Totem Magic
Jan. 24th, 2007 08:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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tobookclubSorry about the delay on this... I meant to do it and forgot on Monday night, and then last night when I got home I didn't turn on my computer at all.. :P
So here are my notes for Totem Magic: Dance of the Shapeshifter. Mostly I was thinking "how relevant is this to otherkin? what would they find interesting or useful, if anything? how might it help them discover, deal with, or otherwise do something with 'otherness'?" while I was reading it and these notes/review are written with those questions in mind.
This book has some tantalizing mentions of the author considering her "totems" to be part of her soul (e.g. p. 18, 22), but mostly she uses language that separates "her" from "her totems", such as referring to Panther as "she" (rather than "me"), speaking of "her looking out through my eyes", and other such phrasing. Thus I conclude that these animals are not identity for her in the sense that therians would have it ("I am a panther") except perhaps in certain specially mystical moments.
She seems to consider this ability to connect with and become an animal to be part of the human repertoire, and hints that a "full" human is one who has achieved such a state, and I don't disagree (the idea is in RJ Stewart as well, for example; a full-functining Earthling being a merging of human and animal along with faery, a single tripartite entity in three worlds or states of existence). I just think there is a distinction between this (even if the merging is strong) and therianthropy. Or perhaps a therianthrope is one who has experienced this in some past existence and now is bringing a new more single identity forward into this one. I have also said in the past that I wondered if therianthropy could be traced, in some cases, to a strong example of this bond - i.e., the human part is manifesting the animal part as well.
There is a chapter about mythical beasts as totems, thus perhaps some applicability to dragons, gryphons, unicorns, etc., but it's not very in-depth (presumably because the author has little experience with it) and amounts to "sure, it could happen". Also, in my experience, those who identify as these critters are a lot less likely to draw any connection to "totemism" at all than are those who identify with Earthly beasts. Thus, not a lot of directly related material here for those sorts of folks.
Most of the rest of the book is devoted to various ideas for working with animal spirits in ritual and meditation, and seems to me to be a toolbox for who to go to for help in what situation (i.e., animal spirit magic) rather than focusing on how to discover one's own personal animal self. OTOH she is not exactly clear about which shade of meaning of "totem" she is referring to in these later chapters, and so I find myself asking, are these rituals anyone can use to call on these animals? Or are they limited to those who have these animals as guides for the time being, or even those who have them as continuing or inherent totems?
To expand on this some, she seems to class the animal spirits into three categories of relationship to oneself (in order of closeness):
1. Messengers
2. Guides or guardians
3. Totems
I would personally include a fourth, even closer category, that of the "fetch beast", the face of the soul that is an animal of some kind (see above about three-part Earthlings, but really the idea comes from witchcraft and the Northern tradition). In practice there is some blurring between this and totems, but IMO the difference is that the fetch beast is in origin within oneself, the animal "version" of the soul, whereas a totem could originate outside.
She mentions the origin of the word "totem" as denoting a clan's (mythical) blood-relationship with an animal (a usage which I think is closer to "fetch beast", since there is an idea that all those with the same fetch beast are in fact some kind of mystical family), but then goes on to use it to mean something along the lines of "a spirit with whom you have a long-term bond and some degree of merging or identity; an animal whose vibration you carry or emanate" (for which I would personally prefer the term "power animal" though I have been using "totem" so far).
Thus it is never quite clear whether she thinks totems are something inherent to the practitioner, or an "upgraded" guide/guardian, one with whom you have built a deeper relationship over time.
Another distinction between the categories, besides closeness, might be number. One could certainly have contact with quite a few messengers and guides/guardians in one's life, and might conceivably have more than one totem or power animal (though I'd be a bit dubious of a claim of more than two or three - sort of the same way it's hard to maintain extremely close relationships with more than a few people at a time), but there is one and only one fetch beast per person.
Two final quibbles:
1. She says she practices an experiential-type witchcraft without lots of scripts and paraphernalia and all, and then every rite in the book is the scripted, lots-of-toys type. I suppose that is inevitable when writing a book for a general audience rather than having the opportunity to do one-on-one teaching, though.
2. Maybe I missed it, but there didn't seem to be a lot of shapeshifter-ing in this book, at least not in the sense that weres and therians usually mean it. I don't mean that I was expecting descriptions of physical shifts or anything like that, but to me there is some difference (which I have a hard time articulating in more detail) between performing animal-like movements in a trance state, and *shapeshifting*. This is probably just a terminology problem, that we are using the word in different ways.
All in all, IMO Totem Magic might be useful for those who are not sure if they are therians per se, or humans experiencing a strong animal bond, or what, as the book does provide a number of techniques for exploring relationships with animal spirits, but is not that applicable to otherkin in general unless they simply happen to be interested in this kind of magic or "shamanism".
So here are my notes for Totem Magic: Dance of the Shapeshifter. Mostly I was thinking "how relevant is this to otherkin? what would they find interesting or useful, if anything? how might it help them discover, deal with, or otherwise do something with 'otherness'?" while I was reading it and these notes/review are written with those questions in mind.
This book has some tantalizing mentions of the author considering her "totems" to be part of her soul (e.g. p. 18, 22), but mostly she uses language that separates "her" from "her totems", such as referring to Panther as "she" (rather than "me"), speaking of "her looking out through my eyes", and other such phrasing. Thus I conclude that these animals are not identity for her in the sense that therians would have it ("I am a panther") except perhaps in certain specially mystical moments.
She seems to consider this ability to connect with and become an animal to be part of the human repertoire, and hints that a "full" human is one who has achieved such a state, and I don't disagree (the idea is in RJ Stewart as well, for example; a full-functining Earthling being a merging of human and animal along with faery, a single tripartite entity in three worlds or states of existence). I just think there is a distinction between this (even if the merging is strong) and therianthropy. Or perhaps a therianthrope is one who has experienced this in some past existence and now is bringing a new more single identity forward into this one. I have also said in the past that I wondered if therianthropy could be traced, in some cases, to a strong example of this bond - i.e., the human part is manifesting the animal part as well.
There is a chapter about mythical beasts as totems, thus perhaps some applicability to dragons, gryphons, unicorns, etc., but it's not very in-depth (presumably because the author has little experience with it) and amounts to "sure, it could happen". Also, in my experience, those who identify as these critters are a lot less likely to draw any connection to "totemism" at all than are those who identify with Earthly beasts. Thus, not a lot of directly related material here for those sorts of folks.
Most of the rest of the book is devoted to various ideas for working with animal spirits in ritual and meditation, and seems to me to be a toolbox for who to go to for help in what situation (i.e., animal spirit magic) rather than focusing on how to discover one's own personal animal self. OTOH she is not exactly clear about which shade of meaning of "totem" she is referring to in these later chapters, and so I find myself asking, are these rituals anyone can use to call on these animals? Or are they limited to those who have these animals as guides for the time being, or even those who have them as continuing or inherent totems?
To expand on this some, she seems to class the animal spirits into three categories of relationship to oneself (in order of closeness):
1. Messengers
2. Guides or guardians
3. Totems
I would personally include a fourth, even closer category, that of the "fetch beast", the face of the soul that is an animal of some kind (see above about three-part Earthlings, but really the idea comes from witchcraft and the Northern tradition). In practice there is some blurring between this and totems, but IMO the difference is that the fetch beast is in origin within oneself, the animal "version" of the soul, whereas a totem could originate outside.
She mentions the origin of the word "totem" as denoting a clan's (mythical) blood-relationship with an animal (a usage which I think is closer to "fetch beast", since there is an idea that all those with the same fetch beast are in fact some kind of mystical family), but then goes on to use it to mean something along the lines of "a spirit with whom you have a long-term bond and some degree of merging or identity; an animal whose vibration you carry or emanate" (for which I would personally prefer the term "power animal" though I have been using "totem" so far).
Thus it is never quite clear whether she thinks totems are something inherent to the practitioner, or an "upgraded" guide/guardian, one with whom you have built a deeper relationship over time.
Another distinction between the categories, besides closeness, might be number. One could certainly have contact with quite a few messengers and guides/guardians in one's life, and might conceivably have more than one totem or power animal (though I'd be a bit dubious of a claim of more than two or three - sort of the same way it's hard to maintain extremely close relationships with more than a few people at a time), but there is one and only one fetch beast per person.
Two final quibbles:
1. She says she practices an experiential-type witchcraft without lots of scripts and paraphernalia and all, and then every rite in the book is the scripted, lots-of-toys type. I suppose that is inevitable when writing a book for a general audience rather than having the opportunity to do one-on-one teaching, though.
2. Maybe I missed it, but there didn't seem to be a lot of shapeshifter-ing in this book, at least not in the sense that weres and therians usually mean it. I don't mean that I was expecting descriptions of physical shifts or anything like that, but to me there is some difference (which I have a hard time articulating in more detail) between performing animal-like movements in a trance state, and *shapeshifting*. This is probably just a terminology problem, that we are using the word in different ways.
All in all, IMO Totem Magic might be useful for those who are not sure if they are therians per se, or humans experiencing a strong animal bond, or what, as the book does provide a number of techniques for exploring relationships with animal spirits, but is not that applicable to otherkin in general unless they simply happen to be interested in this kind of magic or "shamanism".
