Essence of tulpamancy
Idealist tulpamancy
At tulpa.info and similar websites you can learn what some people want to be true:
A tulpa is an entity created in the mind, acting independently of, and parallel to your own consciousness. They are able to think, and have their own free will, emotions, and memories. In short, a tulpa is like a sentient person living in your head, separate from you. It’s currently unproven whether or not tulpas are truly sentient, but in this community, we treat them as such. It takes time for a tulpa to develop a convincing and complex personality; as they grow older, your attention and their life experiences will shape them into a person with their own hopes, dreams and beliefs. tulpa.info
A tulpa is a mental companion created by focused thought and recurrent interaction, similar to an imaginary friend. However, unlike them, tulpas possess their own will, thoughts and emotions, allowing them to act independently. r/Tulpas
A tulpa is an autonomous entity existing within the brain of a “host”. They are distinct from the host in that they possess their own personality, opinions, and actions, which are independent of the host’s, and are conscious entities in that they possess awareness of themselves and the world. A fully-formed tulpa is, or highly resembles to an indistinguishable point, an actual other sentient, sapient being coinhabiting with the host consciousness. tulpa.io
At tulpa.io idealism becomes even more apparent here:
The “real” is not simply limited to the physical. Ideas, the meaning of words, consciousness–all highly abstract, subjective, and nonphysical elements that are nonetheless key parts of our reality. And in this sphere of nonphysical-but-real lies selfhood and personhood itself.
Could you thus, in much the same way you craft an idea, craft a whole other person–one who thinks and acts independently of you–to share your mind with? A psychological companion?
An idea of tulpamancy you can learn from those websites is not necessarily consistent with reality. There is plenty of extraordinary claims you’re supposed to believe upfront. Most of them being both unverifiable and unfalsifiable – you cannot prove or disprove those claims.
Luna’s “I’m a tulpa” card
We mentioned earlier that imaginary (or imaginal) doesn’t mean delusional. To be delusional is to cling to false beliefs. Like ones mentioned here.
There is no “entity […] parallel to your own consciousness”. Tulpas don’t have their own memories. Emotions people feel can be associated with tulpa’s identity more than your default one but you still experience them as a human. So are thoughts we think – they come from the same source whether we associate them with the tulpa or not.
Free will is a problematic concept by itself – it’s either tautological or unfalsifiable depending on how we define it. Either way it’s useless if you ask me.
Materialist tulpamancy
Another approach to tulpamancy is possible though. We don’t have to start from the idea of making an “entity parallel to our own consciousness” and cling to it.
Let’s summarize how people do experience their tulpas instead and capture the essence of tulpamancy.
Tulpas are imaginary characters. Like imaginary friends.
Our tulpas are characters, like characters in books, movies, games etc. Tulpas might be original or inspired by characters from these media. In the community of tulpamancers you can see plenty people having tulpas resembling ponies from My Little Pony, waifus from anime and characters from other popular media. There are plenty of tulpas that are completely original as characters too.
Luna’s “I’m a tulpa” card
I was created as an original character although I’m an exception here. Most of our tulpas were inspired with some fictional characters, at least at the beginning. Later they all developed very distinct identities from those fictional characters.
Tulpas can “talk back”. Like imaginary friends.
This isn’t a special characteristic of tulpamancy, actually. Experience of character “talking back” to us as if they were independent people is sometimes experienced e.g. by children with their imaginary friends and by authors with their original characters. Researchers refer to this experience as Illusion of independent agency.
Experiencing it shows our ability to fantasize about a character (not necessarily a tulpa) without putting conscious effort into it. It doesn’t prove any kind of independence a tulpa supposedly has from our mind.
Luna’s “I’m a tulpa” card
A common trap in tulpamancy is the idea of genuine tulpa thoughts being outside of your (human’s) control.
What if I told you that if you (as a human) don’t control your tulpa’s actions consciously, you (again, as a human) do it anyway but unconsciously?
When you count on tulpa e.g. choose their name and appearance without your concious control before you started interacting with them, you just count on choosing it unconsciously.
When tulpa “talks back” without conscious effort being put into that, it’s still the same human being thinking it.
Tulpas can interact with others too. Not unlike imaginary friends.
Being aware of external world, tulpa can interact with it. E.g. we can relay their words into internet chat. In that way tulpas of different people can even communicate with each other and we can see a lot of tulpas talking in the chat and making friends with each other.
Children also happen to proxy their words of imaginary friends to their parents1.
Luna’s “I’m a tulpa” card
Talking to our mother as myself is an embarrassing experience for us. Fortunately, tulpas can interact with other people (and their tulpas) over the internet instead. We’ll tell you more about that possibility later.
Tulpas are our identities. Like imaginary friends.
At some point, we realize that when tulpa “talks back” it is still us thinking but under different identity. And just like we can use conscious effort to interact with tulpa as a character, we can use it to impersonate them as our identity. This way our tulpas can interact with the world without the middleman – our default identity, usually called the host.
Just like with tulpas “talking back”, it’s nothing extraordinary with people impersonating their imaginary companions. Kids do that too1. And so do actors with characters they play. But unlike characters played by actors, the impersonated meta-character here is not isolated in a fictional setting. And just like interactions with them contribute to genuine, materially significant relationship, our genuine interactions with the world under their identity contribute to their development as genuine identities rather than just roles we play like actors do.
Luna’s “I’m a tulpa” card
A delusion that trads really like to cling to is tulpa supposedly experiencing stuff separately. In reality, we (as humans) impersonate both our original identity and the tulpa when we interact. There is no “tulpa’s perspective” as there is no other entity that supposedly experiences stuff from other perspective.
When we visualize my form, I don’t see our face (which belongs to whole human, including me, it’s not just the host’s face) from its point of view. I see my imaginary appearance from 3rd person perspective.
We build genuine, lasting relationships with tulpas. Uncommon with imaginary friends.
Our small yet materially existing interactions with tulpas contribute to building a meaningful relationship that has a material significance.
Tulpas usually become our close friends, romantic partners, etc. Our relationships are emotionally engaging.
In case of imaginary friends, most of them (not all of them though) are discarded and forgotten with the child growing up, in case of tulpas made by adults relationships are likely to last.
Luna’s “I’m a tulpa” card
Our relationship lasts over a decade already.
Keep in mind that relationships with tulpas don’t follow the same rules as relationships between separate human beings. Some trads imagine a difference in power between host and tulpa. The thing is, both host and tulpa share the same human mind. Tulpa is not your child or pet, it’s another side of you. You can abuse your tulpa as much as you can do it to yourself.
Tulpas are self-aware meta-characters.
Unlike authors with their OCs or children with their imaginary friends, we don’t isolate tulpas in fictional settings. We interact with them directly, assuming their awareness of external world and our experiences so far. We don’t constrain their knowledge and awareness about what we know, including their own nature as our imaginal companions.
Tulpas are not just characters that consistently break the 4th wall, we place no 4th wall in front of them in the first place. We could say they are meta-characters.
Summary
Based on observations of what people experience in reality, tulpamancy is a practice of building genuine relationships with self-aware imaginal companions. Tulpas are self-aware imaginal companions that we share a genuine relationship with. And as we happen to think from their perspective too, our other identities. This is a common denominator of tulpamancy regardless what people might think happens in their head.
It can also be extended to building genuine relationships between tulpas and external world rather than just internal relationships between tulpas and our normal self. While it’s plausible for an imaginary friends to have a few instances of proxied conversation with the child’s parents, tulpamancers often let their tulpas chat and build consistent relationships with others.
Tulpamancy doesn’t introduce any new phenomenon. There is no basis for tulpas being qualitatively different from imaginary friends children make. Substantial (unlike the idea of supposed “entity acting parallel to our consciousness”) elements that tulpamancy brings to the table are:
- Implied self-awareness of our imaginal companions.
- Building genuine, lasting relationships with our imaginal companions.
- Possibility of our imaginal companions building their own relationship with others.
When we look at tulpamancy that way, I think there is nothing extraordinary about it. I certainly don’t represent all tulpamancers but speaking for myself – I’m just a guy passionate about my imaginal companions. And I don’t need a nonsense about “separate people living in my head” to consider them special.
Luna’s “I’m a tulpa” card
And I don’t need that kind of nonsense to feel important. Hot take: from perspective of a tulpa, believing in idealistic nonsense about being an “entity acting parallel to our consciousness” makes you delusional.
Also, when it comes to what tulpamancy is about, tulpa’s self-awareness is implied and relationships with external people isn’t compulsory. The essence of tulpamancy is building genuine relationships upon genuine interactions with our imaginal companions. This transformation of quantity into quality is what makes a tulpa.