Standing at the Crossroads: Exploring Tulpa (Legba & Daisie)

[Legba]

I've started a blog on my thoughts and questions as I explore the concept of tulpae (tulpas? I see both used, is one more accepted?) and my struggles with the ethics involved and my own mental health. If anyone would be interested in following that directly it's tulpamearc.tumblr.com, but I hoped I'd get a bit more feedback here. This will primarily be the same entries as the blog, plus whatever conversations may evolve.

 

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-April 23, 2016-

Okay, so this is a thing I’m doing I suppose. I guess I should fill in some info about myself going into this, shouldn’t I?

 

I go by Legba. I’m a 26 year old bisexual female living in the US. I’ve suffered from anxiety and depression my whole life, but after a string of deeply unhealthy relationships I finally sought help. I’m living in a good place now, and dating a guy who’s the polar opposite of the people who hurt me. I’ve been in therapy for a while, and it’s helped a lot in identifying the things I need to work on. The short list includes-

 

-Trusting my perceptions

-Difficulty opening up to vulnerability

-Intense feelings of shame

-Relying on others for validation

-Trouble with self-expression

 

My therapist has recommended several things, including meditation, mindfulness, positive self-talk, and seeking internal rather than external validation. Which brings me to tulpamancy.

 

I’ve always been deeply interested in how things that’ve been interpreted as paranormal or occult can be explained by psychological processes. I often use tarot cards as a kind of self- Rorschach test to help sort through thoughts and emotions. When I started coming across information on tulpas, it struck a chord.

 

I used to write and roleplay a lot, and the things that people were talking about sounded a lot like what I’d experienced with one of my characters, Daisie. It made perfect sense that the kind of connection I’d had with Daisie could be done deliberately, and could be shaped. One of my boyfriend’s favorite sayings is “Believe in the you who believes in yourself.” (Yes, he’s a huge nerd). The idea of having another person in my head like Daisie had been, someone without the anxiety and shame warping their perceptions, was deeply appealing. I could have a friend, one who I wouldn’t be embarrassed to talk to, or worry that I’m a burden on. Someone to smack me over the head when I start being self- defeating, and tell me to go do the thing when my anxiety is telling me that I can’t. Most of the things involved in creating a tulpa are things my therapist was recommending anyways. So I’m going to give it a shot.

 

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-April 24, 2016-

I’ve spent all day reading discussions on the ethics of deliberately creating a sentient being. On tulpa forums, mostly, but some theoretical stuff about AIs too, robot personhood, free will, Asimov, that kind of thing. I guess I’m struggling with the idea of creating what’s functionally a person who’s bound to me and was made to help with my problems.

 

A lot of people say that as long as you allow your tulpa to make their own decisions and deviate as they wish, it’s fine. Others question the ability of a deliberately created tulpa to truly feel free to change when they are at the host’s mercy not to dissipate them. Can a tulpa who was given the personality trait “wants to help me” really make the choice to be helpful or not? I can’t help but think of Warren’s sex bot from the later seasons of Buffy. Can a bot who you programed to want to have sex actually consent to sex? I’m not even going to touch on the hosts who have sex with their tulpas.

 

I find myself thinking a lot about Daisie, my character from an old roleplay who, if she wasn’t a tulpa, was well on her way to it. We talked as our characters a lot back then. Not just roleplaying, that was more like a play that our characters were putting on. They talked with us and with each other in the OOC boards, and on instant messenger. I wonder if a lot of them were somewhere on the road to tulpa-hood, or were fully there already. I find myself missing her, and wishing she was still around. She’d have thwapped me over the head with her parasol and called me a dim-witted oaf a long time ago. I wonder if she’s still in there, somewhere? Can a tulpa, or almost-tulpa, be brought back?

[Vos]

Welcome to the community, Legba.

 

as I explore the concept of tulpae (tulpas? I see both used, is one more accepted?)

 

Although people use both of them around here, 'tulpas' is more common and there are some people that dislike 'tulpae' for reasons. It's probably not that big of a deal, though.

 

Can a tulpa who was given the personality trait “wants to help me” really make the choice to be helpful or not?

 

A servitor is probably the closest you'll get to a bot around these parts. They're defined in the glossary as "a tulpa-like entity with seemingly no willpower, volition or sentience of its own" or "a mental puppet that may seem to act independently but acts only as a servant to its creator." Tulpas are people, so they could choose not to help someone with something, even if you'd often describe them as being a helpful person.

 

Can a tulpa, or almost-tulpa, be brought back?

 

Yes, but you'll still have to put a lot of work into it in order to get back to where you were. NoneFromHell's revitalization exercise has become a pretty popular thing to link when people ask about bringing back tulpas. Still, depending on your situation, it might not be the best thing to use.

[Zaya]

First of all, welcome to the forum!

Second, thank you for bolding your questions!

 

Answering your questions:

Tulpas

 

No, a tulpa is not bound to their creator. Tulpas can dissipate themselves which is effectively suicide, and they aren't forced to deal with their hosts problems by any means.

 

Even if a tulpa is "given" a personality trait, they don't have to follow through with it. Zaya has blatantly not followed a few personality traits I included in his original composition, now while these traits weren't bad, he's just become his own person.

While its called "Personality forcing", it is kind of a misnomer.

 

Yes, tulpas, or in most cases, thought forms can be brought back/made into Tulpas. The exercise Vos mentioned is perfect for exactly that.

 

Hope to see more content in the future!

Although, due to some of the views you have expressed, I want to mention that much of the ethics of Tulpamancy is controversial and mostly philosophical. Everyone on the forum believes something different, but that's what really adds to the flavor of the website, I think!

[mysonofrageandlove]

I really enjoyed reading your opening post and can't wait to read more from you. I also struggle with anxiety and depression, as well as other mental illnesses, and am in therapy. Jamie, my tulpa, has been a huge help to me through everything I've gone through! I'm really interested to see how tulpamancy might also be of healing service to you.

[Legba]

Wow, thanks everyone. I wasn't expecting so much feedback and support so quickly! I'll very quickly train myself out of using "tulpae." I'm a Scadian (Vivat to any others here!) and we have a tendency to want to latinate everything, regardless of how much sense it makes.

 

As far as my fixation on ethics is concerned, I absolutely don't want to step on anyone's toes or beliefs. In fact, I'd love to hear anyone and everyone's opinions on how they view the ethics of creation. I'm the kind of person who debates robots and artifical intelligence and Turing tests for fun, and questions the ethics of procreating at all versus adopting offspring. I don't want to treat the life of any potential tulpa as any lesser than any other being. I want to understand my responsibilities.

 

Thank you so much for the link to the guide, I'll read over it throughly once I'm home and not puttering around on my phone at work.

 

I'm hoping to be able to journal fairly often. I hope no one is bothered that I'm keeping a log here despite not actually starting on a tulpa yet.

[Vos]

I'd love to hear anyone and everyone's opinions on how they view the ethics of creation.

 

We actually have a few interesting threads on ethics:

 

Tulpae and Ethics

PETT - Is Treating A Tulpa As Sentient A Basis For Virtue Ethics?

Tulpa Ethics

Ethics with regards to tulpa creation. (the most recent one)

 

I'm hoping to be able to journal fairly often. I hope no one is bothered that I'm keeping a log here despite not actually starting on a vulpa yet.

 

There's nothing wrong with have a tulpaless log on here as long as it's on-topic and isn't just used as a blog for daily life or something else that's unrelated.

[Legba]

April 28, 2016

 

I’ve decided to focus on trying to revitalize Daisie rather than working on someone new, for the various reasons I’ve mentioned before. I tried to force night before last, but I was so zonked out from work I fell asleep before I even made it down to my wonderland (I loathe that term, btw.) Last night was more successful and I actually managed to get some forcing in. Not very long, probably about 45 minutes total before my back started to protest being upright any longer.

 

I’m definitely out of practice when it comes to visualization. My wonderland was established a long time ago, when I first started working on meditation and visualization, but I haven’t done anything like that since I graduated college four years ago. Upon closing my eyes and walking myself down I was able to pull up my main “workspace” easily enough, and any detail I focused on was well fleshed out to all five senses, but I had trouble seeing my whole field of vision at once, and I had trouble locking myself into a first-person view. I kept switching to what felt like “no-clip” mode, gliding around without effort or regards to gravity/obstacles. Which is fine when done purposely, but I need to focus on reestablishing a sense of stability and a concrete body.

 

I wanted to spend a bit of time on Daisie herself without getting distracted by the progress I need to make on the wonderland, so I mimicked my physical body’s posture and closed my eyes, and just focused on sound, smell, and the feel of the surface I was sitting on until I had those locked in. With sight removed I was able to get a much better feeling of being physically there and was able to start focusing on Daisie.

 

I started broadly, with how it used to feel to interact with her, then started to narrow in on various aspects. I walked us through all of her interactions in the roleplay forum where she was made; everything that happened “in character” and everything that she did once she started separating herself from the setting and story she was originally written for. As I went through each interaction or chunk of story I tried to really focus on the motivations and reasons for everything. What part of her personality made her like this person, or dislike that one. How did she feel when challenges arose, when bad things happened. Or when good things happened. I tried to get in as much as possible: “When this happened, you felt like this and reacted in this way for this reason, then felt like this afterwards.”

 

After I felt like I had done broads strokes of everything, personality-wise, I spent just a couple minutes on appearance. Much like the trouble I was having with the wonderland, tiny details came much easier than a general picture. I was able to pull up exactly how tall she was in relation to me, and what the back of her ears looked like (random-ass detail, I’m aware) but not much of how the pieces fit together. I assume that’ll get easier with practice.

 

Later on I’ll put together a description/ personality list for her, just for reference for myself and others, and as a way to track any deviations as they occur.

[Legba]

Personality Sheet

 

This was filled in with the memories I have of Daisie as she was the last time I had contact with her. Those are the memories I'm using to try to revitalize her, so I suppose this is the equivalent of the personality profiles that some guides recommend doing before you start forcing. The questionnaire was ganked from a NaNoWriMo site and tweaked to fit. I apologize for the length.

 

 

Name: Daisie Marie Greenhowe

Gender: Female

Species: Ratfolk

Age: Equivalent to mid-late 20’s, first created as a character in about 2003.

Sexuality: Heteroromantic; primarily heterosexual, with slight bisexual leanings

Height:Between 3' and 4’ (Comes about to my sternum, I don’t have a good idea of exactly how tall that makes her, will adjust later)

Eye color: Pink

Appearance: Anthropomorphized rat, of Pink-Eyed White coloration

Strange or unique physical attributes: Color is unique among wild rats, but very common amongst domestic ones. In-game, this acted as marker of her social class.

Favorite outfit or clothing style: Formal- Victorian-era dresses in whites, creams, and pale pinks. Carries parasol.

Casual- Green tunic, tan leggings, tall boots. Wears rapier on belt.

Where does he or she live? What is it like there? Childhood spent in sprawling estate on a hill overlooking the docks/warehouse district. Adolescence/early adulthood spent traveling, settled in Vulpine Imperium, a disreputable port town.

Defining gestures or mannerisms: When in her “classy” persona tends to be very reserved, though she fiddles with her parasol (which has a concealed blade a la a sword cane) when nervous or agitated. In both modes, she has a kind of cocky head tilt she does while looking up at someone, she just pretends it’s a demure look when she’s being all high class.

Things about his or her appearance he or she would most like to change: The white fur can be problematic trying to fit in, since it marks her as someone of high birth. Plus it takes a ton of grooming.

Speaking style (fast, talkative, monotone, etc.): Something like a mid-Atlantic accent? Not the super dramatic radio announcer variety, more like Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca, or, in a fandom-friendly example, Asami from Legend of Korra.

Pet peeves: Anything she views as a sign of immaturity- rudeness, messiness, excessive displays of emotion

Fondest memory: Getting promoted to second mate of the Blackship, which meant getting to work with Cludd.

Hobbies/interests: Fencing, painting, reading

Special skills/abilities: Trained in the high- class womanly arts (think Inara’s companion training, in a way), but especially proficient in fencing and dance. Passable painter. God awful cook and navigator. Great at manipulating people.

Insecurities: Too stubborn, and with too much of a superiority complex to admit to having any. Though she wonders if her upbringing robbed her of some vital piece of humanity and empathy.

Temperament (easygoing, easily angered, etc.): Gets annoyed easily, but is generally good hearted. Can be bossy and stubborn, and tends to hold grudges. Manipulative at times. But is also generous, courageous, loyal, and hard working.

Things that upset him or her: Immaturity, as previously mentioned. Bullies, particularly those in seats of power or who use their influence to control other.

Things that embarrass him or her: I’m not sure if “embarrass” is the right word, but she’s kind of ashamed of the person she was during her travels.

This character is highly opinionated about: Secretly, tea. One of the few things she misses from her upperclass upbringing, and not something she can get good quality of currently.

Any phobias? When the water gets deep, scary black. Not drowning, per se, but the infinity of the deep water.

Things that make him or her happy: Bright, sunny days where the sea is sparkling, the little bits of luxury she can sometimes get in port, like a tin of candy or small vial of perfume.

Family (describe): Mother died when very young, father (Nicodemus Artemis Greenhowe) seemed doting, but was in fact very controlling and groomed her to help him maintain and control his business empire. He was Not Pleased when she ran away.

Other people’s opinions of this character (What do people like about this character? What do they dislike about this character?): People can be put off by her arrogance and occasional superiority complex, but like her intelligence, generosity, and confidence.

Favorite bands/songs/type of music: Hasn’t been exposed to much contemporary media, only things of her era. She prefers the high-spirited shanties and jigs to the stately music she grew up with, but she’s a bit too uptight to really dance to it.

Favorite foods: Pastries

Political views: Hasn’t been exposed to modern American politics yet. Her opinion on Imperium politics doesn’t really apply to much here. She would’ve like Teddy Roosevelt’s Trust-Busting and FDR’s New Deal though.

Religion/philosophy of life: Not religious, looks out for herself and her people above the needs of others.

Physical health: Healthy, fairly athletic, though more on the fast/agile side than the strong side.

Description of his or her house: Growing up, a sprawling mansion on a hilltop. Most recently, she lived on a wooden tall ship called the Blackship.

Description of his or her bedroom: As a child she had an entire wing of the mansion to herself, with sitting rooms, and a side garden and her own small library of books. On the Blackship she shared an officer’s cabin with Cludd.

Any pets? Her father didn’t allow them, and she’s never had the time or stability for one after she left.

Best thing that has ever happened to this character: Finding the Imperium and the Blackship

Worst thing that has ever happened to this character: I don’t think she’d want to share this, so I’ll decline to answer.

Superstitions: She’s above all the low-class nonsense (or so she thinks)

Three words to describe this character: Independent, Confident, Generous

If a song played every time this character walked into the room, what song would it be? “Rock-Paper-Scissors” by Katzenjammer. The vocal tonality isn't far off from how I imagine her singing voice would be, the instrumentation is something she'd love, and the lyrics are fairly fitting to her outlook on life.

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It’s been a very long time since I’ve done much drawing, so this isn’t very good, but I’ve been working on sketching Daisie to help with my visualization. Caught her in a rare moment of softness and concern.

[mysonofrageandlove]

Loved getting to read through all the info about Daisie - and it was so neat to then see the image you'd drawn! Makes me want to draw Jamie.

[Zaya]

Very nice, this is probably the most in depth single post about a personality I've ever seen!

Very nice effort, almost brings a tear to my eye.

But don't worry about length. This is your space to share your progress, anyone who wants to really read it will.

 

Also - nice artwork. Its a lot better than anything I tend to make.