Draft:Daemonism

Daemonism or Dæmonism is the practice of creating mental thought constructs that have a symbolic animal form. Practitioners are called Dæmonists or Daemians, and the mental construct is called a dæmon. This mental construct is considered the personification of some part of the daemonist's subconscious.

Experiences

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

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

Learning to hear the daemon

Daemonism has strong similarity to tulpamancy in terms of the methods used to induce the experience of a daemon.

Convincing yourself the entity is already there and sapient alongside frequent practicing and reinforcing of the internal dialogue is a common thread in both communities for advice on hearing the construct. (get tulpa citation)

Many daemonists have the experience of struggling to talk to and hear their daemon- especially at first.

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.

Settledom is something that is hotly contested in the community and has changed over time. Many in the community use settling to mean form finding instead.

Form Finding

Form Finding is when one finds a form (or multiple) that a daemon prefers to take.

This is a process that may take a long time. Some daemons never have a concrete form, others find one form and stick to it permanently. Many others have a few forms they cycle through.

Form finding means different things to different daemeans, and different daemeans 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.

Other experiences

• Being able to 'impose' their daemon on the world (either just imagining or as far as tulpamancy imposition)
• Other plural experiences such as switching/fronting, the daemon considering themselves as a separate entity
• Celebrating CIEday, or coming into existence day- some do this, some dont
• Celebrating SFday, or settled-form day. some do some dont

Forms

Form finding and expression is a large part of daemonism.

The form is how the daemon appears to the daemian. Mythic forms are somewhat contentious in the community on if they are valid.

Some types of forms that a daemon may take include but are not limited to:

• Projected Form- Can be anything, its whatever the daemon is right now.
• Personality Form- Form that matches the daemian's personality as determined through analysis.
• Pullman Form- Also called Symbolic Form. A form based on symbolism with the species of animal.
• Comfort Form - A form taken for comfort that may not match personality or symbolic analysis.

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.

daemon timeline goes here, reference timeline

Relationship to the plural community

is plural as in under the definition but not all dæmonists consider themselves plural for their practice

talk further about similarities between tulpamancy and soulbonding (forcing, mind tricks, practice, crafting a starting form, split method of tulpamancy)

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 about some people saying this?)

created otherhearted term and community (link to otherhearted page)