Though I was expecting a lively discussion, there seemed to be a level of hostility or annoyance that I was not prepared for-- I may be mistaken, of course. In any case, was it the quote itself that aggravated people?
Want me to be totally honest? I think it was the quote. A lot of people here have been told things by well-meaning friends and family, along the lines of "but everyone has multiple personalities," "I'm a different person at home and at work," "everyone is a different person in different situations." That's true in a way, and William James wrote about it a hundred years ago and concluded that it's hard to say anyone really has a 'true' personality. I know that you didn't mean, when you posted it, to imply that this was all multiplicity really was, but there were some people who took it that way; probably a lot of them were remembering things they'd been told in the past.
We have always thought of ourselves as multiple/plural for two years, but the ability that's arisen where we integrate at will, and usually safely, to combine consciousness and skills, and then separate, may put us in the "median" category. I'd really like some feedback on the particular division with multiple and median.
IMO, fuzzy at best. Billy Milligan's group was able to integrate for a short time, but when they got into a situation where a certain person's skills were needed, they all spontaneously differentiated back out again. Shirley Mason's (Sybil) integration only lasted a few years, according to those who knew her well. There have been times in our life when we had to mush several people together for the sake of presenting a consistent front to everyone around us. I think one of the problems with the median category is that a lot of people experience being "not quite multiple" or "sometimes multiple and sometimes not," and that can manifest in a lot of different ways. There seems to be a fairly broad area where calling oneself multiple or median just comes down to personal choice.
A shaman-type woman claims that one of the entities that was once in the Elf-Star, which they just referred to as Phoenix, is now in her. Is that possible, that entities can walk out of one body and right into another?
Well, in the days of Spiritualism it was certainly thought they could. Back then, a lot of people believed that multiples were people hosting outside spirits in their body, and a lot of mediums (or people who said they were mediums, anyway-- this is all hearsay, I certainly can't vouch that this was actually what was going on) had spirits who moved in and lived full-time with them. A lot of mediumship traditions hold that channeled entities can migrate from body to body.
Although... I'm not sure whether I'd trust this person, necessarily. I've seen at least one instance of someone claiming that a person from another's system had moved into theirs, for blatantly manipulative purposes. You describe her as 'a shaman-type woman'-- the problem is that a lot of people who claim to be shamans or to be practicing shamanic traditions really aren't; they may be sincerely misguided and think they're practicing real shamanism when they're not, or they may be outright frauds in it for the money.
no subject
Want me to be totally honest? I think it was the quote. A lot of people here have been told things by well-meaning friends and family, along the lines of "but everyone has multiple personalities," "I'm a different person at home and at work," "everyone is a different person in different situations." That's true in a way, and William James wrote about it a hundred years ago and concluded that it's hard to say anyone really has a 'true' personality. I know that you didn't mean, when you posted it, to imply that this was all multiplicity really was, but there were some people who took it that way; probably a lot of them were remembering things they'd been told in the past.
We have always thought of ourselves as multiple/plural for two years, but the ability that's arisen where we integrate at will, and usually safely, to combine consciousness and skills, and then separate, may put us in the "median" category. I'd really like some feedback on the particular division with multiple and median.
IMO, fuzzy at best. Billy Milligan's group was able to integrate for a short time, but when they got into a situation where a certain person's skills were needed, they all spontaneously differentiated back out again. Shirley Mason's (Sybil) integration only lasted a few years, according to those who knew her well. There have been times in our life when we had to mush several people together for the sake of presenting a consistent front to everyone around us. I think one of the problems with the median category is that a lot of people experience being "not quite multiple" or "sometimes multiple and sometimes not," and that can manifest in a lot of different ways. There seems to be a fairly broad area where calling oneself multiple or median just comes down to personal choice.
A shaman-type woman claims that one of the entities that was once in the Elf-Star, which they just referred to as Phoenix, is now in her. Is that possible, that entities can walk out of one body and right into another?
Well, in the days of Spiritualism it was certainly thought they could. Back then, a lot of people believed that multiples were people hosting outside spirits in their body, and a lot of mediums (or people who said they were mediums, anyway-- this is all hearsay, I certainly can't vouch that this was actually what was going on) had spirits who moved in and lived full-time with them. A lot of mediumship traditions hold that channeled entities can migrate from body to body.
Although... I'm not sure whether I'd trust this person, necessarily. I've seen at least one instance of someone claiming that a person from another's system had moved into theirs, for blatantly manipulative purposes. You describe her as 'a shaman-type woman'-- the problem is that a lot of people who claim to be shamans or to be practicing shamanic traditions really aren't; they may be sincerely misguided and think they're practicing real shamanism when they're not, or they may be outright frauds in it for the money.