Not In Kansas Anymore (22 page)

I took the studies as verification that I'd been right to be afraid of the walk's power. It wouldn't be difficult to program my brain so that it saw events in a completely different way. If I told myself every day that all events have special meaning for me, soon they would. Conversely, if I lived in a society that told me events are all random and utterly separate from me, I would see them that way.
Either way, I would be stroking my brain, giving it example after example of truth, until it took over and began feeding the examples back to me.

The brain is a powerful and deceptive instrument. Science has demonstrated that again and again, and so has experience. But it is all we've got. If we trust it too much, we're in trouble. If we trust it too little, are we in worse trouble? Will we then trust someone else's brain? Or a computer? Humans are good at making meaning, which is not to say they are good at finding the truth, wrote Richard A. Friedman in the
New York Times.
So what to make of this? I'm not sure. But here's an idea that seems radical and a little frightening to me: if we're not good at truth and we are good at meaning, maybe those of us who are merely trying to live our lives as best we can would do better to give truth a bit of a rest and pursue meaning.

Take Kioni, for instance. He saw a figure in the corner of his bedroom and took it to be the Virgin Mary with a message he longed to hear. Was she there? I don't know, but he was healed whether she was or not. A young man in my dream declared me innocent. I took him for Jesus and was emboldened. A voice spoke to Siva the Satanist. He took it to be Kali, and it began to refer him back to his own best judgment. Twelve-year-old Cat did a rain dance, it rained, and a lonely young girl thought herself powerful. I remembered asking Cat, about astrology, “How can such things happen?” And I remembered her answer: “I don't know, hon. I don't know.” And then she had said, “All I know is that they do happen.”

I
flew to Kitchener, Canada, to attend the spring gathering of Otherkin, hoping to connect with the elves, who are perhaps the magical world's most dedicated embodiments of gentleness and light. In Tolkien's work, they are immortals of great beauty and nobility. In Gael Baudino's
Strands of Starlight,
they are called the Fair Ones and live by the rule of love. They worship the Goddess and receive strength and direction from the stars. They refuse to cut trees and are so in tune with animals that they ask permission of their horses before riding them.

Those are fictional Otherkin, of course. The living Otherkin are a loosely affiliated group of mostly young people who believe themselves to be magical and spiritual creatures: elves, werewolves, dragons, fairies, angels, hobbits. I was fascinated from the first time I read about them in a
Village Voice
story by Nick Mamatas, which pointed out that Otherkin believe they age slower than others and heal faster. They feel alien and frequently have an aversion to iron and other new-fangled instruments of progress. Mamatas wrote,

My first impression when walking into the hospitality room of their convention was, yes, these people are different. I felt a little like Han Solo walking into the bar. Tattooed people with dark figures writhing up and down their arms. Pale thin-faced kids with iridescent hair, blue, pink, purple, and green, overlaying rough-textured tresses of the deepest black, frizzing down their backs, falling in heavy wings around their faces or spiking around their heads. Pierced, studded, and clad in lumpy clothes, mostly jeans and black T-shirts. I was by far the oldest person in the room, more than twice as old as many. If anyone was a freak in this group, it was me.

And yet in the most unobtrusive and sensitive ways, they paid mind to me. One caught my eye, held up his cup, raised his eyebrows, and murmured, “Can I get you some coffee?” Others sidled up to me with a soft “Hi” and then looked away, like friendly deer,
too polite to nibble at my pockets but ready to befriend me. These were outcasts, geeks, misfits—their words, not mine. I would have never called them that, but they almost always made that point about themselves within seconds of meeting me.

They are often dismissed as fan boys who live in their mothers' basements. “Fan boys” is a term for people whose lives as Trekkies or whose love of stories from comic books or whose devotion to roles they play in computer fantasy games are more real to them than anything else. Junior high and high school were hell for many of them. You could tell that instantly, and they could give you details that would shrink your soul. Their status hadn't changed much. Appearance, interests, manner, everything marked them. Look at them and you instantly thought of the kids who sat in the back of the room sleeping during class, sullen or worse, some of them openly terrified when called on, chosen last for team sports, uninvited to the popular kids' parties. If they went to the prom, they went in ripped black or camouflage pants or in something flamboyantly inappropriate, like elf ears or vampire teeth. They were the freaks, the druggies, the kids bullies loved to target. If they'd been meaner, they might have had a chance, but mean was the last thing they were. Too sweet was more like it, too sensitive and too smart not to know all the dreadful nuance of their place.

Since so many are computer geeks, they often express themselves in computer-ese. Some mention being science majors. When one girl lectured the group on new science, it was obvious that the group knew enough to argue. But they didn't. Afterward, I heard her saying to another Otherkin, “I know that string theory isn't proven, but….”

They knew that thinking themselves elves or werewolves, dwarfs or dragons, left them open to being called crazy. They questioned themselves on that point quite a bit. Some had been diagnosed with
various types of mental illness: depression, bipolar disorder, disassociation, multiple personalities, suicidal tendencies. They had reason to be wary of outsiders. Many had been attacked by Internet-savvy haters who flooded their chat rooms with so much threatening talk that they'd sometimes had to shut down and open new rooms. There were only about sixty of them in attendance, but three guys were assigned to be security, not so much to police their behavior as to protect them should some meanie try to crash their convention.

Never once did they set me apart. Nobody tried to show me how cool he was by letting me know that I wasn't. One afternoon a workshop given by a handsome werewolf featured everyone breaking a board karate-style, a lesson on how to use energy. I was afraid to try. The Wolf, who had well-cut, light-colored hair and looked more like the young businessman he was than a werewolf, invited me to try several times before I would.

Everyone broke the board in one try, but not me. I whammed my hand twice against the board. Nothing happened to the wood, not even a splinter.

“Try again,” he said softly, positioning my hand differently.

“You can do it,” the crowd yelled each time I failed. “Try again.” When the board finally broke, I'd hit it so hard that my whole body followed through and I fell against the floor. Anybody might have laughed. They cheered. They knew the multiple ways in which people can be made to feel apart. They had forsworn them all. I'd never seen anything like it.

The man called Dreaming Squirrel was there, and said he was elf and leprechaun. I'd heard that his three-year-old daughter had one pointed ear and one normal ear. When I asked, her mother pulled back the little girl's brown curls. Sure enough, one ear was pointed and the other wasn't. When the child was born, her mother told me, her ears were the first body parts she checked.

Dreaming Squirrel jumped around a bit, talking excitedly about various topics and then exclaiming, “Excuse me. I had to say that.” The first night he was carrying a cudgel made of green cloth and foam shaped like broccoli. Twice I heard him tell the story of how he would go to gentlemen's clubs, and when the dancers complained of pains or tension, he would reach out and touch them magically.

“They would go, ‘Ooooh, how did you do that?'” he said, which demonstrated how amazed and grateful they were for his magical healing.

“So I guess that makes you the Jesus of the Gentlemen's Clubs,” said the Wolf, demonstrating his wolfish edge. Dreaming Squirrel blinked and said nothing, demonstrating a limit to his aspirations.

Of course, being an Otherkin doesn't solve all one's problems. Spark, a young woman with shining red hair that fell softly about her shoulders, creamy glowing skin, and a silver nose ring, told me she was a vampire. She wore fashionable black-rimmed glasses, a pentacle pendant, and long flowing skirts. She had a handsome boyfriend, with a fringe of a beard outlining his chin, who sat silently beside her. She described herself as having been a shy, depressed, easily frightened, low-energy child who cried easily. She had grown up to be a woman with many health problems that caused her to feel frequent pain and lassitude. I asked if discovering her magical self had helped with the ailments. She said they had actually gotten worse. At the Come as You Really Are Ball, she sat in the back, far from the dance floor.

“I'd like to dance,” she said, “but I'm afraid to. I'm that kind of person who wants to but doesn't.”

A guy named Gleef told me that he was some kind of prehistoric lizard. Another guy called himself Kibble. When I asked why, he said that he serves the Wolf god. “I'm kibble for him,” he said.
Another woman calls herself The Crisses because she harbors so many different personalities inside her—dozens already and adding all the time. Many are magical beings, some are not, she said.

Otherkin call each type of magical being a race, and you often hear them ask, “What race are you?” Discovery of one's race is called the “awakening.” Awakening is often a terrifying process, they told me, during which the person doubts his or her sanity. Each race has personality traits. Angels are among the most popular otherworldly creatures to be, but I didn't meet any at the convention. They aren't universally appreciated among the Otherkin. They tend toward rigid, anal-retentive personalities, I was told. Their posture reflects their personalities so often that Otherkin like to say, “We know where they keep their flaming swords.”

Appearance doesn't necessarily correspond with identity. One elf whose lean body, high forehead, blond coloring, and sharp features would have made him central casting's first choice, said some Otherkin have the ability to change how they look to conform to their true selves. He didn't look elven at all when he first discovered his race, he said, but over time he has been able to magically change his body to look more like his true self.

Sexual preference, even sexual identity, is variable in Otherkin circles. Roger, who was pointed out to me as an East Asian dragon, is a he with long blue and black hair and noticeable breasts. The dragons at this convention were of the Eastern kind, which was fortunate, because Western dragons are often portrayed as stupid, rash, and greedy, like the one in Tolkien's
The Hobbit
. Eastern dragons are much wiser and powerful in better ways.

These dragons were all women of average to below-average height and impressive width. I'd watched them make their way through gatherings carefully maneuvering in space set up for humans
of less girth. They were light on their feet and careful it seemed to make sure others weren't pushed around by their physical presence. If considered human, the dragon family might be thought of as humans suffering from bad genes or poor eating habits or laziness or gluttony or any of the other insults that are thrown at people whose weight is above average. But as dragons, their shape is not a drawback or even an oddity. A dragon ought to have some heft. It is their size, in fact, that helps make them so magnificent.

That evening during the Come as You Really Are Ball the Wolf spotted me sitting on the sidelines. I'd arrived late. My costume was a pen and notebook, jeans and a sweater, just me being my exciting self. He'd come as a party boy with handcuffs hanging from his belt. I saw him on the dance floor, gyrating wildly, shirtless. Shirtless suited him. When he saw me, he came over, took my hand, pulled me from my chair, and said, “I've been watching for you. Come upstairs where there's a real party.”

If my husband had been there, he might have pointed out that when a half-naked man with handcuffs on his belt invites you to the real party, the right response is “No thank you, please.” But my husband wasn't there.

As we walked down the long hall toward his room I asked, “Are you from around here?” He laughed and said, “That's the oldest pickup line in the world. Can't you do better?”

Before he poured me a triple shot of tequila, he jangled the handcuffs hanging off his belt and said, “I'd like to get a pair of these on you.” Typical Otherkin, so considerate, always trying to make a person feel part of the group.

We went into his bedroom, where people were sitting on the bed and against the wall. I was quiet as I sat on the edge of the bed, taking small sips of the tequila.

Along with enough liquor to fill a refrigerator, the Wolf had brought a whip to the gathering. He invited a long-haired woman to scourge him, which she did with an admirable amount of flourish. Obviously here was a woman with some experience in handling a whip.

“Is that the best you can do?” he taunted her, and she applied herself with even more vigor. I hardly looked around. Bondage games are big in some magical circles, but they don't interest me. Performance sex of any kind makes me feel that the polite thing to do is look away. I know that's not what they're hoping for, but it's the best I can do.

After a while the Wolf lounged on the bed. I stayed on the edge while he and Michelle Belanger, the vampire leader of the House of Kheperu, explained to me about sex and energy.

Otherkin don't merely have sex, they exchange energy, Michelle said. It's the energy that makes sex with them more exciting than it would normally be. They touch the hidden energetic body of their partners, which is something everyone longs for. It's intimate and intense in a way that mundanes don't understand, Michelle said. As a result, they often believe themselves to be in love with vampires and Otherkin after having had nothing more than sexual energy exchange.

I wondered whether whipping and handcuffing played any part in touching the energetic body and whether I knew anybody who would think that meant love. One group of magical people, called Beasties, is known for dressing up like animals to have sex. Another group is involved in what they call sacred prostitution, modeled on ancient ideas of goddess worship, I suppose. Compared to them, the Otherkin might be considered fairly tame.

“That beautiful creature gave me one of the most exciting times of my life using just her fingernails,” said the Wolf, referring to Michelle.

Telling me to push up the sleeve of my sweater, she demonstrated the exchange of energy by having me hold out my arm with my palm flat, facing the floor. Then she put her hands on either side of my hand about two inches from it.