multiplicity_archives | Mooooooore skeptism

Please bear with me. My boy, Max, posted here a while ago, in regards to me, and he's trying to push me more into having conversations with others about my own doubts with multiplicity.

When I was young, I began studying other religions, and I really became interested in spirituallity. Along the way, I discovered two others living within. Really, this is just background information, so no know thinks I'm trying to troll or rag on the community. I've been aware of my own multiplicity for a number of years. I also see my multiplicity as a means to my own personal spirituallity. That is, I don't have a set religion, but I see the presence of and communication with my system as being a self-enlightening, holy experience.

I see this huge resurgance of multiples on the internet, and it makes me skeptical. NOT, because of the fact that their multiples. I wouldn't call someone out on being a "fake". But, the way some of these systems carry on, it makes me wonder how they can reasonably function.

I'm going to point the finger at soulbonding, because it seems to be the means of multiplicity that houses the greatest number of loonies. I can accept, per se, that another has entered your system, and is a bad influence, and perhaps is forcing your body and system down a bad path. I can not, however, accept that this entity causing harm is, say, Sephiroth from the Final Fantasy games. That, is insane. Final Fantasy is fiction. It may very well be an entity that projects images OF Sephiroth into your mind, but part of gaining some feasible aspect of functional control over yourselves, is seeing through the bullshit.

I have trouble with people who play INTO that bullshit, by extension. Not only do they seem to be the loudest group of loons, but they're also impossible to have a reasonable discussion with. Everything boils down to "it's different for everyone", which is great for upholding any kind of deluded fantasy that you might have, but really, isn't productive for conversation.

Especially...if you're attempting to learn something, or see if they have a reason to act the way that they do.

Are there any rational, sane soulbonds, here? If so, do they honestly believe that they're fictional characters? This seems to be the most levelheaded community about plurality on LJ that we can find, so I figure it would be the best place to start.

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My issue is, here, that because a multiple's identity gets questioned so often, they (quite understandably) balk whenever they're reduced to mere elements of one single identity. That's good, insofar as they're defending themselves against misconceptions, but the mind's a multi-faceted thing, and I really don't see what's wrong with being an element of a single identity. I don't think it necessarily reduces someone to a puppet or anything "lesser."

*nods* I think I understand better now. I think my personal problem with the concept of being viewed as elements of a single identity is that when people do so, they tend to single out one particular person as being the real or original identity from which all others are created or which they represent aspects of, and then unconsciously treat everyone else as being less real, valid, and important. Possibly, we've just heard, and seen too many friends who heard, people expressing the opinion that it's overly weird for 'alters' to want to be treated as separate people, or explaining matter-of-factly that they were going to go on viewing you as one person with a lot of aspects because it was too confusing to think of you as many people.

On the other hand, I don't want those experiences to lead me to deny that there really are people who see themselves as a single aspected identity, or that there are people who split and wish to be integrated, for that matter. The aspected-identity setup seems more like how some people have described the 'median' experience.

I should probably mention at some point that I don't think it's necessary to use gateways or other realities to explain people being in a system without having split off an original. If someone says they are, I'll take it at face value, but it's also possible to create someone from scratch without needing to detract from what already exists-- you're not necessarily cutting off a part of yourself to make a new person, just giving them some genetic material, so to speak. Though I'm also not sure if an original person, providing there is one, is necessarily less created-- in a sense, everyone, even single people, creates themselves.

Oh, I can completely understand that. I don't blame the multiple reaction to that at all; if being an element of a single identity is inaccurate, it's natural to want to distance yourself from that.

Though I'm also not sure if an original person, providing there is one, is necessarily less created-- in a sense, everyone, even single people, creates themselves.

I totally agree. All of this ties into this value judgment people tend to put on created things, as if they're somehow 'less real', which really annoys me.

I thought about medians after I'd posted that, and really that does go a ways toward explaining what I meant. Though honestly, I'm wary about using it because although it comes close, it doesn't quite hit the nail on the head, for me. The closest thing I've heard that describes my own experience is 'personification' as discussed by some Jungians.

I think my experience may be fairly close to what you describe, but I prefer to define myself as "median" since I have a nondualistic philosophy. I view personal and impersonal as a spectrum, and choose to identify more strongly with the impersonal, nondiscrete aspect of consciousness than with singular, discrete personhood. Our use of the metaphor "Party" -- an organization without firm boundaries, midway between a subject and a state -- exemplifies this.

Do you mind if I add you to my Friends List? I think we have some interests in common.

Seems to me you might like to read James Hillman. Here's a sample:

"The 'I' is legitimately written with a large letter, not because it is the capital person of the psyche, but because it too has a particular mythic part to play in the dramatics of the psyche—as the one personification whose necessary perspective is to take itself as literally real."

I posted a few more quotes here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/1101/45078.html). Other people have more quotes here (http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2004/06/polytheistic-psychology-part-1.html) and here (http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2004/06/polytheistic-psychology-part-2.html).

...I love how a philosophy built on viewing things as continuous rather than as opposites describes itself as 'non'-dual. It's so ironic. :p

Heehee. I've just been reading some James Hillman.

"Nondual" = a double negative? Or a triple negative, rather, since there are two opposites, negative to each other, plus the negation of that negation. Almost Hegelian, no?

Mind if I add you, too?

I never mind. You're welcome to, unless you can't stand math, mundanity, and occasional malediction.

"Possibly, we've just heard, and seen too many friends who heard, people expressing the opinion that it's overly weird for 'alters' to want to be treated as separate people, or explaining matter-of-factly that they were going to go on viewing you as one person with a lot of aspects because it was too confusing to think of you as many people."

Ohhh yes. My young friend-with-benefits said that very thing when I first told him about my 'brothers' - big mistake, because he thereby placed himself in Kír's category of "people who are not to be trusted with personal information". Kír's attitude was that he doesn't wish to associate with those who don't acknowledge him as a person; however, this is his house and he wasn't going to hide from my little boyfriend.

This means that when said "little boyfriend" would come to visit, there's times he'd encounter Teh Warrior... who would greet him courteously enough, him being a guest, but wouldn't converse with him, and wouldn't identify himself. LOL, Kír doesn't have to identify himself; he doesn't even have to move or speak for people who know him to know he's there, and people who don't know him to get uneasy because they sense the difference. (My kid says his aura's different, which Kír finds a little unnerving because he doesn't really *believe* in auras.)

Anyway, the "aspect hypothesis" broke down under the weight of evidence - my friend finally acknowledged that it was ridiculous to keep trying to pretend that we're all one person. He and Kír even have sort of a friendship now, or at least cordial acquaintanceship, formal and intellectual though it is.

LOL, and Crist-Erui? He loves it when our young friend comes to visit; snuggles him, plays with him... there again, 'weight-of-evidence'; Crist-Erui's quite a bit stronger than me, and also not ticklish. Hard to explain how one 'aspect' of a 48-year-old woman's mind wrestles like a 20-year-old guy, and keeps winning....

Mooooooore skeptism

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