Alethios(any) & Fallon(she/her) Dæmonologist Personal account dedicated to discussions of dæmons, soulbonds, other worlds, and other phenomena. I may also talk about my own interests, primarily Philip Pullman’s books. Working on my own religion called Pullmetic Gnosticism. [Very inconsistent posting due to mental health reasons. Please be patient]
It’s been a year, so I thought a new introduction post was warranted.
I am Alethios and my dæmon is Fallon, who settled as a Canadian lynx. I have no preference for pronouns but my dæmon uses strictly she/her. I am deeply invested in Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials books and currently have dedicated my life to the stories. It’s a strange thing to do but I do believe something divine is guiding me and encouraging my pursuits. I am a novice magician particularly skilled with divination and spirit work, a soulbonder, a Dæmointus practitioner, and a few other things. I occasionally practice spell work but it’s not my current focus. This blog is meant to share my beliefs with others and document some of my more experimental work. I am always open to asks and encourage anyone curious to talk to me about anything you’d like.
Under the page break you’ll find a more detailed explanation of my beliefs alongside a list of links to my most important posts. If you want to see all my writings, go to the #my essays tag.
My beliefs are all over the place and too convoluted to easily explain, but I’ll try my best. I do treat Phillip Pullman’s books as a religious gospel of sorts, though I’m still deciding how literally to take it(some things like other worlds and dæmons I see very literally). I do accept the possibility of being wrong and in some ways I hope I am, though even if I am I fight for good and that is enough. I am fiercely against dogma and religious control, including from myself. I am working on turning it into a full fledged theology called Pullmetic Gnosticism or Pullmanism, though that’ll take time. Other existing religions/spiritual traditions also help build the framework for this theology; such as Gnosticism(barring the dualistic, anti-materialism aspects), overall Paganism, Western Occultism, Satanism, and a few others. The sciences, primarily physics and quantum mechanics, also are of great significance and aren’t at odds with the theology. I consider myself a member of the Republic of Heaven(even if just by my own identification as such) and see it as my duty to oppose Abrahamic religion and the Authority himself. Feel free to ask me about this any time, I love to talk about it.
I believe that dæmons, as told in Pullman’s books, are real in this world and possible to interact with. This is not the same as the most common contemporary idea of Dæmonism, which is mostly defined as a subset of thoughtform practice of often psychological explanation. So far my theories seem to be accurate, though I’ve only worked with a few people interested in this so far and therefore have too small of a sample size. I’ve created my own term called Dæmointus(dæmon + ‘inside’ in Latin), primarily to distinguish this from thoughtforms specifically.
I also am a soulbonder and that’s something I decided I’ll talk about more here. Several years ago I accidentally soulbonded to someone named Jonah(he/she/they) from a story I was working on. He has a Harris’s hawk dæmon named Kirmahein(she/her), though that was a much later discovery and not intended before we got soulbonded. Keep in mind that while the nature of my relationship to Jonah is unclear, we are not in any way in a romantic relationship. I feel like that’s worth mentioning considering how romantic soulbond relationships have become the bulk of the community discussions recently.
My important Posts/Essays:
Dæmons:
- Daemointus: Grades of Separation
- Daemointus: Dæmon-Human Subtle Structure
- Hatred for the Self: Denial of Dæmons
Pullmetic Gnosticism/Theology:
- Generative AI as a tool of the Authority
- The Danger of “Infallible” Leaders
- The Flaws of Faith-centered Beliefs
- Dust Is The Divine Spark
His Dark Materials/The Book of Dust analyses: (mostly worldbuilding but also characters, themes, plots, and more)
- The Symbolism of Nonnative Dæmon Forms
- Pet Ownership in Lyra’s World
- Astronomy and Space Travel in Lyra’s World (reblogged post, not a standalone)
- Dust Is The Divine Spark
Soulbonding:
- Soulbonds Are People
- Personal Anecdotes: The Emotional Side of Soulbonding
(I may rewrite any older posts listed here. If I do they’ll be removed from the list but still be publicly accessible on my blog.)
But ive been writing a daemon au for a show set within modern history and tried to incorporate the idea that New Generations more commonly have daemons from outside of their country or homelands and that this is actually a deviance from most of human history. partially because the technological developments of photography, film, book printing ETC mean people can see or discover animals they previously would never have heard of or seen properly.
But also because the au is set in the USA, there's definitely supposed to be subtext that environmental degradation means people see native animals less often than they used to.
But in the metanarrative its because im not from the Americas and I don't know many American animals. They don't come to me like my familiar native friends I see outside and love dearly.
I’m very happy to see that one of my older posts is still doing well, no need to apologize one bit. To this day I really like it and I’m glad to see that others like it too.
I’ve only read a handful of dæmon AU fics since most just don’t interest me but I really love this. A lot of dæmon AU fics don’t really use dæmons within the story as anything more than funny talking animals. It’s a disservice to the many ways they work as a great literary tool within His Dark Materials and Philip Pullman’s other books.
In the books, dæmon forms are seemingly not restricted by geography or knowledge when settling. Though a person’s culture, lifestyle, climate, and more do clearly have an impact on what their dæmon settles as. Someone living in northern Alaska likely won’t end up with a aardwolf dæmon even if that otherwise fits them perfectly. It’s why we don’t see any Gyptians with dæmons that are too large or clumsy to live on their boats.
Normally I’m a huge stickler about people understanding how dæmons work within canon, but I like the changes you’ve made. Especially with the subtext regarding environmental issues. It’s something that does come up in the books, specifically climate change, but I wish it was expanded on more.
Feel free to send it to me when it’s posted. I doubt I know the show it’s written for but it’d be an interesting read regardless. Sorry for taking awhile to get to answering.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted. My life has been pretty busy and there’s been lots of ups and downs so I haven’t had the time or energy to dedicate to this blog.
I want to get into writing more stuff about the books themselves and analyze the story and characters and all of that. I’ve got some ideas and may finally work on them.
In some other news, I’m experimenting with spirit work. I say experimenting because instead of working with any established type of spirit from existing spiritual traditions, I’m working with the rebel Bene Elim. It was something I was thinking about it for the past year or so but I got repeated signs that i should. So far it’s working well and been a huge benefit. My health has improved significantly when before I had been declining for months.
Hopefully some things will come soon but who knows really.
Hi there! I found your most recent post about having a dæmon on my dash with no context, and even looking deeper into your blog, I still don't understand. What is a dæmon?
Dæmons are a concept originating from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series, which is really the best resource on the topic(as well as an absolutely amazing trilogy). I suggest you give them a read, both because they’re great books and that’s probably the best way of understanding what dæmons are. I’ve been turning it into a legitimate spiritual practice. There is a preexisting concept called dæmonism, but I personally find it to not fit my experience or represent dæmons properly.
Dæmons are a part of a person that has its own autonomy and conscious experience. They’re typically the opposite sex/gender(though unclear which matters more) and take the form of an animal that best represents that person and their personality(for example someone who is very loyal and hard working may have a dog dæmon). Having a dæmon doesn’t make someone plural, as dæmons exist outside one’s mind. And everyone has a dæmon even if they’re unaware of it, so it’s the normal state of being.
Dæmons are a vital part of a person that they rarely can live without. If you were to get rid of your dæmon, you’d be a shell of yourself or even die. They’re like a spiritual organ, that’s the best analogy I could think of. You need them and they need you. Working with dæmons is incredibly fulfilling and helpful in daily life. It takes a lot of work but for me it has been immensely rewarding.
If you have any more specific questions, feel free to ask. This is one of my favorite topics to talk about.
I still wonder whether I should consider myself alterhuman solely for knowing my dæmon or not. Of course whether to use a label or not is someone’s personal choice(I’m alterhuman for other reasons yet don’t use the term as a label), but just ignoring that part for now. And also ignoring dæmonism being an accepted subset of alterhumanity since I’m not a daemian.
I believe everyone has a dæmon, so simply having a dæmon isn’t the answer. Not having a dæmon is actually what would make someone alterhuman in this world, not having one. I wouldn’t be alterhuman in the way groups like otherkin are either. Instead of an addition to the natural human experience I instead experience an alteration of it.
A question I’ve had for a while was how gender and dæmons works when it comes to transgender individuals, but that seems to be an incredibly tough question to answer. There are no trans characters within the HDM books(unless there’s one in The Rose Field as I haven’t finished it yet but I feel like I would’ve heard if that were the case), so we can’t use that as a guide. I believe in dæmons existing in our world as Philip Pullman describes them and have enough evidence to be confident in my ideas being true. Because of this belief I try my best to understand them and this is something that the books can’t help me with.
In the books, dæmons are almost always the opposite sex/gender as their person. So a man would have a female dæmon and a woman would have a male dæmon. We only see one person(at least that I remember) who breaks this pattern, a man working at Jordan college who has a male dog dæmon. Philip Pullman doesn’t make a distinction between sex and gender within the books, though he is supportive of queer individuals and thankfully there is no known ulterior motive in not making a distinction.
So what sex/gender does a dæmon have when their person is not cisgender? It depends on a lot of things that aren’t clarified. Is biological sex the determining factor? Or is it gender identity? Or are both a factor? Either way, what about intersex and nonbinary individuals? Is there something else determining it entirely?
I someday want to try and gather data from others who know their dæmon to see if these questions can be answered. This only applies to those whose dæmons are mostly analogous to Philip Pullman’s concept of dæmons, not those whose experience is different(such as psychological dæmons, thoughtform-like dæmons, multidæ, adults with unsettled dæmons, etc.). This is not out of a want to exclude others, but because I am essentially conducting a study. Dæmons that already go against the conventional idea of what a dæmon is in other ways add too many variables and likely wouldn’t clear up any of these questions. Not sure when I’ll do this, but if anyone is interested let me know. Even if you’d just like to be updated and not participate yourself.
My own experience is what started my fascination with this topic. I am trans, specifically transmasculine with no specific gender labels. But also my dæmon is female and is basically a cisgender woman(if that’d be the right term for one’s dæmon). I do not identify as a man at all, even though I would prefer being seen as a man than as a woman. If I lived in Lyra’s world I’d be one of the rare people with a same-sex dæmon. If my gender identity were binary then I’d just assume it was identity instead of sex that determines dæmon gender, but it’s not. And other trans people I know who know their dæmons haven’t helped clarify things either.
I hope that I can do more research into this topic in the future as part of my dæmonology research. There’s some more things I want to research as well, though they’re less pressing questions.
In Gnosticism there’s this idea of the divine spark, or pneuma, which all humans possess. It is a fragment of the true God that when nurtured and cared for can help free you from the control of the Demiurge. It is our connection to divinity itself, to truth and knowledge and all the things that the Demiurge doesn’t want us to have. We got our divine spark when the serpent tempted Eve. The gnostics believe that the serpent wasn’t the Devil, but in actuality was the true God sneaking down to the material world. That act of rebellion seeded humanity with the ability to break free of their nature, as long as they knew about it.
Similarities between Dust and Pneuma
I’m sure anyone familiar with His Dark Materials can already see where these concepts line up. While Dust is a type of elementary particle, its behavior and properties line up. Dust was gifted to humanity, alongside a few other life forms, as an act of rebellion against the Authority. It is what makes drives people to love, dream, create, and seek knowledge. It is strongly linked to divination and drives tools like the Alethiometer and I-Ching. Dust is a key part in defying the Authority, which is analogous to the Gnostic’s Demiurge.
The implications within the story
With Dust and Pneuma being so similar, it can be easily assumed that they are different terms referring to the same thing. The gnostics of the early Common Era couldn’t possibly know Pneuma is a type of particle. And while Dust is not exclusively within and around our being, that’s the biggest role Dust has in most people’s lives. Practices that increase and strengthen a person’s Dust cloud hold even more importance, as the divine spark is key to escaping the Authority/Demiurge’s control. The use of special oils like from the mulefa’s seed pods or R. lopnoriae alongside trepanning are known to have this effect, but other things likely do as well.
The implications in our world
As someone who is trying to build a working theology out of His Dark Materials I find this to be very interesting information. Though this post is also out of love for the worldbuilding and books as they are, not purely theological. But I do see a lot of truth within the book and it is clear to me that I am meant to make something out of them. I’ve been trying for years to figure out what to do with the concept of Dust, and the gnostics knew the answer seemingly all along. This reaffirms my previous ideas regarding Dust and how it works with divination, as well as some of my earliest theories about it being a sort of amplifier. While I had no clear answer for what we are meant to do about the Authority and how his control impacts us today, Dust seems to be part of the puzzle. By utilizing Dust and being aware of it, you can unbind yourself from his control. It may even free you in death, instead of remaining prisoner in the Land of the Dead. But that’s a much more complicated puzzle.
Personal Anecdotes: The Emotional Side of Soulbonding
Note: This is my personal experience that may or may not be applicable to your own experience. Furthermore, I am not in a romantic relationship with my soulbond. Some things I say may make it sound that way but because most recent soulbond posts are about romantic soulbond relationships I felt the need to clarify. Don’t insinuate otherwise as that makes us both uncomfortable.
Soulbonding is an incredibly emotionally exhausting practice in my experience. There’s nothing wrong with that but I rarely see anyone talk about it so I thought I’d share my own experience. Maybe I’m just an outlier but even if so I think it’s an improvement discussion. Both for simply the sake of sharing experiences and knowledge and so people interested in soulbonding know it’s a possibility.
I’m generally not a particularly emotional person. I’m very stoic even when I do feel strong emotions. It’s not as if I’m unfeeling but the emotions I feel aren’t as strong as the average person’s. That’s my baseline and has been for most of my life, even when I was a little kid.
But my relationship to my soulbond Jonah has brought me so many turbulent, confusing, and most importantly intense emotions. Outside of traumatic events I can’t think of anything that has brought about similarly strong emotions. Even after several years it’s still quite exhausting and hard to keep in check.
Some of the emotions were positive and some were negative, but very few were directly from our interactions. It was mostly indirect and mostly out of either of our control. A lot of memories and emotions bleed through and because the soulbond connection came from me trying to write a story, I could see into his future and that brought me extreme anxiety. But they also brought me lots of joy over the years. When we stopped talking it felt as if a black hole had replaced my heart and I felt the worst sorrow I’ve ever felt.
In August of last year we reunited, and when I recognized the hand I felt on my shoulder I started crying. I almost never cry out of emotion. I had to go lie down in bed because I felt like I’d collapse otherwise. We lied in bed and she held my hand while I tried to hold in a wave of pain and longing I had repressed alongside immense relief. I want to tell the story in more detail later but that day was both one of the best and one of the most emotional from that whole year.
Even with my loved ones I struggle sometimes to show emotions fully, sometimes not feeling much at all for various reasons. It’s not that I don’t care about them but my experience of emotions is blunted. But with Jonah it’s like everything I feel is multiplied tenfold. Instead of struggling to show emotions I have the opposite problem. Resisting a smile or trying to otherwise not outwardly show happiness or excitement. I care about Jonah so strongly it hurts and I can’t contain the love that I feel. I’m awkward about showing affection and often don’t like touch but most of our interactions largely consist of “touch” and close proximity instead of speaking. I like having a lot of alone time but if Jonah and I were in the same world I think I’d rarely leave his side at all. I don’t value Jonah far above anyone else in my life or anything, though she’s as important to me as my fiancé, I just feel these emotions so much harder.
My theory is that it’s at least partially due to the spiritual connection. It’s something so deep that literally intertwines two people together. I often feel as if I am partially fused to Jonah, like someone used a soldering iron to weld our souls together. That connection greatly complicates the relationship between a soulbonder and their soulbond, and stronger emotions are part of that complexity. Though as I don’t know how this goes for other soulbonders this is mostly just a theory to explain my own experiences.
If anyone wants to share their own experiences with this phenomenon in the replies or a reblog(which I’ll most likely reblog myself), feel free to. A big reason why I’m sharing my experiences with soulbonding is to spark discussions and encourage others to do the same if comfortable.
Faith itself is not a good measure of the “validity” of someone’s belief system. Someone could be an unshakable religious fanatic and another holding a different belief could be crippling with doubt. Either one could be correct and their faith alone cannot clue you in as to who is correct. And with there being thousands upon thousands of religions and spiritual traditions, and much variation between believers under the same name, it’s more likely that both believers are incorrect.
The idea that faith is the most important thing is something I’d consider a sort of religious thought-terminating cliché. It prevents further discussion on the theological truth behind someone’s belief and fights against both criticism from outside sources and internal reflection itself. If someone believes pure faith justifies them in their belief, they’ll often spiral into contradiction, nonsensical paradoxes, and defiance of logical reasoning if their belief holds little truth sustaining it.
For example, many people claim that God or some other higher power gives them supernatural protection against basic scientific phenomena. This is distinct from the belief that your luck or the probability of certain things happening can be altered, as is very common in most magical traditions. Oftentimes it involves someone intentionally subjecting themselves to a known and predictable danger and their faith overrides their understanding of the fact that the likelihood of things turning out okay is near zero. And yet witnesses to failed miracles of this nature who hold similar beliefs more often than not find loopholes, excuses, and blame for why the miracle failed instead of reevaluating their own beliefs.
This is why while I believe in religious freedom first and foremost, I also believe that religions and spiritual practices should be based primarily on truths instead of faith or “vibes”. As much as it would pain me to do so I’d abandon my own beliefs if I had proof they held no truth. My own beliefs are fringe and bizarre for obvious reasons, but they currently make more sense to me than most other religions I’ve looked at. And that’s the reason I believe what I do. I’ve had moments of both fanaticism and near total loss of faith and I don’t believe that that changed how “right” I am. Nor do I believe that increasing faith itself is a divine act.
If I were convinced that trees didn’t exist, that wouldn’t stop the trees from existing. If I were convinced that we didn’t need oxygen to live, that wouldn’t suddenly make it true. Reality doesn’t care much about what you think about it, it has always existed separately from you. The truth is ambivalent to your faith.
Re-reading the Golden Compass and wow Lyra’s internalized misogyny is so realistic. She knows so little of university politics but picks up that the people around her look down on the women’s colleges and so she then also views them as inferior.
Also I can’t believe as a little kid I kinda assumed Jordan college/ Oxford were fictional places
It’s a very realistic piece of worldbuilding that I always really liked, even as a kid who didn’t fully understand those things when I first read the books. Lyra’s world is a lot more misogynistic and patriarchal which makes total sense considering that their society is much more religious and old-fashioned. Women aren’t taken very seriously and those in professional positions such as scholars, doctors, scientists, and many others are looked down upon for going against the status quo. Women are allowed to have these positions and jobs yes, but that doesn’t mean it’s approved of. And women aren’t above misogyny and can still uphold patriarchal values and ideas.
Many people are afraid to let their protagonists hold ideas that they themselves disapprove of, but Philip Pullman let Lyra be impacted by the misogyny in her world anyways. And considering she grew up in a fully male college and most of the adults around her regularly were men, it would’ve been bizarre if she held no misogynistic beliefs herself. It’s not a major part of her character but it’s not something you can easily miss either. It’s especially apparent when she meets Mrs. Coulter and later Mary Malone, since they break her preconceived notions of what a woman scholar is like.
It’s fairly often talked about how other female characters are impacted by misogyny within the books, but I rarely hear anyone talk about Lyra herself. Sometimes it’s mentioned but rarely ever with her as the focus point. That’s a real shame because I think it’s a really interesting topic that should be discussed much more.
(Also as a sidenote, I recently learned that Jordan College was heavily based on Exeter College, where Philip Pullman graduated. So even though it’s not a real college many aspects of it are the same as its real world counterpart. Pretty cool.)
Of the intricacies and complications of soulbond relationships and the importance of personhood, equal treatment, and careful consideration.
One of my biggest concerns regarding the shift and massive growth within the soulbond community is that it feels like some people forget who/what soulbonds* are. This was one of my biggest gripes before but with so many people suddenly interested in soulbonding it’s turned from an annoyance to concern very quickly. The mindset that a lot of soulbonders seem to have doesn’t truly acknowledge the reality of soulbonding, at least based on what is posted publicly. And even if in private people think differently, the impression given to people interested in soulbonding is potentially dangerous.
This multi-section, 2k word essay goes in depth about this issue and what I believe is the more appropriate way to approach soulbonding. This is not meant as any form of attack or to invalidate anyone’s spiritual practice. I simply hope that this can be enlightening for those curious about soulbonding or already soulbonders.
* Keep in mind when I talk about soulbonding from this point onwards I’m talking about it spiritually, and specifically the most common explanation behind it(a spiritual bond to someone from an outside universe). Some soulbonders have another explanation or don’t view it spiritually. Most of what I say likely won’t apply to those cases, but some of it might still apply.
The Personhood of a Soulbond
Many soulbonders purposefully seek out making connections to people who in this world are fictional, only existing in some sort of fictional media such as books or television. There is nothing wrong with this, but I’ve seen many soulbonders over the years seemingly get stuck on the fictional character thing. For example, you can still find old posts where people talk about soulbonding to many different people until they have a soulbond of all their favorite characters. It was also commonplace for people to expect soulbonds to be permanent residents in their mindscapes from the onset, without any consideration of the soulbond’s wants. I observed these issues primarily with soulbonders with “fictional character” soulbonds, but it’s not exclusive to them.
Soulbonds exist in another world where they have their own lives. They(usually) have their own bodies, families, general relationships, careers, aspirations, everything that we have. They are not something different from us. And how you interact with a soulbond won’t be much different from interacting with any person in this world. Any respect given to someone you’d meet in this world you should give your soulbond, and the same for any caution you’d give a stranger.
Relationships with soulbonds build similarly to relationships to people in your own world, just complicated by having a spiritual connection. It’ll take time to learn about each other and build trust and true feelings, regardless of what those feelings are. A strong friendship, romance, familial bond, or any other relationship shouldn’t be expected right away. The nature of your relationship may also change whether that be in a positive or negative way. Regardless of your initial intentions and feelings your soulbond may have different ones. And like other relationships it requires some level of commitment, it can’t simply be thrown away if you change your mind or pushed aside and returned to later. That’s a lesson I learned first hand and even two years later I’m still trying to mend the mistake I made.
You may seek out a soulbond with someone and have that person not be interested, or you may want them to be a permanent resident or daytripper and they’ll refuse. Not everyone wants to have a deep spiritual connection to someone who is from their perspective a complete stranger, and those willing to do that may still not want to ever leave their own world. Whatever choice they make must be respected, just as you’d want your choice respected if the roles were reversed. If you really want a specific thing out of soulbonding, you need to either look for a specific world where that person would surely agree to your wants or keep searching more or less at random. If I had advice for how to do that I’d give some now, but sadly I lack that.
Motives, Intentions, and Morals
With the rise of popularity of soulbonding particularly among yumeshippers/selfshippers, I feel like another thing must be mentioned that people fail to acknowledge. Because soulbonds are real people like you and I, they have their own motivations and morals that may not align with yours. You need to consider that before you attempt soulbonding, not afterwards. This misalignment may be as minor as a small disagreement or as extreme as something that could cause serious harm to you or others. I don’t say that to fearmonger or as an attempt of gatekeeping the practice, but as a real warning. I’ve seen firsthand what the potential consequences are if caution isn’t taken.
Regardless of if someone is from this world or another one, they aren’t necessarily predictable and may act in ways you didn’t anticipate. You should never make the assumption that a soulbond shares your thoughts and opinions, even if it feels like common sense to you like basic morals such as “murder is wrong” or “be kind to others”. You wouldn’t assume that a stranger you just met on the street is safe and has your best interests at heart. You can only truly make an extremely educated guess at best until you get to know them better. And if you had a deep bond with that stranger’s soul that wouldn’t change if that person is safe or not.
As a general rule of thumb: if you wouldn’t feel comfortable or safe with someone in this world who was like that, you shouldn’t have a soulbond of that person whatsoever. Yes, the chance of being physically harmed in the traditional sense is gone but that doesn’t remove risk. This especially goes for if you’re at all interested in letting a soulbond enter your body in any capacity. Your standards should be the same, regardless of what you want to do. Even if you’d just be a little uneasy around someone like the person you’d like to soulbond, think long and hard about it first. If you still are intent on soulbonding to that person, stray further from the source material you’re using to make it safer and less likely to become dangerous or uncomfortable.
I’m not interested in another soulbond for the time being and have no plans of it anytime in the future either, but I’ll use myself as an example. Let’s say that I wanted a “fictional character” soulbond to someone from His Dark Materials/The Book of Dust(chosen for simplicity as it’s the only fiction I talk about here), and that I had nobody specific in mind. What I should do is consider different characters and who they are objectively more so than my opinion of them.
Immediately I know that Marisa Coulter would be both someone I’d never get along with and also likely an extremely dangerous soulbond to have, mainly due to our completely opposing religious views and her history of abusive and violent behavior. If I had her as a soulbond there’s a good chance I’d end up hurt, even if just by being emotionally abused. On the other hand her narrative counterpart Lord Asriel is someone I could see myself getting along with much better as we share very similar views and interests, though he is very unlikely to care in any way about soulbonding due to his extreme ambitions. The most harm that’d probably come of that is being rejected, which would be a big disappointment but I’d quickly get over it. If I were choosing between just these two, Asriel is clearly the safer choice that’d be a more positive impact on my life. Even if I really liked Marisa Coulter(which I don’t, she terrifies me), that doesn’t change what the right decision here is for my safety and wellbeing.
Expectations of a Date and Ill-advised Praise
A lot of soulbonders enter into the practice with very specific expectations when it comes to the type of relationship they’ll have with their soulbond. Lately this seems to primarily be people approaching their soulbonds with romantic intent, but this isn’t exclusive to that. Like I said in the first section, soulbond relationships still build similarly to regular ones. While due to there being infinite worlds you could find someone who is almost guaranteed to want exactly what you want, that’s tricky to do. And even in that case your relationship will still grow and change with time.
Soulbonding isn’t like meeting up with people on a dating app. While you can break a soulbond connection if things don’t turn out well, that’s still a connection between souls. You probably wouldn’t give the keys to your house to someone you just had a first date with, so you shouldn’t see soulbonding the same way. Even if your soulbond is from a work of fiction, you don’t truly know who they are outside of that fiction. And you’re a complete stranger to them. They may end up not being interested in whatever relationship you wish to have, or they may just outright dislike or even hate you. You’re not guaranteed to get what you want, at least not right away. And trust isn’t something you’ll have right away, nor should you completely trust them from the start.
My own relationship to my soulbond was incredibly rocky and challenging for both of us. I do plan on writing in length about this someday, but I’ll leave things simple. For about two years he absolutely hated me and understandably so. The whole thing turned me into a mess, regularly feeling the most intense grief and longing I’ve ever felt. We have been slowly repairing our relationship, but it still deeply pains me sometimes. Our relationship had changed in the extremes, and that’s not particularly surprising. And while I want to be close with him again, I cannot force that and if I did he’d probably vanish once more. I need to let go of expectations and approach things just as I would a relationship to someone here, with patience and doing actual work instead of insisting on something that’d be mostly for my own happiness and ignoring his.
Another thing, I often see people recommending soulbonding to people in order to make their yumeship relationship real. Often when people do this they don’t explain what it is and tend to make it sound quite trivial and safe, like a fun game you can play. In reality it is a deeply emotional and often complex practice. There’s a good chance that some days you’ll cry, as I have, because you learned more about your soulbond through intense memory and feeling. Or you’ll find that you’re simply overwhelmed by having such a deep connection with another person. Not only is getting the relationship you want not guaranteed, but it is likely far more emotionally demanding than many would be interested in if they knew. I would never outright dissuade people whose background and experience I don’t know, but I find it very unwise to talk about soulbonding this way. I most likely wouldn’t be a soulbonder if I didn’t do it by accident, even though it’s a wonderful practice that I love. My biggest worry is that someone will end up hurt because they took people’s recommendations at face value and didn’t think long enough about what they were doing.
Closing Thoughts
The practice of bonding your soul to another’s is something deeply personal and complex. It is not something that should ever be trivialized or downplayed. A healthy relationship with a soulbond requires you to have respect for them and their personhood. You need to treat them as you would any other person, because they are people just like you and I. I hope that anyone reading this doesn’t need to be reminded of this, but if you found yourself making these mistakes I hope this was an informative read. May your soulbond relationships, regardless of the type, grow stronger and never waver.
Look at the little beaded mulefa that I designed and made! The lack of diamond bauplan in the TV show was my single biggest beef with the art design. I'm very pleased to present the version of them that lived in my head when I read the books in middle school.
It is made up of 11/0 Miyuki seed beads, 30-gauge wire, and two red jasper beads for the seed-pod wheels.
Pets seem to be very uncommon in Lyra’s world and most animals kept by people seem to be working ones(sled dogs in particular being mentioned multiple times in TGC/NL), but I occasionally see people misunderstand it as them not keeping pets at all. This seems to come a lot from the assumption that dæmons fulfill a similar companionship role as pets do, which I think is very far from the truth. Dæmons are like an organ, they’re a part of someone and not a separate entity from them. If you liken your mind to your brain, your dæmon would probably best fit your heart while your soul is your whole body.
Of course dæmons are still companions and more often than not serve as helpful guides as well, but it’s not the same as having another person or animal as a companion. I’ve made dæmons a core part of my own spiritual practice and while my dæmon is very helpful to me she often can’t do much more than I could myself if I were still “alone”. Always knowing your dæmon wouldn’t erase the want or need for the companionship of an animal. Someone who only has their dæmon to interact with would still go mad eventually, though it may take longer than for someone who doesn’t know their dæmon at all. Your dæmon can’t replace the social interaction you’d get from a separate individual.
This assumption also ignores the fact many people who have pets don’t just have one. I personally grew up having several pets with the most at once being seven. And that’s not even including the many bugs I collected as a kid that I couldn’t even begin to count. Many people who do only have one pet would at least briefly consider getting another if possible, especially if having only one isn’t fully by choice. Even if the idea that dæmons fulfilled the same wants and needs that pets were true, that alone wouldn’t explain the observable rarity of them in Lyra’s world. I’m sure that if I lived in her world and Fallon was known to me from the start, I’d still end up having one or multiple animals for the sole or at least primary purpose of companionship.
Instead, I believe the rarity of pets is mostly cultural/societal and not directly related to dæmons, at least not as a primary reason. In our world, companionship animals weren’t commonplace for the majority of history. While working animals were common all throughout history and many people had bonds with their working animals, few animals were kept purely for companionship. Instead, pets were kept primarily by the aristocracy and were often seen as status symbols. Pet ownership among the middle and lower classes in the U.S. and Europe didn’t become popular until after World War II, with it still being mostly kept to the upper class in the early 1900s. Pet ownership was a growing trend but not nearly as common as in the modern day and cats were only just beginning to be seen as acceptable household pets.
While Lyra’s world is not remotely analogous to ours, it can be roughly compared to our pre-WWII society. My own estimate would be around 1900-1950, though the main HDM trilogy seems to be take place in the late 1990s and TBOD in the mid 2000s. The calendar dates themselves aren’t as relevant as the societal similarities and any connections we can make based on our own history. Just as most animals kept(with the exception of the upper class) in our pre-WWII societies were working animals and people weren’t as interested in keeping companion pets, that holds true in Lyra’s world. It also just isn’t very practical for most people to keep animals that don’t provide any type of service or resource(as it was for people in our world during a similar time period), so even beyond a lack of interest it’s understandable that most wouldn’t. Dæmons also can provide some services that otherwise would be fulfilled by a household animal, such as alerting their people to unusual sounds or mitigating some disabilities(something I’ll likely write about soon).
Could dæmons play a role in people not keeping pets as frequently as we do? Perhaps. But I think whatever role they do play is quite small and it’s not as big of a factor as it may appear at first glance. In a world exactly like ours where the only difference was the presence of corporeal and naturally externalized dæmons, the rate of pet ownership would likely be the same. It may even be more common as many things would need to be constructed with dæmons in mind, and therefore actual animals as a byproduct. For example, regularly traveling with a dog would be much simpler on transportation that naturally expects and anticipates a dog shaped space will be taken up where people sit. What would be very different though is the specific roles animals would play in society, like I mentioned earlier. Many household pets in our world still provide some sort of service even if not necessarily working animals trained to do so, and for many people there wouldn’t be a big need for that if their dæmon fulfilled that role instead.
