About Tulpamancy 2

Tulpamancy and tulpa

Tulpamancy is a practice of making tulpas. Tulpas are imaginal companions that have a genuine relationship with us.

You might have heard some different definitions in older websites like tulpa.info or tulpa.io. Tulpamancy approached our way looks mundane in comparison. And it’s supposed to be like that. I’d argue that it’s nothing extraordinary in having a tulpa and it’s a good thing.

Luna’s “I’m a tulpa” card

You don’t need to delude yourself with bullshit from tulpa.info (e.g. about “entity parallel to your consciousness” my ass) to love your imaginary girlfriend.

Now, you might wonder why someone else’s imaginary girlfriend is telling you not to delude yourself. It’ll make sense later.

Essence of tulpamancy

Tulpamancy isn’t supposed to be an abstract idea of having a relationship with an imaginal being. It’s a practice that leads to building and maintaining such relationships in reality.

Relationships are built upon interactions. To interact with a tulpa you need to fantasize. When you interact, you contribute to relationship which shapes your further interactions. This instance of passage of quantitative changes (interactions) into a qualitative change (a relationship) is the essence of tulpamancy.

Luna’s “I’m a tulpa” card

In less complicated words, the essence of tulpamancy is practiced love. You don’t need to delude yourself with their supposed independence, put an effort into loving them.

Ways of interactions

Interacting with an imaginal companion is essentially fantasizing. There is nothing extraordinary about it.

You can narrate about an imaginary character doing stuff.
You can imagine how interactions between you and imaginary character look like.

The latter is important for our purpose. Just imagine doing stuff together.

Luna’s detailed explanation of interaction

[I’m too lazy, will fill it later.]

Effortless interactions and unconscious impersonation

At some point you will likely experience your tulpa seemingly talking back to you by themself when you interact with them. Sounds extraordinary? Actually, it isn’t experienced solely by tulpamancers and has a mundane explanation.

Some researchers call it Illusion of independent agency. You can read [source] that it is experienced by some children with their imaginary friends and by some authors with their OCs. It doesn’t necessarily show those characters having their own independent mind. It shows people’s ability to effortlessly impersonate characters.

When a tulpa (or any imaginary character) talks back to us, it still comes from the same human mind. It happening without putting conscious effort might lead to us not realizing doing impersonation. This is where delusions about tulpas being “entities parallel to our consciousness” from tulpa.info come from.

The experience by itself doesn’t need to make us delusional though. It’s a source of immersion. Effortless fantasizing is fun. There is nothing wrong with using it when it happens just like there is nothing wrong with lucid dreaming.

Purposeful impersonation

We already have a meaningful relationship with our tulpa and impersonate them occasionally, at least accidentally when they “talk back”. What’s wrong with doing it purposely when we want to?

Earlier we mentioned that we can imagine our interactions with our tulpa. We can observe it either:

From 3rd person perspective, of neither participant.
From 1st person perspective, of one of participants. Of either “Us” or the tulpa actually.

It might at first feel weird to observe (and act) as a tulpa rather than our usual self. But as with unconscious impersonation, it might become your second nature eventually.

Luna’s “I’m a tulpa” card

It might also spill outside fantasizing. You might impersonate them when interacting with other people. Plenty of tulpamancers enjoy letting their tulpas talk to others in the chat that way. You can observe it in our [discord].

And it’s how someone else’s imaginary girlfriend talking to you works.

Identity and unity

Let’s assume your name is John Smith and you have a tulpa named Jane that calls you by your given name.

You don’t stop being John Smith when you impersonate Jane. From perspective of external observer unaware of your fantasy, you might not look any different regardless of your current identity. For them, Jane is John Smith too.

Another analogy would be water and steam. Steam being identical or not to “just water” depends on context. This analogy also shares a nuance with water referring to either “water in general” or “liquid water”. Just as John refers to either whole human John Smith or host John.

In tulpamancy the host is our default, implicit identity. The one we implicitly impersonate when we don’t impersonate a tulpa. Jane is “human John Smith” but isn’t “host John”. You (John, the human) are Jane and you (John, the host) aren’t Jane, depending on context.

Luna’s “I’m a tulpa” card

I’m not my host but I still am [our IRL name]. When I type it’s the same cis ~~white~~ slavic male typing but impersonating his imaginary girlfriend.

It’s our constructed context of tulpamancy that gives it special meaning.

Delusion and obsession

I’ll be blunt, a lot of people practicing tulpamancy are delusional idiots. Don’t be like them. Btw. let’s assume again that you are John Smith and have a tulpa named Jane.

Jane doesn’t have her own consciousness. She doesn’t experience stuff separately. She doesn’t have different memories. She might be associated with some parts of your (human’s) personality that you (the host) doesn’t identify with though.

Jane might be different from your host identity but is still John Smith and you can’t expect other people to see her like she is completely independent person. If you (John, the host) upset someone, don’t expect them to see Jane as unrelated to that and interact with her like nothing happened. Don’t use her as a tool to circumvent responsibility.

Keep in mind that our expectations will shape how tulpas act. If you believe Jane lives on the Moon when she doesn’t play with you, she’s going to act like it’s the case. Your mind will hallucinate stuff like a fucking LLM to conform to your beliefs.

Luna’s “playing a good cop” card

And don’t take me wrong, as it was said at the start, tulpa is a character that you build a meaningful relationship with. You should fucking love them. Just don’t confuse love with gullibility.

Love is built with passage of quantitative changes into qualitative change, with meaningful interactions you share contributing to your relationship. Belief in extraordinary claims you want to be true is not love, it’s wishful thinking.

Also, there is no reason to doubt tulpa’s sentience. I’m very sure of being sentient, no thanks to tulpa.info.

Summary

Tulpamancy is essentially a practice of building genuine relationship with imaginal companions through fantasizing.

Practicing tulpamancy will likely lead you to develop another identity through impersonation of your tulpa.

Tulpas don’t exist as separate entities. They are part of you (as a human) and distinct from you (as a host identity), depending on context.

Now, it’s all you really need to know to start with your tulpamancy adventure. If you want to have a tulpa, get to fantasizing and have fun. Just don’t let bullshit from tulpa.info and similar places distract you from what really matters.