with tulpas (or for anyone at all really, since I'm not one of 'em), but at least it's a data point.

Tulpas are the purview of shamans and magic users. The therian connection is that, historically, berserkers secreted their bodies and projected a tulpa into battle. Most historical accounts of werewolves didn't include tulpas - they projected their wolf-selves into Dreamtime. But tulpas aren't specific to weres.

Daemons aren't really tulpas though, are they? I've been on that forum too, and there's a very strong sense of "our daemons are just an animal representation of our minds and we are fully conscious that they are not separate beings but merely facets of ourselves that we develop and talk problems out with." From everything I've heard about tulpae, they're supposed to be mindforms that are created but eventually have their own separate consciousness, yes? Daemon do not.

Tulpas are physical manifestations of mental (or spiritual) forms (or energies). In modern parlance, a tulpa is, practically, an imaginary friend.

(2018-01-07 6:01)Future Wrote:  Daemons aren't really tulpas though, are they? I've been on that forum too, and there's a very strong sense of "our daemons are just an animal representation of our minds and we are fully conscious that they are not separate beings but merely facets of ourselves that we develop and talk problems out with." From everything I've heard about tulpae, they're supposed to be mindforms that are created but eventually have their own separate consciousness, yes? Daemon do not.

Daemon is a word with a lot of different meanings. I think of them as spirits that don't need to be animals and could be helpful or benign. They aren't necessarily evil.

Some people use the word in a way that means one's animal soul, because that's how it was used in "His Dark Materials". Although, in the books, the animals were a physical representation. "Dæmons are the external physical manifestation of a person's 'inner-self' that takes the form of an animal. Dæmons have human intelligence, are capable of human speech—regardless of the form they take—and usually behave as though they are independent of their humans." I think this does confuse a lot of young Therians because most say they talk to their theriotypes.

So, this is kind of a grey area. But is it? Our theriosides don't have human intelligence. Or can our inner animals have intelligence because it's part of a human body?

(2018-01-07 6:50)WolfVanZandt Wrote:  Tulpas are physical manifestations of mental (or spiritual) forms (or energies). In modern parlance, a tulpa is, practically, an imaginary friend.

I didn't realize tulpas became physical. So, that is kind of similar to the Dark Material kind of Daemon. The major difference I see between those two things and Therianthropy is that theriosides are not independent of us in any way. Whereas a therioside usually merges and integrates with the humanside of us, a Tulpa becomes more and more independent and separate.

I totally forgot to add Copinlink to the original list, but this is a work in progress. Please help me get some more details and flesh this out a bit more. Thank you!

In the traditional sense, a tulpa is condensated matter. The soul of the shaman leaves their body and pulls together a material form to use. The tulpa is in no way independent of the shaman. The shaman's mind is the tulpa's mind. Wes Craven had it right when in New Nightmare if the actress Heather Langencamp subconsciously projects the idea of Freddy Krugger into the real world. In the X-Files episode where a trash monster is killing residents in a gated community who do not comply with HOA regulations. It turned out that the HOA president is projecting the tulpa to kill "troublesome" neighbors. Tulpas have been fairly common in literature and, historically, it's how berserkers entered battle.

(2018-01-12 2:52)WolfVanZandt Wrote:  In the traditional sense, a tulpa is condensated matter. The soul of the shaman leaves their body and pulls together a material form to use.

Above you mentioned that "In modern parlance, a tulpa is, practically, an imaginary friend." Let's stick with that. I don't think ten year olds will understand the complexities of Shamanic work. I would like to keep this simple for now.

Here's a couple websites that I plan to use as reference. https://www.tulpa.info/what-is-a-tulpa/ and https://tulpa.io/what-is-a-tulpa

When reading some of the information on the Tulpa Wikipedia, I clearly see how it is a much older concept. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulpa

I thought there was another term for when a Shaman was powerful enough to create a double and appear to be physically in a second location. The act is bilocation, but doesn't the double have another name other than tulpa? If you've seen The Last Jedi, Luke Skywalker actually does this. I enjoyed the whole movie, but when I realized that's what was happening, it gave me chills. For me, it was a powerful moment in a movie.

I think being raised around a lot of animals can attribute to non human. It wouldn't fit for everyone but I personally grew up around many exotic and wild animals, so I spent more time learning animal behavior rather than human while I was young. I feel as though this my attribute to part of my therianthropy, though I do also have spiritual causes, so it could cause others to feel non human but not identify as an animal. It also is on the psychological side of things so it may speak to those who are not spritual.