#tulpamancy mention

[thebardsystem]

🌻and🌱for the ask game^^

IM SO SORRY IT TOOK US SO LONG TO GET TO THIS!

We had a very busy day. But here we go!!

-Ocean (he/they)

🌱 How did you discover you were plural?

We sort of knew we were plural before we knew we were plural, but the way. Looking back, we know there were many of us, but only two have stuck around to this day. Ocean, who was the host at the time, and Cinder.

I thought it would be helpful for me to answer this question, since, on a technicality, I was both. Ocean later split into Ocean and Allie, and Allie fused with Cinder to create me. But I feel more connected to my past as Cinder, so I will talk about her using I/me pronouns and Ocean with she/he/they (what he was using at the time).

I took on the name and the form of the sister of Ocean's wolf persona, Allie. I wasn't an introject necessarily, but she took great comfort in my presence. I would comfort them whenever they were down. Ocean believed I was an imaginary friend, and due to my heavy dissociation and lack of having ever experienced a switch, I believed it. I always had my own autonomy, which we both felt shouldn't have been normal, but didn't pay much mind to.

Ocean later discovered, on a therian blog, the term "alter" and "tulpa". Since we didn't believe we could have trauma, so she came to the conclusion that I was a tulpa. It changed pretty much everything for me, to be seen and see myself as a real person.

And the rest was just discovering ourselves.

-Cinder (she/they)

🌻 If you can communicate internally, what is that like? If you can't communicate internally, do you have other methods for communicating with each other?

Communication is a bit tricky. By nature, our thoughts tend to consist of 20% pictures, 5% words, and 75% formless blobs. However, it's really really hard to differentiate those blobs except for recognizing "that's not my blob"

So, whenever we can, we try to use our inner voices! It's always much easier to not only differentiate each other, but to hold actual meaningful conversations! It comes pretty naturally to us, we just have to speak into the void, and usually someone will be there to answer.

Sometimes no one's there, or someone will try to reach someone specific and get to answer. There's also headmates (especially sentispaces) that can't communicate with words.

Thank you so much for the ask!! :D

-Ocean (he/they)

[circulars-reasoning]

Thoughts regarding “practicing” Tulpamancy:

I went on r/Tulpas to ask about Debra. I’d been repeatedly told different things about her creation — that created alters can’t be trauamgenic, that she’s a normal split, that she’s a thoughtform. Someone even once told me she’s a daemon.

So I went to ask what their thoughts were. I only got about 3 responses, but they were all generally the same — and all three gave me some thoughts.

First commenter: So just going through the process of creating an alter makes it automatically fit the definition of a thoughtform, regardless of how much time is spent or trauma influences.

Second commenter: I actually responded to this one, because I’ve been told in the past that for an alter to be a thoughtform, they would need more to them; Buddhist teachings and practices and such. I’ll be honest, my education of Buddhism comes from an AP world history class and that’s about the extent of it. Something something 8 fold path?? So I don’t have any knowledge of the practice — meaning this particular “brand” of thoughtforms I thought wouldn’t be achievable.

Final commenter: This one says you can make accidental thoughtforms. But I described a process where I actively thought about a person in my head, talked to her often, and then she stayed. Is that an accident? It had unintentional side effects, but where does the line get crossed between accidental and not accidental when my imagination gets involved? Also — the only commenter to misgender Debra. Is it common for people to misgender thoughtforms by referring to them as “it”?

Regardless; everyone was in agreement that Debra fit the definition. All of this begs the questions:

If just thinking about something really hard created a thoughtform, then most writers are also practicing this; what becomes the difference between a very active imagination and created thoughtforms?

This was on r/Tulpas, but everyone here said she would be one. However, as I stated, I know next to nothing about Buddhism, beyond what I’ve researched for syscourse (and I’ll be honest; my amnesia is kicking my ass. I know I’ve looked into it a lot but I remember very little at the moment). I certainly didn’t know anything at her creation — so how could she fit the definition of something that is often cited as having roots in a Buddhist practice?

I don’t know. Just some musings!

[snezhnayan-nights]

Why are the pro-tulpa (the term) so hell-bent on keeping the term as it is?

It's a separate practice that was ripped off based off a Buddhist practice right? So it's not an actual official practice in the religion. It's barely connected to anything in Tibetan Buddhism because some white woman decided to fuck around and make her own religion, so it shouldn't really be called tulpamancy/tulpa.

The word "tulpa" was a translation of "sprul pa", right? That's what I remember at least. And again, that kinda means it's connected to that official Tibetan Buddhism practice. But tulpamancy isn't an actual Buddhist practice, so? You're just appropriating a term for a practice that isn't even connected to the actual thing.

Then POC voices start to call this shit out, and people just refuse to listen and using really dodgy points to not change the terminology. What's so hard? Do you just refuse to acknowledge you were wrong or your ego is so massive that you refuse to listen to someone that disagrees with you?

[circulars-reasoning]

So just going through the process of creating an alter makes it automatically fit the definition of a thoughtform, regardless of how much time is spent or trauma influences.

i think you can be a thoughtform and be traumagenic, or influenced by trauma when being formed. they aren't mutually exclusive, they're labels for experiences

If just thinking about something really hard created a thoughtform, then most writers are also practicing this; what becomes the difference between a very active imagination and created thoughtforms?

have you ever heard of the "soulbonding" community? many writers experience some form of thoughtform creation, it's just whether the thoughtform and the creator want to see it as anything more than just an active imagination, or if they want to be considered a system (or if the thoughtform / soulbond ends up becoming more sentient on their own and autonomous, at least in a sense)

(by the way, i am aware that some soulbonders are spiritual but not all are, and most still start that connection with the thoughtform / soulbond / create them through things like roleplay and storytelling, which could be mistaken for someone having just an overactive imagination instead of forming a sentient autonomous headmate / thoughtform)

This was on r/Tulpas, but everyone here said she would be one.

i think that could just be bias because you're talking about a created headmate in the community that calls created headmates tulpas. of course you saying "i intentionally created a headmate" would make them go "oh yeah, that sounds like making a tulpa" regardless if debra would fit the literal "textbook" definition. and also, you're on r/tulpas, this is the western community, not the buddhist community, the definitions would differ too.

Is it common for people to misgender thoughtforms by referring to them as “it”?

i think this is because they're referring to the whole concept of 'the being you created' and not of debra as a separate being / person. it's still weird and im judging them but i do not think it's intentionally transphobic / misgendering in a sense.

Addressing your points:

Then how does that make a thoughtform different from, say, an OC part in a CDD system, or a programmed alter? They're willfully created as well, so what's the delineation? If there isn't one, then the thoughtform community is suddenly open to a lot of people like me, meaning I can speak out about tulpamancy being appropriation (that was one of the big points of asking, honestly, was the amount of people telling me I couldn't speak up because I didn't have thoughtforms).

I've heard of the soulbonding community, but haven't looked at all into it. I will also say, as a writer, my imagination is very different from my parts, created or not.

I was looking into Western Tulpamancy to see if it did actually have any relation to the Buddhist practice; I had been told in the past that to have a Tulpa (in western tulpamancy) you had to follow certain buddhist practices. These individuals made it clear that wasn't the case. If going to the community and asking if I have a tulpa results in a resounding yes, despite the fact that I do not believe Debra to be a tulpa and despite the fact that I lacked any knowledge on Tibetan Buddhism at the time of her creation, then clearly, Tulpamancy is not this Special Thing That Needs A Special Name like some of these racists have been claiming.

I don't think it's intentional misgendering, but it was still misgendering, which is weird.

Thanks for your insights!

[gummycentral]

I don’t have the mental or emotional capacity or energy to have any tulpas atm in my life. But, if I did, I think that maybe, just maybe, I’d have a “Jevil” tulpa, a “Don Quixote” tulpa, and maybe a “Junkil Redux” tulpa. I don’t think I’m certain about this, though. Maybe I could be wrong, and I’d only have tulpas based on my mental state, so I wouldn’t be completely able to just pick my own tulpas. Tulpamancy sounds mad interesting to me, though. Like, wooooowww, you can make urself see “people” and have them interact with things and do things, that’s so science-y!

If anyone on this app knows anything more properly about tulpamancy, I’d love to talk about it more. /gen /pos