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So There's a New Article on Vice about Tulpas


waffles

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http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/tulpamancy-internet-subculture-892

 

I'll let you judge for yourself but here are a few choice quotes for you:

 

Maciej heard the pad of feet on grass. He whirled around. There she was. Naked. With large fox ears and a bristly tale. She looked at him with large, primitive eyes.

 

Tulpas are a broker between their hosts and the latent potential of the subconscious. Hosts claim their creations can retrieve any memory, heal trauma, block chronic pain, cheerlead their studies or just be a companion.

 

After first meeting their tulpa in the wonderland, hosts begin to feel odd pressure in parts of their head. This is their tulpa beginning to communicate. As the forcing process continues the tulpa’s voice becomes clearer. Ultimately, a practitioner can “impose” their tulpa on reality by creating a realistic hallucination. One guide pegged the amount of time it takes to do this at 200 to 500 hours.

 

But what about the 1 percent of cases where switching turns sinister? Take the strange case of Koomer and Oguigi. Koomer was a tulpamancer who documented his attempt to have his tulpa, Oguigi, take permanent possession of his body, eventually having a breakdown.

 

“I know what happened was not Oguigi’s fault,” Koomer blogged earlier this year. “All the bad things came from a year of stupid behaviour inspired by my reckless pursuit to switch permanently… don’t try to have [your tulpa] take over. Not because they would harm you in any way, but because other entities will harm you if you open yourself up to such a level. I did that and it nearly made me schizo.”

 

Tulpa sex is a controversial subject in the community. “Imagine how that would make them feel,” writes Linkzelda, the anonymous author of a Tulpa creation guide. “That they were only created as a sex doll.”

 

However, if sex is part of close relationship that’s another story. “In short, yeah, we have,” says Scoots, one of the three My Little Pony-style tulpas hosted by Nick. “All three of us have [had sex with our host] at one point or another.”

 

“We totally bang,” says Siouxsie, a tulpa hosted by Kelson, who wanted his details withheld. “I guess you're asking about the mechanics of it, right? It's like jerking off, but you mentally disassociate with the actual world and just go nuts in the wonderland.”

 

“[For tulpamancers], the male to female ratio is approximately 75/25 (male/female),” writes Veissière. “Though up to 10 percent identify as gender-fluid, and explore further ‘creative’ gender and ethnic variations through their humanoid Tulpas.”

 

Tulpamancers, like the bronie culture before them, have their own ideas about gender. “I think the idea of masculinity and femininity might be on its way out,” says Nick. “The norms or boundaries that have been erected over time to stop males or females or anyone from doing what they like are something that, thankfully, seems to be going away.”

 

 

And also

Tags: tulpamancy, tulpa, r/tulpasgonewild, internet, subculture, imaginary friend, Nathan Thompson, my little pony, brony, sex, sex with imaginary character, schizophrenia, switching, tulpamancer, forcing, Dr Samuel Veissière, psychiatry

 

 

 

Sometimes you see really good journalism on Vice. This is not one of those times, I think.

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This is where the beginning of the end happens, I think.

 

Fun fact: I was actually approached a month or two ago to do an interview for this very article. Considering how badly it turned out, its fortunate that I declined. They wouldn't have wanted my two cents anyway, since I don't "go crazy in the wonderland."

 

Joking aside, one thing that bothered me about the article was the obvious attempts at making tuplas seem edgy and *mysterious,* particularly that they never mentioned the fact that Koomer was addicted to drugs while he was practising tulpamancy, nor did they link his blog so that a layperson coming onto the site could make their own judgements about him and Oguigi.

 

The Reddit forum has 6000-plus members,” writes Dr Samuel Veissière, Visiting Professor of Transcultural Psychiatry, Cognitive Science and Anthropology at McGill University in Montreal. His study is the first academic literature about contemporary tulpamancy. “The Russian social networking site Vkontakte also boasts 6000+ members… [Although] actual numbers are difficult to estimate.”

 

This quote also made me raise an eyebrow, considering that this man's paper hasn't even been finished yet, much less peer reviewed. He could be making shit up and we would be none the wiser. But it wasn't just these quotes from an unfinished, and non peer reviewed paper. It was the complete lack of any sources whatsoever, save for a single reference to tupla.info. I understand that Vice isn't a site that does that but damn, why did it have to be Vice?

 

The important thing to take away from this article, I think, is that this article really shines a light on the shortcomings of our community and the stereotypes perceived by an outsider, namely the rampant pseudoscience and attention seeking. It neglects to mention the majority of reasonable people in the community that don't use tuplas as their identities, or as a way to be special snowflakes.

 

This whole article man... its like they TRIED to make us sound autistic.

 

Despite all of the fail in the article there was one thing I did like: the art. I mean, look at this shit man.

 

brain.jpg

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Joking aside, one thing that bothered me about the article was the obvious attempts at making tuplas seem dangerous and *mysterious,* particularly that they never mentioned the fact that Koomer was addicted to drugs while he was practising tulpamancy, nor did they link his blog so that a layperson coming onto the site could make their own judgements about him and Oguigi.

 

I don't see how they're making tulpaforcing seem "dangerous". The article does mention koomer and Oguigi, yes, but it also states that, in the overwhelming majority of cases, it's totally safe, despite people's initial first impression that this is something dangerous.

 

Indulgent hosts then use a practice called “switching”, which allows their tulpa to possess their body while they watch from the ringside of consciousness. For some, this sounds dangerously close to schizophrenia or dissociative identity disorder.

 

Not so, say the tulpamancers. In 99 percent of cases the host can choose to switch back at any time.

 

It also acknowledges that having a tulpa is generally positive and helpful rather than harmful.

 

“[Tulpamancers’] happiness levels were assessed through a variety of qualitative interview tools,” writes Veissière. “[The results] suggest that the experience of tulpamancy has an overwhelmingly beneficial impact on their general happiness.”

 

The article even mentions the possibility of using tulpae to help treat schizophrenia - while I'm skeptical that that would actually work or that it's even a good idea, it's at least directly going against the idea that a tulpa is mental illness/dangerous.

 

And Veissière said via email that “[Tulpamancy] could have radical implications for the treatment of schizophrenia and other malignant psychoses… In the age of big pharma and the marketing of madness… "tulpa-therapy" could offer a free alternative that doesn’t require institutionalisation and social isolation.”

 

Koomer’s case is rare, and for Veissière “schizophrenia [could be understood as]… an incapacitating example of ‘involuntary Tulpas’", therefore, by forming positive relationships with their symptoms, sufferers can start to recover. It's an idea shared by the “Hearing Voices Movement”, who challenge the medical models of schizophrenia and suggest that pathologisation aggravates symptoms.

 

“My schizophrenia manifested itself by having many thoughts and ideas all conflicting and shouting at me,” says Logan, who wanted his last name withheld. “Turning them into tulpas gave those thoughts a face and allowed them to be sorted out in a way that made sense.”

 

Sure, there are some things the article could have improved or left out, but I don't see how this article is trying to make tulpae sound "dangerous" in any way. Yes, koomer and Oguigi were mentioned, but the article explicitly states that their case was rare, that creating a tulpa has an overall positive effect on most, and even that switching is totally safe in almost all cases. It mentions a lot more about the benefits and how it ISN'T dangerous/self-induced mental illness than it does about any potential dangers.

I come out of hibernation once in a blue moon.

 

They/them pronouns, please. (I've been using this display name since 2012 and people won't recognize me if I change it.)

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oh man. Thank you waffles, I haven't giggled like a little girl in a long while.

 

The article is hilariously bad. I'm laughing even harder that the reddit loves it.

 

oh man.

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It's neither dangerous nor edgy, it's just embarassing, because a lot of what's in there is simply true. If you don't like that article - this is how most outsiders will see tulpas. Think about what you bring to the community and how it affects it's image.

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Reading that article was a great ending to my day, thanks for that waffles.

 

I just can't wait until we get on Fox.

[align=center]Even though my username is that of my tulpa, Quilten, my name is Phaneron, the host, who does all of the actual posting.

Tulpas: Quilten, Jira

[/align]

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