"Otherkin", simplistically defined, is a person who is in some way other than human. Some have memories of being something "other" in a past life; some are conscious of "ghost" body parts, such as wings or horns, that humans don't have; some are genetic anomalies; and some just feel like general misfits in human society. Or simply act like an animal instinctively. Another definition, Otherkin are those people who believe themselves to be spiritually and/or physically other than human. While mythological species (elves, satyrs, fairies, dragons, and so on) are widely accepted as being included under the term "Otherkin", many people in the community prefer to include aliens, vampires, furries, extraterrestrial humans, and other nonhuman races. A mythological or literary equivalent is not necessary to be included under "Otherkin"; there are types of otherkin that have not shown up in known legends or fiction (star-dragons, Elenari, etc.).

Trans-species
The most common appears to be those who feel they were born in the wrong body. Much as a transgendered person feels that they were born in a body of the wrong gender, some Otherkin feel they were born in a body of the wrong species. Frequently those concerned have past-life memories, but not always. (The nature of those memories is a topic for a different article).

Genetics
A few people claim to be not entirely human genetically. Obviously this is harder to fit into consensual reality than the transspecies concept. Many of them were born with physical variations in the extremes of human norms (pointed ears, full body fur, etc). Some have claimed infertility with "normal" humans (making them a separate species rather than a subspecies); others are crossfertile. As far as I know, the only genetic claims are for some form of Fae (generally Sidhe or Tuatha de Daanan) or angelkin.

Walk-ins
The third type are those who were not born in the body they inhabit. Sometimes the original inhabitant is still there and they share; with others, the original person has left (through near-death experience, trauma or other problem), leaving the body to its new inhabitant. The incoming entity has no more restrictions as to "species" than any other incarnate (see "trans-species" above) and thus can be something other than human.

What Are "Otherkin"? The premise is simple...it's the same for vampires as it is faeries, were, angels, demons, etc...Non-human souls being born into human bodies/families. This can also get fringe meaning by said non-human soul having children, who while human, posess an ingrained level of magick/power similar in nature to that of a full otherkin. That's the herditary side of things. Mostly seems to happen with fae and is generally referred to with terms like "Fae gifts" (the natural in-born magick of the fae, but not actually posessing a fae soul), or "bloodkin" (children/family of those who are otherkin that have either gifts themselves or have just learned the realities of it all because of the existance of otherkin in their lives)

The thing is, it's an overused term just as much as vampire is. Everyone flocks to the term because everyone has some reason or another to think they are not-quite-human. By the strictest definition though, unless you actually for a fact, have a non-human soul, you can't really call yourself "otherkin."

Now...what is speculated is this. There are multiple realms/dimensions/realities/etc. in which there are other races. Somehow-for unknown reasons-the souls of those races can cross to THIS realm/dimention/realiy/etc. and be born as humans. But, they are really not human. Most posess magickal gifts, talent, powers, needs, and memories that move WAY past that of "normal" humans. Most have a deep longing to go "home" but don't know what or where it is they are longing for. Most feel very out of touch or place with modern life, finding themselves different from a very early age and possibly even stating things as young children that adults pass off as "fantasy." Many otherkin grow up and grow out of these memories and magicks because they are EXPECTED TO. Sometimes, they will come to a point much later in life where they re-awaken that part of themselves. Most however, who fall "asleep" (meaning, they completely forget their true nature and burry their magick and memories somewhere they don't even know how to find them anymore) don't ever wake up.

At one point in time, I believe that the veils/barriers/mists/etc. between the worlds (realms/dimentions/whatever you want to call them) were illusionary and otherkin could walk along the earth without having to first assume human bodies. I believe that at one point, what we now consider "fairy tales" were really just otherkin in their natural form. But, as humanity grew, changed, learned science over belief, the barriers grew and the possibility faded. Now, you can't have an dragon be in this world in their true form for example, because no one could handle the existance of one.

It's hard on the net to find things that are real. Most people simply like faeries and dragons and such but have no real knowledge or fact. They are not otherkin, nor do they truly know what it means to BE otherkin. I don't think there is any particular "test" other then most know as children what they are and they simply have to surive with that knowledge in tact in a world that tells them to dismiss it. Some people claim they can see the difference in an otherkin's aura, but I've never pursued this in person. Some have strong astral ability and take their natural form there.

Common Traits/Talents
• Very Energy and more often Nautre Aware.
• --Ability to "talk" to the wind, water, trees, etc.
• --Ability to "hear" them reply
• --A deeper, different, and more instense connection to the earth
• --A deeper, different, and more intense connection to the magickal/astral/dream/etc.
• --A strong connection with the stars, sun, moon, or celestial is common

  Most otherkin DO tend to have higher then average IQ's

• --Mostly believed to be an extention of using more of one's mind and potential.
• --Strong abilities in one field, poor in others (generally more liberal and arts minded)
• --A strong sense of knowledge and need to learn (probably on ones own time and in their own way though)

  Being overly sensitive to the "normal" senses

• --Hearing light, seeing smells. Sounds weird, but seems oddly universal.
• --Loving or hating sunlight-finding it either charging or draining.
• --Whines from electronics easily heard, perfumes easily smelled, etc.
• --Strong loves and hates of food and flavors
• --The ability to "get lost in" or "drown" in pleasing colors
• --To be emotionally moved by a site of Beauty

  Empathy and/or mild Telepathy.

• --This can sometimes gets to be a literal headache.
• --May show up in childhood and be repressed for awhile or kept secret though school years.
• --Just "knowing" when someone lies or tells the truth
• --Getting a "feeling" about the nature of a person and their intentions
• --Ability to convey a thought/emotion/need to another unspoken
• --It seems like a natural extension of oneself. (I know I'm blind when I can't read someone or if I'm in such a large crowd that I get overloaded.

  Seperation and Feeling Out of Touch

• --Sometimes even a very "protective" feeling towards others?
• --The counter of this is feeling very "dominant" towards others
• --Feeling "one step behind" of the crowd
• --Having a speeding or slowing of Time

Otherkin Come Out of the Closet
Elven Like Me
by Nick Mamatas

Magpie Hrafnsdottir, a young woman from Chicago, has extra ribs, right where wings would be, and sometimes she can feel those phantom wings ache. Something else is missing; Magpie has always believed she has a secret twin. "I could feel her," she says. "At age five, I angrily asked my mother where she was, demanded to see my twin sister."

In college, she discovered the Internet and found a community of people who had the same dreams of past lives in a magical realm populated by elves, pixies, and other mythological creatures. Magpie and her friends don't have all the answers, but they know one thing: They're not human.

They're Otherkin, and they're trying to get back Home. Once, they believe, humans and elves and trolls and dragons may have lived together in relative harmony. The elves don't know if some disaster shattered their connection to their spiritual Home world, leaving their souls stranded here in normal bodies, or whether it was simply inbreeding that dissolved the elven genome into the greater human soup. But like so many other marginal subcultures, the Otherkin have found a place on the Internet, where they swap stories, make friends, and build communities.

As kids, many say, they felt out of place in this world, even insisting to their parents that they were adopted. By their late teens, most Otherkin were involved in paganism, fantasy fiction, the Internet, or past-life regression. Once they "awakened" to their true nature, the next step was to hit listservs, chat rooms, and Web sites, looking for the others. Magpie, for one, runs the Otherkin Resource Center at .

"I was still showing my ID in liquor stores at the age of 32."

Others found their way to the fold through New Age-style trancework, dreams, and even role-playing games. Think Tolkien, not Keebler; regal nature spirits, not hunchbacked shoemakers. Arhuaine, a 34-year-old British elf, claims to heal more quickly and age more slowly than humans. "I was still showing my ID in liquor stores at the age of 32," she says, "and following major surgery, even my doctors were amazed at the speed of my recovery and the fact that I needed no painkillers."

Some elves claim to be allergic to iron and other products of encroaching modernity, while one breed of Otherkin—dragons in human bodies—insist that having no allergies is a sign of Otherness. Those who have only average allergies needn't worry: You may still be a gnome or something.

More important are the psychic differences between humans and Otherkin. A number of Otherkin claim that they are especially empathetic toward others, and toward the ebb and flow of the natural world. Of course, once upon a time, another species was widely believed to have this kind of connectedness: human beings. Before industrialization and urbanization, people depended on their feelings and intuition rather than on shrinks and Oprah. The people lived in tune with nature thanks to a largely agricultural existence, until the Enlightenment and its attendants—calculus, petroleum and animal vivisection—turned the universe into clockwork, work into wage slavery, and the family into a demographic market segment. Elves are now what people once were, before we all got office jobs, health insurance, and credit card debt, before life became like running across a flaming rope bridge. Thanks to modern society, we're all Frankenstein's monster. None of us fit.

The Otherkin are making a Romantic appeal for a better world and a better life. , the premier Otherkin Web site, features essays like "A Call to Arts," which draws upon the authority of Nostradamus, the Bible, Pink Floyd, and Queen to argue the modern world is out of balance. "There has also been a long time where reason and science and logic have overshadowed the spiritual, the mysterious," the essay reads. "One of the things we can teach is that not everything makes perfect sense; sometimes illogical is OK." Online elves plunder modern pop culture for their premodern worldview. One role-playing game in particular, Changeling: The Dreaming, by White Wolf Game Studio, sent shock waves through the online Otherkin community in the 1990s. Changeling is a game about normal people who suddenly realize they are faeries with the power and need to bring magic back to a cold, soulless world. Malcolm-Rannirl, the administrator of , explains that the game did "a reasonable job of drawing together various mythological components," but that it also led to a fair number of "wannabes" deciding they were elves when they were really just human geeks.

Rich Dansky, a human being who worked on the game, ran into Otherkin through a listserv called darkfae-l. The game "had just come out and there was apparently a rampaging debate on the list over how the folks at White Wolf had gotten so much of their existence right," Dansky says. "Finally, one of the list members came to the obvious conclusion that we'd gotten it right because we ourselves were in fact changelings." Dansky denies having any pixie genes.

Anti-modern sentiment isn't unique to the Otherkin, of course. The 1999 Battle of Seattle saw the anti-technology anarchists of the Black Bloc emerge from the fog-shrouded forests of Oregon to do battle with globalism and the World Trade Organization. The Bloc's tactic of throwing rocks through Starbucks' windows to fight world capitalism has more in common with the sympathetic magic of a voodoo doll than it does with shutting down the means of production.

The ACME Collective, in its December 1999 communique, explained its actions in Seattle: "The number of broken windows pales in comparison to the number broken spells—spells cast by a corporate hegemony to lull us into forgetfulness of all the violence committed in the name of private property rights and of all the potential of a society without them."

The Battle of Seattle also saw the rise to prominence of the pagan priestess Starhawk, who set up a "WTO Spell," complete with a "Spiral Dance" around a slowly melting ice sculpture that doubled as an altar. These ethereal machinations, she claimed, defeated the World Trade Organization. And of course, millions of people in the United States are waiting to be called home in a future Rapture, where all the good people will be beamed up to heaven while the wicked suffer in hell on earth. Believers include the man who currently has his finger on the Nuclear Button, born-again Christian George W. Bush. If he gets to evacuate, why not the elves?

The Otherkin are both sign and portent of a widespread dissatisfaction with the modern world. Materialist beliefs won't do it anymore, so older ones are dusted off, or dressed up as commodities and sold to a public hungry for something other than the mundane. Dansky says that "most organically developed metaphysical beliefs, whether you're talking Judaic or Celtic or whatever, serve a dual function within their original context. In addition to being supernatural beliefs, they also lay down the guidelines for society—a lot of faerie legends, for example, also serve as an agriculture primer on making sure the local forage is renewable."

Removed from this ancient context, the Otherkin appear out of step with our reality as they seek to build their own. Few elves think that a fog-shrouded gate will open up to lead them to the fabled Arcadia—putting them one step ahead of Dubya on the metaphysical food chain—but they're constructing a post-premodernworld for themselves, online. Alyannael, a self-proclaimed angel, puts it this way: "We have dragons and elves, angelics and satyrs, were-creatures and vampires who come together. Discussion gets lively, arguments can get heated, but there is the bond of a community of unique individuals who have one thing in common: We are Otherkin."

-News Article from New York's "Village Voice";
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0107/mamatas.php