[Tulpamancy](www.Tulpa.info) is an internet phenomenon that, to put it simply, is the process of creating another creature inside a "tulpamancer's" head. The Tulpa can be thought towards in the same way that you would speak to someone, and will say things that the creator would not do or doesn't expect. Many people take this to mean that the tulpas are sentient and think for themselves. There are a variety of reasons one may create a tulpa, and they generally act as a lifelong friend to the host. It should be noted that a Tulpa is not usually malicious unless it was created to be malicious, and the host is always in control. Many tulpamancer's also create a mindscape known by the community as a wonderland in which they interact with their tulpa, though some more advanced hosts go as far as to place a hallucination of their tulpa in the real world instead. I strongly suggest that you read over the website I linked so that you are not ignorant towards the subject.
Do you think this is ethical? Is it okay to create a Tulpa that is based on a TV show, book, or other media? Is it okay to have multiple tulpas? Please, share your thoughts on this strange concept!
Basically, Tumblr's 'headmates' phenomenon in a pseudo-academic setting.
It's the pseudo-academic part that puts me off; reeking as it does of patchouli and overpriced small-press books. :} I've been made aware of this before; it's a very old spiritual practice, after all - but it's non-trivial and way beyond my level of interest. I really don't encourage people to hack their own wetware just because it's cool, and I doubt it's encouraged in responsible spiritual traditions, either. Still, there are other things that point to this as being within the range of normal cognitive function. Dissociation is certainly a well-recognized phenomenon, in both traumatic and what we consider "functional" contexts, such as in an emergency room. The third man factor is recognized, if not well-studied. Authors report having arguments with main characters and losing all the time. Then of course there is the classical Multiple Personality - which is usually thought of as the product of Traumatic Dissociation. I could go on and on about that, but I won't, at least not at the moment. Suffice it to say that there is good reason to think that the ability to "hive off" a functional personality is pretty common and may well be part of ordinary brain function. FMRI studies confirm that it's a real thing in some sense. That is to say, if there is a disorder involved, it's more along the line of having the case removed from your computer and thinking that it's somehow a different thing than it was before. Nope. Same thing. Same tired power supply, same motherboard with a few tired capacitors. And that's why it's not working well. Oh, I'm sure the tumblr types are annoying. It used to be on Livejournal. But annoying things can still be real. I mean, purely for illustrative purposes - Rush Limbaugh.
The website didn't offer me any reason why someone would want to do this..
One reason I can think of is that such a thing might be very handy for people who've suffered severe abuse. Separating things in your mind, creating distance, personification of ideal qualities, being your own mentor, being parent to your own child, and so forth. Instead of all the noise and confusion being a sea in which you drown, change your thinking via abstract conjecture.
I am assuming from your username and the language that you use that you are a fellow user of .info or /r/tulpas. Funny coincidence for such a small community. I'll go ahead and propose my own alternate ideas and theories of what tulpa are, as I think they are a bit more solid and somewhat more digestible to the skeptical onlooker. The average person goes through their life with many assumptions. The sun will come up. They open their eyes to see. Punching someone will hurt your fist. These assumptions are very built into the mind, and determine as much of what we see as the physical world around us. The mind auto-corrects and fucks with every input we get from our senses every day, most often without our knowledge. For most all human beings, raised from birth being called a name, taught to see other objects as other things, and so on, one of those assumptions is "I am a single person". When you think of it, on a deeper level, such an identity is a very arbitrary and odd thing to say. We aren't "a single person", we are a collection of thousands if not millions of systems working together to form an emergent trait that is "us". To call that thing "a single person" can very well change. So, where there is a possibility, people have tried, learned, and found that these assumptions can actually be changed, and there is a somewhat repeatable process that produces said change. So you do this process, you take those steps, and "you" can become "me and my tulpa" in the sense of there being another, smaller, being in your mind. It can also become "me and my tulpa" in the sense of two equal beings within one mind, or more. Now, you have this new assumption. You change your view of the world to be that "I am not just me". And by doing it in the "proper way", and not having this caused by trauma, anger, annoyance, or just a plain lack of control over your own thoughts, you are a happy, healthy, and functional human being(s). So, now, the brain has to think differently. Before, there were internal and external thoughts, but now it has to take thoughts and add a new dimension. Internal, external, and "who is this thinking this?". So it does, it looks at thoughts and learns to arrange and screw with them in a way that produces the effect of many speaking and active entities in one mind. Some have the opinion that their tulpas are conscious all the time, and they experience that as reality. Most have a tulpa in the background, some little thing they can address and speak to at any time, and it is there, and they experience that as reality. So this isn't truly a practice of making some new person in your head. It is still one train of thought, just twisted into curves so that if you line the pictures up correctly it looks like two trains at once. There aren't two separate thinking beings in anyone's head, as it's actually impossible to accomplish such a thing. Humans do not multitask, as is proven in many, many, studies. It is a practice of changing your biases through a process and community. Very similar to how people believe in things like exorcisms, and INCREDIBLY interesting to note that such a unstudied and unrealized process can be discovered and used in such a way. So is it ethical? Yes, so long as it doesn't result in a net harm to society, and I would argue it is a net benefit.
Interesting ~ I have never heard of Tulpas - but I have thought of having multiple metaphysical people in my head, since I was a child ~ on an INTJ board, someone asked: "If the inside of your mind was a room..." and this is what I have: The size of a medium apartment - a large portion built into the wall is a filing cabinet - light beige, filled with photos, memos, dictionaries, theological texts, music manuscripts etc.
There's a pile of stuff in the corner: musical instruments, pens, camera, computer etc.
Some people occupy the space: a pre-teen girl, a dark hooded figure with dark eyes, scruffy guy, mathematician, half-naked-muscly guy
There is a plain square table in the room, and some comfortable upholstered chairs scattered around it. The girl is smiling and grinning, warm fire burning within, the dark figure has a smirk, and is resting back observing everything pensively. The others are in a state of zen and calm, the mathematician is snoozing comfortably, naked guy is covered in sweat.
There is a trap door in the corner of the room opposite the filing cabinet. under the door there are other figures - fear, anxiety, feelings of entrapment - they only surface at times and they sometimes hold the other occupants hostage - but can't get them into the trapdoor itself.
Very interesting take on the whole thing, couldn't have said it better myself.
Beautifully said. Words shape thought, thoughts shape words, perception is assumption, try to break free of assumptions, via whatever nifty tricks one can find.