Draft:Daemonism

Dæmonism is the practice of creating mental thought constructs that have a symbolic animal form. The word and all related ones may be written with 'ae' or 'æ'. Practitioners are called Dæmians or occasionally Dæmonists, and the mental construct is called a dæmon. This mental construct is considered the personification of some part of the dæmian's subconscious.

Experiences

The primary experience of dæmonism is having a dæmon. This mental construct can range from just being a mental 'puppet' to have a dialogue with to a fully autonomous internal agent.

Dæmonists generally hold that everyone has a daemon, you just have to learn to listen to it and talk back.

Learning to hear the daemon

Most practitioners will need to learn how to hear their dæmon when first starting out. Many dæmonists have the experience of struggling to talk to and hear their daemon- especially at first.

Part of the recommended process to learn to hear the dæmon is that the dæmeian convinces themselves that the dæmon is already there and sapient alongside frequent practicing and reinforcing of the internal dialogue to help the dæmon to speak up without prompting.

Other common experiences

• Being able to 'impose' the dæmon on the world. Ranges from simply imagining them there to induced hallucinations.
• Other plural experiences such as the dæmon being able to control the body.
• Having more than one dæmon.
• Being interested in the His Dark Materials series and participating in fannish activities surrounding it.
• Celebrating their CIEday, or coming into existence day.
• Celebrating their SFday, or settled-form day.

Forms

The form is how the daemon appears to the dæmian. This form is traditionally some kind of extant earthen animal. Mythic, extinct, and human forms are somewhat contentious in the community on if they are valid as a settled form. Some dæmons never have a concrete form, others find one form and stick to it permanently. Many others have a few forms they cycle through for various reasons.

Form Finding

Form finding refers to the process of determining which animal a dæmon will take the shape of to best represent its dæmian. It is one of the most important part of dæmonism. Form finding means different things to different dæmeans, and different dæmeans may have different standards through which form finding may happen. Some are very stringent, and others are more laid back on what counts as a truly settled form.

For forms which are found rather than deliberately chosen, there are two primary methods.

Analytic forms

Analytic forms are derived from animals' real behaviours being analogized to personality traits. For example, a As these analyses are based in factual observation, mythical and extinct animals are not considered "viable" analytic forms.

Pullman forms

Pullman forms are based on the cultural ideas and symbolism around animals in relation to the daemian's hobbies, skills, goals and values. This follows more closely to how daemons' forms are determined in Pullman's work. Mythical and extinct animals are more likely to be "viable" under this system.

Other forms

• Projected Form - Can be anything, its whatever the dæmon is right now.
• Comfort Form - A form taken for comfort of the dæmian.
• Aspirational form - A form which describes the type of person the daemian would like to become.

Settling

Settling is when the personality becomes less subject to fluctuation, usually at the onset of adulthood at the earliest or later. In the novel the practice is taken from, it refers to when a daemon takes on its permanent symbolic animal form around the cusp of puberty. Not everyone settles, and a previously settled person may become unsettled again in the future.

However, many in the community use settling to mean finding a specific form or handful of forms that the dæmon stays as.

Both the validity and definition of settledom is hotly contested in the community and the general attitude towards it has changed over time.

Relationship to the plural community

While daemonism could be considered a kind of created plurality in under the definition of such, not all dæmians consider themselves plural for their practice.

As daemons can range in levels of autonomy and separate identity, some daemons may qualify as a headmate and some may not. Different daemians may also experience the same phenomena, but may consider themselves in very different places on the multiplicity scale- including as being singlet for additionally varied reasons. (locate nnp threads that talk about this to cite)

Relationship to tulpamancy

Tulpamancy and daemonism have a notable amount in common in terms of the methods used to induce the same experiences. They both encourage the practitioner to consider themselves as already experiencing the phenomena and to practice routinely to train the brain to exhibit plural experiences reliably. In addition, using a 'base' for their personality is the generally recommended method- be it your 'gut thoughts' and a name for daemonism, or a series of deliberately chosen traits for tulpamancy. In particular, the use of the practitioner's personal 'gut thoughts' is similar to the deliberate 'splitting' method that some tulpamancers use. (locate splitting tulpa guide to cite)

Forcing is also used by both communities to help work though rough patches in autonomous action and activity.

Relationship to other Alterhuman communities

Many daemonists do not consider themselves alterhuman for being daemonists because its an integral part of the lore that daemonism is an integral human experience (locate nnp threads or tumblr posts about some people saying this?) (1)

others do (1, 2, x)

for some people it's not inherently but it intersects (1)

discussion about how daemon forms relate to kintypes/theriotypes (1, 2, the othehearted coining thread had some talk on this, i think vyt has also talked about it somewhere?)

created otherhearted term in their community (link to otherhearted page)

History

Dæmons are patterned after the entities of the same name in the novel series His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman, in which every human has a dæmon- a person's soul in animal form that shapeshifts until it 'settles' into a single form.

should probably explain historical precedents here, the concepts that inspired pullman such as the greek agathodaimon, esp as those more spirital conceptions become relevant to people in the community again later

1995-2002 Pre- Community History

1995-2000 the books for his dark materials came out, the founder Okibi discovered the series and it inspired her to create an imaginary friend which became her daemon Rannock.

in 2002 the founder of the daemon page created the first website as she figured others may have daemons

2002- ??? early community history

building of the community as it was

modern era age of tumblr

plural community absorbing everything else, daemonism getting more mixed with it daemon timeline goes here, reference timeline

not sure when this all happened, but strict ideas about settling, the role of mental illness in personality, and daemons being nothing more than 'glorified imaginary friends' lifted over time. also, when were pullman forms introduced?