diff --git a/inc/plugin.php b/inc/plugin.php
index 763b57bf2ff63163b2f822f356044fe0bd2a6a61..33cb06c877310d99f0726322795acdad2085cdfe 100644
--- a/inc/plugin.php
+++ b/inc/plugin.php
@@ -215,6 +215,15 @@ class DokuWiki_Plugin {
     return p_render($format, p_get_instructions($text),$info);
   }
 
+  /**
+   * Allow the plugin to prevent DokuWiki creating a second instance of itself
+   *
+   * @return bool   true if the plugin can not be instantiated more than once
+   */
+  function isSingleton() {
+    return false;
+  }
+
   // deprecated functions
   function plugin_localFN($id) { return $this->localFN($id); }
   function plugin_locale_xhtml($id) { return $this->locale_xhtml($id); }
diff --git a/inc/plugincontroller.class.php b/inc/plugincontroller.class.php
index 670dcff5d4051cd9e01795240f3327985ece6b9b..924a475e05a91362d8709cc805c20b98ea53d17a 100644
--- a/inc/plugincontroller.class.php
+++ b/inc/plugincontroller.class.php
@@ -66,7 +66,7 @@ class Doku_Plugin_Controller {
 
     //plugin already loaded?
     if(!empty($DOKU_PLUGINS[$type][$name])){
-      if ($new) {
+      if ($new  && !$DOKU_PLUGINS[$type][$name]->isSingleton()) {
         $class = $type.'_plugin_'.$name;
         return class_exists($class) ? new $class : null;
       } else {
diff --git a/lib/plugins/syntax.php b/lib/plugins/syntax.php
index 7ded173cdc73724f860a592a2328ab0c30f83a0e..126e01952df3516b83f25ef1e2942ea189f791ff 100644
--- a/lib/plugins/syntax.php
+++ b/lib/plugins/syntax.php
@@ -266,5 +266,13 @@ class DokuWiki_Syntax_Plugin extends Doku_Parser_Mode {
     return $conf;
   }
 
+  /**
+   * Allow the plugin to prevent DokuWiki creating a second instance of itself
+   *
+   * @return bool   true if the plugin can not be instantiated more than once
+   */
+  function isSingleton() {
+    return false;
+  }
 }
 //Setup VIM: ex: et ts=4 enc=utf-8 :