Hitchhiker's Guide to Tulpamancy

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Kovyx
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Hitchhiker's Guide to Tulpamancy

Post by Kovyx »

the temptation to put that reference in the title was too much
I will organize this better, in a much easier to read format, later

But anyway! I don't intend for this to be an exhaustive how-to, because the main thing about tulpamancy is that it can be and is often quite different for each tulpamancer. By this I mean that because each person's brain is unique, no one has had the same experiences or same genetics, the energy flowing through their brain to create a tulpa will require some thoughtful and personalized processes and practices.

My stance on tulpamancy is that a tulpa, or any thoughtform with sentience, can feel pain and should be given rights of a sort, and should definitely not be 'killed'. They are 100% people and should be treated as such, with respect like you would a friend. However, as someone pointed out on another topic, there are some kinds of thoughtforms that have less sentience than others, that would be permissible to simply use for a specific purpose, to be discarded later. It still sounds harsh to me, but I understand why it would be done so, I'm not trying to stop anyone.
My point in all this is to say that, because I believe tulpa are people, that you shouldn't take this practice lightly. By creating a tulpa, you are creating another being and thus then would have a responsibility to take care of it.
Just gonna repeat that and bold it for ya.
By creating a tulpa, you are creating another being and thus then would have a responsibility to take care of it.


Now on to definitions and procedures. Not really sure how to format this, but for now I will just put a list of some terminologies, and my definitions of what each thoughtform is, as well as their defining traits. In order of relevance I guess.

Thoughtform - Any spiritual and/or metaphysical being created by people, intentionally made or not. They are an incredibly diverse kind.
Tulpamancy - Any practices regarding thoughtforms, so it doesn't explicitly apply to tulpa.
Mindscape - The realm of each individual person's mind, governed less by the rules of reality and more on your state of mind. Some call it the Wonderland, you can do whatever you like there, but it is the place where your tulpa would reside, so try to make it consistent in design.
Tulpa - A thoughtform intentionally created by a host for the sake of companionship. Having a voice, metaphysical form and personality, they reside in their host's mindscape and thus are limited by what the host's mind is capable of doing, takes anywhere from a few months to a couple years of practice and mental discipline to fully develop, and is a fully sentient person even when only partially developed. In my experience, they generally need to be taught things, similarly to a child.
Soulbond - A tulpa-like thoughtform created in the image of an existing person, either fictional or real. Frequently unintentional, and usually based upon fiction. Many artists and writers unknowingly have soulbonds, calling them Muses.
Walk-in - A kind of thoughtform that appears unintentionally, already fully developed and sentient. These are most commonly soulbonds, though egregores have done this before too.
Servitor - A tulpa-like thoughtform with limited to no sentience, created for some use rather than companionship. This is the only kind of thoughtform i believe is okay to use then dispose of.
Egregore - A thoughtform tied to multiple hosts, often residing in a physical place rather than anyone person's mind. This is what most people think of when they hear 'tulpa' or 'thought form', due to that one episode of Supernatural. However like all thoughtforms, they in fact do not have a physical body, and do not change based upon beliefs of strangers. I don't know too much about them, but they seem to most commonly be an unintentional collection of emotion from those constantly entering and being in a place. However i have heard of egregores being made intentionally by a group of people, and for that reason their level of sentience may vary.

And here are some more terminologies that will make more sense if/when you read the next part;
Forcing - Any work regarding your tulpa, basically any active practice of tulpamancy, though generally refers to communication with the tulpa. Or most iconically, Imposition (more on that later).
Active forcing - A kind of forcing when one sets their full attention to work with the tulpa in their mindscape
Passive forcing - A kind of forcing done in passing while doing other things, usually just talking to the tulpa.
Parroting - A method of teaching a tulpa to speak by making them mimic your voice
Puppeting - A method of teaching a tulpa how to move by making them mimic your movements

There are more but, I can't think of them at the moment. I'll add them as I think of them, but on to the stuff that I did when I created my tulpa. For reference really, please do experiment with different techniques that you think might be more effective for you, if you're up for creating a tulpa. And by that, i mean an actual tulpa as i defined above, not just a general thoughtform.


There are a few required things to develop your tulpa to full sentience that can be done different ways, though after that there are a number of other things you can practice with your tulpa simply for fun or for good use.

To develop them, you need;
1. A start. Literally, just start, a beginning of their existence. I started Kovie by simply sitting down in a quiet room by myself, and saying to her something along the lines of "Hey there,I'm Averi and I plan to be your host". I told her about myself, what my purpose was in creating her and what I hope to do with her. A major thing about tulpamancy, as with many kinds of magick, is you have to believe in what you are doing. If there is a shade of doubt when you talk to or work with your tulpa, it'll hurt them. Actually yeah, I really should stress this more, even if we're all used to believing in strange things.
- In order for your endeavors into tulpamancy to work, you must absolutely, unquestioningly believe that they exist. There is no room for doubt here, because that will be reflected in your tulpa. No sentience will come if you don't truly believe they can do it, your tulpa specifically. So you must talk to them as if they are another physical person next to you. And it is for this reason that tulpamancy i think would be considered a rather difficult form of witchcraft.
- You can also do this by active forcing with meditation, by imagining yourself in your mindscape, and talking to your tulpa there.
2. Consistent contact, establish communication. Passive forcing, as often as you can manage. Talk to your tulpa every day, tell them about what's going on around you, make jokes, or just whatever you want to tell them. New friend right? Always exciting telling new people stuff about your life. Though you probably won't get a response for a while, it takes them a bit to be able to communicate, but with time and your own attention to them growing, it'll happen. This is probably the most unnerving part, because depending on what your mind is like, it could take as long as a few months or even a year for noticeable communication to get through and become steady/dependable.
- The earliest signs of attempted communication I've heard would be head pressures, like they were pushing on your head from the inside, or something like that. This didn't happen with me, but it's pretty common. Try asking a yes or no question, and tell them how to answer with different head pressures. It won't always be obvious, and it could take a while for them to figure how to do that. I'd give it a couple weeks of persistent effort before you try different ways to listen for them.
- Next kind of communication they're likely to do is an emotional response. It's rather difficult to get this one, because it can easily be jumbled in with your own emotions and is hard to distinguish. This was the first kind of response I got from Kovie, and it had a notable feeling of somehow being separate from me. Others say they didn't get that feeling and they just had to learn by educated guessing which were theirs or the tulpas.
- Then to the goal of this developmental step, speech. They need to learn how to talk, and they sometimes can't just pick it up from you so easily. I taught Kovie to talk by singing to her, starting with a simple song with only vocalizations for the melody, trying to get her to follow along. Making sound is a start, so then I gave her really simple words to say, like cat and fish and stuff, and then you continue with more and more complex stuff until they're saying sentences. Like how you would teach a toddler, except thankfully they do tend to pick it up much faster. This part is almost a separate number on its own, but there's not much to explain about it so, here it is.
- You can also do the teaching speech part by parroting, by imagining what their voice would sound like, and making them say things until they get the hang of doing it on their own. Careful not to do this too much, as it might get to a point where it could be difficult to determine whether you're parroting or not when you hear them say something.
- Another note, you don't have to talk to them aloud. I mean that works too, I frequently do that when I can just cause I know my thoughts are very jumbled and hard to figure out, but talking to them in your head is perfectly fine too.
- Also please try to establish a name for them somewhere in this step, it definitely makes them feel more separate from you, and will give them more of a sense of self. Though, you can pick a name during the next step as well.
3. Give them a form. Once they can talk to you, or at least communicate in some understandable way, then you can discuss what their body will be like. You can leave it up to them, or the both of you can choose and agree on it together.
- Probably the hardest part about this is the visualization, giving the voice in your head, a body in your head to speak from and make facial expressions and body language with. Gotta keep the proportions consistent, be able to see their whole body and know every part in detail. You may have to go through multiple forms before you find one that works well. Such as, Kovie was initially an anthropomorphic rabbit named Ava. However as she saw I was having trouble visualizing that form and she was having trouble using it, she took to the form of one of my alien characters that she especially liked. That was easier for both of us to work with, and she liked it so, that's what we agreed on.
- You also gotta help them learn how to use their body, how to move it. This I did by visualizing a lot of mirrored movements, as in standing in front of them in the mindscape and doing some movement you want to teach them, trying to get them to do it. If needed you can move their body yourself, like how you'd hold a person's hand to move it for them and help them finish a task or something. Do this with facial expressions even, whatever you think they need help picking up. Thankfully again though, they don't need to be taught absolutely everything, they'll generally get it and start teaching themselves things once they get the hang of how having a body works.
- You can also teach them to use their body by puppeting, by doing the same as mentioned above with mirrored movements, except you mentally force their limbs to move along with yours until they get the hang of moving it themselves. Just as with parroting, be careful not to do it too much, as it may become difficult to determine whether or not you're still puppeting when you see them moving or making an expression.
- This is best done with active forcing, by sitting down to meditate and go into your mindscape, to visualize your tulpa's form and help them move it.
- Some people actually come up with and give their tulpa a form before they teach them how to communicate. Though these people frequently are wanting to create a tulpa-soulbond, which is another deal and is totally ok if the thoughtform likes the given form. True soulbonds are always walk-ins, but tulpa-soulbonds are intentional and more or less made to be a specific image the tulpamancer had in their head. That's what my tulpa Vyx is, but like most soulbonds, she deviated a bit from my character's original design. Actually a lot, she's not much like my original character at all by this point, but my reason for mentioning this is that if you make a tulpa to be like a specific idea or existing person, know that they will pretty much always deviate at least a little from the original design. Again, they're people, they change over time too.
- You actually technically don't have to do this step. Being able to speak pretty much means they're sentient, but it's really highly suggested you do do it, for the fact that it's easier to work with them when they have a face to make an annoyed expression at you when you forget to talk to them for too long. XD basically it's just a lot funner


And from there, once you got them walking and talking, congratulations! You officially have a 100% sentient tulpa friend, yayy! It took me about 6 months to get up to that point with Kovie, but it could be as short as 2 months or as long as.. many years. I don't think i've known anyone who actually has a successful tulpa that took more than a year or two to develop them, probably because people tend to give up after that long. People who take only a couple months though are pretty much always writers and/or artists, and have some serious imagination. Or they've done something of the sort before.

BUT WAIT, That's not all! Now we come to the really fun stuff, the 'extracurricular' activities... That I will explain in more detail in the next post if you all are interested.
Imposition - Visualizing, or 'forcing' your tulpa's form in the physical world. This is what most people think of when they hear 'imaginary friend', and they're more or less right, in a vague and rather rude way. This is something a lot of tulpamancers do, though i'm not that good at visualization so, I never really did it much.
Possession - When the tulpa is allowed control of the host's body, for when the tulpa wants to experience the physical world in the way their host does. Don't worry, the host remains fully with their body and doesn't slip off to the astral plane or something, your tulpa can't do anything without your consent, and you can take back control instantly whenever you like. This is something i do with my tulpa a lot, it's really fun. It's like co-oping.
Switching - When you and your tulpa temporarily switch places as host and thoughtform. Basically an upgraded version of possession, for those who are super good at active forcing and stuff like astral projection, because what you're doing is keeping yourself in the mindscape -thus detached from your body's senses- while your tulpa has control of your body. It looks and sounds a lot like DID, but it's really almost nothing like it, as it's all consensual and honestly really high level, therefore very difficult to achieve and not something that can be done on accident.
Dual-processing - You and your tulpa study together! I don't know much about how this works, but imagine yourself concentrating on your schoolwork, and your tulpa can see the next question in your peripheral vision. They can then try to solve it while you're busy, and relay the answer to you. Now you're learning twice as fast! I dunno, this honestly doesn't even sound possible to me, but hell, this all sounds crazy and i've heard of it being done so.. more power to ya if you can.

And many others! Really, there's so much that can be done with tulpamancy, just experiment with it! It's a lot of fun, and i've been enjoying it for about 3 years now with my three tulpa, and they're my best friends. They've helped me through so much, and i can verify without a shadow of a doubt that they are the most real people I know. I love them, and if you think you might need something like that, I bet you'll like it too. :'3




it took me 5 hours to write this, dear lord I was not expecting to write a 3000 word essay tonight, how did this happen
Last edited by YanaKhan on Fri Mar 10, 2017 3:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Edited to add capital letters and punctuation and remove text speech.
"So basically, it's do your job or get vaporized?" -- Commander Shepard, Mass Effect 2
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Kovyx
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Re: Hitchhiker's Guide to Tulpamancy

Post by Kovyx »

Post saved for details and other explanations.

You all can comment and ask questions, or leave feedback or something.
Last edited by YanaKhan on Fri Mar 10, 2017 3:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Edited to add capital letters and punctuation.
"So basically, it's do your job or get vaporized?" -- Commander Shepard, Mass Effect 2
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Re: Hitchhiker's Guide to Tulpamancy

Post by SpiritTalker »

What happens to the tulpa when you die?
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Re: Hitchhiker's Guide to Tulpamancy

Post by Kovyx »

My guess is they die, but no one really knows for sure. Maybe they go to the astral plane or something.
"So basically, it's do your job or get vaporized?" -- Commander Shepard, Mass Effect 2
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Re: Hitchhiker's Guide to Tulpamancy

Post by SpiritTalker »

Before working with this concept, personally I'd want to research and find out. It could become vampiric as an act of survival, and if it is abandoned who could blame it for trying to survive. So do you think it could actually become a kind of demon? There must be safe guards against the possibility. I mean, people have been safely creating tulpa forms for centuries. So what do they do?
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Re: Hitchhiker's Guide to Tulpamancy

Post by RyukaAscendant »

There's a lot of discussion just from a quick glance that suggests the tulpa is a piece of you metaphysically. Therefore, when we die it lives on with us as part of us or goes wherever we go next.

Personally I find the idea interesting but since you are creating a sepate being I feel it would be more correct that they live on without us. The question however is what happens to them. There are spirits that have been around for aeons that we really have no clue where they come from. Maybe our death severs a connection to this plane and they continue to exist within another. Potentially since they are full in their own right they would enter the reincarnation cycle after we drag them out of the world with our death.

But I think the biggest question is are they created separate from us, or do they share space in our unconscious mind? I feel therein we will find an answer or something closer to the truth.
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Re: Hitchhiker's Guide to Tulpamancy

Post by Corbin »

When they "break down" I would imagine there is a certain redistribution or movement of energy.

I doubt they simply E.N.D. Nothing else appears to.
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Re: Hitchhiker's Guide to Tulpamancy

Post by Tutmosis »

Tulpamancy seems totally different to what I'm used to.

This seems more like you're creating a being and giving it a piece of your psyche so it can be sentient.

As opposed to what I've learned which is making an entity seperate of my mind, having her own capabilities that do not rely on me. When I die, she'll still be here. She's totally independent of me. She doesn't even use my energy to live. She generates it on her own.
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Re: Hitchhiker's Guide to Tulpamancy

Post by Wolf »

Whew, okay, I am going to start with my own disclaimer. "tulpamancy" is a very new term for what has been around for ages, and I am rather stuck in my ways and hard very hard viewpoints on it with disagree with your own. So the following in my personal opinion and belief system.

When I was a fresh up and coming witch we didn't even have a word for it. We were simply creating servitors and egregores. Giving a little spark of life to these thoughtforms. For a number of years I even specialized in this field. Creating and devouring a few dozen of these over the span of these years. And yes I said devour. After they fulfilled their purpose I ate them.

They are created by you force of will, and by summoning a faint glimmer of that divine spark, but no matter what you do, you as a magician will never be able to create true life. It may be uncannily close, but it is not true life. Like the artificial intellegence of many movies, eventually it will go wrong. It will go wild. You will not be able to control it. The longer it lives the harder it will be to kill. I battled with a particular one I let live longer than it should have for nearly half an hour before I was thankfully able to eat it. It was strong from its creation and it was very useful up until is started disobeying orders.

If you let these things exist on their own without maintenance they will inevitable be corrupted. Why do you think people have a finite life span? If you want to play God you need to fully understand the consequences. Egregores let free are a large portion of supposed hauntings, poltergeists, and such. They become, as already mentioned, vampiric mockeries of life and need to be put down.

Again, I know this is in stark contrast on what you have said, but I can't let it go without giving my experience and warnings to aspiring creators.
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Re: Hitchhiker's Guide to Tulpamancy

Post by Wolf »

Mama Magpie here

I'm Mister Meseeks, look at me

This episode of rick and Morty actually captures everything being discussed here, in particular Wolf's statement. Just my two cents. :)
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Re: Hitchhiker's Guide to Tulpamancy

Post by Kovyx »

On the topic of what happens to a tulpa after death, sort of, an interesting new development has happened with one of my three tulpa.

Leo, a short skeleton boy originally a soulbond of the character Sans from Undertale, had become quite unhappy with my mindscape and was very bored with it. He told me he felt useless and caged, so i told him he could do what he wanted. We struggled for a bit finding a solution for him, up until he disappeared one day. I was worried, but i just knew he was still alive, so i didn't fret over it too much.
Few weeks went by without him, just Kovie, Vyx and i hanging out with friends that understand all of us. Then one time a scary thing happened and i had a panic attack, and i hid in another room behind a bed. One of my friends that came in to comfort me is a reiki practitioner, he's been able to see bits of my tulpa that has been very exciting to hear about. This time he saw "a small white figure crouched on the bed beside me", and after some questioning, i determined it was Leo. This was the first i had heard of him since he disappeared, it instantly made me feel better, because we were certain he was concerned about me and was there to make sure i was okay.
I've had a couple signs of him still being around since then (he tried to tickle me during work a few days ago), so my conclusion is that he somehow detached himself from my mindscape and now resides... elsewhere, not quite sure. Maybe our plane, maybe astral, maybe somewhere else. Hell, knowing how he was, he could've created his own mindscape. He was really a very unique tulpa, had abilities i've always known to be especially uncommon.

Point being, it is possible for a tulpa to exist outside a host's mindscape, to be self-sufficient. Though i believe this is an extremely rare occurrence, as knowing how tulpa are, it seems a very difficult thing to do.
"So basically, it's do your job or get vaporized?" -- Commander Shepard, Mass Effect 2
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