Prologue

Instead of defining a tulpa from the top, let’s talk about what experience of tulpamancy consists of.

Elements of tulpamancy experience

Imaginary character of the tulpa

Our tulpas are characters, like characters in books, movies, games etc. Tulpas might be original or inspired by characters from movies, books, games, etc. In the community of tulpamancers you can see plenty people having tulpas resembling ponies from My Little Pony, waifus from anime and characters from other popular media. There are plenty of tulpas that are completely original as characters too.

Imaginary interactions with the tulpa

We interact with our tulpas by fantasizing. We can play out our interactions in our imagination or just talk with them in our mind.

Tulpa “talking back”

The idea of characters talking back might sound extraordinary but is not reserved for tulpamancy.

Children often have imaginary friends. And contrary to popular opinion, those imaginary friends might not be just like puppets on the string. Kids sometimes experience them talking back. Similar experience is reported by some authors with characters from their books.¹

And as you can see in the source itself and it being referenced by other scientific articles, the concept of Illusion of Independent Agency (as called in the source) is known to science.

And yes, we do experience it with our tulpas too.

Genuine relationship with the tulpa

We have genuine relationships with our tulpas. They are our important friends, family members or lovers. While relationship with an imaginary character looks different to a relationship with external person, we don’t see tulpas and our relationships as inferior but incomparable.

Tulpa’s self-awareness

Unlike with characters from book, we don’t isolate tulpas in fictional settings. We interact with them directly and they are aware of us being their creators and existence of external world. We don’t constrain their knowledge about everything, including their own nature.

Tulpa’s interactions and relationships with real world

Being aware of external world, tulpa can interact with it. E.g. you can relay their words into internet chat. In that way tulpas of different people can even communicate with each other and you can see a lot of tulpas talking in the chat and making friends with each other.

Identity switching with the tulpa

Some tulpamancers claim that tulpas are able to “control their bodies” and type in the chat by themselves. In reality, it’s not someone else controlling our body but us learning to think from perspective of our tulpa, using them as an identity alternative to our default self.

Summary

To sum up, a tulpa looks like an imaginary companion with some special characteristics like:

• being aware of existing as an imaginary companion
• having a genuine relationship with their creator
• being a source of alternative identity for their creator
• being able to interact and build relationships with other people

In next chapters I’ll explain these characteristics further and show you how to make a tulpa.