Joseph Laycock: Religious Dimensions of the Otherkin Community


Joseph Laycock has written a new article that explores the Otherkin.

“We Are Spirits of Another Sort: Ontological Rebellion and Religious Dimensions of the Otherkin Community”
By Joseph P. Laycock, PhD
Nova Religio – The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions
February 2012, Vol. 15, No. 3, Pages 65-90

Purchase Article: http://www.jstor.org/pss/10.1525/nr.2012.15.3.65

Abstract:

Otherkin are individuals who identify as “not entirely human.” Scholarship has framed this identity claim as religious because it is frequently supported by a framework of metaphysical beliefs. This article draws on survey data and interviews with Otherkin in order to provide a more thorough treatment of the phenomenon and to assess and qualify the movement’s religious dimensions. It is argued that, in addition to having a substantively religious quality, the Otherkin community serves existential and social functions commonly associated with religion. In the final analysis, the Otherkin community is regarded as an alternative nomos–a socially constructed worldview–that sustains alternate ontologies.

Related posts:

“The Otherkin: Fantastic Texts, Pop Culture, and Neo-Religiosity”

“Joseph Laycock: Vampires Today”

One Response to “Joseph Laycock: Religious Dimensions of the Otherkin Community”

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