*=========== Public disclaimer ===========*

The following document is opinion based and relies on very few concrete sources, if any (those used will be noted). Comments are welcome to the media in which this was found, or via email. Comments may be read, unread, deleted for no cause, deleted for good reason, ignored, archived, burned, or crucified. The probability that I'll respond to your comments depends greatly on how little you make me angry.

(c) 1997 Lion Templin (ltemplin@leoNOSPAMnine.com)

*=========== Public disclaimer ===========*

The Campaign for Realism and Integrity in Therianthropy

Treatise 1: Three Lies of Therianthropy.

Lion Templin

August 1999

(c) 1999 Lion Templin

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Section 1

It has been commonly accepted by many that the online therianthropic genre has taken a turn for the worse in years preceding. Flame wars,

personal assaults, splits and schizms (Like the Cougnaites), spam, trolls, holy wars, and general mayhem have erupted on several of the most prominent founts of therianthropic discussion, namely AHWW the newsgroup, IRC servers, discussion forums, and whatever nook and cranny style service and individual can provide. I need not remind you more of the state of the genre, nor is it relevant to maintaining a timelessness of a document. This likely will seem as timely as anything else, but perhaps it's lessons can be given to longer lifespans.

Section 2

Regardless of the fragmented and highly individualized nature of the genre's current state, the genre can be broken down into two large and

diverse groups. Of course this will be obvious to you, and the answer as to what group you belong to will be decided without hesitation. Simply enough, the groups are the "trues" and the "wannabes". I will expect that if you have stayed long enough to read that last sentence, that you'll have chosen the group "trues", referring to those who /truly/ are representatives of a non-human species. If you can honestly admit to being a wannabe .. well, be very proud of yourself. I thank you for coming, and you can ignore the rest of the document, if you wish. For those who remain, the ones who claim "true" status, well this is where it begins.

Your claim to admission into the true category has not come without it's questions, correct? Questions of yourself, right? Of course it has .. for a single person to sit down and believe a statement such as "I am a wolf." implies at some point you would be required to ask yourself "Am I a wolf?" It matters not if someone else told you you were one, or some test told you of such things, or some magical dream gave you this knowledge .. the final answer is all yours. Your choice to believe what you've just seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or had thrust upon you in the heat of passion. Much like the decisions you make every day to believe the existence of things (Is this a hard boiled egg? Is this a 3/8" drive 1/2" socket?) you also make such a decision about your own very /nature/.

Now it's not hard to make an existential decision about a 3/8" drive 1/2" socket, it presents certain evidence to imply it's identity. But what about your decision about therianthropy? Certainly you can't pick it up, connect it to a 3/8" ratchet, and proceed to reattach the 1/2" bolts to your car's strut tower. Well, let's just say that the socket has a lot more going for it in terms of believability. Why? Because it poses no threat to something I (and others) like to call "intellectual honesty". Intellectual honesty is a fragment that for many of us manages what we can believe. Your own intellectual honesty certainly isn't going to allow you to pick up a dead chicken and use it to put your strut back on, believing it's your ratchet.

But, how strong is that part of you? For many, when it comes to self-knowledge .. it's remarkably weak. Defeating it allows people to remain happy in dead-end relationships, live in cardboard boxes, or deny

that they are drug addicts. Essentially, when it comes to self .. you're easy to delude. It's called denial. Why do we use denial? Because it's easier in every case than the truth. Easier to ignore your wife died, easier to believe your husband isn't an alcoholic, easier to get along in life ignoring all the bad things that could be going on about you.

Therianthropy provides several avenues of denial that make things easy for a lot of people. Many lies are perpetuated by therianthropes in the process of making their claim .. to the world and themselves. This is easily a transgression of intellectual honesty.

- Therianthropic Lie #1: THE LIE OF INDIVIDUALITY -

Many prefer to use their claim into the "true therianthropic" class to separate them from the rest of "boring old people". To give them a step up on the rest of the crowd, to say. Certainly, everyone who has even the slightest ego is going to desire to be different from the person next to them .. and what is more different than to make a claim that you're some kind of "animal inside" .. a hungry predator that'll stop at nothing for conquest in a dog-eat-dog world. There's no question that the person in the next cubicle isn't a wolf ..

Well, it's really too bad .. because therianthropy is not all that

special. Faced with the wide range of human possibility, therianthropy is one of billions of aspects that can make up an individual. For one, there's more just like you. Ever notice that you'll see someone that looks amazingly like someone you know? Anyone who's spent some time in crowds will understand the feeling that they've seen people who look like other people .. and simple logic dictates that there's people who look like you. Now, if you will, apply this to therianthropy .. an aspect of yourself that is like your unique face. If people can look like others, then others can think like you. You are NOT alone, and therefore, not special.

What does it really matter, however, that someone's a therianthrope? Does being an therianthrope stack up to the likes of Albert Einstein, or

just the neighbor down the block who has a soft spot in his heart and helps out at the homeless shelter? Therianthropy is /personal/. There's a significant difference between "I'm an wolf." and "I'm someone who'll risk their life for someone else." Or, "I'm a bear." and "I'm a homicidal psycho."* Which really makes you a different person?

* Just to show that the difference swings both 'positive' and 'negative'.

How many people in your life recognize, and thusly allow to make a

difference in their lives because you claim therianthropic status? How many of those people aren't your friends?

- Therianthropic Lie #2: THERIANTHROPY IS EASY TO BELIEVE IN, - HARD TO LIVE.

It seems like a common ideal in the therianthropic world is that to become a therianthrope is relatively simple .. though you'll argue this, it should be read first before getting your hackles up.

People need vehicles to understanding. An experiment to demonstrate a concept, an example to clarify the learning. Essentially, a method by which to gain a grasp of a concept and thusly use it. There are many often used vehicles in therianthropy ... most of which easily accepted and often spurious in nature. One such vehicle is dreaming. Cited time and time again as the vehicle of therianthropic understanding, dreams have become a staple of the proof toolbox that therianthropes use to understand themselves. Another is "expert opinion", someone telling you that you're of such nature. And so on. Regardless, the common epiphany is simple and short: "I had a dream about a wolf, and therefore I am one!"

Again, pure myth. Therianthropy flies in the face of generations of sociological training to separate man from animals. So, after all these

years of built up prejudice, you can suddenly wake up one morning and say "I'm part wolf!"? It's not quite that simple. Liken it, in some respects, to the other regions of society that have had eons of repression. Most common: "deviant" sexuality. Would you consider yourself "in the closet" about being a therianthrope? What would your parents think? The neighbors? Your coworkers? If you tell a random person on the street that you're a homosexual, they'll at least acknowledge that they exist.

But to tell them you're a therianthrope .. that'll have much less of a believable effect. And so, when you choose the therianthropic path you make a conscious decision to defy your society's teaching ... not an easy thing to do. To completely believe such a decision about oneself can take years, much likeother socially marginal attributes.

Conversely, once the bold step of being claimant to therianthropy is

taken, the path ever after is wrought with difficulty. Isolation, control, and a host of "animalistic" qualities that the therianthrope must continually wrestle with. Like doing your best not to loose control of the "animal within" and hurt someone. Or not to growl, nip, or pounce on strangers (or in some cases, /very/ close friends :) ... you'd best always be on your guard as a therianthrope to insure that other people don't get hurt by the inner power of your paws.

Not quite. Once you've gone through the years of trying to understand yourself, the rest really is easy. Just be you. If you truly are the animal you say you are it WILL show in thought, word, and deed ... in everything you do. No need to force such things as you'll be doing it naturally. You will find that your animal nature DOES make serious effects in acceptable action in everyday life .. just because you are a wolf does NOT mean you go about chasing down other people and trying to tear them limb from limb. You'll find there's a uniquely /human/ equivelant to your animal's behavior. And because of that, others .. people who are not aware of your therianthropic nature, will see you as such without them ever knowing what you believe.

- Therianthropic Lie #3: THERIANTHROPES AREN'T LIKE HUMANS -

So, you're a therianthrope. This makes you different, right? (No.) But this DOES make you somewhat "inhuman" ... after all you ARE part animal. And being part animal gives you certain "rights", like getting angry .. or howling at inopportune times. And maybe it frees you from some of the common problems that humans have. Regardless, you don't have to sink to their level because you're not like them.

It's not that easy, folks. Many therianthropes forget one simple fact: YOU TOO ARE HUMAN.

And with that comes the whole package, the complete set of foibles that make up the human tragedy. You too can bicker, be ornery, and be kind without the added baggage of therianthropy. And oddly enough, therianthropes have shown the nature to do exactly what the rest of the world does .. minus the animal belief. Not only that, it's unacceptable to be an asshole as a therianthrope as anywhere else .. blaming your faults on your species is NO EXCUSE in any situation.

You'll never be able to forsake your humanity, no matter how strenuously your protest it.

(How could anyone ever get away with, much less sympathy from "fuck off and die" in a public forum is beyond me, though I'm proud to have made the list.)

This is but a small sample of the common therianthropic lies. So often is it that these lies are committed after the suppression of intellectual honesty that these indicators lends themselves to the identification of those who have not allowed themselves to ask the truthful questions. What group do you belong to? The "wannabes" or the "trues"? Don't answer that to me, I don't care. No one does. Only to you and your own honesty does it matter.

(c) 1999 Lion Templin