I do not know...
there are many theories, but none of them can be verified and confirmed

Why are we therians?

See, I know that there are a lot of people who blame their therianthropy on a past life, or for spiritual reasons, but I don't feel I fit in with either. I also don't feel that I was "born into the wrong body" so to speak.

personally, I think that the word "therian" is used simply to describe the more animal parts of us. I often wonder if we actually decide that we are therians. of course, I don't mean waking up one day and saying "hey, I think I'll identify as a wolf", but more of a subconscious decision, finding comfort in a label for some of our little quirks.

Another thing I wonder about, is do we make up our shifts? like every little slightly animalistic thing we feel, we just blame on being a therian? of course, these are just my ponderings.

I'd say that I honestly have no idea why we are what we are. I do however think that we subconsciously exaggerate what we believe. I'd love to hear your guy's theories and questions about the matter too.

(2022-05-07 6:45)DustWolf Wrote:  So we talked about this on Discord some time ago, but to explain what @Liatha is saying here. Eastern traditions say that what you reincarnate as, depends on your "good deeds for the community" (simplified) in your previous life. Since animals live by instinct and cannot choose to do good deeds for the community, it doesn't seem possible for an animal (below on the scale) to reincarnate as a human (above on the scale).

Other people in our conversation, like @Li-lan have argued that what "reincarnation" is (aka "being born again in another body" rather than "reincarnation" the religious concept), is not owned by any religious group and therefore what the Eastern traditions say about it does not matter.

Thinking about it now, I also find myself wondering, since I believe animals can make choices in their lives: Perhaps it's possible for animals to do "good deeds for the community" (dharma). I mean outside of pets attending religious duties with their owners. Could a dog in what she does for her family be considered to engage in dharma?

Personally I think Dharma, Karma and all other such ideas about there being some universal "good credit" is a bunch of made up BS. I think it's a staple or nearly every religion (Christian heaven vs hell, Wiccan Law of Three, etc) as a control mechanism for the populous. I (creator of the religion) want you to behave a certain way, so god, the universe, whatever higher power will reward you if you do and punish you if you don't.
Furthermore I think the idea of their being a scale where human is at the top or a "reward" for doing good things is laughable. I don't think human is "better" than being a different animal. Sounds like something humans would make up because we think we're special.
So that's why I don't attach any Eastern religious beliefs around reincarnation to the concept. I don't have an issue if people choose to practice a religion, but the way I see it there's no value in the anthropocentric ideology often taught along with reincarnation. You can believe in a concept like heaven without being a Christian either.

My personal beliefs around it is that we get to choose to incarnate and have this physical experience in these bodies. And the reason we're here is simply to be alive. I'm sure certain souls have some goal from their life. Something to learn, or maybe something to teach. It feels like humans have this sense of need for a higher purpose, some goal to chase down, so I often see a lot of other aspects of religion as fulfilling that.

But answering your question Dust, I would personally say yes. A dog, a wolf any animal. I think it's a false idea that an animal can't have free will. Just because you have stronger instructs driving you and less executive functioning doesn't mean there's not free will in your decisions. It's not like instincts don't control human decision making sometimes.
Although you have to wonder with certain animals like lizards who aren't social at all, how one would ever "move up" that hypothetical ladder towards being human.

(2022-05-07 3:15)Liatha Wrote:  Reincarnation and past lives do not fit that. Reincarnation works (according to Eastern traditions) in a certain way. It is not very likely that the animal will incarnate in humans immediately afterwards. I'm sorry I might cause doubts to someone. But just find out more about past lives.

So we talked about this on Discord some time ago, but to explain what @Liatha is saying here. Eastern traditions say that what you reincarnate as, depends on your "good deeds for the community" (simplified) in your previous life. Since animals live by instinct and cannot choose to do good deeds for the community, it doesn't seem possible for an animal (below on the scale) to reincarnate as a human (above on the scale).

Other people in our conversation, like @Li-lan have argued that what "reincarnation" is (aka "being born again in another body" rather than "reincarnation" the religious concept), is not owned by any religious group and therefore what the Eastern traditions say about it does not matter.

Thinking about it now, I also find myself wondering, since I believe animals can make choices in their lives: Perhaps it's possible for animals to do "good deeds for the community" (dharma). I mean outside of pets attending religious duties with their owners. Could a dog in what she does for her family be considered to engage in dharma?

LP,
Dusty

Reincarnation and past lives do not fit that. Reincarnation works (according to Eastern traditions) in a certain way. It is not very likely that the animal will incarnate in humans immediately afterwards. I'm sorry I might cause doubts to someone. But just find out more about past lives.

Then I still don't know why we identify as that animal when it comes to past lives. It would then blend into current life. And that sounds like a naive idea to me. I just have a lot of doubts about this theory when I think about it more. Of course I don't take it from anyone.

I'll be happy to discuss why you think it's a past life - where you take that assurance. And I'm sorry if something isn't very understandable. I used a translator

Thanks, this was really helpful!

Personally, I have no idea if reincarnation or past lives are real or if I fully believe in them or if it's my wishful thinking. Either way I don't mind having no answer to why I am the way I am? I have no idea if me being a Therian is wishful thinking of wanting safety in something I am not, or a grass is greener kind of scenario/body dysphoria taken to an all time high. I dunno but at the end of the day I'm here, I feel like this and I'm not sure why and that's okay with me.

That's kind of my two cents.

Hi,

My experience of therianthropy has no shifting, but just being merged with my wolf theriotype, not completely human nor completely animal. My only kind of "shift" were my dream shifts.

I used to think I got them because they were memories of a previous life, but being an atheist I eventually realised that believing in reincarnation was not required to explain the experience... I could simply have been dreaming what wolf-humans dream.

(2021-08-31 22:32)DustWolf Wrote:  Personally when I first encountered therianthropy, I was put in touch with people who believed in things like reincarnation. I am sure this is the same story for every therian out there, even today. I came to accept that I had to have been a wolf in my previous life, because I was a therian and that's just how everyone thought of this stuff.

But over the years I've found out that the reincarnation theory really does not make sense to me. I had wolf dream-shifts that I thought were memories from a previous life. But what made a lot more sense to me was that they are simply dreams of a wolf in the body of a human. I dream of running free with my wolf brother. I dream of discovering my pups in a den. I dream of a live juicy fresh kill. And I dream of how I would die as a wolf. To dream is synonymous with to wish for, and for a wolf imprisoned in the body of a human, those wishes make sense.

So... basically I don't believe I was reincarnated from a wolf, that my therianthropy has anything to do with reincarnation, and I don't really believe in reincarnation itself either.

LP,
Dusty

I feel like a failure of the past life conversation, especially when surrounding the psychological aspect of the community, is that we see it as a purely spiritual thing. This probably seems like a really weird thing to say as past lives are typically considered purely spiritual, but to someone like myself that believes in past lives, it isn't. To me, past lives and reincarnation are just as much psychological as it is spiritual. Simply because we can acknowledge that past lives affect our memories, let alone our personalities, mannerisms, fears, etc, it means that it is also psychological, putting it in a grey area between the two categories.

On one hand, this could mean that someone who has psychological theriotypes could also believe themselves to have past lives (like someone said above), but it also means that it is even more likely that someone might not even know they are Therian. Since past lives can affect someone psychologically like giving one interests of that past life, even if it is as blatant as the Wolf Kid, it could always be written off simply an interest and nothing more unless they come into contact with other Therians.

Also, since reincarnation affects everyone, that means everyone is Therian because everyone has had to have had at least one nonhuman life. However, not everyone is saying they are Therian or even considering that they are anything but human. I would say quite the opposite, actually. So to define Therianthropy in such broad terms means it applies to everyone-- which I do agree with, however-- when in actuality it should more be defined along the lines of: past lives + finding a significance of those past lives in this one. If we didn't find our nonhuman past lives significant in some way, we wouldn't be here. We would just be like "oh cool I was a wolf" and that be it.

There really is no need to look for a specific reason why. Personally, I don't believe in a deity shaping our identities, nor in past lives, sorry. These questions of why, what for and how tend to the philosophical in my eyes. One should rather look for answers in our genetic makeup. Who we are is determined before birth (f.ex. who our parents were, where they came from) and after birth (f.ex. how we were raised, environmental triggers). Of course, what matters too, for the sake of completeness, is our basic personality.
While it's okay to ask yourself these questions every once in a while, you should note that the kind of answers you'll receive in the community are often, not always, looked for in the wrong areas of life.
Take a snow leopard for instance in the Himalayan mountains. Just assume you are this creature, that someone put you there in order to survive the upper colds and freezing temperatures. Wouldn't you rather be born in the desert, or on more fertile grounds? You couldn't, even if you tried. Whose fault is that? Parents? Nature/nurture? No, I doubt that is the case. The answer, my friend, is luck. If nature was a recipient creature and we could ask it why it put us there, it would probably say that we were born that way because of a strange current of events.
In my eyes, everything living and breathing on this earth is the result of that. People, wolves, sneps, they're all bound by a natural instinct for reproduction, a drive as deep as the four primary emotions. Why aren't some of us real live sneps? Because people gave birth to them... Turn it around the way you want or read it the way you like, but I'm afraid we were born therians because of (un)lucky selection.