Otherkin Timeline Abridged

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Summary

Spanning from the late 1960s to 2011 inclusive, this work of non-fiction traces the recent history of therianthropes and otherkin: real people who identify themselves as animals and legendary beings. All events in this timeline are drawn from primary sources when possible, such as contemporary print and electronic media, as well as interviews with people who were directly involved at the time. Events covered include the establishment and dissolution of groups, the coining of jargon, the publication of books and magazine articles, and more.

    This is the abridged edition of the Otherkin Timeline. It’s much shorter because it lists only a few important events, and describes them in little detail. Gentle reader, if you’d like to see twice as much information, hundreds more events and sources, all described in more detail, please get the unabridged edition instead.

    Keywords: alt.horror.werewolves (AHWW), draconity, Elfinkind Digest, Elf Queen’s Daughters, Elves, Fae-born, Faeids, gatherings, newsgroups, otherkin, Silver Elves, therianthropes, werewolves.

    Illustrations: None.

    Rated PG. This document itself is safe for work. However, some links lead to web-sites that may offend, and may be unsuitable for minors.

    Content warnings: This book includes mention of upsetting topics including death (not graphic), harassment, and social conflicts (with as little personal detail as possible).

    Author: Orion Scribner has been involved in the otherkin and therianthrope communities for about ten years, and so has witnessed some of the events firsthand. Orion Scribner identifies as a dragon person, and therefore can relate personally to the writings produced by otherkin and similar communities.

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    Orion Scribner, “Otherkin timeline: The recent history of elfin, fae, and animal people, abridged edition v. 2.0.1,” last modified Feb. 27, 2013 in The Art and Writing of O. Scribner. Accessed month day, year, https://sites.google.com/site/frameacloud/1/timeab

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MLA format (in footnotes or endnotes)

    Orion Scribner, “Otherkin timeline: The recent history of elfin, fae, and animal people, abridged edition v. 2.0.1,” The Art and Writing of Scribner. 8 September, 2012, day month, year <https://sites.google.com/site/frameacloud/1/timeab>.

Table of Contents

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Introduction

Late 1960s to 1974

1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1986, 1987, 1990, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011

Glossary

Bibliography

Index

Document version history

Introduction

    Otherkin and therianthrope history

    When did people begin to say that they identified as other than human? How did they come up with that idea? When did they begin forming communities of people who felt the same way? I started this project because I wondered how far back otherkin and therianthrope history went, and how each part of it began.

    This history book tells about events that happened in real life. They happened within living memory, because then I can find out for sure whether the people think of themselves as other than human.

    Who are otherkin and therianthropes?

    There are several communities of people who sincerely identify as other than human. Some of those communities began separately from each other. They’re not the same as each other. Some of the communities share more in common. Some people feel like and participate in more than one of the communities.

    People who call themselves otherkin look human, but identify as supernatural entities ordinarily thought of as mythological.[1] Many otherkin call themselves elves, Fae, or dragons. [2] The otherkin community began and was named in 1990.[3]

    The otherkin community’s influences trace back[4] to the Silver Elves, a Neo-Pagan group who called themselves elves.[5] The Silver Elves had branched off from the earliest known group of people who identified as other than human, the Elf Queen’s Daughters, a Neo- Pagan group of elves established a few years before 1975. [6]

    People who call themselves therianthropes look human, but identify as animals. Surveys usually show that more than half of them call themselves wolves. The therianthrope community began around 1994 in the alt.horror.werewolves newsgroup, which had been created for fans of werewolf movies. [7]

    Separate from otherkin and therianthropes, there are some more communities of people who identify as other than human. Some of them don’t mingle socially with otherkin and therianthropes. There’s a whole other community of people who believe they were extraterrestrials in past lives. There’s a separate community of people who call themselves vampires. Fae-born say they were supernatural beings in past lives, or a mystical being in spirit.[8] Another separate group of people call themselves Faeids, some of whom identify as Fae themselves.[9] A community of people who identify as dragons developed all by themselves on the alt.fan.dragons newsgroup in about 1994.[10]

    With both otherkin and therians, each person has their own reasons for why they identify as other than human. Depending on the person, they may say they identify as another creature in a way that is spiritual,[11] philosophical, metaphorical,[12] experiential,[13] behavioral, [14] or psychological.[15] Some claim they had ancestors who were other than human, and that they are therefore partially other than human themselves. [16]

    Although the identities of otherkin and therianthropes sometimes involve spiritual concepts, it is not a religion. [17] This is because being otherkin or therian is a personal thing. Individuals figure out how it works for themselves alone, because only you can determine what you are, and nobody can do your introspection for you. [18] Nobody can tell you that you’re an otherkin or therian, and they can’t tell you in what way you’re an otherkin or therian, either.[19] The otherkin and therianthrope communities have no leaders,[20] and no dogma. Because people who identify as other than human all arrive at their self-identifications independently, their communities are diverse, and their beliefs and experiences are widely varied.

    Presentation

    When quoting from informal sources, I correct obvious spelling errors.

    I cite sources in a slightly different style than standard for the Chicago or MLA styles. Many of my sources come from the World Wide Web, and I don’t like the guidelines for citing those kinds of sources. I don’t enclose web addresses in carats, and I don’t end them with a period, because that breaks links. I don’t mark every web source with the word “Web,” because this is indicated by the presence of the web address itself. If only one date is written, assume that it’s when the source was created, not when it was downloaded. Web addresses that don’t work anymore, I mark “defunct.”

    I write all dates in year-month-day format, because that’s easiest to put in chronological order without making mistakes.

    Your voice is important

    This document is still a work in progress. If you see any mistakes, please e-mail me corrections. Anybody who helps out will get their name listed here.

    If you think I quoted somebody who was wrong, or who was skewing the facts, or if I quoted them in a bad way, please contact me to help straighten out the mess.

    If you are mentioned in this book, and you want to make a correction to what it says about you, or you don’t want to be mentioned in here at all, just e-mail me,[21] and tell me what changes you would like me to make. I’ll fix it in the next revision.

    Thank you

    I would like to thank these people for helping out with this book: Adnarel, Baxil the Dragon, BlackVoidDragon, Cerulean, Coyote Osborne, Dan O’Dea, Elinox, Goldkin, the House of Chimeras system, herringbone, Jarandhel Dreamsinger, Jessica, Lanina, Leaf McGowan, Loriel, Lupa, Malcolm-Rannirl, Mistwolf, Rialian, R’ykandar (Dara) Korra’ti, Sabersinger, The Silver Elves, Torin/Darren Stalder, Tornir Leopardess, and Trin Drachewolf. I would also like to thank several people who helped out, but who asked to stay anonymous. Thank you all.

- Orion Scribner (revised 2013-02-07)

The Timeline

Late 1960s to 1974

The earliest known group of people who identified as other than human were the Elf Queen’s Daughters (EQD), who described themselves as elves. The otherkin community didn’t originate with them, but the otherkin community’s cultural and personal influences can be traced back to the EQD. For more information about that relationship, see the section for year 1990.

    Contemporaries aren’t sure when the EQD was established. It might have been during the late Sixties,[22] 1972, [23] or 1974. [24] The group founders, Arwen and Elenor,[25] also went by the common pseudonyms Mary Sunshine and Suzie Creamcheese (a reference to a running gag from musician Frank Zappa), as well as “The Tookes” (a reference to J. R. R. Tolkien).[26] Arwen and Elenor were experts at many kinds of divination and Neo-Pagan magic. Their friends the Silver Elves described the EQD to me in an e-mail, saying that the EQD “make you feel, if you’ve had any doubts about it at all, that the magic is real, and you’ve just walked into it.” [27] In Illinois, Arwen and Elenor used a “Ouija board to channel a spirit, and receive answers and guidance from it. On this occasion, the spirit told them to form the Elf Queen’s Daughters.” [28] Divination inspired the name and central concepts of the Elf Queen’s Daughters. Later, the Elf Queen’s Daughters moved to Ohio and began publishing letters. The Silver Elves told me,

“Many of these very early letters were published in the earliest version of the Green Egg magazine. […] Arwen had always been the chief writer of the letters, but everyone, including us, had a hand in putting out letters from time to time and the letters bore the addresses of various vortexes (covens) around the country.”[29]

With this, the Elf Queen’s Daughters began sharing Elven philosophy with a wide audience.

1975

Zardoa wasn’t a part of any elf group at that time, but he’d nonetheless had contact with elves. He’d recently dissolved a marriage with L., a Tolkien fan who said she was an elf.[30] After finding letters by the Elf Queen’s Daughters at an occult bookstore, Zardoa visited the EQD in person.^[31] The Silver Elves said that there, “His psyche shouted out, ‘This is what you have been waiting for all your life!’ and he knew he was an elf.”[32] Zardoa and those who later became “the Silver Elves were first awakened and became part of the Elf Queen’s Daughters in 1975. Our sisters (both male and female members were called sisters) of the EQD taught us how to cast an Astrological Chart, do the I Ching and various spells of Enchantment.”[33] A few years after learning magic from the Elf Queen’s Daughters, the Silver Elves branched off from them.

    1975-03-21: The Elf Queen’s Daughters published a full- page article in this season’s issue of the quarterly Green Egg magazine.[34]

    This is the earliest primary source document that I’ve found so far to confirm that the EQD definitely existed at this time. This contemporary primary source exists. I myself have seen this article in the microfilm archive of Green Egg magazine (part of the Underground Newspaper Collection), which I checked out on interlibrary loan. From dawn to dusk, every day, for a week, I camped out at the library’s microfilm reading machine. I printed copies of every relevant page, which I still have in my personal archives for this history project. Although I looked at every page of several years’ worth of Green Egg, I found no mention of the Elf Queen’s Daughters in the years 1972, 1973, or 1974. Granted, the microfilm archive is incomplete, and it lacks several issues of Green Egg from during those years and before then.

    The Elf Queen’s Daughters published a full-page article in each month’s issue of Green Egg for the rest of 1975. In some of these writings, the Elf Queen’s Daughters refer to themselves and others as elves, but they remain poetically vague about what that means. They don’t explain how or why they are elves.

    Green Egg is a Neo-Pagan publication, which at the time was edited by Tim Zell (also known as Tim G’Zell, Otter Zell, and now known as Oberon Zell-Ravenheart). Among other feats, Zell is known for creating unicorns by fusing together the horns of goats. During the 1980s, the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus exhibited one of the Zells’ living unicorns, Lancelot.[35]

    1975-09-21: In addition to a letter by the Elf Queen’s Daughters, this issue of Green Egg included an unrelated letter dated 1975-07-31 from a separate group of people who expressed views similar to what we now call otherkin. In this letter, Treesong and Ravenwolf of Modesto, California say that they remember a Faerie place and identify with elves.[36]

    1975-11-06: Tim G’Zell and Morning G’Zell published an article titled “How we spent our summer vacation” in Green Egg, in which they described their travels and who they met in person. This included, on 1975-09-03 in southern California, “Susie [sic] and Mary, our favorite Elf Queen’s Daughters.”[37] The G’Zells met them in person, and regarded them warmly.

1976

The Elf Queen’s Daughters published articles in several issues of Green Egg this year, many of which are decorated with seven-pointed stars. One of these characteristic articles, “O’Mother,” poetically pleaded that readers look to more healing archetypes of Mothering, such as Mother Earth (with “long green arms” and “mossy fingers”), and J. R. R. Tolkien’s celestial entity Varda, in order that as parents they “not create another generation of sad-eyed-elven-turned-orc children.” [38] I think this article seems to be saying that all children are elves, not just a select few.

    Another of the letters in Green Egg is a French-language letter by Roland P. of the “EQD” in France, who compares several goddesses with the Elf Queen’s Daughters.[39]

1977

In late 1976,[40] or sometime around 1977, the Elf Queen’s Daughters stopped publishing letters for several years,[41] but they stayed in contact with one another. [42]

1978

The Elf Queen’s Daughters knew both birth and death in their families this year. Elven history researcher Leaf McGowan wrote,

“A tragedy befell Andruil who died from a motorcycle accident in 1978. This so distressed Melryn that she faded completely from Elfin. [… Aeona Silversong] and Zardoa had a daughter together in the fall of 1978 named Elantari.” ^[43]

Elkador and Silver Flame also had a child a few months later, named Solon Song.[44]

1979

Publication of Margot Adler’s Drawing Down the Moon, a non-fiction book about twentieth-century Pagans. In the original 1979 edition, Adler mentioned the Elf Queen’s Daughters a couple of times. In the chapter “Religions of Paradox and Play:”

“The Elf Queen’s Daughters, a network of ‘elves’ located mostly in the Far West, sent out each week three pages of quite beautiful poetic prose, most of it composed by automatic writing. ‘Most of it’s nonsense,’ they told me. ‘We don’t take it too seriously.’”[45]

Could this remark mean that the EQD’s claim of being elven started out as just a lighthearted prank? Does this mean that the EQD didn’t really identify as elves? Or did the remark just mean that the EQD didn’t view their automatic writing with grave seriousness?

    After the Elf Queen’s Daughters stopped writing letters, [46] they formed a musical group called “Aeron: The trans-rock elven band.” Aeron published a long- playing (LP) record album titled Paltareon: The Far Memory of the Elves. [47] Loriel, one of the Elf Queen’s Daughters, together with the Silver Elves, explained to me what “trans-rock” means:

“As to trans-rock, she [Loriel] said first that it was a subtle reference to the fact that some of the elves were trans-sexual, but also that elves in general are often bi- or androgynous even when they aren’t bi. But she further said that exoterically that it was a reference to the fact that while they were a rock band that they might delve into blues, or jazz or some other musical form and didn’t wish to be strictly limited to rock.”[48]

The album description of “trans-rock elven band” refers to an eclectic musical style, to being elven, and to being transsexual. This shows that there have been transgender otherkin for about as far back as I can trace otherkin history. Then, as now, these identities often go together: some people who identify as other than human also identify as other than the gender assigned to them at birth. When dissatisfied with the categories of “man” or “woman,” a person can conceptualize a third-gender category by finding inspiration in an additional archetype such as “elf.”

1980

Friends of the Elf Queen’s Daughters, the Sylvan Elves (with some letters by Tasa of the Elf Queen’s Daughters as “the Starlight Elves”[49]) resumed writing the Elf Letters on their behalf. [50] These letters were independent magazines (popularly called ’zines) periodically delivered by mail. Zardoa initially published letters “under the name of the Elves of the Southern Woodlands,” but after he moved, “he changed the name he wrote them under as the Sylvan Elves.”[51] The Sylvan Elves also went on an exciting cross-country road trip this year.[52]

1981

The Sylvan Elves move from Florida[53] to California, and to reflect this, they changed their name to the Silver Elves, a name they have kept to the present day.[54]

1986

Margot Adler published a revised and expanded edition of her book Drawing Down the Moon. This edition’s directory of groups added the Silver Elves.[55]

    In Florida, some magic-using people created a group for communicating with Faeries.[56] An anthropologist studying the American Neo-pagan movement, Tom Baurley, was involved with this magical group, and coined the word “Faeid” (made up of Fae, plus Gk. id, meaning “to know”) to describe humans/faeries who know or communicate with Faery.[57] Leaf McGowan explained the overlap between these people and otherkin:

“I realize we’re not solidly ‘otherkin’ by definition, but a good 80% of us do agree with defining ourselves as Faerie Otherkin. Faeid is just specifically Faeries, Faerie/human breeds, and selected humans to work with the Great Awakening and are friendly to the fae ...”[58]

Some Faeids identify as (partially) other than human, and have some overlap with the otherkin community, but aren’t synonymous.

1986-07: In the 1986 Summer issue, pagan newspaper Circle Network News printed a full-page article by the Silver Elves, titled “Elven Group Dynamics and Bonding Ritual.” This includes a summary of who the Silver Elves are, of which I provide an excerpt:

“We Silver Elves have what we like to refer to as the Impromptu Tradition. […] This ritual form is also the root and heart of how we (the Silver Elves) formulate our elfin family-coven. Unlike many groups who demand that an aspirant serve a probationary period before being permitted to join them, these elves have no such requirement. Nor do we require that one must be an elf; we have lived with elf and gnome and faerie and pixie and all manner of folk […] All we do require is that the seekers be sincere in their interest and that there be mutual respect and affection. […] Since we confer no degrees and have no positions of authority other than momentary responsibilities for this or that task, we have no fear of anyone joining us for any purpose other than shared adventures. […]

“In just the same way, we do not confer elfdom on anyone. We never anoint someone as an elf. It has always been our position that no one, absolutely no one, has the right to say who is or is not an elf save the individuals themselves. They and only they have the final word on whether they are elves, gnomes, pixies, men or women. We may sometimes have our opinions and intuitions, but only they know. Should they stay with us or go their way is of no consequence, for they are still elfin so long as they wish to be.”[59]

The Silver Elves call their group a family-coven, and their practices are informal. They have lived with people who identified as creatures other than elves. It’s up to people to decide for themselves how they identify.

1987

At this time, the Silver Elves and Feral also knew someone in person named Pwcca, who “is a pwcca [sic ...] most pwccas take the form of horses and this one in particular was a unicorn).”[60] If I understand correctly, this is the earliest record I have found of someone who identifies as a unicorn. (Or, perhaps, as a horse or a pwca.[61])

    From 1987 to 1989, the Faeid magical group that includes Tom Baurley “continued doing magical workings with the Fae and developing an understanding of the bridges between humankind and faerykind.”[62]

1990

1990-02 and 1990-03: A student at the University of Kentucky who is named R’ykandar Korra’ti posted to alt.pagan and a few other newsgroups on the Internet. There, Korra’ti wrote about a plan to start a listserv for people who identify as elves. Korra’ti later told me in an e-mail,

“Before there was a list, there was a fair amount of private email going back and forth between myself and people who had responded to my newsgroup posts, and a few people I’d met before that. Those are not in the digest archives. I hope I have them somewhere, but I don’t know that I do. There was also a little group of us partly online but mostly offline going back to the 1986-1987ish timeframe. And I’ve known what I was since forever, so.”[63]

At this point, Korra’ti already knew that there were other kindred spirits who called themselves elves, people who were elves. Previously, Korra’ti had also corresponded with the Silver Elves.[64] These elves were not alone. They were in communication with one another, and influenced the development of one another’s communities and ideas.

    1990-03-26: R’ykandar Korra’ti founded the Elfinkind Digest, a mailing list, and sent out the first one on this date. The list was publicly-joinable, not private. The web page of the Digest says,

“The first mailing list on the net for elves and others of the ‘otherkind,’ the Elfinkind Digest was established in 1990, operating from the University of Kentucky. Since then, it has moved a couple of times, but has remained in operation continually since then, on a two to three issue a week schedule. The list is not actively moderated, but is available only in digest form. […] The Elfinkind Digest is a mailing list for, about and by elves and interested others. […] This is not a list for or about role-playing or role-playing games; we’re elves.” [65]

The standard welcome message sent to anyone who applies to subscribe to the mailing list says that Korra’ti “expected only to find other elves; as it turned out, I found a large number of people with a large number of self-identifications.” [66]

    1990-04-18: In the listserve Elfinkind Digest #16 was the first use of the word “otherkind,” with a D, referring to real people who identify as other than human.[67] Korra’ti explained to me:

“First use of the word ‘otherkind’ is in Elfinkind Digest #16, dated 18 April 1990, coined in quotes as a term to include non-elf ‘others’ cropping up on the list, and was a specific branching off from the word ‘elfinkind.’ There was later some talk of renaming the digest to ‘The Otherkind Digest’ but that didn’t happen.” [68] 

The word “otherkind” was based on the word “elfinkind.”    

    1990-07-09 or 10: The earliest use of the word “otherkin,” (as a variant of “otherkind”) referring to real people who identify as other than human. It’s in Elfinkind Digest, #71.

    During these years, it seems that the words “otherkin” and “otherkind” are being used interchangeably. At this time, the variant wasn’t accompanied with a definition as though it was being newly introduced. It was just used as though its meaning was already understood by those involved.[69]

    I asked Korra’ti to look through the archives to find out the circumstances under which the word was coined. Korra’ti graciously put me in touch with the person who coined (or, at least, who was the first person on record using) the words “otherkind” as well as “otherkin,” who turned out to be Torin / Darren Stalder, who was a bit surprised to hear about it.

    Torin told me how the word came to happen: “From what I can remember, I got tired of typing elf/dragon/orc/etc.-kin and just used otherkin. It was convenience and practicality. […] There wasn’t actual intent to form a new word; just shorthand.” [70] The word was casually invented. 

    Because the word “otherkin” was coined in Korra’ti’s Elfinkind Digest, and Korra’ti had previously talked with the Silver Elves on the topic of being elven, we can trace a direct social, cultural, and philosophical connection from the concept of “otherkin” back to the Silver Elves, and from them, back to the Elf Queen’s Daughters.

    1990-12-28 to 31: R’ykandar Korra’ti told me that at this time, the Elfinkind Digest listserve held an in-person gather in North Carolina, “with a total attendance of 9 […] I was one of the 9. […] As elves and dragons were both represented, I’d say it may qualify as the first Otherkind Gather.”[71] Today, otherkin gathers are often of a similar size, being an in-person meeting of friends who had met online. The practice of otherkin gathers traces back to 1990, the same year in which the word “otherkin” was coined.

1992

According to Melishal, the word “Faeborn” was coined around this time to mean “A person that is a transmigrated soul of a non-human being from this world and/or other worlds that is of possible mythical/mystical origins, currently living in a human form.” [72] They consider themselves to be distinct from otherkin. Nonetheless, some people call themselves both otherkin and Faeborn.

    1992-11-16: A landmark in the formation of the therian community. Creation of the alt.horror.werewolves newsgroup. It was originally intended to be a place for discussing werewolves in horror movies and in fiction. In conversation, the participants of this newsgroup abbreviate its name to AHWW or AHWw. Later, it became a place where many people talk about the philosophy of identifying as an animal. [73]

1993

Sometime during this year, people on alt.horror.werewolves began claiming to be werewolves themselves, although the details of who said it and how this happened have become unclear.[74] I haven’t found out who was the first person on AHWW to say they sincerely identified as an animal. Today’s remaining archives of AHWW have become too fragmentary to offer any clear answers or leads. The people I’ve talked to have only heard rumors or offered guesses.

    As far as I am able to find, and as far as I have ever heard, this point in the newsgroup appears to be the earliest trace of any real, spiritual/philosophical therian, shifter, or seriously animal- identified community of people. However, some therians assert that therians have been around longer than this. Since there’s nothing new under the sun, there must have been some people discussing an unusual idea like this earlier. If there were people on AHWW in the early Nineties who said they’d identified as animals for their whole lives, then there were probably groups of therians in the Eighties as well. Gentle reader, please let me know of any evidence that you’re aware of regarding earlier communities of therians.

    1993-12-01: A person named ExistingPhantom created the alt.fan.dragons newsgroup. Originally, this newsgroup was intended to be a place for discussing dragons in any work of fiction. Later, it became a place where many people talked about the philosophy of identifying as a dragon. Its name was sometimes abbreviated to AFD. It also later gained a variety of whimsical nick-names, such as Alfandria. [75]

1994

According to Swiftpaw’s article “Tracing the Origins of the Term ‘Therianthropy,’” this year was when a wendigo named James H. III was the first in AHWW to propose in that people who identify as animals could call themselves “therianthropes.” [76]

    Participants of alt.horror.werewolves arranged a meeting together in person, which they called “the first ‘Howl,’ the 1994 Harvest Howl.”[77] The therianthrope community has continued to hold many in-person meetings (“Howls”) each year, in several different countries, up to this day.

    1994-05-26: KatmanDu posted the first draft of the AHWW FAQ. Most of this draft talks about werewolves in legend and fiction, but it also had a section telling about how some of the AHWW participants say that they are werewolves:

“Do you mean to say that you folks actually believe you ARE werewolves? You’ll come to find that there is no one answer to any question on AHWW. The concept of lycanthropy is held by some to be just an interesting myth, and to others as a means of explaining their world view; with many gradations of belief in-between. Suffice it to say that I personally have never seen a man transform into another animal; but not many on AHWW will rule that possibility out. When folks call themselves werewolves, they generally mean that they find the characteristics of lycanthropy intriguing and see examples of such in themselves. What those characteristics are and how they manifest themselves are, again, very personal and will no doubt vary from individual to individual.”[78]

So we do know that by this time, people on AHWW were claiming to be werewolves, but there is still question whether it was sincere personal therianthropy as we would recognize it.

1995

Scott Mandelker published a book about incarnate extraterrestrials based upon interviews with them, titled From Elsewhere: Being E. T. In America.[79] In addition to interviewees who said they had past lives as extraterrestrials, two of the interviewees said that they were angels (240-241), and one is mentioned who said she came from a “Cat Planet” (241). These incarnate extraterrestrials and angels are another group of people who identify as other than human, and have no connection with the otherkin or therianthrope communities.

    1995-02-06: A document called the “Elven Nation Manifesto” was cross-posted to eleven newsgroups. It was attributed to Adrian “Morningstar” M. in its signature line, although its actual authorship is unknown. (Vashti has pointed out that it may have been created by someone else who was trying to offend Morningstar.[80]) It talked about the Elven Nation mailing list, and described parting the Veil to the Otherworld so that the Fae can live among humankind. It didn’t use the word “otherkin.” You can read the document itself, in its entirety,here. [81]

    1995-06-01: White Wolf Gaming Studio published Changeling: The Dreaming, a role-playing game (with pencil and paper, like Dungeons and Dragons) part of the “World of Darkness” dark urban fantasy line. According to journalist Nick Mamatas, the otherkin community saw similarities between their own experiences and some concepts in Changeling. [82]

    1995-11?: This winter’s issue of Green Egg (Volume 28, Issue 111) was a Faerie themed issue. [83] Aeona Silversong wrote a two-page article for it titled “The Elf Queen’s Daughters.”[84] Morning Glory Zell wrote, “my friendship with Aeona Silversong and Arwen and Elanor of the Elf Queen’s Daughters goes back to my early Tolkien phase and has had its own delightful impact on my mythology.” [85]

    There were more writings by and about other real elf and Fae people in this issue, separate from the Elf Queen’s Daughters, the Silver Elves, or the otherkin. Maerian Morris wrote about how she thought of herself and others as Faeries.[86] Fathom Hummingbear told what was either an anecdote or fictional story, without stating which, of wearing an elf costume and accidentally invoking an elf spirit.[87] In another article, Francesca Dubie wrote that her “blood is part Fey … The God, Dagda, drew a veil between humans and the Fey folk because their destinies were no longer to be intertwined. The Goddess has charged me to help bring the Fey magic back through that veil, so that we as humans can be renewed with the starry-eyed mysticism of the ‘little people.’”[88] The magazine issue doesn’t mention the otherkin community, but shares concepts in common with it.

1996

Daniel Cohen published Werewolves, a non-fiction book on werewolves which described werewolf spirituality in the newsgroup alt.horror.werewolves. However, Cohen focused on a participant who claimed to be a physical shape-shifter. [89]

    During this year, Aeona Silversong was on staff for Green Egg magazine, and published four “Elf Queen’s Daughters” articles there.[90]

    Yaiolani created a reference website for the therian community, called The Werewolf and Shapeshifter Handbook (later retitled The Werewolf and Shapeshifter Codex).[91]

    1996-04-03 to 11: EuroHowl ’96, a week-long “howl” (meeting held in person) of participants of alt.horror.werewolves, many of whom identify as (were-)animals. EuroHowl ’96 is the first of these meetings held in Europe.[92]

    1996-08-07: Creation of The Alt.fan.dragons site: Dragonfire.org web- site, [93] as a companion to the newsgroup alt.fan.dragons.

    1996-09: VanZandt said, “In September, the IRC channel #pshift is formed as an alternate to AHWW to allow free discussion of Were issues including the possibility of pshifting [physical shapeshifting]. Skeptics are originally barred but later, in 1997, a new rule is added allowing skeptics inside.”[94]

    1996-12: Alt.horror.werewolves was troubled by in-fighting as well as harassment by an outside “group of rogue trollers and spammers [who] called [themselves] the Meowers,”[95] making the newsgroup difficult to read.

1997

In the summer of 1997, participants of the mailing list DarkFae-L coined the word “glamour-bomb.”A glamour-bomb is a numinous prank or public artwork meant to encourage belief in fairies and magic.[96] This practice then became common in otherkin culture.

1998

Publication of Roy Wilkinson’s Are You A Unicorn? The Mission and Meaning of Unicorns, a handbook for people who are unicorns (or lions) at heart.[97] Wilkinson also created the UnicornsUnited.com web-site this year, to help unicorns get in touch with one another.

    The therianthrope community moved out of the AHWW newsgroup. According to Jakkal, “AHWW at this point was a meeting place, not a discussion forum. Weres would find AHWW and through it they would learn about the other forums, which they stuck with.” [98]

    Creation of Otherkin Resource Center (ORC) web-site by Magpie Hrafnsdottir (who formerly went byValinde Wilwaren). The ORC was an important part of the otherkin community during the years that it lasted .[99]

    1998-01-11: Creation of KaniS’s Draconic.com site, a web-site for people who identify as dragons in spirit.[100]

    1998-09: Starting around this time, some participants of the furry fandom created a group called “Burned Fur” to complain about their least favorite things in and related to the furry fandom. This group was vocally hostile toward people who identify as other than human in spirit, including “furry spiritualists, the weres, otherkin, and therianthropes,”[101] even though many of these weren’t part of the furry fandom. According to furry historian Simo, Burned Fur’s rants against spirituality and sexuality in the furry fandom are what inadvertently caused the furry fandom to be popularly thought of as highly sexual. Burned Fur dissolved in 2001. [102]

    1998-10-11: Baxil created The Draconity FAQ. [103] This is a document about people who identify as dragons in spirit, though their bodies are human. It’s associated with the participants of alt.fan.dragons.

1999

Around that time, or at least in the late Nineties, the Silver Elves switched to sending out their letters by e-mail instead of “snail mail,” which they had been doing continuously ever since the late Eighties.[104]

2000

Rosalyn Greene published The Magic of Shapeshifting, a non-fiction handbook for “shifters,” people who are partially animal in spirit, and identify as animals.[105] Greene, who calls herself a wolf shifter, [106] demonstrates familiarity with the people, concepts, and jargon of the therianthrope community of AHWW. However, she avoids mentioning AHWW directly, avoids citing its web-sites, and avoids identifying any of its people by name.

    2000-01-19: Creation of Elenari Nexus at elenari.net. The Elenari “are Elves of similar philosophies, cultures and worldviews who have been born into human bodies here on Earth,” as the site said on its front page. The Elenari had earlier shared their ideas together in some mailing lists during the late 1990s.

    2000-03-27: Tirl Windtree first wrote “What is an Otherkin?” This essay lists “a few main viewpoints on why a particular person considers themselves something Other.” Tirl continues revising this essay over the years, eventually changing the title to “What are Otherkin?”[107]

    2000-06-29: Creation of Otherkin.net domain, a web-site which became a significant hub of the otherkin community for the rest of the decade. Before then, the site’s content was originally at http://members.home.com/otherkin (defunct).

2001

Carla Rueckert published A Wanderer’s Handbook: An Owner’s Manual for ETs and Other Spiritual Outsiders, for an audience of people who identify as extraterrestrials.[108]

    2001-02-20: Nick Mamatas’s article “Elven Like Me: Otherkin come out of the closet” printed in The Village Voice. [109]

    2001-03: Publication of a magazine article about otherkin. Polson wrote of it, “In a 2001 article in Fate magazine, author Cara Des’tai describes these people who understand themselves to be elves, dragons, and other kinds of what people would call ‘mythological’ creatures: ‘Who and what are these “otherkin” and “fey”?’” [110] The article was from the March issue, and is called “The Internet Goes Mythic.” A copy is archived here: http://www.eristi c.net/fey/info/fatearticle.php

2002

2002-06-03, completed in August: During the summer of 2002, Dayve J. “Kaltezar” H. worked with a graphic artist to design the Otherkin Emblem (also called the Otherkin Sigil or Otherkin Logo). This graphic is intended to convey the meaning of otherkin clearly and accurately, but without being overt.

“[…] if you were to show [the seven-pointed star] to a complete stranger, do you think they could possibly pull ‘otherkin’ from it? I didn’t think so […] I’m not sure there is any religion in the world, which comes close to the diversity of otherkin. Trying to group it all together in one small symbol proved to be nearly impossible. […] Most have said it’s the best thing they’ve seen thus far as any attempt to organize the belief into one simple graphic.”

Kaltezar chose representational images for the emblem to communicate what otherkin is about. “While there are only three ‘species’ represented in the picture, it shows the diversity in which the belief exists.” These are an elf, a dragon, and a wolf, which are some of the most common kinds among otherkin, and sufficient to embrace identifications with animals as well as legendary beings.

    The emblem is meant to be publicly displayed, but not profited from nor altered. Through the merchandise printer CafePress.com, Kaltezar begins to sell window-stickers printed with this emblem.[111]

    2002-07-03: Creation of Otherkin.com web-domain. Note that this is unrelated to the sites using the Otherkin.org and Otherkin.net domains.

2003

Publication of Willow Polson’s The Veil’s Edge: Exploring the Boundaries of Magic, a non-fiction book on Neo-Pagan spirituality that had a chapter on “otherkin,” using that word, defining it, and talking about the history of the subculture. [112] It also mentioned the Silver Elves.[113]

    Raven Kaldera published Handfasting & Wedding Rituals, a non-fiction book that briefly uses and defines the word “otherkin.”[114]

    Around this time, a symbol for therianthropy was designed in the Awereness [sic] forums that were hosted on Therianthropy.org. The symbol is called the theta-delta, and interlaces two Greek letters: the theta (a circle with a dash in the center), meant to represent the human element and/or the soul; and the triangular delta, to represent the animal element and change. The forum thread about its creation was later lost in a system crash, [115] and wasn’t saved in the Internet Archive, either.

    2003-04-04: The FAE Board of Directors announced that FAE, “Faeborn and Astral Entities,” on this date had legally become a non-profit corporation, filing number 800191654, and was now called FAE, Inc., “The Foundation for Awakening and Enlightenment.” [116]

2004

Lorne Dawson published Religion Online: Finding Faith on the Internet, a book on religion that defines the word “otherkin” in a footnote on page 172.[117]

    Oberon Zell-Ravenheart published Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard, a non-fiction handbook for a magic-themed youth education system. It included a few paragraphs about psychic vampires, therianthropes, and otherkin in the real world. [118]

    Michelle Belanger published a revised edition of The Psychic Vampire Codex: A Manual of Magick and Energy Work through Red Wheel/Weiser. This book is primarily about the real vampire community and their magical techniques. The book mentions “otherkin” a few times. [119]

2005

A journalist named Christine Wicker published Not In Kansas Anymore, a non-fiction book that is an outsider’s view of various occult subcultures, including otherkin. Wicker visited vampires, an otherkin gather, and the Silver Elves. [120]

    Anya Bast published Blood of an Angel, which is a supernatural romance novel about “OtherKin,” with that capitalization. [121] Bast’s “OtherKin” are fictional, supernaturally powerful persons who do not resemble real otherkin. The similar word may even be a coincidence. Bast writes several books about these “OtherKin.” Later, several more romance novelists begin using the word “OtherKin” as well.

    2005-06-01: FAE, Inc. registered the faeinc.info web domain, and moved to there from its former web address at promethianweb.com/fae. At this point, the front page of the web-site—after the usual “This is not an RPG” disclaimer—includes this sentence: “We are not an Otherkin site, nor do we associate with the term Otherkin,” and an explanation that the site is primarily for people who have a “core non-human mystical soul.” A few months after that, the site ceased to exist.

    2005-11-28: An anonymous researcher called Kinfo who had been drafting a book about otherkin made a blog post revealing that Kinfo has collected about 400 responses to Kinfo’s survey.[122] As of this writing, Kinfo still hasn’t published any book or research.

2006

At least eleven books were printed or published this year that at least mentioned otherkin, therians, or similar people who identify as animals or otherworldly creatures. This includes Lupa’s book Fang and Fur, Blood and Bone: A Primal Guide to Animal Magic, an occult non-fiction book that has a chapter on spiritual therianthropy.[123] Linda S. Godfrey’sHunting the American werewolf [124] and Chantal Bourgault du Coudray’sThe Curse of the Werewolf, both non-fiction books about werewolves in folklore, included some information about spiritual therianthropy. [125]

2007

Wolf therianthrope and Neo-Pagan author Lupa published A Field Guide to Otherkin, a book entirely on the subject of otherkin, therianthropes, and vampires. She drew her information from surveys of them, so that her book reflects their diversity of beliefs and opinions. [126]

2009

At least fourteen books mentioned otherkin this year. This includes Danielle Kirby’s essay on otherkin, “From pulp fiction to revealed text: a study of the role of text in the otherkin community,” in an academic book, Exploring Religion and the Sacred in a Media Age. ^[127]

    2009-02-13: An otherkin website called http://www.otherkincommunity.net (The Otherkin Community, Inc.) “has been officially registered as a not-for-profit corporation under the State of New York.” [128] The site founder, Clodaus, claimed this is “the first non-profit organization partially devoted to Otherkin.” It’s questionable whether we can count FAE, Inc.

2010

2010-01 and 02: After James Cameron’s film Avatar came out, there was a sudden appearance of one person claiming that he was an otherkin who identifies as Na’vi in spirit. He remained active only during these two months. There are some clues that this was just a prank to make fun of otherkin. See my post on Otherkin News for details. [129]

    2010-04-07: Lanina tells me that on this day Thomas Lerner published the article “ ‘Ibland får jag lust att yla som en varg’ ”[130] (“Sometimes I get the urge to howl like a wolf”) “in Dagens Nyheter, Sweden’s largest newspaper … The picture is strangely enough wrong, there was another picture there earlier. The article is based on a interview with me [Lanina].”^[131] In the article, Lanina met with the journalist in a café in Stockholm, and she described the basics of what it’s like to be a therian.

2011

An otherkin community blossomed on the blog-hosting site Tumblr.com. What makes the part of the otherkin community on Tumblr different from the rest of the otherkin community is its melding with social justice activism, concepts, and language.[132] In the last couple of months of the year, harassment of otherkin on Tumblr became constant, but the otherkin remained very active there. [133]

    2011-08-14: In Las Vegas, self-proclaimed mer-people and mer- people fanciers attended Mer-Con 2011, the world’s largest mermaid convention. Some of them made a career of swimming performances while wearing mermaid tails. Some of them express a lifelong desire to become real mer-people, or who assert that they are now real mer-people.[134] The mermaid community isn’t connected with the otherkin or therian communities. See my post on Otherkin News for more information about this event.[135]

    2011-08-29: A Polish-language women’s online magazine, We-Dwoje, published an article about otherkin. [136]

    2011-11-13: A TV documentary aired on Channel 4. It’s about the Crimson Blood Wolf Pack in Texas, some of whom identify as werewolves, some as vampires.[137] See my post on Otherkin News.[138] Merticus of the Atlanta Vampire Alliance condemned the documentary for showing unsafe and unsanitary bloodletting practices.[139]

    2011-11-19: After the documentary about furries aired on the Swedish TV channel 5, “a blog belonging to the editorial staff of the ‘Young people’ part of the local Swedish paper Norrköpings Tidningar (NT), [posted] an article joking about what might happen if species change was possible.” The newspaper editor said jokingly that if her own grandchild ever said he wanted to change his species, she would feed him deadly poison. A therian named Susitar didn’t think that was funny, and asked the therian community to complain to the newspaper.[140]

Glossary

    AHWW. Abbreviation for newsgroup alt.horror.werewolves, which see.

    alt.horror.werewolves. A newsgroup created in 1992, where the therianthrope community originated.

    EQD. Abbreviation for the Elf Queen’s Daughters, which see.

    Elf Queen’s Daughters. [1970s to present] A family-coven of Neo-Pagan people who call themselves elves. Established in the late 1960s, or perhaps 1974.

    Elves of the Southern Woodlands. [1980s] The Silver Elves, which see.

    Faeborn. [Coined in about 1992.] People who believe they are spiritually other than human. They are Fae or other mythological beings.

    Faeid. [1986] A group of Neo-Pagan people who work Faerie spirits. Some of them identify as partially Faerie.

    Gather. A planned event in which several otherkin meet together in person. First held in 1990.

    Glamour-bomb. [Coined in 1997] Any numinous prank or public artwork intended to encourage belief in fairies and magic.

    Greymuzzle. [1990s] Any person who has been active in the therianthrope community for a very long time, especially if they were in AHWW before 1996.

    Howl. [Coined in 1994.] A planned event in which several therianthropes meet together in person.

    Kin. [1990s to present] Sometimes used as an abbreviation of “otherkin.”

    Otherkin. [Coined in 1990.] People who identify as other than humans. They are elves, dragons, or other mythological beings.

    Shifter. [1990s] Another word for a therianthrope, which see.

    Silver Elves, the. [1980s to present] A family-coven of people who call themselves elves. Formerly known as the Elves of the Southern Woodlands, and the Sylvan Elves. They branched off from the Elf Queen’s Daughters.

    Sylvan Elves, the. [1980s] The Silver Elves, which see.

    Therianthrope. [Adopted in 1995.] People who identify as animals. Sometimes abbreviated to “therian.”

    Were. [1990s] Another word for a therianthrope, which see.

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