Flipping the viewpoint

[fuzzyjayling]

We've been focusing a lot on a sort of this-world-centric message in regards to plural magic things, and the area that we know best personally, plural systems. It's implied in the very phrasing I've used to describe it, and this community. There's a body here, and in one way or another, more than one person inside...

For some, that's exactly the right way.

I wonder, though, if I've been getting this wrong in my broader message, or perhaps neglecting an entire side of the equation. One might also say that, for people like me at least, there's an other-world and a view into or out of it. It might be a more accurate description. I haven't explored it all, but I have whole continents in there, deserts, oceans, forests, cities... thousands of residents.

This is a much more common and comfortable view for many neo-pagans, even though it's essentially the same thing.



So, another way of looking at this is with the other-world as the primary subject. In this regard, the other-world is a place that is visited by a person from here, and has inhabitants, including some that may visit this world (out here). The body/mind, then, is a view into that world (whether it's intrinsically got a person attached to it or not).

For me, basically everything derives from the fact that I journeyed to this place, met these people, and some happen to be more present "topside". As I said above, I think that, in general, this is a more comfortable concept for people at large. This isn't a way of explaining myself as a person/body/etc, it's the basis for an entire system of magic that happens to let others from that place visit here, and vice versa. I've met a number of people (well, practically any neo-shamanic practitioner) for whom the visiting here isn't even true; they just visit the other-world.

As I implied, this is a really heavily neo-shamanistic-centric view of the topic, too. There is an other-world, and you journey into it, meet guides, etc. Sometimes, for some people, someone else comes back. But it's the world that's the thing, not the body. As time goes on, I realise more and more that neo-shamanism and plurality have a lot in common.



(Definitions)

Comments

[finch]

Yes, I've done this sort of... POV-game in the past. Gateway multiplicity is a lot more socially acceptable in new age contexts if you describe it in these terms, but I think the two are essentially similar if not the same phenomenon.

[fuzzyjayling]

Yeah. And as much as I talk about the social acceptability of it all, I think it may really help some people to think of it in these terms. Both from the point of view of prejudices absorbed from mainstream culture and just being more useful for a person's own mind-workings. Like I hope that people who just do neo-shamanic journeying can find some useful things in all these posts about exploring those worlds and speaking to their guides.

[finch]

I've definitely found that playing the metaphysical code switching game helps me to better understand what I'm doing and how my system and relationships work. Trying on different vocabulary and the associated concepts really makes me question my assumptions.