There is no easy way to tell it, but there's something you need to know...

[Meneldur Olvarion]

Dear Mildir:

I have been quite busy lately, and so did not get to read much of your posts until now. I am going them now in reverse chronological order. First, I would say do not worry too much whether the non-ordinary experiences you describe are "inappropriate". You are now communicating with someone who is both a Salvia-shaman and a Tiger-therianthrope, each of which tend to discomfit the ordinary humans, but since there is (likely) thousands of years experience with regard to the first in the original Mazatec culture, and approximately 30,000 years of evidence of therianthropy in the form of ancient cave paintings, I think that gives me and people like me more than enough "street cred".

Now, I won't deny that early in the history of this board, we had occasional troubles with the 'Otherkin' subculture [definition link], but they are rather easily detected as being a pop-cultural variant, which changes with the seasons (almost literally): that essential mercurial fluidity of their stories and self-definitions is a defining characteristic. What you say here does not appear to be in the same mode. Early in our group's history, we made a FAQ which contains some of these concepts. It's located here: viewtopic.php?f=46&t=977 If you can't see it, please ask Luthien to change your view permissions that document.

Now, I shall read your other posts...

[Meneldur Olvarion]

[...] The bulk of the tale, though, rotates around real facts happened approximately 30000 years ago.

Very interesting that you should say this: I did an archaeoastronomical investigation based upon the data-set of Varda's stars mentioned in both the Silmarillion and the LOTR using proper motion and precession the polar axis and came up with nearly that exact result. It's on the board, here: viewtopic.php?f=57&t=784

[Meneldur Olvarion]

[...] She approached me and talked to me in a language that later I would know as Sindarin. She called it Mithren. She taught me to speak in Mithren (it is partly different from the Sindarin attested in J.R.R. Tolkien's scripts) {truncated}

[...] I think that that is at least a noteworthy fact, wouldn't you say, Lúthien?
Do I have evidence for all this?
Yes, I do.
And I'm here to give it to you, but they pleaded with me to do things gradually, step by step.

I would issue one caveat here, but it may be better to offer an example of my own first: as I explained a few posts before this, I am a Salvia-shaman and have head many non-ordinary experiences, in some in which the Salvia-people have given me prophetic information. One of those 'prophesies' is that people on the autistic spectrum, as I am, are in the process of genetically diverging from standard homo sapiens in a process known as "incipient speciation". Could I prove this? Not with any certainty -- I could make a good case even setting aside the data from the Salvia-people and using the latest human genome research, but it would be extremely unlikely to convince anyone given most ordinary humans' intrinsic "group mind" and fear of the other.

What I've learned via my life experiences is that Truth is topologically invariant but geometrically labile (sorry for the mathematical metaphors, but they are necessary in this case for purposes of accuracy). Meaning that Truth may appear different to different observers, though still being Truth. The only reason I mention this is that back around 2005-2007, when the Otherkin subculture I mentioned was more active online, we got considerable criticism from them because "Tolkien had it all *WRONG*!!!", and that only the memories of their in-group had significance. They missed the point that both J.R.R.T's data and theirs would be considered "Unverified Personal Gnosis" in the context of the shamanic groups I used to be involved in, but that since our group was designed from the ground up to study and experience Tolkien's data-set, and had no primary interest on theirs, their criticism had no validity. We had a similar later run-in with the group of skeptical atheists, whom I responded to in much the same vein.

I suppose what I'm saying is that I have no wish to censor anything you might have to say of your personal gnosis, and will likely be quite interested in it, if you expect us all to think or react alike on this matter, that may be an unrealistic expectation. Please understand that this is only my 'orientation' statement to our board here, and is not intended as a veiled insult or anything of that nature. So please feel free to continue to post your experiences, as they sound very interesting.

[Lúthien]

No, Lúthien, I didn't want to disturb him.
I just hoped he might pass by soon, but I think it's better to let fate decide...

Having known him for some time, I think that it’s more than likely he’s engrossed in something. I know because I’m like him in that respect

Edit: Q.E.D.

[Lúthien]

@Dave, very well spoken as usual!

First, I would say do not worry too much whether the non-ordinary experiences you describe are "inappropriate".

I’ll just add here that the same goes for me, but as I mentioned earlier it’s good to keep in mind that your experiences might be difficult to communicate to other people if you present them in a “raw form”.

It took me considerable time to develop a feeling for how these things work, after living half a lifetime as an agnostic humanist. I know how hard it was for me to even accept my own experiences as “true”.

So it’s worthwhile to develop a little patience and think about how you can engage others. It can be done, no worries.

[Mildir]

Hi, Meneldur...

it may sound trivial but the only thing that I could think of after reading your posts was: thank you !!!
Hannon senui, I am really thankful that you've taken the time to read so many of my posts.
I hope to find the time to answer to your questions and to explain to Lúthien why sometimes I don't succeed in engaging people in a sufficiently appropriate way...

By the way: I'm partly autistic too and my recent life experiences have kind of helped me become even more so, if possible... :s

I am a Salvia-shaman and have head many non-ordinary experiences, in some in which the Salvia-people have given me prophetic information.

I'd love to have more time in my schedule to learn more about shamanism and other similar kinds of spiritualism.
"Salvia" means "Sage" in Latin (also in Italian), does it mean that your way of being a shaman and this herbal plant are somehow connected ?
Do you consider yourself a healer ?
I know that the healer is kind of a way of being a shaman, one of many, I reckon... :hmm:
My favorite one, needless to say...

What I've learned via my life experiences is that Truth is topologically invariant but geometrically labile

Precisely.
Truth is expressed through reality, which originates from truth.
And ten or twenty different realities may have originated from a single (piece of the objective) truth.
(You are more intellectually prepared than I could ever be, I'm sorry if what I say looks that simple, but that is just the way I speak and write: in simple terms)
(Especially when writing in English ! )

Otherkin...
I think the name itself tells much about what lies behind this culture.
I'm not sure this is the right place to tell something that honest, but the otherkin I met I didn't like for one single reason: they disregarded love, they didn't think much about it (ok, I've been tooooo honest ! ).

I suppose what I'm saying is that I have no wish to censor anything you might have to say of your personal gnosis,

Thank you.
There are things which go beyond "simple" personal gnosis, in my case: I succeeded in moving a little object without touching it.
I could do it only once in my life, but I saw it.
It was as real and visible as a car that you see moving on a street.
And I saw Nilwen and Torion do even more incredible things: they made my parents sleep, they made them believe that I was home while I was away for days.
All through the mind.
Wait a second... they even opened the door of my house without having a key... it sounds sooooo much like Harry Potter, I know.

if you expect us all to think or react alike on this matter, that may be an unrealistic expectation.

That is indeed an unrealistic thing to hope for, on this we can agree !
The fact that everyone of you will see my testimony differently is all that makes it worth giving.
It's the only factor that multiplies the potential positive effects that it may have if I give it.
And I've always felt that it might have some...

Please understand that this is [...] not intended as a veiled insult or anything of that nature.

The same goes for my statement about the Otherkin: it's just my personal feeling.

[lysichitum]

New member here and just adventuring in and wow! awesome! I hope I can get let in to see the other forums referenced above (FAQ about the "otherkin") as well. Though nothing out of the ordinary has happened to me, except a flash of insight or a synchronicity now and then, I tend to collect friends who have, and read about it, too, and the experiences and insights shared here are much in line with most of that. So much so, that as an observer, it makes sense to me that something real is going on and all those people who have such experiences are experiencing something real. And always has, at least as far back as written records and myth can take us.

[Mildir]

Hi Lysichitum,

I'm happy you are open to consider the many things discussed in this topic, not everyone would be.

Though nothing out of the ordinary has happened to me, except a flash of insight or a synchronicity now and then, I tend to collect friends who have

I'd be very interested in knowing what their experiences are exactly.
Could you tell us something about them ?

[lysichitum]

Most of the folks I'm referring to are online friends, but a few are in real life, some as prosaic and matter-of-fact as my dad and my wife! The experiences run the gamut....from UFO's to seeing strange creatures or entities (including at least one "thunderbird"...a Native American word for a huge eagle-like bird similar to the one described above), angels, aliens, fairies, ghosts, ancestors, nature spirits and such like. Some of these people are troubled or overwhelmed by what they see, and just in search of a listening ear, others have risen to accept it all...a few are practicing psychics or mediums. The consensus I take from it all is of a richly populated "otherworld", accessed all too easily by some (the challenge is in fact to shut it out, turn it off, and have a night's peace with one's own thoughts in fact), and for others by various means....ritual, trance, ecstatic experiences, sex, entheogens, and more. This world is at least as diverse and rich as our ordinary waking world, inhabited by all manner of life...some benevolent, some dangerous, many simply doing their own thing. I've never been there, but I've heard so many stories about it all from so many. It's a bit like talking to twenty or thirty people who have all been to Spain.....I feel like I know a bit about Spain from talking to them all....it is a consistent, sensible place with it's own system and history and ecology.

[Meneldur Olvarion]

[...] Hi, Meneldur...

I am a Salvia-shaman and have head many non-ordinary experiences, in some in which the Salvia-people have given me prophetic information.

I'd love to have more time in my schedule to learn more about shamanism and other similar kinds of spiritualism.
"Salvia" means "Sage" in Latin (also in Italian), does it mean that your way of being a shaman and this herbal plant are somehow connected ?
Do you consider yourself a healer ?

It literally is a sage, just a very unusual species which only grows natively in one small area on Earth. See
this link to Daniel Siebert's page, the ethnobotanist who introduced it to the wider Western culture.

As for healing, yes it goes with the territory, as does attack and defense: because as soon as you acquire any degree of power, there are entities out there (other humanoid shamans or non-corporeal beings) that will try to challenge you or take you down. An advantage of being connected to a plant-based collective like this is that the power flows through you rather than from you, so you can access many more abilities than you could if you were doing it all yourself.

[starwater]

Hello everyone, I wrote this post while responding to Mildir's, and had not yet seen this second page. It's good to see things happening here. Anyway, Mildir said:

"thanks, Lúthien, for activating my account: I wasn't any longer hoping that someone would do it, but the fact that it happened now is really interesting to me... "

Speaking of interesting things - I learned of this forum interestingly as well. Several years ago, a friend had pointed out Calantirniel's website to me (Elven Path) and I eagerly signed up to it. Years went by, and I never heard anything more about it. Then, this year, on my birthday, I received something from them that included a lot of posts from a number of people. Someone had been working on a new site: temple of the Valar, and was inviting folks to explore. Someone else (Calantirniel, I believe) had put a calendar of Elven holidays together within the format of the Elven Wheel of the Year, and was promoting it, and there were posts from various people regarding it as well. Two of the names of those posting... Oh boy, to tell you why they were significant will take some time and perhaps I should save it for later. A third one was equally compelling and for the same reason, but what grabbed me there was not the name but the content.
As you may have noticed by now ( :blush2: ) I am not the most regular of posters. A good bit of time went by without my doing much more than wonder, and think I had asked around a little when in fact I had not. Then one day while I was working at my computer on something else, a page from a document I'd never seen before (it was called 'Quenya - the Ancient Tongue' and at the top it said 'Appendix: Examples of Quenya Nouns Fully Inflected') showed up on my computer screen out of the blue. I have no idea how this happened but I was thrilled to have it and saved all 36 pages of the whole thing (not just the appendix) to my documents. I also took it as a reminder, so I went back to ask a friend something I thought I had asked her already, found her as mystified as me, plucked up my courage, and wrote to the one name who had included an email with (I believed it was her but it was really his) post. This person turned out to be Mildir, and after corresponding for a very short time, he directed me here. So we have him to thank or curse, as the case may be - I hope I don't turn out to be too wordy - for my presence here.
You know, I really do write a lot - it gets lengthy. I think I will alternate between saying bits about myself and my experiences and responding to things that draw responses from me here.

I admit to being curious about what was interesting to Mildir about the timing of his account's being activated...

[starwater]

"What I'm going to say may be very hard to consider, yet this is the only thing I'd ask you: could you please only consider that it may be possible?
The last thing I wish is that someone believes it, as this would prevent them from finding out whether it is the truth or not."

I've already expressed this to Mildir, but will share it here as well, to give everyone a better idea of the way my mind works. Because of the way I perceive the nature of awareness/comprehension/understanding, I value the collection of numerous points of view. I neither fully embrace nor totally reject any one of them, but feel each adds value. Its as if the truth being sought were a large mountain and the understanding regarding it came from someone looking at the mountain and telling me what they saw. Someone looking down at it from an airplane would tell me one thing; someone climbing it and half-way up would see something else. Someone standing at its base on the side that gets all the rain would have something very different to tell than what someone on the side where no rains come would see. Yet everybody's observations would be valid, and equally true. So I would accept all of them unquestioningly as true for the one sharing (unless I distrusted the person himself and felt he was not being honest - something that almost never happens) and gather it eagerly as partially true for the larger understanding I am after.
This may sound odd, but I feel that even those who have been labeled insane may have some valuable perceptions to share. This world can be pretty arbitrary about what it names as 'real' or 'not'. I don't presume to KNOW in an absolute way anything, except perhaps the way I feel about things.

[starwater]

"She called normal men 'In-aedain', 'The Second Ones'".

They don't seem so normal to me! Of course, as a Hybrid passing for Elven passing for Human passing for White, I suppose they wouldn't (LOL)! (Hopefully that bit about a Hybrid will make sense later as I share more).

[starwater]

This one was accidentally posted before I could even say anything, so just ignore it...

[starwater]

Hello everyone,

"She called normal men "In-aedain", "The Second Ones".
So, I learnt (countless memories could confirm that) that I was a temporarily reincarnated First Man (or "edhel").
I learnt that I had come to inhabit a human body, for an established period of time, in order to deliver a message to many people of this world."

I can understand how you would feel a sense of urgency, seeing the world as you would from the position that you occupy. I can relate, because it happens to me sometimes. i'll perceive things that I think need sharing, and let the importance I feel to be connected with it make me too emphatic and get me in trouble. I hope that doesn't happen to you. I'm looking forward to hearing this message you have to share. I'll neither take it as the only truth nor even seek for proof whether it is real or not, but will eagerly gather it for my perspective mosaic: my own way of exploring truth.

I hope this is in harmony with the Gnosticism of this forum, which in my eagerness to share I have not taken time to study much. If it's not, I'm willing to be straightened out.

I'm off to that other page to go share a bit more about me.