religion and your views on your dolls.

I'm Jewish and practicing, and I stated my views back on page 1 of this thread. ~.~ Most non-Orthodox Jews have a strong scientific bent.

And again, while I try to be a live and let live sort of person, the OP does not give the impression that she is. The fact she worries about the "proper" care of doll means she doesn't want to just live and let live.

 

Wow! Thanks - that's really interesting and cool!!

We have some Japanese antique furniture pieces! Now I will relish the idea that they can become "alive" after being 100 years old. I love that idea!!

I guess this discussion will depend a lot on how you define "soul". I don't know if there is any part of an individual living thing that lives on after death (I've never seen any evidence to support the claim) but I would still say that there are people, animals, places or things which have a unique presence and something special about them. I don't think that this thing, which could be called "soul" is supernatural. So I would say that a doll could have a soul based on that idea. I certainly feel a deep emotional connection to some of my dolls - and feel like they have a personality and there is a special extra something about them that other dolls don't have. So to me that would be how I'd define their soul.

 

Dolls don't have souls. They're made of resin. They are not alive, they don't follow religions and they don't have any sexuality.

 

Thank you for these links! WOW the ceremony is amazing.

 

Glad you find them interesting

Keep however in mind that neither Shinto or Buddhism have a specific set of beliefs, that youkai and bakemono belong to traditional folklore, and that modern Japanese people may believe or not in any of these, with varying degrees of seriousness. I don't think people go to ningyo koyo ceremonies with more reverence that an omukae in Tenshi no Sato, TBH.

/Is actually an atheist and a skeptic, but likes learning about folklore

 

I do not believe a "soul" can be in an object like a doll, but I have read of ghosts "possessing" an object, as a doll. My daughter used to tell me her dolls came alive at night and scared her. I would find her dolls under the bed in the morning.

 

I'm caught between rubbing my hands in demented glee and shaking my head in bemusement... O.o


I definitely have a scientific bent in my reasoning and rationale. Given that, my dolls have no soul, they are not alive because they do not meet any of the 7 characteristics of life (among those response to stimuli, genetic inheritence, acquisition of materials/energy), and they probably won't spontaneously become alive any time in the near future. Not saying it's impossible, just very, very improbable.

Now comes the part where I totally contradict everything I said before...

But just because I believe in science and proof doesn't mean I don't believe in things I can't explain. Like the presence of magic, Fae, and spirits, just to name a few. I won't bore anyone with the details, but I've seen way too much that cannot be adequately explained to totally disbelieve the notion of something existing beyond our comprehension.

For example, the presence of a house spirit in my home. Which has attached itself, through our invitation, to one of our dolls. Think of it like Bob from the Dresden Files.

But, this is just my belief. I honestly don't care if you subscribe to it, or not.

 

Well ummm that's really interesting.... at first I thought it was nice...a way to not just
throw them away, then I had to laugh that people will actually pay 3,000 yen to "give"
their dolls away! Imagine that happening in the US...never. So as I read it I wondered
what happened to these dolls after their ceremony? Then reading that most of them are
discarded anyway... But imagine going there and seeing very nice ABJD's...
it makes me curious how often that happens and where do those dolls go?

My Grandmother actually has a very very old Japanese doll, it seriously creeped me
out as a child I'll have to ask her about it...

 

I also don't believe in religion (at least not in the way that more devout people do) but I do believe in God, and my *personal* brand of belief or faith or whatever you want to call it, is really more concerned with nature, when I look at the perfect ways in which nature maintains itself, it suggests God to me- but that's just me. I also agree with Harlequinn-Elle that my opinion is absolutely correct- for me. Others do/will/have find it ridiculous, but that's what I believe.

That said, I don't believe that my dolls have a soul so much as a particularity about them. They're something special to me, and over the years they've become sort of... I dunno, stamped with my personality. So if someone else owned them it'd be weird - they'd have to strip them down to bare resin and completely make them over their own way to make them really belong... the same way I did when I bought them. Dunno if that makes sense.

On that note, my "religion" has never influenced anything about my dolls except for the fact that I refuse to have them wear crucifixes. I was raised Catholic, but we weren't devout and so the religion itself has never really influenced me period... The crucifix thing is a personal preference however, because of all the things that were uncomfortably forced into my head during childhood, that symbol has an extremely weird effect on me and I prefer not to see it anywhere that isn't a church or on a rosary- and even then... That said, if someone has their doll wearing one, I just hit the back button or make a polite comment about needing to go to the toilet and leave. I certainly don't want to try to explain that mess to anyone. O.o

Sidenote: I think it's a bit wrong to laugh at people's beliefs(no matter how odd they may seem to you). I've read about that ceremony before and sometimes it's very emotional for people- just because you wouldn't pay that money doesn't mean someone else is silly for doing so- just wanted to point that out Lula78, I'm not trying to pick on you.

 

I really like this thread. You all have such great opinions. As for me, I love my little resin man. I take more care for him than I would do a bed set because let's be honest, This hobby is way more expensive than a lot of bed sets haha. Anyway, Having my dollfie makes me happy. I take good care of him and I guess I sometimes get carried away when I roleplay with him but at the end of the day, he is made out of resin, not flesh. If he were to be melted into a ball, would I love him the same? Maybe not. I don't think my dollfies have souls but reading fantasies that they could have theyre own lives is entertaining and I like to rolaplay with him. I treat him way better than a boyfriend because let's face it, relationsips aren't the same. It's not like a dog that when you come home, jumps around and looks into your eyes with joy that you came home. dollfies look into nothing. Out into space so I suppose if it cannot look me in the eye and give off some chemical form of emotion, I dont think it has a soul unless maybe it's possed by a lost soul or dead relative in which that case, it would be pretty cool as long as its a nice soul. Kind of like pinnochio.

 

Lula, I remember to have watched a documentary about those Japanese doll funerals some time ago on TV. They said that these doll funerals take place all over Japan once a year. They are being organized and held by the Japanese doll makers guild by the way. They also said (and showed) that they destroy and throw away all of the dolls after the ceremony.

There was this scene where the reporter asked the guy who lead the funeral why on earth they don't resell those beautiful dolls as they could make lots of money with them and he answered that they believe that each doll is linked through a special bond to their original owner (they would carry their hopes, dreams and desires) and hence cannot be sold to another person.

Well, I've found this episode on youtube as well, so if you want to see some doll slaughtering go here. (It's in German, but it should be understandable nevertheless)

 

Biscuitbear I believe attended one many many years ago. (I want to say around 1998 or 1999) and wrote about it more from the perspective of a doll collector. At the time both she and I collected an OT doll (Licca.) Generally, the dolls that are discarded are in very rough shape. They are the well loved stuffed animals, 1/6 dolls colored on with markers and given unintentionally punk haircuts, the fraying and yellowed hina dolls. Vintage Licca and Barbies, for example, tended not to be discarded and were kept as dolls of significant historical value. I am sure a BJD brought to them unless it was in terrible shape would be unlikely to be discarded.

As for the price, think of it as paying for the priest's time. It actually doesn't seem so bad a price to me, the little charms sold at temples and shrines generally cost 500-1000 yen and it is 300 yen to get a temple/shrine stamp. (Which I also collect.)

 

Well I'm half Japanese, so I suppose if you think I'm laughing at anyone's
culture or beliefs I'm also laughing at my own country, which I am not.
Also you would be taking my "laughter" out of context. I found it both funny
and cute....but also very strange...I wouldn't partake in such a thing only for
the fact that it would go against my own beliefs, not because of the cost...
I was actually trying to imagine something similar going on in the US, and
it simply never would. But I found it wasteful and pointless to destroy the
dolls afterwards. Now I see their reasoning behind doing it, but I'm an avid
recycler and was saddened to think they went to any sort of landfill :-[

I'm sorry that my post was perceived as rude by you, that certainly wasn't my
intention.

Thank you Sharkyra & rkold, what you said added some further
insight into the ceremony. Not sure I can handle seeing any dolly slaughter
right now though!

edit: thank you for the youtube link...I feel so sad for the two little girls kissing
their big stuffed dog goodbye!....that video was actually rather difficult to watch!!

 

First of all, I believe you have the right to believe whatever you want, and whatever you believe is true is true for you. If you believe that rock over there is your god, okay then, at least in some sense that rock over there is your god. In a sense, you create your own reality, so if you want your dolls to have souls, your dolls will have souls, even if other people's dolls don't necessarily have them, simply because they don't believe it to be true.

Now, as far as what I believe...in a way, I believe that my dolls are dolls. I don't really believe that they have human souls, and I certainly wouldn't compare them to humans in a vegitative state or test tube babies, or even to a dog or cat (which have dog and cat souls). But perhaps they do have "doll souls", which I gave to them simply by believing in such a thing. And this I probably owe to my personality type...I'm a definate INFP (I could probably explain this better, but I'm just going to be lazy and say google "Myers-Briggs" if you're interested). I also fully recognize that not everyone does think that way, so again, what other people do with their dolls or think about them doesn't bother me.

Obviously, like some of the other people who have posted here, I'm not talking about a "soul" in a Judeo-Christian sense, but my own interpretation of what a "soul" is, and to me there are different types of "souls". So, just what is the nature of the "doll soul" I speak of? I think that for one thing, it is very closely tied to my own soul, in fact, it is a piece of my own soul which I have given to my doll, the same way that I put a piece of my soul into a character that I am writing about in a story. I also don't think this "doll soul" is necessarily tied to the actual doll body, and can very easily be tranfered to another doll were the doll itself to be broken and replaced. So in that way, while the owner of a doll is still living, the doll could never really "die." Thus, to me it would never be necessary to "grieve" for a doll...

But again, I think reality is what you make of it, so if "grieving" for a broken doll or treating them as if they were living, breathing entities seems like the thing to do, go for it. I think the one thing people who do think this way do need to be careful of though is that they don't begin placing too much importance on their dolls and not enough importance on actual human relationships, which I think most of us can agree is unhealthy for a lot of reasons ^_^;;

 

I agree with Gothic Lollipop.

While I have no religion, my life has been heavily influenced by it. From living in a predominately Orthodox Jewish neighborhood to even the type of school I currently go to, beliefs and faith have been a major part of me. The same can be said about my grandmother, as she is a Buddhist that believes in Christianity. We both have theories of our own, but we don't boast or shout them out. I was raised to tolerate and to have an understranding of other people's cultures, as did my grandma. Whether you think there is one god, multiple gods, or no god, we're all human, right? We're all human DNA and flesh and blood for the most part, right?

Like Gothic Lollipop, I view dolls as what they are: dolls. I don't think they have human souls or animals souls or the sort. Rather, I think that they have a soul of their own, sort of like how trees and plants have "souls" of their own. They have souls because they were made by people with loving hands, or at least I hope so. They don't necessarily think like we do, or feel like we do, but they have an indescribable essence to them.

 

I'm a conservative Christian who believes that only humans have souls. Animals don't, and dolls definitely don't.

 

I don't know if anyone has said that here before, but if we are talking about religion, then in religion, well say Christian ( I think I am Christian) God has created life and Universe, and with that he created soul. So everything that God has created has soul, where dolls are created by humans and we don't have this power to give souls. Am I right?

 

Personally i believe it's how religious you are P: for example i know two people of the christian relgion, one whos very religious and one whos not and both have very different views on things and i think the same follows with this whole debate. I honestly don't know, I don't believe dolls have souls nessisarily but we play it in our minds that they have 'souls' and personalities because it helps make each doll unique to each personality E.g a person could have two dolls and one ''have'' a very 'quiet' personality then the other have a 'bubbly' personality but also say like you have a doll that just doesn't seem to do something right like it's strings are all coming loose you set that as part of its personality sometimes (believe me i know someone whos done that), it sets each doll it's own uniqueness because you have to admit, wouldn't it be a little boring if every doll was the same? if every doll had the same make, the same clothes, same eyes and skin and so on. That's why (what i believe at least) is why we give these dolls personalities in our minds to deifferenciate the dolls and all make them suit our own personalities and likes and such. But let me point out this is my View on this whole thing just make that clear

 

I'm Pagan, Wiccan-leaning and a practicing family tradition witch, and I believe that while a doll doesn't have a soul, it can develop something similar to one over time with enough energy and attention. But then, I think most inanimate objects can harbor energies and spirits, given enough time. Human-shaped and animal-shaped objects seem to do this more easily though.

 

I agree with most of what you've posted Carmarilla, with what i also put XD really depends on the situation with me