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  1. I see your point, but there's a flaw in that argument. Appropriation isn't about stealing just any word from another culture. It's taking a word out of its original context, one that is sacred or significant in that culture. A word like "baseball" doesn't carry the same emotional significance as "tulpa", which comes from a very specific kind of ritual in Tibetan Buddhism that is still being practiced today. You just can't compare the two. We see the damage of appropriation when we look at the use of terms such as "smudging" taken from a Native American ritual, or using their sacred clothing as decoration. Their culture has a history of being oppressed, erased and misunderstood. Their culture is complex and steeped in the history of their people, and they are struggling to preserve it. Non-Natives even make money off of crafts that were taken from Native American culture, which is doing them a great injustice. And that is because culturally significant terms are carelessly used, and the significance behind them is slowly erased and forgotten by outsiders/the general public. When you take an idea of culture or religious significance, use the terminology and disregard its history, that is appropriation, and appropriation is disrespectful and unethical. It's even worse when the original culture has to suffer for it, be it erasure or simply a lack of knowledge and therefore a lack of appreciation for their culture. Granted, the issue surrounding the word "tulpa" is less severe than that of the above example, but it is still taking a religious/spiritual ritual out of context and giving it a very different meaning. We are using a word to explain something it was not intended to explain. The reason why we should try not to appropriate is a matter of respect, avoiding misinformation, and giving due appreciation and credit to a culture. Sometimes it is to protect and preserve a culture that are or have faced discrimination in the past. And, really, one cannot say they respect another religion/culture while at the same time appropriating from that religion/culture. The evolution of words is indeed a natural process, but it is also based on the personal choice of each individual who chooses to use those words. For Westerners - many of our European ancestors were colonisers, and they didn't give a thought to taking over other countries, erasing their cultures, and using the ideas that they liked the look of. Brushing appropriation off as a "natural process" is not what I consider to be a strong argument. Nor is doing something just because "it's always been done." So you see, that is why I and some other people are debating the use of the term "tulpa." This is a slightly watered down explanation of what appropriation is, written at a late hour, but I hope I put my point across in an understandable way.
  2. I understand. One of the reasons I also use "tulpa" when I'm online is because people know what I'm talking about when I say "tulpa." The word has been in use in the West for quite some time, and there are plenty of relevant resources located under that term. Other terms like thoughtform, construct and headmate aren't quite specific enough, because Western tulpamancy has accumulated a lot of specific practices and techniques, and the experiences that come with it are... in a way, unique. I can't find resources with enough relevant detail when I search for words like "thoughtform". I do like the term "headmate", though. Whereas "tulpa" can be very clearly traced back to Tibet, the term "headmate" is really just two generic words put together. To avoid being conflated with DID headmates, we'd have to be a little more specific... something like "created headmate".
  3. I came across this post: http://www.blueflamemagick.com/index.php/2014/09/14/tulpa-not-what-you-think/ A quick look on the search engine shows very little discussion for appropriation on this forum. So I'd like to hear thoughts on this, even if it is a difficult subject to tackle. Reasons for and against using the term "tulpa"? How do you justify using this term out of its original, religious context? Is it necessary to change our terminology? What term would we replace "tulpa" with? I myself freely use the term "tulpa", but I'm concerned with the ethics of doing so.
  4. There are plenty of roleplayers around who do exactly what you say, Tim. But I still like to make room for doubt on both ends of the scale. Right now I have no reason to completely believe the majority of multiples are telling the truth, and I have no reason to completely believe the majority are roleplayers. Nevertheless, It seems quite improbable to me that, 90% perhaps, are pretenders wallowing in their pride, but I can only theorise until I've met a multiple for myself and decided that they are telling the truth, which is pretty much all you can do.
  5. That's it. Since the brain is accustomed to processing tons of sensory information everyday, a lack of it might well be very effective in inducing hallucinations. Not sure how long you'd have to sit in an empty room, though. I'm thinking, do you have to be relaxed or dazed to be able to get to that stage where you're really seeing things that aren't there? (I'm just talking about hallucinations in general here) because I imagine people in solitary confinement would get incredibly worked up. Maybe that has little or nothing to do with hallucinating, but I imagine them, being so starved of sensory input and their brains going into overdrive, would play a big part in inducing hallucinations. On the contrary, meditation, relaxing yourself and getting into that state of mind is good for focus and concentration. I know it works for in-world visualisation but I'm not sure about imposition. Perhaps hallucinations work at both ends of the scale.
  6. Looks like I'm getting ahead of myself. That's true. It's hard to impose when there's a lot of things going on. I somehow feel like my tulpa, or who/whatever it is I'm imposing has to reach that same level of realism, or live up to how realistic my environment is to me. You probably have to be a little dazed or space out a little (if you're a beginner, anyway), anything to blur that heavy distinction between what's there and what you're trying to conjure up. A quiet room, yes, perhaps one with not so many objects to take up concentration. A dark room, as long as there is some light (too dark and realistically, you wouldn't be able to see your tulpa and that takes you back to in-world visualisation), can also help. It can relax your eyes, though it might peak your other senses since the brain will have to rely on the other four to gather information from its surroundings. For me though, a dark and quiet room is perfect for in-world visualisation, since it focuses on what happens in the mindscape and not what's going on outside.
  7. Greetings, fellow daemian. Near of Sanderling, here.
  8. See this is what I mean about skimming texts... *Reads final paragraph* So expectations manifest sensory input in order to satisfy those expectations and relieve sensory deprivation. Now if you put it that way... Yes, that is plausible. I remember my teacher (who teaches psychology) drawing four dots on the white board. Then he asked, "What shape is this?" and all the naive little year 7s put their hands up and said "It's a square!" when in fact it wasn't a square, it was only four dots. But my teacher explained, using that rather lame trick, that the subconscious mind automatically fills in the gaps. It's also what happens with optical illusions where the picture isn't moving, but your brain thinks it is according to its own logic. Having said that, I suck at imposition. Or hallucination. Honestly I can't remember what you call it, but visualising your tulpa in your own environment, right? I wouldn't know very much about how expectations manifest sensory input, I do all my visualisation inside my mindscape. But, I do see how you came up with the idea about sensory input. However I can't say much else about it due to lack of experience.
  9. That may be true, Zaros, we might never know. But it is important to allow people to talk about themselves, whether or not it may be true. Having your ideas rejected and rejecting the ideas of others can be very damaging, and often does not work in your favour. So, even if I didn't think the Multiples are telling the truth, what they're saying isn't harmful, so try not to deny or reject what they're saying, just go along with it and treat it neutrally. In other words, humour them. After all, there are plenty of people out there who'd call us tulpamancers freaks and say we need professional help, and a number of things that we all know aren't true. We're not roleplaying, either. But they don't know that, and a lot of them won't believe us if we said we weren't.
  10. I can see where you're coming from. My experience differs in that I am not as close to my first tulpa as I am to one of my later ones. And for me as a writer, the stories that I have the least expectations for turn out to have great potential, and the ones I thought had great potential... well, most of them didn't even make it past the first page. But somehow, the practice pieces which I don't intend to spend too long on end up growing and growing in pages and chapters. One creative piece I did was only meant to be a one shot to improve on my description of atmosphere and scenery, and it ended up with over 100 pages. The story I'm working on right now was also meant to be a practice, and yet, I did not expect for it to have reached 60 pages in such a short space of time. To be honest, I don't know how I could apply your concept of weight to that, because I really didn't expect for those practice pieces to become so complex. However, I did give those stories a second chance by looking back on them, perhaps that's somehow investing thought and time into them to give them more weight. And that applies to some of the tulpas whom I really get along with today. Anyhow, I thought I would share that anecdote with you.
  11. Forgive my rudeness for somewhat skimming your text, and thus making any mistakes or misunderstandings, if I have. Relating to what HazyM mentioned, if we were to apply your logic, then I think 'time' would not be such a great factor in contributing to the weight of an idea. Instead, look at the detail or, say, intensity of a thought. Like your example of a paranoid person. The fear that person experienced was conjured up in a moment, yet it is incredibly intense. If you were to argue that time has been invested into the paranoid person' fear in the past, such as a bad experience, however brief, then I would reply that it only really takes one terrible experience in the early stages of one's life to give the (thought of the) potential for that experience to happen again, a lot of weight. Once again, if we were to take this time a young child being told by their parent that, say, "Marmite is bad for you" (as a lame example for the sake of context). If the child is told that Marmite is bad, they may not necessarily question it or put much thought/weight on the idea. They might not even think of it again until they come across a jar of Marmite. But since it was the child's parent that gave them this piece of information, they instantly put a lot of weight on the idea that Marmite may be bad/unhealthy. So, to apply your logic, another factor that influences weight is who the idea comes from, and how much the first person (in this case the child) is able to think for themselves. Now on the other hand, if we were to put 'time' and 'experience' hand in hand, then the creation process of tulpas might become a little different. A host who has the experience of creating a tulpa before, would theoretically take less time to create another tulpa. By that I mean, they have gone through the creation process before, they are slightly more apt at conjuring up or brainstorming ideas on how that tulpa would be like. This means they might take less time to create the idea of that tulpa before the creation process, or even need less time before they are able to easily converse with and visualise their new tulpa. So the host with more experience would take less time to develop their second tulpa. But that does not necessarily mean that the thoughtform created has less weight, or less importance/potential. But the weight of the thoughtform can be measured by the experience of the host (which yes, does relate to time, as experience takes time) and the intensity or/of the detail of the idea which created the thoughtform. Expectations put more weight to an idea. Yes, I suppose that's true (let's remind ourselves that in this context, weight means importance or potential, right?). Mentally, if you expect something to happen, it likely will. If you have great expectations, that contributes to your belief that something will happen, when it comes to thoughtforms, expectations/beliefs are fundamental. These are my thoughts so far on your ideas.
  12. I'm glad to see our thoughts concur on this. Yes, there is potential. I do believe that what we've talked about on what tulpas and their hosts can do, is possible and achievable. There are factors that influence the likelihood of that happening, but nonetheless it can happen. Perhaps in time, some of us will be able to contribute our findings to the forum in regards to this.
  13. Of course. Since you mentioned that, I have put a warning in bold. I understand how ideas can get to people sometimes. That is interesting. In fact, I am looking into that myself. So far I have recorded the development of my tulpa, Giovanni, on my PR, and I have often entertained the idea that he could develop enough to become that second personality, or alter ego, that you speak of. As is my habit, I will treat this idea with doubt until I have seen it with my own eyes, but I will say that for the most part, tulpas will tend not to become the "dominant force". For many reasons. The host may be too afraid (as some are, and thus steer clear of the practice of possession), some simply don't believe that it can happen (which makes it unlikely) and others may not invest enough time into the development of their tulpa to achieve that alter ego state (tulpas do rely on the attention of their host for development to an extent). And I would say, most of the time, if the host does not will for their tulpa to achieve, then they are less likely to. In short, I am suggesting that the influence of the host's thoughts and beliefs are very powerful in deciding how a tulpa will be like. That is an elaboration of what I mean by the term "inferior". An unkind word it is, but there you go.
  14. Unfortunately, yesterday I was ill, and conversation between Giovanni and I was scarce. I worked on a new story pretty much from dawn to dusk, and though I haven't yet thought of a title for it (you probably noticed already I'm bad with titles, haha) I have reached 59 A5 pages in less than a week, which is quite impressive considering my free time is limited. Sometimes I'll sit in front of the laptop and write for days on end, and I immerse myself so deeply into the story, I'll suddenly look up from the screen and get a little confused as to what the hell I'm doing in my tiny, cramped study. Ah, the life of a writer. It's often the same when I get the urge to make pages and pages of sketches. Today, on the 21st of November, Giovanni did have a few goes at fronting. We decided to just... free-style it, if you like? and drop the "I am Near, I relinquish control" and "I am Giovanni, I take control". So his personality could be at play anytime he wished, and we could see if we could spot when 'I' was behaving more like Giovanni than myself. It did happen a few times. 'I' would say something Giovanni would say, or behave in a way that he would. The differences were not very distinctive, but I thought he definitely stepped in a couple of times. Such as, I couldn't help but be my sarcastic, witty self :P when around my close friends. And when I wasn't, I would take on Giovanni's quiet indifference and devil-may-care attitude. Meanwhile, I have come up with a few theories: A male tulpa will be less willing/likely to front or more dormant, or their personality will not be expressed as much, when... • Their female host is wearing 'feminine' clothes • Their female host is menstruating • Their host (male or female) is sick, or mentally or physically weak. These ideas crossed me due to experiences in the past week. Feel free to comment. Come out, come out, ye lurkers. A few activities I thought I could do: In regards to Giovanni's ability to front depending on what clothes I wear, the weekends are a little too short to really compare that. The Christmas holidays begin on the 18th of December for me, I believe. Perhaps I could try alternating between my personality and Giovanni's every week, although I do question the reliability of my wardrobe in this... investigation. My collection of clothes does not vary very much. Secondly, as a pastime, I thought to allow Giovanni to develop his own handwriting (another way of reinforcing who's fronting and who isn't). We have committed very little time to this so far. Initially, I imagined him to have scrawling, messy or spiky handwriting which differs from my neater handwriting, but despite that there is not a lot of difference I recognise so far. Looking back on what I initially intended to do (what with the Sherlock Holmes map an' all) it seems I've taken a very different turn on my... tulpamantic journey. Still, it's interesting, and I feel more willing to do this than interact with Giovanni in-world.
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