Walk-in

Walk-in is a concept originating with the Spiritualist faith and popularised by the related, but not identical New Age movements and beliefs. A walk-in is thought to be a person whose original soul has departed their body and been replaced with a new soul.

"True", or sincere walk-ins are a rare but possibly real medical or mental health phenomenon. It might begin when an individual (frequently, but not always, female) is badly injured, falls ill or is in some way incapacitated, or seems to "die" on the operating table during surgery. After resuscitation, the person may behave in a manner completely at odds with earlier, established behaviour patterns. She or he may speak in an unknown language and identify by a different name, and may be very frightened and confused, or supernally calm. Others claim that deep emotional trauma and suicidal desires alone may set the stage for a walk-in experience.

Almost invariably, a walk-in will state they either do not know where the original inhabitant of the body has got to, or that the original soul has left it and gone on to heaven, or reincarnated, etc., leaving them in charge. The new individual may claim he or she is an angel; an older, more experienced soul; less often, a brand new one who has never incarnated before; or any manner of other imaginative origins.

While the New Age belief system about walk-ins claims that these transitions can't occur involuntarily and that no soul walks into another's body without reason, the behaviour of some "new" people indicate that it may not always be so.

In classical cases, the change is immediately apparent. However, in cases where the "new soul" has enough information to take up the life of the "previous occupant" seamlessly, it may take weeks or months before a walk-in notices, or comes to believe, that a transition has indeed occurred. Occasionally, the "old self" returns after a period of months or years, and either the "new self" departs, or they coexist and may try to integrate into a single being.

This kind of walk-in is very similar to old-time, pre-Sybil cases of multiple personalities such as Mary Reynolds. A period of unconsciousness is followed by the manifestation of a new self. William James studied Reynolds and Ansel Bourne, and thought of multiple personality as something natural but not yet understood, rather than a mental disease. Boris Sidis in his 1903 book Multiple Personalities recorded similar cases, involving both men and women.

In 1979, Spiritualist author Ruth Montgomery published Strangers Among Us, a collection of accounts of walk-ins. She included her own New Age theories and some improbable historical research naming some renowned figures such as Thomas Jefferson as walk-ins. This and her follow-up book Threshold to Tomorrow brought the concept of walk-ins to the general public.

A belief system grew up around the walk-in experience, complete with all the usual New Age attributes such as "ascending into higher frequencies of evolution", Earth Changes, and the concept that the new person may possess a variety of psi powers unknown to ordinary human beings whose "vibrational levels" remain unraised. The New Age walk-in belief system now includes a number of variant experiences such as channeling, telepathy contact with extraterrestrial intelligences, or soul merging, where the original soul remains present and coexists or integrates with the new one.

Checklists to determine walk-in status include name changes, career changes, interest in the study of psychic phenomena, a feeling that one is not really from Earth, or a sudden desire to move to a new environment. But these could possibly be attributed to simple life changes such as adolescence or middle age, so it's difficult to determine if a "true" walk-in has occurred. The most logical method might be to determine if any specific event historically connected with walk-ins (anaesthesia for surgery is one of the most common) occurred around the time one first started feeling differently. There is, however, no known scientific method to prove whether or not a walk-in has occurred.

The belief system states that all souls come to earth in order to accomplish missions of cosmic significance, and that a walk-in is a highly evolved soul who is here to help raise the vibrational levels of humanity and doesn't want to bother with the tedious process of incarnating in the usual fashion (i.e., birth).

Walk-ins, according to New Age teachers, are not perfect like Ascended Masters, but are invariably more spiritual, compassionate and sympathetic than the original person. This must be news to the husbands of women who abruptly discontinue marital relations on the grounds that they are not the person whose name appears on the wedding license or that carnal love is not for those of higher vibrational frequencies. Separation and divorce are very common to the New Age walk-in experience.

Walk-Ins, Otherkin and Multiplicity

The "otherkin" community defines walk-in as a person who believes that they share their body with one or more different entities or souls. In the otherkin community, it is thought that sometimes these entities just "walk into" the body of their host, without the host needing to depart; this can happen right after birth, or later in the life of the person concerned.

The theorised origins of these souls vary - some are thought to be human or animal spirits; others, creatures usually considered mythological; or extraterrestrial intelligences. They are thought to share the body space and take turns using the body, usually with permission and awareness.

Unlike the classic or Sybil-like description of multiple personality disorder, these groups of minds usually get on rather well and contribute energy and ideas to the host individual's life goals, as well as helping with activities of daily living.

Another phenomenon often confused with the abovementioned and classical walk-in experience is hosting. A host is a person who believes they voluntarily share their body with various entities, usually since birth, while retaining their own consciousness and sense of self. A person sharing his body with otherkin walk-in spirits can said to be hosting; but not all hosted spirits are walk-ins.

Some hosts claim that the souls residing in their body are soulbonded relatives, friends or lovers from a past life, very similar to old-time Spiritualist mediums who would allow a departed loved one to take up residence in their body temporarily or permanently. Sharing space and body time with this other spirit, these mediums were the first to have the term "multiple personalities" applied to them.

The concept of voluntary possession or sharing of the body by more than one spirit is well known in many indigenous cultures. One of the central practices of Vaudon is to allow gods and saints to take temporary possession of human bodies, to give advice and help to all the people. Folk healing on the island of Bali can involve ceremonies in which departed ancestors take over a living body for the same purposes. For the ceremony called Sanghyang Dedari (http://www.baliforyou.com/bali/sanghyang_dance.htm) (external link), two little girls are specially trained to become temporary vessels for a pair of angels, Tunjung Biru and Dewi Supraba, who come to remove bad luck and sickness from the village at the end of the monsoons. And in some Gulf Coast Indian tribes, leaders and healers are chosen from "those who have the most spirits living inside them."

Generally, walk-ins and hosts say they are able to change between the persons residing in their bodies at will; in such situations, the main or host self (in most cases, this is the soul of the original inhabitant) simply "takes a step back" and lets another entity "come forward" to control the body.

People who find themselves in a hosting or walk-in situation are also in a larger category, generally referred to as Multiples by the otherkin community.

Those people usually stress that it is important to make a distinction between people who suffer DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) and themselves. Again, unlike classical, Sybil-like blackout DID, the host person is conscious of and able to communicate and cooperate with the others. They often prefer terms such as people or selves to "personality", which they consider misleading since it implies that each is not a separate being.

External links

• Walk-Ins.Com (http://www.walk-ins.com/) An international organisation for New Age type walk-ins and others who have experienced similar transitions in consciousness.
• KinHost.Org (http://www.kinhost.org/) Resource for learning about otherkin type walk-ins and hosting.