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Miku Manor
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Caine
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This thread spawned some interest from myself into the phenomenon of tulpamancy. So I've spend a couple of hours reading various sources and stories trying to understand the phenomenon. This post is a brief summary of my thoughts on the subject so far.
What I described here is my personal interpretation and is in no way scientifically accurate nor necessarily representational for the tulpa community. It is also neither complete nor comprehensive. Yet in the interest of discussion I will post what I have right now.
I did not intend to write this piece when I started reading about the phenomenon and as such I neglected to gather references and sources. A fact which I now regret. That said, I want to share this interpretation and gather some thoughts about this.
For the record, I personally do NOT have a tulpa, nor do I have the intention to create one.
Introduction
Tulpamancy is the art of creating thoughtforms, known as tulpas. It finds its origins in Tibetan mysticism where several degrees of thoughtforms are identified: Sigil, Servitor, Egregores, Godforms in increasing form of strength. To simplify the classification the difference lies in the degree of consciousness and control of the forms. E.g. the sigal and servitor are not really conscious (a servitor would be created for a specific task) whereas the Egregores and Godforms are thought to be conscious (with an Egregore the host is in main control, with Godforms this is reversed, i.e. the host serves the Godform). In this classification the concept of the tulpa as practiced by (western) Tulpamancers lies between a Servitor and Egregore.
Tulpamancers consider tulpas to be conscious beings, just like we are ourselves, which differ from us in that they lack a physical body and thus exist within a host.
When a tulpa is conscious he/she/it is understood to be capable of thinking of its/his/her own independent from the host and hosts claim to have conversations with them through sensing of pressure and/or emotions, conversations and over time even by directly being able to perceive them through the five senses.
Advanced tulpamancers claim to be able to give control to their tulpa and sometimes even switch completely where the host consciousness steps back and gives control to the tulpa. The occassional horror stories being that tulpa and host actually fight for control with the host sometimes being lost for extended periods of time. Though the tulpamancer community claims that such cases are extremely rare.
Tulpas can be erased through a process called dissipation whereas a host disappearing would be referred to as egocide. Tulpamancers view both as a form of death and dissipating a tulpa is frowned upon at the least. In this sense tulpas are created for life and the host is faced with the responsibility of taking care of the life of the tulpa, just as creation of kids imposes a short-time responsibility to take care of their lives (until adult age). As with kids, the decision to create a tulpa should therefore not be taken lightly and it is extremely ill advised for children to do so as their own brain has not yet matured and cannot oversee the impact of such a responsibility.
Are tulpamancers just weirdos or is there more to this?
Most people tend to react negatively to the idea of tulpamancy. Unsurprisingly, since the only widely known form of multiple personalities coexisting in a single brain is classified as a mental-disease: Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) a.k.a. Multiple Personality Disorder.
I personally consider it very unfair to pile people suffering from DID, tulpas and tulpamancers onto one pile. For one, it downplays the disease of people who suffer very seriously from their unwanted personalities. On the other hand, tulpamancers make a very intentional choice to create their tulpas and classifying the tulpas as a disease is extremely disrespectful at the least.
That said, the disease is known to exist and actually gives credibility to the claim that more than one personality can exist in a human brain. If this can happen due to trauma and/or brain damage then it is not so far fetched that with sufficient training it can also be done intentionally. The outcome is likely to be different as a controlled process has more chances to avoid damaging results.
A view on human consciousness
So how can we understand this phenomenon? Let's create a model of consciousness in the brain. Your personality is shaped through the events in your life which you store in your brain as memories. In a way, one can view a personality as trained behaviour extracted from the experiences in your life. Mental instructions which trigger actions based on emotional and sensory stimuli.
I personally like to compare this to a computer, since in essence our neural network is a massively parallel biological computer. In this analogy your memories are data and your personality is a program which interprets that data and performs I/O on your body (your senses being the inputs and your physical actions the output).
If the brain is indeed a parallel computer, then why could it not run multiple programs? Each personality could trigger different behavioural responses and thus seem or be a consciousness of its own.
In case we are parotting or puppetting (subroutines in a single program), feeling the emotions or pressure of a maturing tulpa (multi-threading) or achieve independent consciousness with the tulpa (multi-processsing and interprocess communication, i.e. talking to your tulpa) is a matter of interpretation and perhaps experience.
With this view, tulpamancy could provide a mental model for parallelizing thought in the human brain thus making better use of your mental processing power so to speak. Since this consciousness is in theory up-to-par with that of the host (i.e. the main process), ethical considerations about what you should and should not do with a tulpa do apply.
Creation of tulpas
Tulpas creation is known as forcing and can be either active or passive.
In passive forcing the tulpamancer surrounds him/herself with symbolism which reminds him/her of the tulpa (in shape, personality etc...). This way the tulpa is constantly present and continually reinforced in the brain of the host.
Active forcing entails a form of intense meditation and interaction with the tulpa. This includes aspects such as visualization of its (his/her) form, talking about to it and teaching it about personality and so forth. In our mental model of a personality as trained behaviour out of experiences, active forcing takes the role of building experiences.
It is interesting to note that our own physical body is a constantly present passive way of forcing our own main personality whereas everything we do and experience in life matches active forcing. It is therefore no surprise that our main personality is so strongly embedded in our being and does not easily disappear, nor easily accepts the presence of secondary personalities.
Forcing can happen through different ways. Intentional or unintentional. Some claim the involuntary forming of tulpas, e.g. through a traumatic experience of obsession with something or someone. They are not aware that they are forcing yet seem to create a new personality nevertheless. This is likely to be perceived as illness and might benefit from knowing about tulpamancy theory.
Tulpamancy are fully aware of what they are doing and are intentionally forcing a tulpa onto themselves. Knowing the consequences and the nature of their tulpa (being a thoughtform). Tulpamancers are aware that in essence, it is all in their head. There is nothing supernational about it.
Is religion a form of unaware tulpamancy?
This brings me to the final point and requires a disclaimer that this is in no way intended to insult people and/or hurt their feelings. But for me provides an insight into a phenomenom which I have failed to understand throughout my entire life.
The extensive use of various religious symbols (passive forcing) and rituals such as reading from the bible at home and in church (active forcing, narrating i.e. creating experiences) and prayer (communication with your tulpa?) are surprisingly similar to what is done by tulpamancers while forcing.
Are religious persons unintenionally or unknowingly creating tulpas (e.g. Jesus/God)? Is this why they can claim strong religious experiences, talk to and/or perceive their god whereas other cannot?
Tulpamancers tend to know they are imposing illusions upon themselves, that it is just in their head. If religion is doing the same, what are the ethical consequences here? I will not claim that a religiously created tulpa cannot be beneficial and/or good in the lives of people and those around them, but it does certainly imply metaphysical consequences if this is indeed what is happening. If true, and this needs to be investigated, then this is a very valid reason to question the role of religion in society.
Conclusion
Tulpamancy provides us with an interesting insight into how the human brain may be functioning. At the very least it is an interesting model of consciousness. I wonder if such techniques can be utilized to extend our own thought capacity. That said, I am not sure that the techniques and dangers are properly understood. There is at least a large and lively community around the subject which is gathering lots of insight and fun experiences around it.
What I described here is my personal interpretation and is in no way scientifically accurate nor necessarily representational for the tulpa community. It is also neither complete nor comprehensive. Yet in the interest of discussion I will post what I have right now.
I did not intend to write this piece when I started reading about the phenomenon and as such I neglected to gather references and sources. A fact which I now regret. That said, I want to share this interpretation and gather some thoughts about this.
For the record, I personally do NOT have a tulpa, nor do I have the intention to create one.
Introduction
Tulpamancy is the art of creating thoughtforms, known as tulpas. It finds its origins in Tibetan mysticism where several degrees of thoughtforms are identified: Sigil, Servitor, Egregores, Godforms in increasing form of strength. To simplify the classification the difference lies in the degree of consciousness and control of the forms. E.g. the sigal and servitor are not really conscious (a servitor would be created for a specific task) whereas the Egregores and Godforms are thought to be conscious (with an Egregore the host is in main control, with Godforms this is reversed, i.e. the host serves the Godform). In this classification the concept of the tulpa as practiced by (western) Tulpamancers lies between a Servitor and Egregore.
Tulpamancers consider tulpas to be conscious beings, just like we are ourselves, which differ from us in that they lack a physical body and thus exist within a host.
When a tulpa is conscious he/she/it is understood to be capable of thinking of its/his/her own independent from the host and hosts claim to have conversations with them through sensing of pressure and/or emotions, conversations and over time even by directly being able to perceive them through the five senses.
Advanced tulpamancers claim to be able to give control to their tulpa and sometimes even switch completely where the host consciousness steps back and gives control to the tulpa. The occassional horror stories being that tulpa and host actually fight for control with the host sometimes being lost for extended periods of time. Though the tulpamancer community claims that such cases are extremely rare.
Tulpas can be erased through a process called dissipation whereas a host disappearing would be referred to as egocide. Tulpamancers view both as a form of death and dissipating a tulpa is frowned upon at the least. In this sense tulpas are created for life and the host is faced with the responsibility of taking care of the life of the tulpa, just as creation of kids imposes a short-time responsibility to take care of their lives (until adult age). As with kids, the decision to create a tulpa should therefore not be taken lightly and it is extremely ill advised for children to do so as their own brain has not yet matured and cannot oversee the impact of such a responsibility.
Are tulpamancers just weirdos or is there more to this?
Most people tend to react negatively to the idea of tulpamancy. Unsurprisingly, since the only widely known form of multiple personalities coexisting in a single brain is classified as a mental-disease: Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) a.k.a. Multiple Personality Disorder.
I personally consider it very unfair to pile people suffering from DID, tulpas and tulpamancers onto one pile. For one, it downplays the disease of people who suffer very seriously from their unwanted personalities. On the other hand, tulpamancers make a very intentional choice to create their tulpas and classifying the tulpas as a disease is extremely disrespectful at the least.
That said, the disease is known to exist and actually gives credibility to the claim that more than one personality can exist in a human brain. If this can happen due to trauma and/or brain damage then it is not so far fetched that with sufficient training it can also be done intentionally. The outcome is likely to be different as a controlled process has more chances to avoid damaging results.
A view on human consciousness
So how can we understand this phenomenon? Let's create a model of consciousness in the brain. Your personality is shaped through the events in your life which you store in your brain as memories. In a way, one can view a personality as trained behaviour extracted from the experiences in your life. Mental instructions which trigger actions based on emotional and sensory stimuli.
I personally like to compare this to a computer, since in essence our neural network is a massively parallel biological computer. In this analogy your memories are data and your personality is a program which interprets that data and performs I/O on your body (your senses being the inputs and your physical actions the output).
If the brain is indeed a parallel computer, then why could it not run multiple programs? Each personality could trigger different behavioural responses and thus seem or be a consciousness of its own.
In case we are parotting or puppetting (subroutines in a single program), feeling the emotions or pressure of a maturing tulpa (multi-threading) or achieve independent consciousness with the tulpa (multi-processsing and interprocess communication, i.e. talking to your tulpa) is a matter of interpretation and perhaps experience.
With this view, tulpamancy could provide a mental model for parallelizing thought in the human brain thus making better use of your mental processing power so to speak. Since this consciousness is in theory up-to-par with that of the host (i.e. the main process), ethical considerations about what you should and should not do with a tulpa do apply.
Creation of tulpas
Tulpas creation is known as forcing and can be either active or passive.
In passive forcing the tulpamancer surrounds him/herself with symbolism which reminds him/her of the tulpa (in shape, personality etc...). This way the tulpa is constantly present and continually reinforced in the brain of the host.
Active forcing entails a form of intense meditation and interaction with the tulpa. This includes aspects such as visualization of its (his/her) form, talking about to it and teaching it about personality and so forth. In our mental model of a personality as trained behaviour out of experiences, active forcing takes the role of building experiences.
It is interesting to note that our own physical body is a constantly present passive way of forcing our own main personality whereas everything we do and experience in life matches active forcing. It is therefore no surprise that our main personality is so strongly embedded in our being and does not easily disappear, nor easily accepts the presence of secondary personalities.
Forcing can happen through different ways. Intentional or unintentional. Some claim the involuntary forming of tulpas, e.g. through a traumatic experience of obsession with something or someone. They are not aware that they are forcing yet seem to create a new personality nevertheless. This is likely to be perceived as illness and might benefit from knowing about tulpamancy theory.
Tulpamancy are fully aware of what they are doing and are intentionally forcing a tulpa onto themselves. Knowing the consequences and the nature of their tulpa (being a thoughtform). Tulpamancers are aware that in essence, it is all in their head. There is nothing supernational about it.
Is religion a form of unaware tulpamancy?
This brings me to the final point and requires a disclaimer that this is in no way intended to insult people and/or hurt their feelings. But for me provides an insight into a phenomenom which I have failed to understand throughout my entire life.
The extensive use of various religious symbols (passive forcing) and rituals such as reading from the bible at home and in church (active forcing, narrating i.e. creating experiences) and prayer (communication with your tulpa?) are surprisingly similar to what is done by tulpamancers while forcing.
Are religious persons unintenionally or unknowingly creating tulpas (e.g. Jesus/God)? Is this why they can claim strong religious experiences, talk to and/or perceive their god whereas other cannot?
Tulpamancers tend to know they are imposing illusions upon themselves, that it is just in their head. If religion is doing the same, what are the ethical consequences here? I will not claim that a religiously created tulpa cannot be beneficial and/or good in the lives of people and those around them, but it does certainly imply metaphysical consequences if this is indeed what is happening. If true, and this needs to be investigated, then this is a very valid reason to question the role of religion in society.
Conclusion
Tulpamancy provides us with an interesting insight into how the human brain may be functioning. At the very least it is an interesting model of consciousness. I wonder if such techniques can be utilized to extend our own thought capacity. That said, I am not sure that the techniques and dangers are properly understood. There is at least a large and lively community around the subject which is gathering lots of insight and fun experiences around it.
I've had this thought as well when this topic came up the first time.
The problem with religious motivated ones is, that those people usually don't get, that it's only part of their personal world/head and try to get others to "confirm" the existence of those outside of their own head.
In philosophical studies I've learned to look at the world from vastly different perspectives in order to understand myself from the outside as well as others (not only humans) from the inside and in a way this causes the creation of multiple thought patterns which are giving me different data by different patterns of analyzing my input and this can easily mutate into multiple personalities or just a secondary personality as I'd call this indeed.
From what I gathered around the net, people using the word "Tulpa" are nothing of the sort though and usually only extremely lonely people that don't get along with other people due to several anxieties and a too high level of negative responses by their actual environment outside of their own home.
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Null
Snug
Thank you for that insightful statement, I shall be sure to file it under M for Meh.
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