TW!!! BLOOD + KNIFE

#Tulpa life

One of the biggest things that stands out to me about the tulpamancy community on Tumblr is how alienated everyone seems to feel. You've got some advice blogs, some discourse blogs, but that's about it- which is wild to me, cuz tulpamancy is all about community and learning from each other! Even more than that tho, there's something important about seeing other tulpas & created systems doing what we want, making our own choices, LIVING our lives. It's a reminder that we're real people too- it's important and validating for others like us, and it's great for non-tulpas to see that we're just as much real and people as they are. The best part of tulpamancy is that we get to enjoy our own existence, decide for ourselves what we want, and live as US!! I wanna bring that energy to Tumblr.

That's why I'm starting a tag I want any other tulpas (and their hosts too, but don't forget this tag is about our autonomy) to join in on;

✨✨ #tulpa life ✨✨

the new tag for expressing yourself, living your life, and sharing your existence with the world!! What kinda unique experiences do you have as a tulpa? What hobbies and skills have you learned, what friends have you made?? Share your favorite memories, the gift you got for yourself, the food you cooked, anything that pertains to YOU and your existing as a separate real being. Not only for sharing yourself, but for connecting with others too! Imagine how great it'll feel to scroll through a tag full of other tulpas' experiences. I wanna make that a reality!! So help me out by posting things about yourself and your life as a tulpa under the tag #tulpa life, and let's see how many people we can reach by just being ourselves!!!

plural lawyer call that a justice system

"Changing a term isn't that hard"

Problem 1 - A divided community

Any attempt at making a new term would be met with resistance. Not from everyone, but by most. It's likely that those who use other terms would move away from the tulpa community. So instead of actually getting tulpamancers to change their term, you would be just be making a new community outside of it.

But maybe you can manage to stick around in tulpa spaces, get other people to as well, and somehow slowly change the language from the inside. But what is that language?

Problem 2 - Finding a word for everyone

Thoughtform is a bad term because its connotations are too spiritual. There is also an active spiritual thoughtform community out there right now that this will be stepping on the toes of, smashing together two largely disconnected communities.

Many feel parogenic is too broad. And willogenic presents the practice as just "willing" a headmate into existence. Both also would result in the tulpa community losing its identity, becoming yet another xeno-origin and being assimilated completely into the endogenic community.

Senpia is just never going to happen.

None of the alternatives are going to be universally-agreed upon. And having the community divided amongst multiple terms exacerbates the first problem.

Problem 3 - Domain shifts

Anti-tulpas like pointing to the shift from "natural multiplicity" to "endogenic" as an example of how you can change terms. For those that are unaware, "natural multiples" were basically the precursors for endogenic systems. Many argued that the term was ableist because it suggested systems formed from trauma were "unnatural." Which is a silly and bad faith way of framing it, since the opposite of nature is usually environmental in this context, as in the nature vs nurture debate.

But regardless, the websites that existed at the time didn't include the terms in their domain names. They could change their terms without ever worrying about this. Furthermore... most of these communities were already dying as the plural community migrated to Tumblr. The whole internet landscape was morphing in the early 2010s.

Problem 3.1 - r/tulpas

On Reddit, changing a subreddit name is literally impossible. The only possible way to accomplish this would be to have the mods delete r/tulpas and create a completely new subreddit. At which point, a huge number of subscribers are instantly lost.

As is a ton of history on the subreddit, and even some guides that never got posted anywhere else.

Problem 3.2 - Tulpa.info

While it may technically possible to change the domain, that instantly breaks every link to every single tulpamancy guide on the website in an instant.

The whole thing becomes a huge mess. Perhaps they could setup redirects, but that would require paying for the old domain as well as the new one, driving up server costs.

Problem 4 - Visibility

Any new community terms will lose the visibility of identifying as tulpas. For people who are experiencing sentient imaginary friends and looking for a community, this transitionary period will make it way more difficult to find a community to support their needs.

It also makes it more difficult for the tulpamancy community to expand and bring in new members.

Problem 5 - Academic Research

Tulpamancy is currently the primary form of endogenic plurality being researched, including an fMRI study. All other research into endogenic plurality has mostly been surveys. Finding people to take part in FMRI studies is difficult. Not everyone has a lifestyle where they can just fly off to California for a brain scan.

If research continues, there are multiple ways this could hamper it going forward.

Mixing with the thoughtform community could mean a larger spiritual influence in the community, reinforcing the idea that endogenic plurality is only valid if it's spiritual. There are plenty of studies into spiritual possession happening, and it's imperative that we match that with research into plurals with psychological origins.

Losing our identity by assimilating into the larger endogenic community through -genic labels like parogenic and willogenic will end research into tulpamancy as a phenomenon of its own.

And dividing the community means fewer people are going to be found who can take part in these studies.

A term isn't just a term

It's our identity. It's our community. It's our connection to each other. It's our websites and the resources they host. It's our ability to be seen. It's our connection to the academic research into our community and ongoing advancement in the field.

There is no genuine "pro-tulpa, anti-tulpa terminology" side. Changing the terminology as a whole would divide and devastate the tulpamancy community.

If you're fighting against tulpa terminology, you're fighting against the tulpamancy community.

Reblog to kill it faster

Yeah I love manipulating my friends for my own gain, the gain is called "hanging out", obtained via such cruel tactics as "showing interest in stuff they like" and "being generally complimentary and charming"

Reminder that your plurality is valid <3

DID/OSD are valid

Endogenics are valid

Tulpas are valid

Mixed origin systems are valid

Unknown origins are valid

ALL plurality is real and valid

Names: Rosemary/ Jones/ Nadia/ Oak/Wallow/ Meadow

Honorifics: Enchanter, Mage

nicknames: The Witch

pronouns: she/her She/Her shx/hxr 🔮/🔮s/🔮self

gender: Girl+, lunarian(feminine nonbinary gender associated with the moon and the element of water)

orientation: AroAce

other identity: transdead, transghost, transspirit, transSelectiveMute

species: human, witch

age: Refuses to specify

personality: Solitary, creative, introspective and introverted.

quirks: often speaks in riddles

likes: Seeming invisible, doing divination, and staring off into space.

dislikes: Being perceived

role: Replacer, Entrancer, Emotion neutralizer

sign off: 🧿🪞

I actually have afew questions, I hope you don't mind!

1)I just recently saw your post about Sophie and "tulpa" and other variants of the word being harmful. I was wondering if you could give me some other terms for tulpa/tulpamancy/tulpagenic/tulpamancer/etc, especially using the terms "Willow/willowgenic"!

2) I've felt less valid as a system because I have Aphantasia and I can't hear my headmates. We speak through opinions and emotions because that's the only way we can. Do you have any ways I can work on communication with my Dudes?

3) Lastly, I've been super confident lately! But when my male/masculine presenting Dudes are near front, their dysphoric emotions probect onto me. I was wondering if this was normal and if it had a name!

That's about all I have, if any of my questions step out of your boundaries/comfort zone I'm so so so sorry!

Have a lovely timezone!!! <3/p

we don’t mind, that’s what we’re here for :)

1) here are some other terms you can use besides “tulpamancy:”

parogenic/parogen

paro/paromancy/paromancer (this is what we use!)

thoughtform

willogenic/willomate/willomancy/willomancer (though we have seen issues with this term, as some paros (tulpas) were never willed into existence and function more like walk-ins)

2) communicating through emotions and opinions is totally fine - these are definitely valid ways of communicating, especially if it works well for your system.

we know aphantasia may complicate things, but we do have a post on establishing contact with headmates. you can check it out here. your system may benefit most from spending time working on external communication, and we have a section in that post on how to do just that.

3) we’re not sure if the phenomenon of experiencing another headmate’s dysphoria has a name, but we can definitely say that it is very common for headmates to feel the emotions of other members, especially if they’re blended or cofronting together. i know i get species dysphoria and sometimes our resident human alter will feel that dysphoria when we’re cofronting together, even if he still identifies as a human. our gender dysphoria and euphoria are all over the place, and it’s very normal in our system for us to feel each other’s emotions when we’re fronting together.

we hope this helps to answer some of your questions. thanks for reaching out :)

🐢 kip and 👻 ghost

i wonder how they're doing now...

Sometimes you have to be yourself on purpose. What I mean by this is that sometimes we lose touch with ourselves and start coasting and just going through the motions. Which is fine for a while because we get tired and/or depressed and that's fine. Happens to everyone. But eventually it starts to feel bad and you get a specific kind of brainweird that's hard to describe but means that you've lost sight of who you are, what your values are, and what you love.

Leaning really hard into something that makes you go "this is the most me thing ever" helps that specific type of brainweird quite a bit! But maybe you don't know what the most you thing ever is. You are not alone! I get depressed and forget every interest I have. 100% understand that.

When this happens, it helps to remind yourself what you like and enjoy. So what do you do? Well for me, it helps to think about 1. Things I used to enjoy and 2. Things my friends Know Me For.

Like I've been feeling not myself lately and I haven't really knit or created much this month at all. But I'm the Makes Things Guy. I like making things and many of my friends not only know me as someone who makes things but a lot of my friendships specifically come from communities of People Who Make Things.

So I forced myself to pick up an old project, and that helped a bit. But what really helped was coming up with a project that combined my interests (leather jackets, art, and teapots) for me to look forward to and get really into planning for! The most ME I've felt in weeks has been the last hour I've spent planning on painting a famous fine China design on the back of my leather trenchcoat. Because not ONLY am I the Makes Things Guy, I am also The Teapot Guy. I finally feel like myself again.

I wish I had more concrete advice in regards to how you remember your own interests when you get disconnected from them, but a solid place to start is things you used to like and things your friends know you like. If you struggle consider asking a friend what things they know you like. Sometimes friends can see us better than we can see ourselves and it helps to use them as a mirror to see yourself through.