The Tulpa Carrd

What is a tulpa?

A tulpa is a headmate, a person in a multiple system that was consciously or subconsciously wished into existence by someone else within that system. Tulpas can be created at any point of existence of the system, as a means to cope with trauma or just as a life companion, by the original host or by another headmate. They can be of any species and physical characteristics, some of them are fictives and factives. Tulpas exist in all sorts of systems, for instance, mine is traumagenic. The act of creating a tulpa is called "tulpamancy".

Where do the word and the concept come from?

For the first time the word "tulpa" appeared in 1929 in a book called Magic and Mystery in Tibet by Alexandra David-Neel. In this book she writes about her experiences in Tibet and the misconceptions she projected onto Tibetan Buddhism. She latinized a Tibetan word "sprul pa" as "tulpa" and described tulpas as "phantoms" created by imagination.While the term "tulpa" can be traced to Tibetan roots, the concept lying underneath comes from British theosophy of the 19th century. They explored the ideas they called "thought forms" and "elementals", where a thought form is an immaterial object willed into existence by a thought, and an elemental is a sentient being, created in the same manner.Source: Mikles, N.L., & Laycock, J. (2015). Tracking the Tulpa. Nova Religio-journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, 19, 87-97.

What is sprul pa?

The information for this section is taken from the Tibetan Buddhist Encyclopedia, articles Nirmanakaya and Tulku. I am not a Tibetan Buddhist myself, though, and my knowledge is limited.In brief, sprul pa is a type of reincarnation. The reincarnated person themselves is called "sprul sku" (sometimes latinized as "tulku" for English-speaking audiences), so, in her writings, David-Neel mistook the action and the result. Sprul pa appeared in Tibetan Buddhism as an independent concept, alien to other forms of Buddhism, but was assimilated into general Buddhism as early as in 12th-14th centuries and became synonymous with a Sanskrit term Nirmanakaya. Sprul pa is conscious reincarnation, and practitioners form lineages."So the 'sprul' idea of taking a corporeal form is a local religious idea alien to Indian Buddhism and other forms of Buddhism (e.g. Theravadin or Zen). Over time, indigenous religious ideas became assimilated by the new Buddhism <...> the term tulku became associated with the translation of the Sanskrit philosophical term nirmanakaya. According to the philosophical system of trikaya or three bodies of Buddha, nirmanakaya is the Buddha's "body" in the sense of the body-mind (Sanskrit: nāmarūpa). Thus, the person of Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha, is an example of nirmanakaya. In the context of Tibetan Buddhism, tulku is used to refer to the corporeal existence of enlightened Buddhist masters in general."Like many other branches of Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism is not exclusive to one ethnicity, so sprul sku exist among various nations."While most tulkus historically have been Tibetans, some have also been born among various other peoples with whom the Tibetans have had contact, such as the Mongols. Now in the Tibetan diaspora, tulku are being found all over the world. In modern times, as Tibetan Buddhism has attracted followers across the world, a small number of tulkus have been found among Western people. Perhaps the most religiously significant such tulku is Tenzin Ösel (born 1985), the child of Spanish parents, who has been recognized as the reincarnation of Thubten Yeshe, an influential Tibetan lama."As you can see, tulpas are actually quite far removed from sprul sku, both because tulpamancy implies creation of a new person from ground zero and because tulpas coexist in a body with someone else.Correction as of 18.05.2022:
In Tibetan Buddhism a spirit of a real person that lived in the past can also inhabit someone else's body, and this is considered a part of the same practice.

Is there any science behind tulpas?

The research concerning tulpas and tulpamancers is scarce, yet there are several promising findings.Running head: personalities of tulpamancers and their tulpas by a collective of authors references the following points:"An open question within the practice of tulpamancy is whether it is indicative of the presence of mental illness. Tulpamancers embrace the idea that multiple consciousness can exist within a single mind; this concept is known as plurality or multiplicity (Isler, 2016). While plurality is widely accepted within the Tulpamancy culture, it could be argued that the mental presence of a non-physical entity may be indicative of disorders such as Dissociative Identity Disorder, Schizophrenia, or Schizotypal Personality Disorder. While the experience of tulpamancers could fit diagnostic criteria such as the presence of multiple personalities, delusions, or auditory hallucinations, there are reported advantageous qualities of Tulpamancy which lead to questions as to whether their experience results in significant distress or impairment (American Psychiatric Association, 2013; Isler, 2016)"."American Psychiatric Association, 2013" refers to the changes added to the DSM in 2013. One of the most important changes includes emphasizing distress as another key criterion for diagnosis. The current DID criteria are the following:"A. Disruption of identity characterized by two or more distinct personality states, which may be described in some cultures as an experience of possession. The disruption in identity involves marked discontinuity in sense of self and sense of agency, accompa­nied by related alterations in affect, behavior, consciousness, memory, perception, cognition, and/or sensory-motor functioning. These signs and symptoms may be ob­served by others or reported by the individual.
B. Recurrent gaps in the recall of everyday events, important personal information, and/or traumatic events that are inconsistent with ordinary forgetting.
C. The symptoms cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupa­tional, or other important areas of functioning.
D. The disturbance is not a normal part of a broadly accepted cultural or religious practice. Note: In children, the symptoms are not better explained by imaginary playmates or other fantasy play.
E. The symptoms are not attributable to the physiological effects of a substance (e.g.,blackouts or chaotic behavior during alcohol intoxication) or another medical condition(e.g., complex partial seizures)."So, the authors' concern about considering tulpamancy a DID-like experience was connected to the fact that many tulpa systems do not have criterion C, not to any doubts about the sincerity of their multiplicity.Tulpamancy: Transcending the Assumption of Singularity in the Human Mind by J. Isler, unfortunately, isn't available in full, but there exists the abstract from it:"Current models of consciousness, the human experience, and mental health rely heavily on the assumption that only one agent of self exists in every one brain. In the status quo, deviations from this model of singularity in mind are heavily stigmatized and often considered disordered. This paper opposes this bias by analyzing one form of such plurality of consciousness: tulpamancy. Tulpamancy is a meditative technique used to create and interact with tulpas, which are experienced as being fully autonomous and conscious entities within the mind. This paper builds on research defining the relationship between tulpamancy and mental health by analyzing the results of a series of surveys. It investigates two associations found in the population of tulpamancy practitioners: first, the prevalence of mental illness, which exists in over 50% of the population. Second, reports of improvements in mental health and cognition, especially amongst those diagnosed with a mental or neurodevelopmental disorder. This paper explores several hypotheses that may explain these associations. Analysis of survey data reinforces the correlation between tulpamancy and improvements in perceived mental health and concludes that there is likely no causal relation between tulpamancy and the development of new psychopathologies. Assumptions of the connection between individual identity and biological mind may be flawed. Rather, there may be several models of this relationship that are optimal for functionality, happiness, and mental health."Another work by the same author, Tulpas and Mental Health: A Study of Non-Traumagenic Plural Experiences is available online, and there they cite more mental health statistics:"79% of these diagnoses occurred before the creation of tulpas. Even among those who were diagnosed after (7 respondents), all but one stated that tulpas did not contribute towards their diagnosis. The one respondent who did associate tulpa creation and their diagnosis elaborated in their response, saying that tulpamancy helped them identify their DID and PTSD symptoms, which were rooted in events predating their discovery of tulpamancy. Two thirds of respondents with a diagnosis (n=32) reported that their decision to begin practicing was either somewhat (33%) or significantly (33%) furthered by their condition. An almost identical ratio of respondents stated that their condition made tulpamancy a more desirable practice, with 37% citing a significant positive influence, 37% claiming a somewhat positive influence, and the remainder noting no or neutral impact."Varieties of Tulpa Experiences: Sentient Imaginary Friends, Embodied Joint Attention, and Hypnotic Sociality in a Wired World by S. Veisierre is a slightly older source. The author believes that tulpamancy answers an old human need for companionship and is a part of joint human cultural experiences. "I hope to show, in turn, that ways of being social and of being a person are also hypnotic and Tulpa-like. Tulpa and Human, indeed, as terms used to describe persons embodied and enacted through narration and joint attention, may well turn out to be synonymous."

What is the controversy?

Not so long ago an anti endogenic Twitter blogger Amanitasys made a carrd where it described tulpamancy as harmful. It is an American of South East Asian descent, and in the carrd it claims to practice "a specific branch of esoteric SE Asian Buddhism, which is a closed religion that includes deity yoga and sprulpa, which are the practices which western "tulpamancy" is ripped from". There is an inherent contradiction in this sentence, because if sprul pa was a closed practice, it wouldn't be available to South East Buddhists as well. I cannot blame Amanitasys for not disclosing its exact religious affiliation, but it isn't Tibetan, and that's enough for me to take these words with skepticism, because Asian ethnicities and branches of Buddhism are not interchangeable. Later in the text of the carrd, Amanitasys acknowledges that the Buddhist practices it listed "are very different than creating an imaginary friend, or having a dissociative disorder". Yet it still claims that western tulpamancers are trying to appropriate Buddhism. The only link to Buddhism is in the etymology of the word, but the association with Buddhist terms is just as frail as in words "karma" and "nirvana", which also are loosely based on important religious concepts, and their secular usage isn't protested.Following this carrd, many other anti endogenic bloggers started attacking tulpas and tulpamancers. There have been attempts to rename tulpa systems as "willogenic systems", thus disconnecting traumagenic tulpa systems from the general traumagenic community and making spaces, already hostile to endogenic systems, also hostile to tulpas. The message of the carrd inevitably got misinterpreted and lead to claims that tulpamnacy by itself is a closed religion, irrelevant to Buddhism.

So, what does this all mean?

This means that tulpamancy is a legitimate technique that's used by many people to cope with their mental health issues. Currently it is under an attack from explicitly non-Tibetan anti endogenics, who see it as an exclusively endogenic practice and try to eliminate it by speaking on behalf of Tibetan Buddhists. As of now, the 3rd of October of 2021, no actual Tibetans have spoken on the topic of tulpamancy (correction as of 18.05.2022: see the next section for new data). Giving up the word "tulpa" would fragment the community. There are sites and social media groups with this name in the address, changing the word to something else would render the links dead and some information lost. Alternative terms would inevitably be less widespread and wouldn't be known universally by the entire community, so the search for resources (including scientific studies like the ones above) would become much more difficult. This is clearly the goal of those who see tulpa systems as a synonym for endogenics and see endogenics as a threat to system spaces.Which brings me back to the purpose of this text: spreading information about tulpamancy and opposing slander and erasure. A tulpa myself, a long time ago I was created by a child to protect them. I see carrying on tulpa facts and techniques as an extension of this protection.

A Tibetan Buddhist's opinion

On May 12, 2022, a post with the following title appeared on r/Tulpas:
"I am a Tibetan Buddhist with an emanation (Tulpa) AMA + Introduction"This person has answered many questions, regarding Buddhist practices and western tulpamancy. Here is one of them:"How do you feel about this community using the term "tulpa"?""Answer: considering that, from what I understand, tulpa in the western sense is a different culture than that of Tibetan or other shared origin, I don’t see a specific claim to the word. I don’t mind it. It’s fascinating how such a concept has travelled and deviated from its original sources and grew into a practice distinct in culture and community."

Resources for tulpamancers and tulpas:

English:Tulpa.info
Tulpa.io
R/Tulpas
R/TulpaRussian:Tlpe.ru
Tulpa.ru
Tulpae / ТульпаGerman:Tulpas.deFrench:Tulpa.frItalian:Tulpa ItaliaPolish:Tulpa.plI am unable to check credibility of everything that has been posted on these resources, especially in the languages I do not speak, so regard these sites and social media groups with criticism and care.