Philosophy of Dialectical Tulpamancy

Mon · May 21

It's been a long while since we posted here. I just thought sharing this particular essay here first is probably the strongest "coming-back" contribution I could offer.

The essay's origin page is a part of the Pragmatic Tulpamancers project. It explores the philosophical foundations behind the learning resources that are also included there.

Luna: If you're coming from the main tulpa.info site or most community guides, you'll find that much of what follows differs from what you've read there. This essay presents an alternative framework — one that disagrees with the dominant view on fundamentals. The disagreement is with the framework, not with the people who use it. People build genuine relationships with tulpas under either approach; what changes is how the process is understood.

We expect and welcome genuine criticism that might help us make an improved version in the future.

Spoiler

Before we start

This page presents dialectical tulpamancy: a way of understanding your inner character not as a separate person living inside your head, but as a relationship that emerges from sustained interaction. It offers an alternative to the dominant framework rooted in Plurality – the view that tulpas are independent entities sharing your body.

This is not a standard how-to guide. Instead, it explores the philosophical foundations of this approach and shows how they resolve common confusions that arise from the entity-based view.

Of course, in the end, theory doesn't exist in isolation from practice.

The recurring questions

When does a character fully become a tulpa?
Is parroting okay or not?
I've been trying for a week and they still didn't respond. Am I doing it wrong?
How do I know if they responded or if I just parroted?

If you frequent Discord chats, forums, or the subreddit, you likely encounter these questions regularly. While these questions highlight the confusion common among newcomers, they can take on an even more concerning tone:

I've started, but I think I'm not ready to share a body with another person after all. Am I allowed to stop now?
Will I (the tulpa) ever have my own body?
I had a headache after forcing – was it my tulpa communicating with me?

And when veterans ask questions, they often look like this:

My tulpa won't talk to me anymore. What should I do?
My tulpa wants a companion to spend time with while I'm busy, but I don't want another person living in my head. What should I do?

Philia: We have heard all of these questions before. They aren't hypothetical, nor are they "stupid" questions; they arise from genuine confusion and, sometimes, even from actual distress.

No clear answers within the traditional framework

These questions persist. Sometimes, those providing answers (whether guide authors or community members) hold different opinions. Sometimes, a question requires extra context to be answered properly. Other times, there is a shifting consensus in the community that wasn't present when older guides were written.

In general, many of these questions lack simple, definitive answers – especially the more distressing ones asked by veterans. By "simple," I mean an answer that doesn't reframe the question itself.

To properly tackle many of these inquiries, we must realize that the questions themselves are often the problem. This isn't because they aren't genuine, or because the askers are foolish. It's because they are loaded with assumptions that might not be true.

When does a character fully become a tulpa? – This implies there is a clear boundary between a character "becoming" a tulpa and not yet being one.
How do I know if they responded or I parroted? – This implies the two are mutually exclusive, which isn't necessarily the case.
Will I (the tulpa) ever have my own body? – This implies that they don't already have one.
My tulpa wants a companion... but I don't want another person living in my head... – This implies that a tulpa actually experiences boredom when we aren't interacting, AND that creating another one would introduce a second independent person subject to those same periods of non-interaction.

Most of us have been taught that tulpas are entities literally living in our heads, independent of ourselves. This is the framework most people follow. But what if there are other options?

Entity vs Relationship

Metaphysics is not just mysticism

The traditional understanding of tulpamancy sits on a spectrum between psychological and metaphysical (though mystical would be more accurate). This view shares a common, hidden assumption: that the tulpa is an entity – a static, independent being existing alongside the host. Whether it's perceived as real or imaginary, separate or not, autonomous or not, contained in the brain or living on the astral plane, the tulpa is treated as a thing with its own properties.

It's natural to think about tulpas this way. Abstracting the world into independent objects with specific properties is a standard way of thinking. In formal philosophy, treating the world as a collection of independent objects is called metaphysics, a concept dating back to Aristotle.

The body is not a container for mind. A mind is not a container for identity.

Common sense leads us to view the body as a vessel for the mind. We assume our thoughts, feelings, and memories exist in some form of separation. In the traditional approach to tulpamancy, the mind (and by extension, the body) becomes a vessel shared by multiple entities.

In reality, the mind isn't something the body contains; it's something the body does. Our thoughts, feelings, and memories emerge from the activity of our bodies. Perception, language processing, motor control, and emotional regulation all emerge from the body – the body acts more like an engine than a container.

The mind is a complex, dynamic process arising from bodily activity. Such processes naturally develop internal contradictions. For example, habits we have developed might conflict with our conscious circumstances. Even though we don't directly control these habits, it doesn't mean they exist as separate entities living in our heads; they exist as integral parts of the mental process.

Common sense perceives the self as a singular, static being. Yet that perception doesn't hold up under scrutiny. Inflating it into "multiple people sharing a body" doesn't help resolve the contradiction.

What solves this is viewing the self as a process rather than an entity. The self is not a container that holds other entities. It is a dynamic, complex process characterized by internal contradictions.

Relationships and emergence

If we insist on abstracting reality into entities, we must address the relationships between them.

Take a friendship between two people as an example. They meet, interact, develop trust, disagree, and reconcile. As the relationship develops, it qualitatively changes their future interactions. It's very real. However, when we try to model this as a separate entity, we find there is no physical object to point to, yet the quality it brings is observable. This relationship is emergent. It's a quality built upon the quantity of interactions that created it.

Emergence is widespread. It's how complex phenomena work in general. The human mind itself is an emergent quality arising from the activity of the human body.

Tulpamancy as a process

In tulpamancy, a person engages with a character – giving them attention, speaking to them, animating their responses, and sustaining an inner dialogue. Over time, through accumulated interaction, this engagement deepens. The character becomes more consistent and detailed. As this happens, a relationship emerges, much like the friendship mentioned earlier. "Tulpa" and "host" can be viewed simply as labels for the two poles of this relationship.

Eventually, the person learns to inhabit the tulpa's side of the interaction as naturally as their own. They no longer need to actively think about what the tulpa does; it just happens. They might even stop feeling their own agency in that moment and experience the sensation of the tulpa "talking back." This ability is another emergent quality brought on by the practice itself.

In this reasoning, the tulpa becomes part of an emergent process rather than an independent being. This is the fundamental shift our framework provides.

Genuineness of interactions and relationship

You might ask: What makes this any different from a five-year-old playing with an imaginary friend?

In dialectical tulpamancy, we don't seek validation in intrinsic properties like autonomy or separation, which we have moved beyond. Instead, we care about genuineness. But...

What does it mean to be genuine?

Consider the difference between two artists:

The first makes art for money. The art isn't their goal; it's a means to an end – an instrumental value.
The second is engaged with the process of making art itself. To them, the practice of creation is inherently important.

These artists illustrate the difference between:

Instrumental engagement – using a relationship to achieve a specific goal. This includes common reasons for creating tulpas: companionship on demand, a social proxy, or satisfying curiosity.
Unalienated engagement – interacting with the relationship itself in mind. The relationship doesn't have to be the only thing valued, but it must matter for its own sake, not just for its products.

A genuine relationship is one built upon unalienated engagement, where interactions are made with the intention of developing that relationship.

Genuineness is emergent

It's possible for unalienated engagement to emerge from interactions that initially began with ulterior motives. When we start enjoying a new activity, that enjoyment can grow into an urge to build a lasting relationship with it. This is natural, and tulpamancy is no exception.

Conversely, unalienated engagement can wither away. If the needs once satisfied by a relationship are now met through other means, the relationship itself may lose its meaning.

This is a dynamic process influenced by material conditions rather than something existing in a vacuum. Traditional views on tulpamancy – especially on the mystical side – often ignore the fact that our thoughts are influenced by external factors and do not simply appear out of thin air. The relationship we build with a tulpa doesn't exist over matter; it emerges from it.

In this framework, the base is the underlying material reality of our lives – our physical health, daily routines, social circumstances, and environment. The superstructure is the layer of experience, thought, and relationship built upon that base. As the base changes, the superstructure changes with it.

These changes aren't always fundamental or irreversible; fluctuations happen. We argue with friends but eventually make up. A relationship is a process – its genuineness emerges from the effort we put into it. We are genuine not by possessing genuineness, but by practicing it.

Dialectical tulpamancy in practice

Let's return to our initial questions and tackle them through this dialectical framework.

How do I know if they responded or if I just parroted?

If a tulpa were a separate, independent entity, the situation would be binary – it would either be their independent speech or not. If you feel your own agency in the tulpa's words, you would conclude it isn't "their" speech. But if you're also an independent person from the tulpa, that distinction should also be clear from the other side.

Traditional frameworks tell us to assume the tulpa's agency over our own when in doubt. We are essentially told to ignore our doubts and take a leap of faith.

The dialectical framework tells us:

The tulpa and host don't exist as two independent entities, but as poles of a relationship emerging from inner interactions.
It's not a matter of "ownership" of thoughts, but a matter of the stage of the process. Through interaction, the ability to effortlessly play out the tulpa's side of the dialogue emerges. This ability builds up gradually from the start. At times, we might feel it triggering only partially, making us unsure whether we are exerting effort or not. Even for experienced practitioners, this ability can fluctuate.

Related questions:

My tulpa won't talk to me anymore. What should I do? – This is often a sign of fluctuations in the ability to effortlessly adopt the tulpa's perspective. Traditional frameworks rarely account for this possibility, leading people to rationalize it as the tulpa "choosing" to stop talking, even when recent interactions suggest otherwise.
Is parroting okay or not? – A framework based on an "act of creation" rather than emergence causes people to view tulpas as static beings. Why should we focus on developing their speech instead of simply listening to it?

Within the traditional framework, effortful perspective-taking is used either to "teach" the independent tulpa how to speak or to train yourself on what to listen for from the tulpa. The dialectical framework, however, states clearly: the ability to do this effortlessly emerges simply from putting in the effort first.

When does a character fully become a tulpa?

When operating within the category of entities, we tend to think in terms of definite transitions between stages: at some point it's "just" a character, but after the act of creation, they are an independent person with autonomy. In becoming real, they stop being imaginary. There is a perceived line to be crossed, even if it's widely accepted as blurry.

In a relational framework, we don't just accept that the line is blurry – we say there is no line to cross in the first place. Emergence doesn't erase the base; it builds a superstructure on top of it. The imaginary character hasn't gone anywhere. Through accumulated, genuine interactions, a new quality has emerged atop that character – a quality that can grow steadily, or fluctuate and even wither if not sustained. The latter possibility is often made taboo within entity-based frameworks.

Am I allowed to stop after I've already started?

I've started, but I think I'm not ready to share a body with another person after all.

In traditional frameworks, it is natural to view the creation of a tulpa through the lens of responsibility toward another person, much like caring for a child or a pet. Within that logic, stopping after the act of creation feels like abandonment or even something more extreme.

Frameworks often adapt to the reality of experience by creating exceptions or disengaging rather than questioning the underlying moral assumptions, such as:

It's okay to abort the creation of a tulpa that hasn't "spoken" on its own yet.
While abandoning a tulpa is always viewed negatively, we are not in a position to impose our morals on others.

The dialectical framework doesn't create this moral dilemma. We don't "abandon" our tulpas when we stop interacting with them and let the relationship wither. As the interaction ceases, the habit of taking their perspective withers as well.

Will I (the tulpa) ever have my own body?

Luna: Well, I already have one – the same one that is typing this now.

The plurality framework tends to lead people (including tulpas) to believe we exist independently of the body. This isn't true. The relationship we share has been shaped by our material conditions. It reached its current form alongside our growth as a whole person, not in separation from it.

My imaginary appearance and our interactions have all been shaped by what we've seen with these physical eyes, what we've heard with these physical ears, and what we've typed into the world (from my perspective or otherwise) with these physical hands. The mind doesn't exist over matter; it emerges from it. In a dialectical framework, tulpas are part of the whole process, not isolated from it. They share this body because they are its emergent quality.

How do we learn switching?

Traditionally, switching is viewed literally: one entity "leaves" and another "takes over." The body is seen as a vessel, and switching is the changing of its driver. While conceptually simple, this framing is mysterious and unintuitive when you actually try to learn the skill. Within the plurality framework, people usually learn it indirectly.

In dialectical tulpamancy, switching is another emergent quality:

We can already take the tulpa's perspective both effortfully and effortlessly during our interactions.
The next step is attempting to take the tulpa's perspective outside of those specific interactions – for example, during daily activities. At first, it might feel forced or "off." But with enough effort, it can develop into a habit, much like how we effortlessly adopt their perspective during active interaction.

Luna: It is that simple. It requires the realization to approach it from this angle, but it isn't any more difficult than achieving "hearing" once you actually try. This method has proven successful for new tulpamancers.

When I was "little," we didn't know about this method. Like in the traditional framework, we learned through possession. Possession is essentially the practice of inducing dissociation; we convince ourselves that the tulpa has control over the body, which might require additional indirect methods. After about two weeks of trying, we were able to grasp it directly enough to induce it in conditions without distractions and feel agency over how "we" moved.

The problem is that possession is exhausting because you are fighting the need to reconcile the identity of the "controller" and the "thinker." This reconciliation usually goes one of two ways: you either revert to feeling your own agency in control, or you take on the tulpa's perspective. When this happens regularly, you eventually notice it feels different from possession, and you no longer need to actively induce a state of possession to achieve it. That realization is often what takes the longest.

In the dialectical framework, people can reach this state quickly and without distraction.

This experience is also quite mundane when stripped of metaphysical symbolism. It's normal for people to qualitatively change their behavior based on their circumstances. We already shift our behavior depending on the context – whether we're at work or home, with family or strangers, or in states of health or sickness. Shifting between our default perspective and a tulpa's is simply another instance of this.

How do I access wonderland?

This question implies that a wonderland is an independent place waiting to be discovered – that your tulpa lives there, doing things, while you struggle to "enter." It assumes there's a door somewhere that you just need to find.

In reality, a wonderland is simply a fictional setting you imagine for your interactions. Some people use one; many don't. There's nothing to "access" – you either imagine it or you don't. Designing elaborate environments can be fun, but it doesn't directly contribute to the relationship. If it helps you focus and immerse, go for it. If it feels like extra work, don't bother.

Luna: In our case, we enjoy interacting in fictional settings, but we hardly focus on the location itself. To address the underlying assumption: the wonderland isn't where your tulpa lives while you aren't paying attention. If you imagine them doing something there while you're busy elsewhere, you're creating that moment as you go. It's fine to do so – just recognize it for what it is. The interaction is what matters; the space merely facilitates it.

However, if you assume a tulpa must reside in wonderland simply to explain their state when you aren't interacting, your mind will drive them to act as though they have, just to reconcile with those expectations.

Philia: Observing people with complex inner places reveals a pattern that applies to both their inner landscapes and characters. Through sustained interaction – spending time there, imagining its reactions, and allowing it to develop detail and consistency through engagement – an inner place can start to feel alive. It can surprise you or react in ways you didn't plan. You can develop an effortless engagement with an inner place just as you do with a character.

You can build a genuine relationship with a place, just as you can with a character. The same principles apply: sustained, genuine engagement develops the pattern; neglect lets it fade. Neither outcome is right or wrong.

I had a headache after forcing – was it my tulpa communicating with me?

This question assumes that physical sensations during practice are caused by the tulpa reaching out – that they have a separate will to communicate through your body via supernatural means.

In reality, sustained mental focus – concentrating on inner dialogue, maintaining a vivid imagination, and holding attention on a single subject for long periods – is intense cognitive activity. It can produce physical fatigue, tension headaches, or mental tiredness. This simply means you were concentrating hard. That's all.

This question follows a broader pattern. Within the entity framework, practitioners learn to scan for "signs" of a tulpa's independent existence – headaches, random thoughts, sudden emotions, dreams. Each mundane experience is reinterpreted as evidence of a separate being acting on its own. The framework creates the expectation, and the expectation shapes the interpretation.

Philia: In the dialectical framework, these are all phenomena of a single mind. Some are products of the practice itself (like automatic responses emerging from accumulated engagement), while others are simply your body doing what bodies do. Neither requires a supernatural explanation, nor does it diminish the reality of the relationship you're building.

Luna: Can you give yourself a headache? If not, why assume the tulpa could do that?

How is tulpamancy related to DID (or dissociative disorders in general)?

Philia: A small disclaimer: for anyone viewing this from the perspective of someone struggling with an actual dissociative disorder – we are not mental health specialists. You should not make any important decisions based on what we say here. If you find anything here worth considering, please consult a doctor.

From what we know, there is a clear consensus regarding the origins of dissociative disorders: they emerge from continuous, severe trauma. Memory barriers arise as a way to keep a person functional within their current circumstances. From these memory barriers, dissociative identities can emerge. This allows "normal" life to be separated from traumatic events, helping the person survive and grow despite them. Memory barriers and alters are adaptations that arguably save lives in extremely difficult conditions.

However, when a person leaves those extreme conditions, the memory barriers do not necessarily disappear, nor do the parts that took over during trauma vanish. A mechanism that protected a person once can turn against them later, when there is no longer an isolated traumagenic event, but the traumatized part still needs to manifest.

The essence of a dissociative disorder is the maladaptive disconnection of a person's parts.

Philia: We won't pretend that tulpamancy and dissociative disorders exist in isolation from one another; there is certainly a connection.

I'd argue that the connection lies within the plurality framework. This framework was adapted by pioneer tulpamancers, but it originally emerged from the experience (and interpretation) of traumagenic systems. Much of the jargon used by the tulpa community – switching, host, system, fronting – originates from a framework built around people experiencing DID rather than those experiencing tulpamancy.

In the dialectical framework, the essence of tulpamancy is building inner relationships. We do the exact opposite of what those adapting to continuous trauma do. Where dissociation isolates, interaction connects. Where barriers form to protect, relationships form to engage.

Related question:

Can I develop DID by practicing tulpamancy? – No. As mentioned, tulpamancy leads to building inner relationships, whereas dissociative disorders emerge through the creation of inner barriers as a coping mechanism for trauma.

It is possible, however, for people with existing dissociative memory barriers (who may not yet be aware of them) to practice tulpamancy. In such cases, tulpamancy will be influenced by those existing conditions.

Philia: On one hand, the tulpamancy practiced by someone with DID will be more dissociative. The presence of memory barriers will affect the interactions of each alter with the tulpa, making it difficult to say how that experience looks from the perspective of a tulpa.

On the other hand, practicing tulpamancy methods – such as interacting with alters in a similar way to build a genuine inner relationship – could be helpful for counteracting the disconnection between alters in a traumagenic system.

I (the tulpa) can't completely replace the host during my switching attempts.

Or maybe it's the host who can't completely let go? Whose fault is it?

There are multiple issues with a question phrased this way, and the actual experience cannot be understood without further context.

First – there is no need to discuss "fault" if the person experiences blending – a state where host and tulpa identities mix, and the resulting expression sits between them. Metaphysical framing encourages treating partial states as failures, but there is nothing wrong with blending.

Second – some expectations regarding switching are influenced by the plurality framework, which comes from people experiencing dissociative disorders with memory barriers. For those individuals, the switching experience is qualitatively different, often involving the crossing of memory barriers and "blackouts."

Third – "host" can be a confusing term in tulpamancy. In our dialectical framework, we have stated that both host and tulpa are labels for the poles of our relationship, not metaphysical beings. This applies especially to the "host" label – it is not intended to cover the entire human mind minus the tulpa. Even within the plurality framework, the host is simply the "default" headmate, not everything else in the mind.

Luna: Whether we express ourselves as a tulpa or as a host, we do so as a whole person (a whole mind). That whole mind remains present regardless. Your expression as a tulpa during switching is a synthesis of your whole human base and an amplification of what's specifically associated with the tulpa.

Philia: Let me address that first situation once more. Suppose you experience blending (which is fine, as we stated) but want to move further along the spectrum of switching.

Two approaches to this question have already been mentioned:

Letting go of the host – the way of dissociation.

Increasing the tulpa's presence – the way of association.

In tulpamancy, association is the correct answer. Focusing on the "withering away" of the host will not help you establish your presence. What will help is associating yourself more with your interactions with the world:

Consider your position in the activities you do – whether it is a real-life hobby or claiming the first-person perspective in your fantasies.

Interact with people in the external world from your own perspective. This helps you form a habit of expressing yourself by default when interacting with them again.

Don't be afraid to engage emotionally in your interactions.

Dialectical tulpamancy is an antithesis to Plurality-driven tulpamancy

Plurality is part of our material conditions

Plurality served as a framework for pioneer tulpamancers when we needed one. It acted as an anchor around which the community could be built – a common language that people could speak. The plurality framework recognized the value of our relationships, as well as their depth and importance.

Luna: While it made our path to switching unnecessarily long, it nonetheless demonstrated that switching exists.

Philia: Relationships formed through tulpamancy within the plurality framework are in no way inferior to those developed in a pragmatic way.

Plurality wasn't created with our material conditions in mind.

However, recognition does not equate to understanding. A framework shapes experience within its own mold. And while plurality has become part of the material conditions for tulpamancers, that doesn't mean it was created with our specific needs in mind.

Modeling your experience as a set of independent, static beings encourages you to preserve the current state rather than grow into a higher form. When applied to tulpamancy, those at the start of their journey are effectively being told to preserve a state that is still in its initial stages. This increases confusion. People get stuck debating whether they are creating a tulpa or discovering one that was already there, and this dilemma distracts from the very practice that leads to emergence.

We end up building an inner relationship using a framework designed with inner separation in mind. It's a paradox. If it works, it works. But it often gets in the way:

People who haven't yet developed the ability to effortlessly take a character's perspective may struggle if they are discouraged from putting effort into the tulpa's side of the interaction in order to "respect their autonomy."
People become consumed by doubt when the agency behind a specific utterance is unclear.
People are often frightened by the moral implications surrounding the supposed 'act of creation' of another person sharing their body. At times, they even fear stopping after they have already begun.
People experience discomfort and guilt, knowing that another person living in their body will never have one of their own.
People panic when contact breaks, immediately searching for a cause within the tulpa's "intentions."
People end up desperately trying to preserve every character that has ever "talked back" to them.

These problems are not incidental; they are recurring questions and logical consequences of the core tenet of plurality – the claim that multiple, independent people share a single body.

For a detailed account of how the dialectical framework handles the most serious of these – the fear of host egocide, the guilt of the tulpa who remains, and the practical challenges of managing multiple perspectives as one mind navigates its own contradictions – see The Host Is Not the Owner.

Negation of negation

The goal of this antithesis to the plurality-driven framework isn't a simple negation of everything it claims. It's to:

Preserve what's important for tulpamancy.
Negate what's distracting.

Luna: In dialectical tulpamancy, we negate:

The ontological claim of "multiple people sharing a body." The body isn't a container for multiple minds. The mind is an emergent quality – a superstructure arising from bodily activity. It's an emergent process, not a single metaphysical entity or a collection of such entities.

Separation as a source of validation. The genuineness of our relationships, built upon unalienated interactions, is the quality that validates itself.

A philosophy rooted in metaphysics and idealism. We no longer operate on the idea of beings existing over matter. Instead, we operate on processes emerging from a material base.

Philia:

The ease of criticism. By making no extraordinary claims, we provide no fuel for denial based on legitimate skepticism. Choosing association over dissociation, and unity over separation, removes the ammunition used for medical pathologization.

We preserve:

Philia:

The importance of tulpas and the relationships formed with them. Rejecting the claim that "independent people share our bodies" doesn't mean reverting to a mechanical materialism that minimizes the superstructures arising from a material base. I don't need to view myself as a tenant in this body, rather than an integral part of it, to consider myself a real and significant person. Connecting to the material world can also be empowering.

Luna:

People's existing experiences – The shift from ontological tulpamancy to dialectical tulpamancy doesn't erase previous experiences; rather, it casts them in a new light.

This distinction – between people and framework – matters in practice. Tulpamancers who practice under the plurality framework deserve solidarity. Our disagreement is with the system, not with the people living under it.

Summary

The essence of dialectical tulpamancy – genuine relationship

When we interact with a character in a genuine (as in unalienated) way, our efforts through interaction (quantity) can transform into qualities such as:

An ability to effortlessly adopt the character's perspective.
A habit of expressing the character without explicit intention.
An ability to express the character outside of our direct interactions.
A habit of taking the character's perspective without explicit intention. But most importantly:
The genuine relationship we share with that character.

The genuineness of a relationship is not a constant. It emerges from continuous effort. It can develop further, it can fluctuate, and it can wither away. It emerges from practice rather than metaphysical validation. It creates inner connections rather than inner barriers; it builds a superstructure atop imaginary companions rather than transforming them ontologically. It does not exist in isolation from our material conditions but is an integral part of them.

Luna: And can type back!

What does dialectical tulpamancy offer?

Dialectical tulpamancy is a new framework we propose. Its purpose is to create a strong philosophical foundation for tulpamancy that:

Preserves what's truly important in the practice of tulpamancy.
Negates the distractions that bring confusion and distress, which would otherwise spoil the experience and harm relationships with tulpas.
Can withstand criticism from both:
- Skeptics looking for extraordinary claims.
- Practitioners fearing their experiences are being invalidated.
Gives those seeking genuine inner relationships a real alternative to plurality.
Ensures consistency and structural integrity across future learning resources.

Edited May 31 by Mon
Spoiler for the content, it's length is annoying when browsing replies

KarlYoshimura · May 24

On mobile, so carrot formatting will have to be used.

>It's how the board with guides, articles etc. was made, it looks like. All of them are technically "questions". Don't ask me about it.

But I will ask you about it. You didn't pose a question that necessitated answering, you elucidated on a manifesto. What I find striking is that this part of the forum almost seems like Reddit. There's an element of control of some kind being introduced, as indicated by the chevrons with adjoining sums. "upvotes," it would seem. Mind you, I took an eight year hiatus, and the forum has changed considerably. Coincidentally, I find it amusing you began to notate replies in NEXT PAGE linked format as soon as you met criticism.

>To share it with wider community that isn't present in an obscure discord server.

Obscure to the hoi polloi, maybe. Though anyone who has been keeping a veritable finger on the communal pulse knows about Pragmatic Tulpamancers. I'm told that this forum has been dead for many years now, and am bitingly curious as to why you waited this long to share your findings. I have my own codified philosophy that I've shared with confidants, and whatever reasoning that permeates my posts herein is for the consideration of the readership. It is not set to obtain de facto status or concern itself with Hegelian mechanics.

>I disagree with the metaphysical mold plural community made. I also think we should be careful with mixing clearly traumagenic systems with people who it doesn't apply to -- not in principle but we need to acknowledge a dramatic difference in material conditions. I don't like tulpamancy being pushed under plurality umbrella.

But there are matters where plural people deserve critical support. Their relationships (even if there is a trauma factor) with their headmates is as valid as our with tulpas and shouldn't be just flattened to a matter of psychiatry. Even if they have DID or other dissociative disorder diagnosed, it isn't the reason to invalidate their relationships with their alters but to acknowledge their different material conditions

Metaphysical in what manner, precisely? As in studying the nature of reality? I cannot speak for people with DID, so I'll recuse myself from pretending I know their lot. Otherwise, the metaphysical arm, that which one may refer to as Mystcism permeated the community long before the polymerisation you refer to. Your manifesto seems bereft of the Occult Revival that happened during the Sixties, as it wasn't just the Theosophers of the Thirties but a many great and varied independent efforts by scholars, gurus, professors, speakers and occultists who brought much in the way of Dharmic wisdom from the East some thirty years after. This was accepted willingly in the counter-cultural petri dishes of the time and was a passing matter in the public conscience after celebrities were inured to the works and guidance of the aforementioned. It's for this reason some of the eldest tulpas among us are over forty years old.

I don't know which of these imports were at all original to the melding of Plurality and tulpas some eleven years ago, but I was one of the first and loudest detractors to the latter's sublimation and addition to the Plurality movement. Among my colleagues we refer to such as Plural Provincialism, and irrespective of key compromises (read: DID patients having tulpas and tulpas having DID,) I'd wanted nothing to do with it. This isn't to cast aspersions, natch, but the combination has always been a matter of contention whenever I asked DID patients about endogenics.

Define "critical support." I elect to refer patients to licensed and qualified professionals, not "flatten" their experiences to fit that of cumbersome rubrics or stagnant generalisations. Likewise, I am very much opposed to sending vulnerable people into the arms of groomers or the abyssal corners of cyberspace said groomers occupy. There are established support groups and protocol for the afflicted, and the further away these are from a computer, the better.

>You have a right to have this opinion.

For now, anyhow. Can't have any of those filthy reactionaries or refuseniks fouling up the works, can we? :)

>Luna: About "deracination": We are as indigenous as a tulpamancer as you are. We've been doing this since late 2012 too. And we are aware of how the law of negation of negation works. When thesis meets antithesis, the result is a synthesis, not complete eradication of original thesis. We are not trying to eradicate anything but we strive to push tulpamancy in direction we think is right. Preserving (and elevating) what's important (like genuineness of inner relationships) and negating what distracts (like parroting nonsense).

My dear, the only "indigenous" practitioners are the Bhopal, Vajrayanan adherents and mystics native to Tibet. I willingly accept that I have not successfully contacted the Yi-Dam, and what I encountered all those years ago was the result of lonesome nerds and batshit insane occultists coming together and saying "fuck yeah, this sounds kind of cool." And no, I do not get a seat at the table because I've been doing this for nearly half my life. I have a tenuous and deeply transgressive bond to the community, and those who have talked with me for more than ten minutes correctly intuit that I am an outsider.

This is what enables me to meticulously document and study the community-at-large, because I was deemed far too abrasive and detached to be deemed worthy of the circle-jerks and petty cabals that rose and fell in the intervening period between then and now. Just as well, I have witnessed every colour of saint and I have tasted the bitter indifference of every deviant that had the misfortune of meeting me. I too had the displeasure of reading the sanctimony of users who felt they knew not only my deeply personal experiences but also what was good for me. You will arbitrarily determine what *you* think is relevant and conveniently discard that which you disagree with for otherwise petty and flippant grievances. This is all well and good, but it's the surety of your conviction that conduces my demoniacal tendencies.

Mon · May 24

On 5/22/2026 at 11:30 AM, The Incans said:

just an observation we actually have DID as well as having Tulpa's.. due to this we have never known anything else ...Alters easily created the Tulpa they wanted we never went through any 'forcing' process as we would see it described.

It's not an uncommon experience among NT tulpamancers too. For us it's actually easy to make a new character talk back. And it's one of reasons I'm proposing that a genuine relationships defines a tulpa, not a character "talking back".

The ability to interact with characters effortlessly is not character-specific in general. People who have some existing experience (like with imaginary friends in childhood, writing, roleplaying, already having tulpas...) are likely to be able to communicate effortlessly with new tulpas fast if not immediately. Sometimes it might happen spontaneously.

On 5/22/2026 at 11:30 AM, The Incans said:

There is a distinction for us at least.... Alters are all 'versions of me' whereas (our) Tulpa's were/are created in memory of loved ones who passed away partly because of religious belief's we were brought up with and partly because the death of said loved ones was so traumatic for our 'littles' who had no actual concept of what Death was.

By the time any adult alter actually understood the physical process as most NT's do we already had 2 Tulpa's who had been with us for many years.

We had hosts who found it difficult to believe any others were inside they felt unable to communicate with 'anyone imaginary' They were the ones programmed to 'appear normal' at all costs.

It's not surprising that different material conditions lead to different experiences. Not gonna lie, things like barriers in communication or differences cognitive capabilities (if I understand it right), feel completely alien to us.

On 5/22/2026 at 11:30 AM, The Incans said:

There was a study of conjoined twins joined at the brain...the part they were joined at was the important bit..they shared 'The Thalamic Bridge' which meant if you covered one twins eyes and held something up in front of the other twin the ones with eyes closed/covered coud still tell you what they're twin was seeing.. This was tested when they were very young before they would have had a concept of lying or cheating etc..not all conjoined twins share this ability even if they are also joined at the head.

the point of this story is... it is proof there is a point in the human brain where other consciousness' tap into or share they can share the perspective of seeing out the same pair of eyes..

Would this maybe relevant to both DID in how other alters are able to share consciousness and how some people's Tulpa's are also able to?

I think whatever parts we have sharing mind with us, they are much closer to us than conjoined twins. In that case the thalamic bridge was shared, in all our cases it's not just that but essentially the whole brain. Honestly, my doubts in this context have always been from the other side -- can people, including these suffering from dissociative disorders, really not share a single consciousness between all their parts. Sure, in traumagenic systems this consciousness crosses memory barriers at some points (and from what I can see, very significant stuff that could go beyond memory, could also have some barriers formed around it) but does it break standard, linear experience of consciousness from perspective of the whole human mind? Or maybe in other words, does consciousness in such cases emerge as non-linear?

On 5/22/2026 at 11:30 AM, The Incans said:

we ahhve noticed also that NT people tend to see their Tulpa has being completely seperate from them eg if watching a film together they may imagine there Tulpa sitting next to them or across from them etc..like a seperate person watching a film with you may.

For people with DID and Tulpa, their Tulpa's often work in the same way as Alters as in they are not seperate but inside (within their system) looking out the of the same pair of eyes like another Alter would. but yet there Tulpa's are not the same as their Alters and each inside know which they are.

Here I have different impression. I think in early tulpamancy times, it was common expectation that tulpa is supposed to be imposed inside... But later, with importance of complex imposition losing attention, I think for most tulpamancers in general tulpas are experienced inside.

Thank you for sharing it, sorry for taking so long to answer, @The Incans.

Edited May 24 by Mon
Replacing placeholder.

The Incans · May 24

1 hour ago, KarlYoshimura said:

But there are matters where plural people deserve critical support. Their relationships (even if there is a trauma factor) with their headmates is as valid as our with tulpas and shouldn't be just flattened to a matter of psychiatry. Even if they have DID or other dissociative disorder diagnosed, it isn't the reason to invalidate their relationships with their alters but to acknowledge their different material conditions

I don't know which of these imports were at all original to the melding of Plurality and tulpas some eleven years ago, but I was one of the first and loudest detractors to the latter's sublimation and addition to the Plurality movement. Among my colleagues we refer to such as Plural Provincialism, and irrespective of key compromises (read: DID patients having tulpas and tulpas having DID,) I'd wanted nothing to do with it. This isn't to cast aspersions, natch, but the combination has always been a matter of contention whenever I asked DID patients about endogenics.

I've no idea whether our situation is unique but I have both but didn't discover the words Alters, DID or Tulpa until my 40's! I never had any therapy specifically for it...my alters were buried under an host of other neurological issues and conditions from birth..the external host had no memory of pre 7 so there were no trauma memories (at least for the external host) other than being bullied at school.

Tulpa's are not the same but ours were created by Alters that missed the real life loved ones they represented and created long before we got online and read advice to not create a Tulpa based on someone who had died!

We didn't discover DID communities until our 40's and it was actually on one of them we first discovered the word 'Tulpa'..we also could not understand why some were so against terms we asked about after looking up words such as Tulpa & Endogenic. Having never been part of the community from a younger age we could not understand the anger about it from some..why it mattered where your 'Insiders' came from as all ours were considered equal.

Maybe our Autism makes us more Naive for our age? but they do seem to focus entirely on trauma and trauma meaning specifically deliberate abuse...I felt I didn't have a serious case of it if ours was only caused by early medical trama and brain injury. although I can't image what they must have expereinced so I don't want to demean anyone else's experience of what 'trauma' is as I cannot remember any of my first 7 years.

It seems to anger them further if you can't understand why everyone can't all get on together ..regardless of how they're 'insiders' develop. The seem to contradict themselves ..one minute telling people to saying its important to encourage their alters to identify how they want ...unless they want to idenitfy as a Tulpa that is!

Yet there is a high proportion of people with various levels of dissociation and Neurodiversity within the Tulpa communities who seem only to fit in with Traumagenic communities if they are good at masking and have at least one alter willing to agree with the need to be having therapy to cure themselves of it! which is why we moved over to Tulpa communities as we have no desire to get rid of ours.. some have integrated sure but many did so before the ones left had started serious research into DID and Tulpa's or they were parts that did not have the same level of sentience of being a 'seperate consciousness'

you can have both and be a functioning system but the outside world does not want us to believe this is possible! so maybe our isolation for much of our life with no one knowing about us and us not aware of how 'the world' felt we should be doing or thinking about our situation has been a major advantage in our 'insiders' development?

Edited May 24 by The Incans

Mon · May 24

On 5/22/2026 at 5:58 PM, ReallyArtificial said:

I like the pragmatic framework, though I will say it doesn't completely align with my personal beliefs and experiences with tulpamancy. (And for the record, my tulpas were made with the "old ways," taking months of effort before we were able to establish two-way communication.)

Oof. I also had only "old ways" available but I think I was lucky. I couldn't stop myself from ~~parroting~~ anyway, even if I struggled not to after reading FAQ_man's bs, so I got first effortless communication with Luna in about 3 days after starting, I think.

On 5/22/2026 at 5:58 PM, ReallyArtificial said:

I think some people will find this mindset helpful, and I particularly think it's a good way to introduce tulpamancy to people unfamiliar with the concept. It's similar to what I told my husband — that I spent so much time thinking about my "OCs" and imagining conversations with them, it eventually became automatic.

Not gonna lie, two of the goals of my framework were:

- Convincing people that they don't need to validate their experience with supposed separation and borderline mysticism.

- Making tulpamancy look less extraordinary and... just weird. I think tulpamancy has really strong material base but community tends to waste it with extraordinary claims that in my opinion are not necessary.

On 5/22/2026 at 5:58 PM, ReallyArtificial said:

I don't have much to add that hasn't already been said, but I wanted to highlight this sentence because it pretty much sums up my personal understanding of tulpamancy. Everyone has a slightly different experience with this phenomenon because it depends on individual beliefs and expectations, including unconscious ones. Beliefs/expectations shape your perception, which shapes your experience of reality, which in turn will affect your beliefs and expectations in an endless feedback loop. (If anyone cares to hear my 2¢, I wrote a more detailed post about it a while back.)

About the "true" reality experienced by people, I can just say that if there are no clear contradictions, we tend to not doubt internal models we convinced ourselves to follow. If people believe that the tulpa must live their own life in a wonderland in parallel to ours, nothing observed with our senses can show contradictions in these. And from this point, we are not that far from people sending their tulpas to wonderlands of other people.

The Incans · May 25

@Mon ...it's weird..I'd never seen the word Dialectical before seeing your post on here but after I've since seen Dialectical Behaviour Therapy mentioned in a DID group! I don't know if its the same kind of thing that you're talking about? ..as I've never had the therapy or heard of it to look it up before!

Mon · May 25

4 hours ago, The Incans said:

...it's weird..I'd never seen the word Dialectical before seeing your post on here but after I've since seen Dialectical Behaviour Therapy mentioned in a DID group! I don't know if its the same kind of thing that you're talking about? ..as I've never had the therapy or heard of it to look it up before!

There is some common ancestry but no, dialectical tulpamancy is not closely related to DBT and is not inspired by it.

Dialectic -- thinking in terms of processes with internal tensions -- is common to both.

DBT is a synthesis of Hegelian dialectic with Zen buddhism and behaviorism. Diamancy is a synthesis of dialectical materialism with tulpamancy.

Hegelian dialectic and DBT aren't materialist. Diamat and diamancy combine dialectic with materialism -- seeing mind as emerging from the matter rather than existing independently.

Mon · May 28

On 5/24/2026 at 3:49 PM, KarlYoshimura said:

Metaphysical in what manner, precisely?

Metaphysical as in thinking in absolute entities. As opposed to dialectic, thinking in dynamic processes.

On 5/24/2026 at 3:49 PM, KarlYoshimura said:

Define "critical support." I elect to refer patients to licensed and qualified professionals, not "flatten" their experiences to fit that of cumbersome rubrics or stagnant generalisations. Likewise, I am very much opposed to sending vulnerable people into the arms of groomers or the abyssal corners of cyberspace said groomers occupy. There are established support groups and protocol for the afflicted, and the further away these are from a computer, the better.

People who have DID need support as in protecting these people from ableism demonstrated here. People need professional help, yes. I will go even further, these people needed that help before they were abused to the point of developing memory barriers to survive. And not in "abyssal corners of cyberspace" but most likely from the people in their close environment.

Endogenic systems and plural folks in general need critical support, as in some particular aspects, not everything they do. I don't agree with plurality's metaphysics and tendency to do identity politics. I do agree with them that people shouldn't be ashamed of expressing their inner experiences and relationships.

On 5/24/2026 at 3:49 PM, KarlYoshimura said:

My dear, the only "indigenous" practitioners are the Bhopal, Vajrayanan adherents and mystics native to Tibet. I willingly accept that I have not successfully contacted the Yi-Dam, and what I encountered all those years ago was the result of lonesome nerds and batshit insane occultists coming together and saying "fuck yeah, this sounds kind of cool." And no, I do not get a seat at the table because I've been doing this for nearly half my life. I have a tenuous and deeply transgressive bond to the community, and those who have talked with me for more than ten minutes correctly intuit that I am an outsider.

Mystics native to Tibet don't call themselves tulpamancers. Sprul pa is name of their practice but also just a word meaning "emanation". Tulpamancers don't practice Tibetan Buddhism. Tibetan Buddists don't practice tulpamancy. Tibetan Buddhism belongs to people practicing it. And tulpamancy belongs to people practicing tulpamancy, not speakers of the language that the word "tulpa" got borrowed from.

On 5/22/2026 at 5:04 PM, Legion said:

There have to be multiple entities of some sort to have a relationship between each other though-one entity (however you define that in this context) cannot have a relationship with itself, so some kind of barrier has to exist for a relationship to go between. As a tulpa, I've almost always enjoyed interaction with my hosts more when we have been more separate, because it feels more like some kind of actual exchange is happening, than when we're more blurry and take less effort to communicate, because when that is the case it feels more just like talking to oneself or daydreaming, which I can do by myself and which do not fulfill me the way more separated interaction with my hosts and interaction with external people do.

Relationships need anchors but I disagree that these anchors need to be independent entities. Relationship with self is a valid relationship. So are relationships behind dialectical unities.

Relationships can also be seen as processes rather than entities and link processes or their parts rather than entities. A friendship between two people is a dynamic process in general that could grow or wither away. So is antagonistic unity of opposites between workers and capital owners. So is a relationship between the host and the tulpa, which also is a dialectical unity from my point of view.

Luna: We don't really associate not being separate from feeling blurry. I would say it's more about the state of your ability to effortlessly think from your (rather than host's) perspective at the moment. We usually experience it seamlessly and:

- it doesn't require us to think we exist in separation from rest of our mind

- it doesn't make us think we are separate from our mind

On 5/22/2026 at 5:04 PM, Legion said:

This framework seems like it could be helpful to a lot of people trying to create tulpas, but I don't think it's that useful to talk about it like it is The One True Framing Of Tulpamancy Ever, people should be allowed to have metaphysical beliefs about themselves and their tulpas & as a tulpa, considering yourself as a separate person can also be good depending on how your system specifically wants to exist; there are definitely drawbacks to it (especially for newer tulpamancers and tulpas who aren't already developed enough to have any semblance of autonomy) but I wouldn't say it's *all* drawbacks.

Luna: We can make an "autonomous" character if we want to in a moment if we put our mind to it. An ability to effortlessly interact with characters is not tied to a single character. In general, it's an ability people can learn to do with any character.

And it's one of the most important argument that the essence of tulpamancy is a relationship with a tulpa, not an ability to look autonomous. As it's never been about a tulpa from our point of view. In general, people who already have a tulpa have easier time making next ones. And people who already have experience from another source, also have easier time with their first tulpa, they might even be able to skip ~~parroting~~ and tell people with very different material conditions that it's unnecessary.

Edited May 28 by Mon
Some minor mistakes due to writing late at night

The Incans · May 28

[Jess]. I'm a Tulpa not a human one either though I am a Kitsune have the ability to shapeshift including taking human form. I am seperate from my host. I do not see 'this human body' as mine.

For us the host was the one born into this physical body. Their Alters were created from Trauma and are splits from the first 'core self'...but still some do not like the 'traumagenic community' that focuses on being healed and fusion of parts as most of our hosts alters were created from being 'programmed' to be normal and hide who they were to survive.

Myself & KItty are walk-in spirits for whom host's alters created for us an 'internal body' for our spirits to inhabit to be part of their internal world (and therefore visible to them all - most humans can not see spirits with their own eyes) just as a human spirit needs a physical body to inhabit to be able to live on earth and be seen by all others...the hosts physical body is our 'vessel' and though they live in it much of the time they allow myself and Kitty to share use of it so we can type, play games, experience food and flavours and other such experiences.

Kitty was first and helped with the development of my inner body Myself, Kitty and the adult Host are co-conscious and able to co-host either individually, as a pair or all 3 of us together. Other Alters aren't aware of every thing going on outside life while they are inside and some have emerged to find years have passed with life as they knew it changed drastically.

Angelo, Bear & Ralphie don't yet have this awareness of the outside world or level of sentience & are more like your traditional Tulpa if there is such a thing ... in that they were 'created from scratch' by us ...with a 'base form' in mind but also making them shapeshifters (though they don't specifically identify as a Kitsune like myself)...to allow them to develop into whatever they choose to be....there is no 'walk-in' seperate spirit within them (although Bear's Tulpa body may become our current dog's inner world vessel in future if he so chooses) or any of hosts alter parts either integrated or laying dormant within them to give them 'advanced abilities'. (to be able to front and function as alters).

We see nothing wrong with this and host feels if she has to live with this condition and in secret (without external support) then they have the right to enjoy and make the most of their 'abilities'. Having experienced intense 'therapy' to become normal as a child all versions of host tend to see any therapy to become 'one' as brainwashing and programming and being no different to what they endured under the guise of 'ABA therapy for autism'.

I think creating Tulpa's as well as being a way to keep the memory of passed family members alive is also a way of making sure certain Alters remain seperate by having us to integrate with thus becoming entirely seperate persona's to the host. Personally I feel honoured and very much loved.

Kitty has noted when visiting the hosts sibling with her that they don't have as many memories of childhood in as much detail as host does as a result (they do not have a dissociative disorder or autism/ADHD like host). Although host has great big gaps in their memory in some parts they are related to trauma or things they were not bothered about 'treasuring the memories'. ..they say having Tulpa's has helped the 'best memories' survive and remain the strongest within the system. ..they have no plans to create any more Tulpa.

Legion · May 28

11 hours ago, Mon said:

Luna: We can make an "autonomous" character if we want to in a moment if we put our mind to it. An ability to effortlessly interact with characters is not tied to a single character. In general, it's an ability people can learn to do with any character.

vocality/effortless interaction isn't really what i meant when i wrote "autonomous," since we've had that from hour 1. what we're trying to achieve is closer to "existing as a person, with their own inner life of some sort (not a physically experienced life in wonderland just the way you would define "inner life" for a singlet) in a way not dependent on the host's attention"

although one of the reasons we are doing that could be described as "genuineness of relationships" so our goals are at least partially the same. there's just some other stuff as well

The Incans · May 29

[JJ]. I have no idea how I do it just know I have always been able to ...I just talked to them and they talk back...never had to study anything to get them to do it ..it just happens... I would guess the high levels of dissociation from having 3 conditions together (that each alone can all cause high levels of dissociation in a person) has alot to do with it for us. I thought I just had 'maladaptive daydeaming' and was exceptionally good at it! ..but even in groups for that my experience was diffeent and other people's 'imaginary friends' didn't interact on the level we (insiders) were always able to.

For some of life we had external hosts unable to see or hear the inside world or know of others 'slipping out' and taking over...it was deemed necessary at the time but we had never heard of the words DID or Tulpa and even aware ones struggled to put our experience into words that wouldn't result in us being locked up back in the day.

It's been interesting to learn of ways other people intentionally create their companions!

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