Mooooooore skeptism

[withfangs.livejournal.com]

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.

Comments

Re: Part One

[effrenata.livejournal.com]

I agree with this entirely. I've always disliked terms like "fragments" and "soulpuppets" which imply that constructed identities are lesser or inferior. My thoughtforms are not inanimate objects, they are living extensions of my/ourself. Neither are they merely "pieces". They may not be "whole people" as the term is generally defined, but they are whole thoughtforms.

I, too, have noticed how people often post things like, "I'm not sure if it's real or only part of me," implying that real is equivalent to separate. By that logic, a person's arms and legs wouldn't be real, either.

And a lot of soulbonders seem to think that because only multiple-type presences are "real people," that their soulbonds have to be so, too, to be valid, just as they think that in order for their connection with fiction to be valid fiction has to be "real somewhere."

In my understanding of this, thoughtform places have their own kind of reality, just as do thoughtform people. This can exist on a collective level. A thoughtform world that has influenced the minds of many people, like Tolkien's Arda (of which Middle-Earth is a continent) develops into a collective gestalt. In occult terms, such collectively-created places exist on the "astral plane", and can be accessed through dreams, astral journeys, or remote viewing.

Now, I think that a person who creates an outsourced Soulbond can forge a link between the construct they are creating and the source-reality, so that the Soulbond is created with the "imprint" or "template" of the original character. It's like going to a public stem cell bank and making a clone. The character is both part of the individual creator and of the collective thought system. "Inside" and "outside" are just terms of convenience, in my opinion; I don't believe that there is a real division between them.

Individually-created thoughtform worlds also exist. One of my friends in college had a highly-detailed inner world with millions of inhabitants, and, although she described it as "fictional", she experienced it as a literal place. I (Marlana) have an imaginary country -- I prefer the term ideal country insofar as it is an abstract representation.

Re: Part One

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

Individually-created thoughtform worlds also exist. One of my friends in college had a highly-detailed inner world with millions of inhabitants, and, although she described it as "fictional", she experienced it as a literal place. I (Marlana) have an imaginary country -- I prefer the term ideal country insofar as it is an abstract representation.

Those are the kind of experiences I call subjective-- regardless of whether or not it's real in a literal and verifiable sense, it's a reality to you. I'm generally of the school of thought that "what does it mean?" is a less important question to ask than "what does it mean to you?"