[Creation] Tulpa Handbook

[CreativeMind]

Greetings all. I just wanted to share some forcing methods and just coin a few ideas that could be potentially helpful to anyone planning a tulpa. The methods enclosed might also give those who already have a tulpa something new to try. :)

 

As mentioned in the guide, there are unlimited ways to accomplish what you want to do. Try different things, read MANY guides, and form your own technique and opinions. This is simply a condensed version of my approach to creation. Do what feels right and works for you.

 

You can access the guide here. (PDF format)

 

Introduction

Important Vocabulary

What is a tulpa?

What a tulpa is not.

Complexities of the Host/Tulpa relationship

 

Part 1 – Beginning

The Importance of Proper Planning

The Dangers of Doubt

Importance of Bond

To wonderland, or not to wonderland?

 

Part 2 – Introduction to Different Tools

Creative Outlets

Meditation

Self Hypnosis

 

Part 3 – Tips and Exercises

To Plan a Beneficial Personality

Basic Hypnosis Scripts

Wonderland Settings via Hypnosis

Letters to Your Tulpa

 

Would like to thank Linkzelda for his hypnosis guides. It is through these guides that I had discovered how helpful and effective hypnosis is in forcing. So, thank you!

[BlackMuffin]

How can you do something wrong in your imagination?

 

I think that's just what I needed to hear. While narrating today I tended to get this nudging feeling in the back of my mind that seemed to tell me that maybe narration wasn't going to develop sentience at all, or that narration really didn't do much at all. I appreciate the encouragement you're putting in your guide, it's really something I needed to hear.

[Linkzelda]

Just a suggestion CreativeMind, you might want to consider having the guide in a format where you can edit it in case you have more new ideas and such that you would want to add onto your handbook on tulpa. For me, I realized that those previous hypnosis guides I made could've been in one document where I would be updating as I learn, same goes for the narration and visual guide where I always seem to have something new to add or more recordings and transcripts of personal forcing sessions and from others in the future.

 

It's just that when it's someone making their own handbook on tulpa, it's those types of things where the more the community gains more communal knowledge of tulpa, the conceptual schemes might change frequently, which means it's an on-going process in your guide as well. Either way, thanks for putting the effort into this guide, and I hope there's more things you might want to share with the community in it as well in the future, just as I think all of us will do our own sharing in time. :)

[Upper Class Twit]

I'm liking this a lot CM. Well written.

[CreativeMind]

I think that's just what I needed to hear...

 

Why thank you, that certainly means a lot to me. Good luck. :)

 

Just a suggestion CreativeMind, you might want to consider having the guide in a format where you can edit it in case you have more new ideas and such that you would want to add onto your handbook on tulpa...

 

Oh, that's not a problem at all. :) I have the original in a different format, so editing and reuploading wouldn't be a problem. I decided to upload as .pdf because it kept things neat, and I had more control over what the final product looked like. ^^

 

This is mostly something for beginners to learn from and other members who are still forcing to perhaps get some new ideas and try different things. When Mathias and I really get into things like possession and the like, I'm sure I'll release a guide for more 'advanced' folk. Thanks for the feedback!

 

I'm liking this a lot CM. Well written.

 

Thank you! Hope some of it can be helpful to you.

[Mr_White]

Very nice, I really like the "letters to tulpa" idea, such a simple idea but i can see how helpful it is. Do you ever plan to include imposition in your guide?

[CreativeMind]

Very nice, I really like the "letters to tulpa" idea, such a simple idea but i can see how helpful it is. Do you ever plan to include imposition in your guide?

 

Why thank you! Taking a psychological approach (treating the tulpa as a developing 'human' mind) makes it much easier to 'slip' things in much less straightforwardly. I think it feels more positive and sticks more than 'you will be ____'. But that's just my take on it, there are obviously many different ways to 'form' and 'create' your tulpa. :) I think everyone should explore different options and find what works for them. Every mind is different.

 

Well, considering this is a Creation guide, I don't think I'll put things like that in here. This was just something I put together for those who may have questions or those who may want to try new things and keep forcing interesting with their tulpa. When I have more experience with more 'advanced' things, I'll most likely create a different guide (in the same style as this one) for more 'advanced' folks.

 

Again, thanks for the feedback! Really do appreciate it.

[arbiterspartan]

I'm not sure if it's just me, but I'm unable to click any of your links (for example under the "Meditation" section).

[Linkzelda]

I think OP is pretty much nonexistent, she seemed to have made an abrupt leave. I actually gave this guide a good reading before, and giving a critique would be pointless since she’ll probably never enter this community again.

 

It’s a bit of an understatement to label this as a “Tips” since she clearly put in the time and effort into this.

 

It’s something useful for anyone that can actually sit down and have a good read, and is definitely useful for newcomers that are trying to collect a myriad of methods and techniques to go by.

 

If OP ever turns up to be active, I would give a more detailed critique on it, but other than that, it gets my approval. Even though there’s a part 3 on “tips and exercises,” she is going into detail. I guess it’s a matter of opinion on whether or not this is a guide. It’s mostly a [General] to be honest though.

[CyberD]

I agree it's not easy to categorize, probably because of the very personal nature of the material. Not that that is a bad thing, just less formal.

 

I'm not going to pick it apart and try to find flaws because honestly I think it does what CreativeMind set out to do, give a more personal account of the creation process.

 

I'll vote for Guides, the tips and tricks section is somewhat of an extra and given it is labelled it isn't really a surprise to anyone reading it.

[NotAnonymous]

Blank vote for now, Guides, although if the author considers some points, I'm willing to change it to approved. Approved(ish) for Tips and Tricks, although, again I'd really like the author to consider some of the points I brought up. And fully approved for Resources due to this note in the introduction: "This handbook is based on my own experiences. You are free to think with an open mind, question my opinions, alter my methods, whatever you like. Actually, I encourage you to make whatever alterations necessary to make this handbook more applicable to your own personal use."

 

If the GAT manager is confused about which section I prefer this go to: it's Resources, although with some changes it could go in Guides, or if things were a bit more split up, in Tips.

 

That is, it seems to be a general purpose guide/glossary/all-in-one, but it could also be considered as a template for a personal guide someone wishes to make for themselves.

 

The format is a PDF, thus the formatting is fixed. In which case, I would like to request the author justify the text as that tends to look better when the formatting is fixed/paged. Also, if this is to be a template, the original editable document may be useful for some.

 

 

If this is to be treated as a general purpose guide for everyone's use (and not as a template), the following applies (otherwise ignore it):

 

This is yet another one of those guides made by someone reasonably new to the community which tries to put everything they know and their current opinions in a guide.

 

Most such guides tend to end up half-right as the author has yet to acquire the experiences to back up all claims in the guide (but it's not uncommon for most people to at least have *some* experiences on which to base their guide on - this seems to be the case here!)

 

I've seen this sort of trend for a while - people make a guide to better explain to themselves what they want to do then publish it.

 

The only issue with this sort of thing is that other people will see this and may end up assuming that the information is accurate or comes from someone that has tested/experiences *all* the information presented within, when it's usually true only for *some* of it.

 

I would probably keep some such untested guides as rejected until the author actually achieves the things mentioned in the guide.

 

However, as far as I can tell, the only questionable parts of the guide are places where some things are deemed impossible simply because that's what the author currently believes to be the case (as that's what they experienced (or more precisely, haven't) and they haven't read reports that say otherwise yet).

 

 

 

Now for the critique of the actual contents:

 

 

The glossary seems mostly fine, except for 2 definitions, the "Possession" and "Switching" ones.

 

Both of them have a "May be considered a controversial topic" warning. I suppose this is about as controversial as having an independent tulpa (which some people who have yet to experience it doubt its possibility, while a few doubt it on philosophical ground or on grounds that it contradicts some of their current knowledge).

 

If anything, looking at recent community surveys, you'll find that there are far more people who achieved possession or even switching than people who achieved imposition.

 

It was somewhat controversial around 2012, but not so much nowadays - at least I think it's only about as controversial as the tulpa being truly conscious/sentient or a person, or as much as sensory dissociation is a thing you can achieve. There's enough people claiming self-consistent experiences which is enough to make it about as controversial as claims of independent tulpa (which are controversial outside this community or even to some people in this community).

 

 

Both also have a "Note: Impossible without host consent.".

 

Having seen some people get possession accidentally, especially in the cases where the tulpa already learned it as a skill and was proficient, I'm not sure it holds true for everyone.

 

This is even moreso true for switching where the wide majority of people who have it working ended up "sliding" into switching during long possession sessions where they simply got bored of what the tulpa was doing and ended up zoning out or focusing on thinking their own thoughts.

 

 

The "What is a Tulpa?" section is decent, although it's also a little bit dry.

 

It somehow manages to list most attributes of a person, while just skirting around calling it that.

 

Even if you ignore whatever the true nature of a tulpa is, as that may even be unknowable for now, the fact is that they're perceived to be a person with a mind of its own, and for some people they're indistinguishable in kind from their own ego/self (that is, one perceives them to be as much of a person as themselves, even if a different one).

 

 

 

>"What a Tulpa is Not"

 

>A tulpa is not a type of demon or evil entity

 

I've yet to see anyone use this except as a joke. It's by far not a common misconception, except in a few cases where someone mentions tulpas to some overly religious folks, but that's nor your target audience, or is it?

 

PS: Some people have demon tulpas. Maybe they would feel offended.

 

 

>Nor is it any type of self-induced mental illness. Creating a tulpa does not mean that you have just given yourself multiple personality disorder.

 

Of course not, however some people consider independent tulpas to be a form of self-induced multiplicity, with everything that entails.

 

I would even agree that when sufficiently developed it should count as multiplicity as it would become indistinguishable from the more natural "kinds".

 

Some psychiatrists may sometimes brand independent tulpas as DDNOS-1 or DID in some more extreme cases, but again, it varies.

 

There's also cases of multiples who made tulpas and found few differences between their existing alters/headmates/... and their tulpa, aside from their tulpas being a bit more "tame" as they got to mold their personality, rather than it happening unconsciously.

 

 

>A tulpa is not a form of witchcraft

 

And yet, there's some metaphysical folk who make tulpas with their own magical beliefs. Their beliefs may be strange, but that doesn't make their tulpas fake. I've even read this one guide to "neo shamanism" a while ago which essentially described the process of tulpa creation, although with more metaphysical beliefs behind it - no actual mention of tulpas was present, but one could find equivalent of almost each and every activity and experience present in this community (from the feeling of independent tulpa, communication of all sorts, and even up to possession and switching), aside from it all being more free-form. Given the contents of said guide, I wouldn't claim they don't have tulpas, they just call them something else, even if their tulpas seem to function mostly like our own.

 

As for the rest of the parts in that section - I would agree that the wide majority of tulpas won't have self-destructive impulses or anything of that sort and when they do, it's usually due to various existing mental issues the host has, either physically/organically or psychologically.

 

 

>Not to mention, a tulpa cannot physically harm or force the host to physically harm themselves, it's simply impossible

 

>Regardless, it is impossible for the tulpa to do anything to you or your body without your consent. As mentioned above, the tulpa is not able to impose itself upon your free will.

 

Since this was mentioned in the context of switching, I'd like to mention there are cases of the tulpa accidentally harming the host during switching or possession.

 

They're of similar likelihood as you as far as damaging the body goes - this is why you see all the possession/switching guides give you safety warnings - if the tulpa isn't careful with the body, it's entirely possible to accidentally something. I can even recall one case of someone ending in the hospital due to the tulpa not paying attention to the senses enough (there's at least one case of a tulpa being able to ignore pain and doing so while switching), luckily it wasn't anything too bad.

 

What can one learn from this? Make sure your tulpa is responsible with the body and they shouldn't use it without supervision until they have enough experience and you trust them to handle themselves well.

 

What is usually considered impossible or at least very unlikely is the tulpa learning some skills without the host also pulling their weight at the start, however once those skills are learned, I do have some doubts about the "impossibility" of the tulpa using their already learned skills.

 

 

> Complexities of the Host/Tulpa Relationship

 

This is fairly agreeable/good, although maybe a bit too much use of scare-quotes.

 

I especially like and strongly agree with the "The types of dynamics of a host/tulpa relationship are virtually never ending." part, however rather than "planning" the sort of relationship you'll have with your tulpa, I think it's best to let it naturally develop through interaction. It's far more fun to discover your tulpa and where they want to go, rather than force them into some particular relationship.

 

 

> Part 1 - Beginning

 

> The Importance of Proper Planning

 

Some people prefer to plan the tulpa in detail, while others choose to "wing it".

 

Overall, most tulpas do deviate as they grow and I would say it might be best to just let them do as they wish. If they're to be a proper person, you should let them decide for themselves what they want.

 

That said, I do think having some sort of person-like feel in your mind for them is very useful, if not almost required - just a vague feeling for who they are is sometimes more valuable than long trait lists that you recite to yourself - getting your unconscious mind to know your tulpa is more important than you knowing them consciously.

 

 

> The Dangers of Doubt

 

Some of the advice here is spot-on, although there's maybe a bit too much scare-quotes, which makes me wonder if you actually believe your tulpa to be sentient or it's just a pretend sort of sentience.

 

I would agree that having some confidence in yourself is pretty good and trusting your tulpa is also good, although I also think you shouldn't try and force people's doubt away. Sometimes, the doubt is justified by their experiences and sometimes it means they're experiencing the wrong thing or that their tulpa doesn't feel real to them or something of that sort.

 

In which case the solution is something closer to Sands' mindset of an absence of disbelief, where you just interact with your tulpa and let your tulpa convince you of their sentience, rather than trying to make yourself believe something you have no basis on. Yes, a tulpa can grow based on your expectations and beliefs, but no, a tulpa isn't just expectations and beliefs - you can doubt an independent tulpa, and guess what happens when you do? You'll end up convinced of their sentience either way *despite* your doubts. On the other hand, you see cases of people who have been at it for over a year and gave up because they could no longer keep the fake explicit beliefs up - there was nothing left to support their tulpa.

 

 

> Importance of Bond

 

Perfectly agreeable section. Having empathy for your tulpa and treating them kindly and with love will in many cases end up with the tulpa reciprocating those feelings. Sometimes it's even a little hard to believe what strong emotions they can have.

 

 

> To Wonderland, or Not to Wonderland?

 

Most of the section is agreeable, except for

"Your tulpa doesn't have to be completely vivid when you start 'imposing' though, don't beat yourself up."

 

It's not entirely uncommon to recommend having perfect visualization of your tulpa if you actually want to impose them, that is, to the point of hallucination or at least being unable to see through them (see JD1215's guides for more on this).

 

Or maybe you meant something else here - such as just interacting with your tulpa in the physical world through something like a daydream, which is an intermediate step towards imposition (open-eyed visualization).

 

 

 

> Part 2 - Introduction to Different Tools

 

This is a good collection of tips/techniques.

 

> Creative Outlets

 

Mostly a good technique, although again, shouldn't force the tulpa to be something, unless they want to. However, showing them they could be something may be interesting to them too, and may show them new interests they could pick up if they weren't already aware of them.

 

> Meditation

 

This is great, although I'd like to pitch in a small tip here: mindfulness meditation when directed at your imagination and your tulpa in general can be an incredible tulpa development tool. Meditation can also be a way to better know your tulpa, not just a way for you to get rid of distractions or improve focus.

 

> Self Hypnosis

 

Mostly agreeable. I would also like to add that for most people, a little bit of autosuggestion could go a long way - you don't really need to go make long scripts for you to read over and over again, all you need to do is truly understand what you want to do, focus on your intent/will and 'Just Do It' - that is, most of the time you can accomplish a lot of things that may take "long" self-hypnosis sessions by just focusing inward and working things out in your mind until you've changed your expectations/behavior/beliefs accordingly.

 

 

 

> Part 3 - Tips and Exercises

 

 

> To Plan a Beneficial Personality

 

Mostly agreeable and is what most people who work on personality purposefully do. Again, what I said earlier about not forcing a tulpa to be someone they're not should apply - if a tulpa doesn't like a trait, you shouldn't force them to be that person.

 

 

> Basic Hypnosis Scrips

 

This may belong in Resources, however this is an all-in-one general purpose guide.

 

 

> Wonderland Settings via Hypnosis

 

I've seen a few cases of people saying that hypnosis can't improve your visualization ability, although I do personally believe this to be false, as I've had guided meditation sessions that went fully vivid (and it was one of my first times I had tried them, about 1.5+ years ago).

 

Most of this section is good, except the postscript part, where again, people shouldn't force beliefs. You shouldn't "believe" something isn't puppeting or parroting if you implicitly know it so, doing so is counterproductive and potentially harmful. Instead, aim to actually get the right experiences, *then* you'll have something to believe in. You want your beliefs to stand on something. Expecting the tulpa to have the right qualities is on the other hand fine as then you'd be looking for those qualities, not experiencing a lack of them followed by a faux-"explicit belief" where you say you "believe" in something when at an unconscious level you don't.

 

 

> Letters to Your Tulpa

 

This could go in Tips or even Resources as you're giving detailed examples/templates.

 

 

tl;dr: Voting for this to go into Resources for now, but it can also easily go into Tips, especially if it was a bit split up. It can also function as a general-purpose Guide, if the author wanted it to go there and edited it accordingly.