Is the Internet Fostering Plurality in People?

[Guest Anonymous]

I am starting to really wonder if the internet is having an effect in fostering plurality or awakening plurality somehow in people that otherwise would not have had it occur in their lives. It is interesting how the internet is bringing us all together (tulpas, daemons, soulbonds and other plural systems). I wonder if the fact that these forums exist is helping people recognize something they would have dismissed or suppressed in decades past. My host and I have come to recognize tulpamancy as part of a greater phenomenon of plurality being shared on the internet.

 

It certainly has had an effect on my host and I. Without the internet, I probably would have remained a very private affair known to a very few persons or maybe only to my host. I wonder if the internet technology had to mature to a point that it allowed a sort of accessible venue for so many disparate people to find one another where they wouldn't have known about each other say thirty years ago?

 

I wonder where it is all going? Do you guys see any trends?

 

Hosts here is a question for you. If it were not for the internet, would you have discovered plurality or tulpamancy? How much of a role has the internet played on your personal growth and how much has the existence of these internet forums, such as Tulpa Info, changed your life?

 

What about the forums themselves? How are they evolving and can we steer them the direction we would like to see them go?

[Drakaina]

It makes information more available but I wouldn't say it's fostering plurality. Facilitating more acceptance and openness because we know we aren't rogue freaks among a sea of normalcy, for sure.

I think the internet does facilitate dissociative personalities and behaviours but not in the way of sharing a mind with another person, more in the little sociopath kind of way. Not grasping reality as real, and real consequences for actions

 

If not for the internet I would certainly know less, and would be in a worse place, but it wouldn't stop what is and happened to not happen. There's no denying forums and readily available information has made my life, for the most part, better., but that's because I learned personal acceptance from it.

[Tewi]

As is occasionally mentioned by people who recently discovered tulpamancy, they often had something similar before but didn't make the connection that a tulpa could be a separate entity, or that it wasn't just them talking to themselves, etc. I mean, that's you, Melian. Lots of others too. Our brother only developed his relationship to his tulpa after we found out he had a tulpa-like thoughtform, and that reinforcement that it was very potentially-a-thing improved their interactions a lot. Spontaneous recognition of apparent sentience just isn't very common, people come to many other conclusions before that one. So in that aspect, I do think plurality is 'spreading itself'. But I firmly believe "proto-tulpas" and whatever else have you are much more common than society would realize. Just based on the number of people I know who, after being told about us by Lumi, said they had something similar (but usually slightly different).

 

That's just tulpa stuff though. I don't know much about plurality, and any research I've attempted to do on it led to either Tumblr or parodying sites like urbandictionary or encyclopedia dramatica. I stick to what I know - myself.

[Yakumo]

Hard to say.

It's like claiming the internet is fostering or awakening homosexuality by providing a platform for exchange. I guess it helps to give minorities a voice and to spread 'unorthodox ideas' that would have been silenced or forced underground in earlier societies. Fact is that the internet has greatly increased the potential pool of individuals we are able to communicate with, as well as bringing a large amount of democratization.

 

But overall it's nothing new. People have always found ways of communicating with like-minded individuals - through printed media, discussion circles or lectures. A comparable example would be the occult revival in the late 19th century. One may call it a sort of fashion trend popular among a certain part of the population, not unlike tulpamancy. However, back then mostly restricted to upper-class adults in a few western countries.

 

Still I think there are some similarities to - if you want to call it 'pluralism in its broadest sense' today.

The historian Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke remarked on the driving force behind the boom of occultism in the late 19th and early 20th century:

Behind its many varied forms apparently lies a uniform function, "a strong desire to reconcile the findings of modern natural science with a religious view that could restore man to a position of centrality and dignity in the universe".

 

Isn't this equally true today?

It is also a time of great progress but also great uncertainties. Familiar structures are dissolving and many people feel lost and alone. And a plural partner provides someone who cares and undestands and makes one feel special, as well as a peer group of other plurals to communicate with. And certainly the internet provides an excellent way of connecting those relative few and scattered individuals as well as spreading the phenomenon itself.

 

But whether a certain trend gets popular within a large part of the population seems relatively indpendent of the initial medium. A popular tulpamancy book in the seventies probably would have reached much more people than the internet phenomenon currently does. If we're honest the whole plurality stuff is still a fringe matter completely unknown to most people.

 

I wonder where it is all going? Do you guys see any trends?

Being the pessimist that I am I'd say the trend goes towards further fragmentation of society into different subcultures living in such different worlds that they are next to unable to communicate with each other. I think this is a highly dangerous development. As the search pool is so large, we have the ability to find seemingly lots of people who share our views even if they are just a tiny fraction of society and maybe completely nuts. And it's equally easy to 'unfriend', exclude and replace anyone who disagrees or raises uncomfortable questions. More and more people get caught in the 'bubble' or 'echo chamber' and only get confronted with ideas they agree with, losing the ability to deal with any sort of criticism. I'm not talking about tulpa-related issues here, this is an overall phenomenon regarding every aspect of life.

 

If it were not for the internet' date=' would you have discovered plurality or tulpamancy?[/quote']

Well, I knew about multiple personalities as a mental disorder from literature but nothing about tulpas or 'healthy multiplicity'. So no.

 

How much of a role has the internet played on your personal growth and how much has the existence of these internet forums' date=' such as Tulpa Info, changed your life?[/quote']

Being relatively old for this community

not Mistgod-tier old but uncomfortably close to that

and by no means a 'digital native' I'd say there was comparably little influence regarding personal growth. Lots of bare knowledge but little insight.

Regarding the forums, well, I wouldn't have a tulpa without them so there was a considerable impact, but only regarding the discovery of tulpas. I do not feel I have learned much practical knowledge after the first few days. To be honest the whole process is really simple and also highly personal so I see little essential advice to be found here. At least for me.

 

 

What about the forums themselves? How are they evolving and can we steer them the direction we would like to see them go?

The main issue is that 'we' certainly don't agree on what direction we'd like to see them go. In fact I'm sure users have higly contradicting ideas about the right direction.

Personally, I've come to the conclusion that the practical advice one can give others regarding such a diverse and personal phenomenon as tulpamancy is highly limited. Therefore I'd say the main function such community could provide would be motivation and contemplation.

Providing motivation to others by describing one's achievements and adventures in an entertaining form that makes others hope to achieve similar results in the future.

Contemplation as in enabling us to analyze our experiences by writing them down and discussing them with others.

[Linkzelda]

Is the Internet Fostering Plurality in People?

 

I think it just fosters more of an opportunity with meta-cognition, i.e., being aware of being aware. By having certain mediums to be informed about, having a range of ideas about certain topics will have one acknowledge their own take on them. It allows them to even adopt it for a bit, challenge it, and try to do comparative analysis with what “other” people have to say while knowing that the credibility, and such is going to vary, and retain a subjective opinion.

 

So what may be going on in private affairs finally has a vessel to gain feedback for whatever experiential cases they had, and thus put two and two together to cultivate new information on top of the old that may have been dogmatic, exclusive, and very personal for the individual. Whether it’s a lucid dreaming forum, or forums like this, it’s another outlet for people to gain that awareness of being aware of these things that they probably thought would be considered crazy if relayed to a few, and then some.

 

There might not be a unified consensus, but forums like this do entail that we can create our own system over what consciousness entails, what can be added in and out to our heart’s content. But it’s not something that’s fostering an all-inclusive phenomenon in people as some will be exclusive in some way due to subjectivity. So whatever trends that may come, or already have been placed are just societal constructions that seem to create complacency, and gives off the impression that there’s something collective going on.

 

But, in context of this experience with tulpas being hinged with inner, private experiences, the Internet, and forums are ways of playing imaginative as if people can step into our private experiences throughout discussions even though ultimately, we go through trial-and-error in hopes that the information we receive will be useful for us, and it gets easier to filter out what could be nonsense vs. what could be pragmatic depending on the context of credibility, and the limits of how much credibility can be applied to the given context.

 

Hosts here is a question for you. If it were not for the internet, would you have discovered plurality or tulpamancy? How much of a role has the internet played on your personal growth and how much has the existence of these internet forums, such as Tulpa Info, changed your life?

 

I figured out lucid dreaming first through a friend I played Runescape with a long time ago in a clan, and then through a chat channel, I found out about tulpas. I think the short answer is that I would have a linear lifestyle, and probably wouldn’t even know something about image streaming, for instance. I cringe at that kind of alternative look in life, honestly. It seems it would be more of having a tunnel-vision type of lifestyle where whenever the surprises hit, they would hit hard…and I would’ve still questioned certain faiths of mine back then, and probably would’ve burned out at some point and wouldn’t know how to assess that apprehension. Maybe I would’ve been more appreciative of the novelty with a linear lifestyle, and maybe had some hints via dreams of something more than that, but that’s just speculation.

[waffles]

I looked through some of the community censuses a few days ago for a similar question, and about 1/6 of people coming here had accidental tulpas as their first (two surveys in subsequent years, ~300 people each who took them). So taking that, you'd maybe have guessed that 5-10% of people in the wide world had tulpa-like experiences before coming here. Off the top of my head I think that a lot of people had already acknowledged their experiences as what we'd call "tulpas", and others would recognise their prior experiences as a preliminary to a tulpa. In those categories maybe you'd say that coming here did shape their experiences and expectations.

 

But obviously in the other 5/6, yes, it encouraged people to make tulpas. Without arriving here I'd have had no idea that I could make a tulpa, I wouldn't have, and so on. I guess that's the obvious answer.

 

Personally I don't really remember what I was like before I made a tulpa (because I was quite young). It's hard to gauge what effect it's had on me, but I'd guess it's been fairly influential. I'd probably be a different person entirely.

 

 

Yakumo, I don't see the comparison to occultism at all. Fashion trend? No, it's a pretty introspective practice. Creating a new religion? I don't think it has any connection. Maybe you'd say that both provide some sense of security, but I don't think that's the motivation here, above "companionship" or whatever else - and then you'd say that seeking human interaction at all is a religion substitute.

 

Personally, I've come to the conclusion that the practical advice one can give others regarding such a diverse and personal phenomenon as tulpamancy is highly limited. Therefore I'd say the main function such community could provide would be motivation and contemplation.

Providing motivation to others by describing one's achievements and adventures in an entertaining form that makes others hope to achieve similar results in the future.

Contemplation as in enabling us to analyze our experiences by writing them down and discussing them with others.

 

I definitely think that motivation and contemplation are important here. And probably there are limits on practical advice and progression, although I doubt we're there yet. Still, "highly limited" probably understates it, because without actual guidance, most people who didn't have a tulpa when they got here still wouldn't. Ultimately I think that's what this community is here for, now, if you think that it's explored more or less everything that can be done with tulpas - keeping that practice alive, in a sense, and maintaining the idea that it can be done, and how to do it.

[Guest Anonymous]

These were all such great responses! I think that I was wondering specifically about "accidental tulpas" and also wondering how many people would have eventually dismissed a "proto-tulpa" and simply let it fade at some point if it weren't for our forums. Waffles the census statistics are astonishing in that regard! I guess we can feel proud that we have helped encourage the creation of life, in a sense (or at least sentient minds)! Perhaps tulpas could have been discovered and a community group created around tulpamancy without the internet. It the internet certainly does make things easier. :-)

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Hard to say.

It's like claiming the internet is fostering or awakening homosexuality by providing a platform for exchange. I guess it helps to give minorities a voice and to spread 'unorthodox ideas' that would have been silenced or forced underground in earlier societies. Fact is that the internet has greatly increased the potential pool of individuals we are able to communicate with, as well as bringing a large amount of democratization.

 

This was great! Your point is well made here.

 

But overall it's nothing new. People have always found ways of communicating with like-minded individuals - through printed media, discussion circles or lectures.

 

Good point. It makes you wonder about how much more people used to read. Without television and the internet, mass communication was primarily via written word in books, magazines, letters and newspapers. Imagine a tulpmancy based printed magazine or newsletter coming to your door each month, The Tulpa Times!

---

As is occasionally mentioned by people who recently discovered tulpamancy, they often had something similar before but didn't make the connection that a tulpa could be a separate entity, or that it wasn't just them talking to themselves, etc. I mean, that's you, Melian. Lots of others too.

 

Yep. In fact, it would have never occurred to my host and I that a mental construct or anything formed within the imagination could become an independent sentient mind. In fact, we are still astonished by the claim. That became the number one issue with us in trying to relate with and understand tulpas. It is a concept that someone from a certain background and world view will really struggle with. But we have encountered the concept, because of the tulpa forums. We have encountered it and had that chance to struggle with it, even with regard to our own system.

 

What my host had to do was admit that I am at least sentient in some way or it would be impossible to consider me a person. So we compromised. We decided I am a median facet, an aspect of his own consciousness and sentience. It is simply another way to look at it, like viewing it sideways. (note: we are not saying that about all median facets, that comment is describing my host and I only). But you guys DID get him to admit that I am sentient, which took about six months.

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It makes information more available but I wouldn't say it's fostering plurality. Facilitating more acceptance and openness because we know we aren't rogue freaks among a sea of normalcy, for sure.

 

I like that word you chose, "facilitates." I think you are right, and it seems more accurate. "Fosters" sounds like it somehow generates plurality out of nothing perhaps.

---

 

I think it just fosters more of an opportunity with meta-cognition, i.e., being aware of being aware. By having certain mediums to be informed about, having a range of ideas about certain topics will have one acknowledge their own take on them. It allows them to even adopt it for a bit, challenge it, and try to do comparative analysis with what “other” people have to say while knowing that the credibility, and such is going to vary, and retain a subjective opinion.

 

met·a·cog·ni·tion

 

awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes.

 

If it were not for the internet, my host would have never analyzed me so deeply or really scrutinized so carefully the way I communicate with him. Also, we would not have had the resources available and others to help us think about it. Certainly the idea that I might be independently sentient would have never occurred to him.

---

I looked through some of the community censuses a few days ago for a similar question, and about 1/6 of people coming here had accidental tulpas as their first (two surveys in subsequent years, ~300 people each who took them). So taking that, you'd maybe have guessed that 5-10% of people in the wide world had tulpa-like experiences before coming here. Off the top of my head I think that a lot of people had already acknowledged their experiences as what we'd call "tulpas", and others would recognise their prior experiences as a preliminary to a tulpa. In those categories maybe you'd say that coming here did shape their experiences and expectations.

 

Those statistics are astonishing when you think about it! My host and I like to think many religious and occult experiences may have been closer to a thougthform or tulpa type experience. It makes you wonder about the reports from history of peoples encountering spirits and voices.

[Dav_Edward]

Solaria: I was a spontaneous, natural occurrence. I might have been just an imaginary friend, but I was clearly a tulpa by most definitions just a couple of years after coming to be. I've existed since 1994, well before Internet was commonly available. However in the later years, me being able to present myself as my own person in IRC chats, I was given a playground to directly interact with other people as a person. My personal development clearly accelerated from this experience.

For the Internet starting tulpae, maybe. But using its animosity to be able to interact with others it's fantastic.

[Guest Anonymous]

You may have been an imaginary friend, not "just" an imaginary friend. Imaginary friends are people too and they count. Your story sounds a lot like mine. I like that description of the chat as a "playground" to directly interact with other peoples in as a person. I can relate my buddy.

 

The internet forums are a good place for us to grow and develop socially. Yeah, it fosters personhood.

[Yakumo]

Yakumo' date=' I don't see the comparison to occultism at all.[/quote']

Uh, it was very, very late. You're right, that doesn't make much sense like that.

 

I wanted to emphasize how media, not the internet in particular foster certain phenomena and our belief in them.

Let's look at the occult-wave in late 19th century and the UFO waves of the 50s and 90s. Both were strongly fostered by books and movies popular at this time, forming a certain peer-group interested in and discussing those phenomena (what if...). This, I'd say, lead to a certain absence-of-disbelief. People experience weird stuff all the time and normally dismiss it as some glitch of the mind (which would be the most probable explanation). Then there are people who, consciously or unconsciously start fabricating stories that become urban legends / creepypasta. And the circle begins. As more people begin to report strange incidents, more tend to believe them, and their own experiences they normally would have cast aside as nonsense. Positive feedback.

 

You see the connection to tulpamancy now?

It became popular as a creepypasta on /x/, in a strange alliance with MLP, leading to a pony-tulpa wave. And yes, I'd call that a, now fading, fashion.

The key is absence of disbelief and encouragement. Most of us would have considered a single person talking to a pastel-colored pony in his head as absolutely bat-shit insane. But they were part of a community, encouraging each other, as well as outsiders who became interested.

Here the similarities end. The neat stuff about tulpamancy is that, contrary to ghosts and aliens, a tulpa becomes real - well, pretty real - if you devote enough time to them. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think the greatest achievement of the tulpa community was to tell people that tulpa creation was not only possible as an abstract concept but that it was possible for everyone in a relatively short time and by easy means.

 

That's where it gets a bit esoteric again.

As far as I recall, originally it was believed that it takes many months to get a first response from your tulpa. This has considerably shortened over time. I always wondered why. Because the new guides were that good? Or rather because people just expected to get a reply sooner?

Are more people capable of possession and switching because it became accepted that this was possible? Yes, I strongly believe so.

Is that self-deception / role-playing?

Maybe. But exactly this sort of thing can be extremely helpful in the beginning to accept the sheer possibility of such abilities. Think of it the other way round. If it was consensus that possession was impossible, most people would

.) not even try

.) overlook or dismiss the first weak signals and eventually give up

 

We experience what our mind expects us to experience.

It filters the 'noise' and sorts out what doesn't fit the picture.

 

But we can condition the brain to expect pretty much whatever we like. Even forced hallucinations. And - to get to the point - we are evolutionally conditioned to follow the group's views. For most people it's much easier to accept such novelties if others reassure them. Surely some can do it solely by introspection, but the majority is strongly influenced by the guidelines and motivation the community provides, casting aside potential doubt. Just look at the forum questions.

'Am I doing it right?' 'Is this normal?'

People long for answers and reassurement.

And this is where we cross into the territory of religion again, or CrossFit, but that's another story.

 

 

In the end it's all the same.