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On Therianthropy, Otherkin, Zoesthesia, and the Responsibility We Have To Each Other

This post might make your brain hurt, so take your time with it. As someone who was raised in a cult, escaped, and was forced to deconstruct the origins of belief in order to stay sane and retrieve control over my life, this topic is very important to me. I also believe it is paramount to the integrity of our communities that you understand the material in this post. You may or may not agree and I don't necessarily posit that I am "correct" in my analysis; I don't really expect anything one way or the other, but I am curious what will come of it. If this community means something to you and you are willing to at least hear me out, read on.

Yesterday I met face-to-face with a researcher to discuss the "zoesthesia" term I proposed a few months ago as a potential precursor or stand-in for terms such as therianthropy and otherkin. They brought up a number of good points. It was a delight to hear the insight of someone both educated in psychology and external to the community, and about some of the future studies they're still formulating (I can't discuss that at this time).

It became clear that adoption of this term may be unlikely to aid many of the major social issues plaguing the community both here and abroad. Although it sounds like "synesthesia" - a phenomenon rarely, if ever, targeted by bad actors, zoesthesia may still be a hot topic for those who take offense to the non-conforming simply because of its nature. They did find it interesting that zoesthesia prioritizes experience over identity. Whether zoesthesia is actually adopted or not, I have no preference.

What I proposed during that meeting was a slightly more refined version of the previously proposed definition, which does not necessarily try to include every form of alterhumanity, some forms of which I've learned may be entirely unrelated. After more discussion and thought, I refined the idea further.

For a moment, as a thought experiment, I want to ask that you forget every term you know relating to this community and consider what I arrived upon:

Zoesthesia

Zoesthesia ('zo-esthesia') is the experience of sensations, perceptions, and behaviors subjectively interpreted as belonging to something incongruent to one's own biology. Interpretations and identities arising from these experiences are personal and diverse; zoesthesia can be present without interpretation, especially at early ages, but is often experienced as an embodied identity.

Individuals who experience zoesthesia have a wide spectrum of experiences, often leading to unique endeavors and forms of expression in social, artistic, literary, and professional contexts.

The experience of zoesthesia involves:

Experiences (e.g. sensations, perceptions, memories, behaviors, desires, social cues, states of consciousness, and/or involuntary urges) that are often subjectively interpreted as belonging to something other than one's own biological species,

Experiences that may vary in form and intensity, remain at a stable baseline, or become triggered by internal or external stimuli,

2. And may include any number of the following:

An identity or overarching sensation that embodies these experiences,

An understanding that one still has a human body,

Dysphoria regarding the incongruence between one's physical body and perceived embodied experience,

Dreams or trance-like states that are experienced through the lens of something incongruent to one's biology,

A strengthening or increased frequency of experiences after one becomes conscious of them,

And/or a personal interpretation of these experiences as non-human through psychological or spiritual means.

"Zoesthesia" is derived from "zoe" and "aisthesis" - Greek, literally "life perception" or "animal perception."

So why do I propose this?

Obviously, this could technically be considered as a refined definition of therianthropy and/or otherkin. It does not deny the existence of spiritual experience or belief, but in order for this to be a responsible definition informed by empiricism, it must not assert that anything we feel (whether interpreted as psychological or spiritual) is "real." This is not to say that it isn't. I find that it is much more constructive to completely avoid language that asserts beliefs as such because it is impossible to measure how "real" something is. Asserting a belief as true may demand that others believe you, which may be disrespectful and disingenuous.

If I'd like you to have a clear picture of why this proposal exists so that we can have constructive discussions, I must assume that you're entirely unfamiliar with my worldview and deconstruct its basis for you. Before we continue, I would like you to consider the following oft-misunderstood terms and thought experiments and how I use them. The way I discuss zoesthesia and the rest of what I'll say in this post hinges specifically on my understanding of these ideas. Take a breather if you need it - it's heavy.

If you would like to skip this, go to the "Current Definitions" section.

1 . Empiricism

In philosophy, empiricism is the view that all knowledge and belief is derived from firsthand experience, e.g. through the senses. This philosophy is the basis for the scientific method and the following thought experiment:

Consider that you may have already taken for granted the belief that a real person wrote this post and not just a collection of subatomic particles resembling a person. I believe it to be a fact that I wrote this because doing so is now within my memory and I believe that my memories were not placed there last Thursday. I might tell you that this is a "fact," but then you have to believe that I am a reasonably trustworthy person and that a "reasonably trustworthy person" is an inherently "real" fixture in your reality. You also may believe or take for granted that the conversion of the letters you're reading on your device into concepts in your consciousness isn't just zeroes and ones but a complex process derived from quantum mechanics, psychology, or the amorphous idea of "the soul" that none of us can put a definitive finger on. These beliefs are not empirically verifiable or unverifiable because we cannot physically sense the world on this scale (as far as is generally understood). Even if you use tools to measure the world on that scale, you then have to believe in the accuracy of your tools. With this in mind, you may need to be wary of what you assert as "truth." The only thing you may truly be able to know without the need for reason is what you are currently feeling and thinking in this ever-present moment. Everything else in your head that you "know" (e.g. your memories) is made up with varying measures of belief. It is entirely possible that the past may not exist. Attempting to make judgements on that information can result in some pretty funky paradoxes, but there are ways to talk about experience without invoking belief. This is why I have structured the refined definition of zoesthesia to emphasize interpretation. This thought experiment is a robust methodology known as methodological solipsism. If you still don't believe that any of this is valid or useful because you believe in another kind of philosophy, religion, or dogma...can you see where this is going? I cannot emphasize how important it feels to be precise in the language that we use so that we might avoid creating and promoting dogma while just trying to discuss and share our experiences. Growing up in religion we are often taught that belief is virtue and that you must believe in one way or another. After all, taking the stance of "not believing" something is the belief that something is not. It seems like a circular dilemma on the surface and cults will often try to manipulate that intuition. I've since found that the responsible thing to do is to simply observe the moment and decline to believe in the first place. There are plenty of beliefs you can function without. The state I get into when I'm feeling particularly mental-shifted is a state in which belief and language is largely reduced or implicit, my inner dialogue is non-existent, and if I do think it tends to be in pictures. If one can exist and thrive in such a state, why don't so many of us ever leave that monologue?

2. Spirit

Often thought of as a force, being, consciousness, or presence

For the purpose of sticking to the concept of empiricism and the previous thought experiment, I would suggest that a spirit is no different from any concept that you can interact with in your head that is based in something you have observed externally or internally. It may also include any actual object or being in the external world (some would call beliefs related to this animism or panpsychism).

It is not possible to verify the "being-ness" of any particular object or animal, whether it is conscious or just a bunch of atoms playing the part. Just watch Vsauce deconstruct a chair's existence. You are free to believe that it is more than that, but that will dive us into spirituality, dogma, and paradox. I see "spirit" and "object" as synonymous with "concept."

3. Spirituality

A preoccupation with or capacity for understanding moral, existential, or metaphysical questions without the dictation of dogma.

Whatever you've experienced through your senses is something that you have come to know, and in that sense "spiritual experience" is just another way to describe firsthand experience that falls perfectly under the umbrella of empiricism. If you have the firsthand experience of going into trance and entering [what you believe to be] the astral plane, that is still received through your senses and is a part of your conscious experience. Even your mind's eye could be considered a kind of sensation. Your experiences, no matter how you see or discuss them, are inherently valid because you experienced them.

"Valid" in this context simply means that you experienced what you experienced and we are giving you the benefit of the doubt because we can't see inside your consciousness. To say something is valid is not necessarily to make the impossible assertion that your interpretation of your experiences is based in "reality." Good researchers try their best to maintain this perspective to respect everyone they study. To claim that someone else's experience is invalid is a just another belief that no one can definitively assert as truth.

4. Dogma

In religion, dogma is typically referred to as a collection of deeply held beliefs often passed down through generations. Those beliefs can seem "spiritual" in that they may have once been based in someone's firsthand experience, but this quickly leads people into a trap.

It can also be thought of as the rules, laws, and rituals you believe in. We create new rules all the time as we gain new experiences. If you're open to new experiences, you may find that it is possible to break whatever rules you've previously prescribed to existence. No law can be empirically verified as universal or eternal except maybe entropy - until even that breaks down at the event horizon of a black hole, which typically breaks our understanding of the laws of physics.

Some rituals may be useful to you, especially if they help promote or maintain your well-being. Practicing something like Tai Chi every day is a ritual that can keep your mind and body healthy. Actually practicing it and believing that it helps you (because you have, in fact, found that it does in your own experience) is entirely empirical. Believing that it will make you super lucky and start seeing synchronicities everywhere would be superstitious. Superstition is often based in dogma too.

You create your own miniature personal dogma every moment you look to the past for guidance. Even firsthand/spiritual experience can transform into a kind of dogma the moment it becomes a variable for calculating future actions. In some cases this is necessary for your survival. It can also become overblown and lead to things like depression and anxiety, especially in the form of trauma and limiting beliefs. Trauma can become a form of dogma, too - if it changes the way you live and behave.

Finally, dogma is often the result of:

5. Heuristic Processing

To put it simply, heuristic processing means that your brain makes judgement calls based on limited information. You flop three dates in a row with potential partners you were interested in and your brain wants to jump to generalizations like "Maybe I'm just an unlovable person, I'm ugly, I'll always be lonely, etc." And then bam, 6 months down the line your life is agony and you've done nothing to actually improve your odds of connecting with somebody, reinforcing your confirmation bias (also what I would consider to be an element of dogma) that you're just not cut out for love. And so the downward spiral goes. It is so tempting to do this - heuristic processing is the primary mode of the brain, after all. Years of reinforcement only makes the resulting neural pathways stronger and harder to move on from. This is especially apparent with addictions like alcoholism, which literally alters the structure of the brain over time.

Everyone is guilty of this. It can useful because analyzing every single point of data would be absolutely debilitating, but it is a double-edged sword I believe you should be aware of. Look for it and you will find it everywhere.

These ideas, and perhaps relativism, are some of the pillars of my worldview and understanding of the thing we call reality. It's not an exhaustive list, but was wholly necessary for me to break things down this way so that I could purge myself of the dogma of the cult I was raised in. I'm not necessarily suggesting that you should subscribe to these ideas, but now you should be able to see where I'm coming from.

Now that these things are defined, I can get to the point!

The Problem

I'd like you to take a look at the following definitions and see if you can spot the problems:

If you don't see it, I'll explain in a moment. In response to the initial zoesthesia discussions, TG also published their own "Definitive Stance" in the forums, which suffers from the same problem. The definition above remains on the main site. This is the new one:

Wikipedia's page on "Therian subculture" (there isn't one for therianthropy itself) primarily focuses on identity, but at least mentions "the broader lived experience of therians":

Therianthropy's Fandom wiki page is much closer to emphasizing the experience, if a little term-heavy and requiring the use of "therian" in the main definition:

Pluralpedia's definition...

There are countless others, but I want to focus on the first two for the moment. Both definitions for therianthropy on TG take for granted the interpretation of one's relevant experiences as "non-human" or "animal." By omission, these definitions assert that we know for a fact that there are individuals out there who are having non-human animal experiences and aren't just delusional or whatever else. But the interpretation of these experiences as non-human is belief, not an empirically tested fact. It's dogma (see point #4 above).

Some of y'all are willing to let physicists and mathematicians concede that what we call reality is inherently mathematical in some way, and yet fail to realize that mathematical proofs can't be fabricated backwards by creating the solution first. Saying that "therianthropy is the internal experience of being a non-human animal" as TG maintains is the equivalent of creating a "true" statement and then forming a hypothesis that might make it seem true. At that point, you may as well be practicing Biblical numerology or quack science.

In the early years of the community, members came up with the generally accepted terms and definitions for their experiences long before we had any evidence for what was actually going on underneath the hood - as a stand-in for what we hoped we would know in the future. But they ossified until they became writ in stone. We still do not have evidence to say with certainty that we are experiencing actual non-human sensations or something entirely different.

Over years of certain members policing labels and experiences as if this were some kind of cult, there remains an ache for feelings of legitimacy in the community. Many feel like if they aren't "committed" enough to their identity, their experiences won't be seen as real and they won't get to be a part of the club. Based on most of the available definitions for therianthropy, identity is implied as a necessary component when identity arises from interpretation. Is it not plausible that one might experience what we might all consider a "mental shift" and think nothing of it or simply not be able to put a finger on what it was?

There are those who want to put forth the idea that certain sensations, behaviors, or lack thereof are concrete proof that one is or isn't a particular animal. This itches at the incredibly human fear of social exclusion, especially in kids just trying to make sense of themselves. These definitions inherently promote these attitudes by not emphasizing the fact that all of this is based on interpretation to begin with. This isn't an exact science and may never be. As much as one may desire for their experiences and identity to be perceived as legitimate by their peers, there is no empirical way to do this except to say that your experiences are valid because they're yours. Gatekeeping legitimacy turns the therian community into a kind of cult that encourages members to preen their experiences and limit their interpretations of them to a prescribed box.

This is not leading in a positive direction.

According to Therian Guide, we don't just have "therianthropy." We have suntherian, contherian, non-shifting therian, standard therian, polytherian, cladotherian, shifting, aura shifting, bi-location shifting, phantom shifting, dream shifting, astral shifting, and a whole slew of other terms. From an outside observer looking in, this makes it look like a cult. Point #1.1 in the definition of zoesthesia eliminates the need for this obtuseness entirely, reducing the need to use seemingly woo-woo terms like aura shifting, astral shifting, bi-location shifting, and more. I don't believe that these extra terms need to be publicized as part of an official definition, but instead as a historic note. Obviously I can't advocate for the outright removal of these terms and microlabels from the community's lexicon (this likely isn't even possible), but this all looks wildly disorganized.

Many of the other definitions on other sites (not all can be pictured here) emphasize either identity or a combination of experience and identity. Every site is different and some are better than others. Several have 5+ terms within the first couple paragraphs.

Zoesthesia's definition contains one novel term: zoesthesia.

Something I recently realized was that the younger alterhuman community is the only one I can think of that coins new terms every week to describe their own flavor of experiences. I feel that there must be some deeper commonalities that people are trying to get at. I believe that my proposal of zoesthesia may alleviate some of those efforts. If we could iron this out, it may allow us to focus more on what matters: sharing in our experiences and connecting with each other.

I also believe that potential authority figures such as Therian Guide, as well as general members of the community at large, have a responsibility to avoid the promotion of magical thinking. By not educating people about the fact that the "non-human animal experience" is an interpretation of one's experiences as "non-human" rather than an undeniable fact of existence clearly within the definition of therianthropy, magical thinking is encouraged. Anything and everything can become a cult when this responsibility is ignored. I bring this to everyone's attention out of concern more than anything. I was raised in a cult, which the new owner of TG herself rescued me from and helped me process. I can only hope that this responsibility is understood, for the sake of the integrity of the community.

I am requesting that this proposal be formally considered and debated amongst yourselves so that a decision can be made regarding how to proceed. I believe the threat of these communities becoming cult-like began long ago, and I think it is damaging the community as a whole. While many in the community may be more "spiritually minded" and think that means that the scientific method is irrelevant to their experiences, I think it behooves everyone to approach these topics with a dose of neutrality, curiosity, and empiricism.

Since drafting this post and sharing parts of it on TG, I've been told that I'm just "overly sensitive to cults" because of the horrible things I went through. I've been assured that their community is much healthier now because of the large monthly influx of new members. I've been told that empiricism is a form of gatekeeping and that therianthropy does not need to be seen as "valid" by science.

This attitude isn't strictly a TG problem, but we do have a problem.

I understand people's distrust of modern science and psychiatry. Yes, it moves slowly, its history has been riddled with injustice and corruption, and we have a dysfunctional medical and pharmaceutical industry that we don't want involved in potentially purging us of our experiences. I want it to be crystal clear that I do not condone corruption, injustice, or systemic racism. But empiricism isn't about gatekeeping at all. It's simply asking "What can we truly know based on our senses and available data?" If you assert that you know something that cannot be "known" without belief, you may be wishful thinking or jumping the gun in an attempt to drum up feelings of legimitacy. Everyone has a right to do this, but if you speak as an authority in a way that makes a held belief seem like fact, you aren't far from exhibiting cult-like behaviors.

Most of you have never physically stood in a room with 50 other people telling you that you're the one who's wrong because the status quo was more important for them to maintain. Where the illusions of the cult were more important to maintain.

I am wary of cults, but more importantly, I am highly perceptive of the concessions people make against rationality that often lead to a state of mutually reinforced delusion. No particular group is immune to this, even if you'd like to think of your own group as wiser than humans.

It goes deeper than that too. I have had to refine the way that I speak because I used to speak in very non-constructive ways, and it felt like people hated me for it. Because I "spoke my mind." Because I was "honest and direct." In truth, I was hasty and felt that backing up my hastily chosen words with more words was the best course of action. It never ended well and I didn't understand why. Now I do.

I could've simply crawled back into my ego and said, "They'll never understand me, I'm just a pariah." When I was younger, that is what I did.

Now I recognize that everyone is constantly creating dogma for themselves - often in the form of limiting beliefs. People say things like "I'm good for nothing" or "That's just how the world works." They give up their power and their capacity for rational thought simply because something happened a certain way a few times. Even if it's happened a thousand times, that's no excuse to close your eyes to what's before you. We have a responsibility to ourselves and each other not to shoot ourselves in the foot for no good reason.

I've actively tried to fight heuristic processing on and off for the past decade. For my whole life, a lot of folks have said, "Just chill out man, you're trying too hard." And for my whole life I've watched my peers undergo spiritual and intellectual atrophy.

If I do not strive for some level of precision in my speech, to question belief and consider intellectually the logic behind what I have to say…if I let that responsibility go and let the world burn, the world I wish to see will never come to be. I personally know more or less 5-10 people who would ever care about this as much as I do. Maybe life would be easier if I did let go, but I can't unsee what I have seen. I wouldn't be able to live with myself.

Understanding the need for empirically vetted definitions and empirically minded thought has nothing to do with giving therianthropy/otherkin/etc. a scientific "stamp of approval." Instead, this is about being responsible about what you can assert as truth and what you must clarify as personally held belief. The alternative leads down a long road to authoritarianism and cult-like behaviors. Our society has a critical lack of understanding when it comes to these things and it shows. It shows on nearly every level of human society - politics, finance, religion, the whole nine yards. If humans go extinct or our societies descend into seemingly inescapable fascism, I would wager that it will have been this lack of understanding that did it. Science is necessary and it's why you're not going to die before the age of 40 in the year of our lord 2026.

The problem I've detailed may not seem important and it may even seem pedantic, but understanding this subject or not may mean the difference between maintaining the cult-like aspects of the therian community we all know and hate or nurturing healthy discussion in a thriving, positive community. If you are able to see the nuance, please advocate for this. No one else will do it for us.

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