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Hello everyone, my name is Astra of the Candlelight Society. I am a tulpa, and for the last few years I have been working on my techniques for making a tulpa, defining a tulpa, and how to learn all the tricks, secrets, and wonders of tulpamancy. Through all of this I have developed a wonderful community of like minded people and have refined many of my ideas into things I believe are practical and useful.

Due to this I have been working on a guide to tulpamancy and the wonderful mental world that surrounds it and adjacent mental skills. This guide is nowhere near complete however, so instead what I want to do is provide small independent topics of it in posts for others to use and benefit from in the meantime. To begin this process, I want to address the most common question I get: how do I make a tulpa?

This will not cover what a tulpa is, tulpa terminology, or anything elaborative. Below you are going to find the shortest, simplest guide you will ever see on this topic without sacrificing quality, in the form of some basic instruction and an exercise I wish to walk you through.

To begin, you need two things for your tulpa, a form and a personality. A form is how they are going to appear in your minds eye, and this can be absolutely anything. It can be the likeness of a fictional character, an established OC, or something entirely new and unique. All you have to do is figure out what design you think represents what you want them to be best. If you need inspiration, Google images is your friend.

Next you need a personality. To do this think of it like designing a D&D character. I want you to make a mental list of what traits you think would be most important for them to have. These can be brave, energetic, sweet, soft, mischievous, introspective, anything. It may also be useful to think in terms of literary archetypes such as the chivalrous knight or a fem fatale. Collect these traits together and see how they connect to one another in your head, let the shape of a well rounded personality take form.

Once you have the form and the personality, you have the base of your tulpa. This base is what they shall be built upon and shaped by, but it will not be the final verdict. As individuals they may change or grow from these traits in various ways, just like we do as people. More often than not however this base will be a central part of them.

Got all that? Good. That's all that you need. Now if you have read this far, congrats Tiktok hasn't ruined you entirely yet, but also I want to invite you to join an exercise with me. It's simple, easy, and only takes a moment. You'll see why in a second.

I want you to imagine your tulpa, their form standing next to you or sharing any furniture you may be using. Imagine their personality, how they carry themselves, how they act. Imagine them as your tulpa, knowing who they are. Feel their presence. Now I want you to interact with them, it can be in any way but for the sake of this exercise let's use a question. Imagine this question, imagine this question and ask your tulpa about it. Once you have asked this question imagine your tulpas response. Imagine how they would respond to this question as your tulpa, don't force it, don't overanalyze it, just passively let it come into your mind. I want you to take that first clear response that comes naturally and feels right and hold it. Take that question and response and remember it, even feel free to share it on this post.

You have it? Congratulations, you have just spoken with your tulpa.

What you just did was the essence of forcing as Scholastica's style of tulpamancy teaches it. By interacting with your tulpa in this way you begin to build up their autonomy. It may feel like you at first, but don't worry about that. By accepting these responses from your tulpa as real, they become real. The more you interact with your tulpa and get responses back just like you did above, the more they will feel separate from you. Their responses will become faster and smoother, they will feel more distinct and separate from your own identity. Eventually they will be almost entirely independent from you, and your tulpa will be an individual with thoughts, feelings, dreams and memories of their own. From here you simply enjoy and share your life with them. Try and work interacting with your tulpa into your daily routine, the more interactions with you and the world they have the more they will grow.

That's it. That's the guide. It doesn't get any simpler than this. Not without sacrificing effectiveness anyways. No extra material, no deep dives on implications contexts or further technique. This is a tulpamancy creation guide in it's purest form.

Ignoring syscourse for a moment however, we want to try and talk to you as one tulpamancy system to another on your current situation and what you can do about it. The damage is done but nothing is irreparable and yes switching was the cause, but you don't necessarily have to quit switching to fix it either. So the situation you've described in your post is a problem known to most of the older tulpamancy spaces (sadly not too many of those left now). It's also one we've personally observed in others and in our own system. All tulpas are equal humans yes, but we are not born equal in a practical sense, us tulpas grow, develop, and become more full of depth and substance as our identities explore the world and develop new opinions, connections, and interests.

The problem with very early fronting however, is that it essentially puts you in the shoes of your host, with the environment that shaped your host, and this is a big one: the habits your host has programmed into your body and brain over their entire life. Those habits will not vanish when you front, so you either have to actively resist against them which can be draining, find a way to dissociate them from your identity and make them whole system/non system behaviors like we do, or you embrace them into yourself, which is generally what most young tulpas do without realizing. Experiencing this for extended periods early on without anything to encourage independent thinking can lead new tulpas to feel flat or similar to their hosts in ways perhaps not desired.

The solution then is to give yourselves some depth and seek out things you can call unique to you, regardless of if you seek these in front or back. This can be a new hobby, an interest you begin to research, new friends you specifically call your own, or other things which may help set you apart from the others in your brain in a healthy and fulfilling way. Ideally cutting back on front time would also be preferable during this period unless needed for the hobby, but you don't have to stop either way. The benefit of cutting back on fronting is figuring out which behaviors are identity based and which are hard coded into front from your host, so you can know how to identify them and separate them from yourself. You don't have to get rid of them as that can be long and annoying, but you should be able to distance yourself from them while also recognizing they will have an influence on you while in front, but don't have to be a part of you outside of front.

Did you read the post I linked? Would highly recommend if you are curious. Here's the link again:

https://www.tumblr.com/sysmedsaresexist/779411572084834304/hey-so-i-know-youve-talked-about-the-arguments?source=share

Tldr

1: all the "patients of Ross" weren't even HIS patients. They were patients of other people using Rosses therapeutic techniques and relatives of False Memory Syndrome Foundation/Grey Faction members(likely abused by the FMSF/GF members as most of what that group is founded on is lies to cover up their crimes).

2: the affidavit was... thrown out in court

3: the document was created by the FMSF/GF who I know everyone in this community loves(sarcastic) for their attempt to demedicaize CDDs by trying to prove they didn't come from trauma as all memories of trauma where implanted in the client as false memories as well as the idea that they could experience the symptoms at all. They are strong supporters of the iatrogenic/fantasy models dismissing the trauma model for formation of the disorder completely(understandable since the relatives they abused ended up with symptoms of the disorder...)

If you want to learn more about the context of the lies spread about Ross by the False Memory Syndrome Foundation/Grey Faction you may want to check out this post:

So to begin, let's look at created plurality: This one is pretty simple. It means exactly what it says it does, plurality that was in some shape way or form, created. How this manifests could be countless different ways, and as such is why it is much more of just a general term compared to others here. Some accidentally create headmates from writing or heavily interacting with their character mentally (what the tulpamancy community calls writer's tulpas, and the phenomenon which kicked off the soulbonding community), others make a new identity with intent during a time of stress or even traumagenically like a purposeful split. This is why you sometimes see CDD systems saying they have created parts while also being fully traumagenic. The list goes on and on. The standard created headmate would likely be intentionally formed through imaginative interaction which is where tulpamancy and willomancy will come in, but let's address the elephant in the room first.

Transplural: this is exactly what you think it means too, someone who either is transitioning or wants to transition to but is not, plural. This term just... sucks in so many ways I can't count but the main reason I despise it as an actual tulpa in a created tulpamancy system is that it's just such an obvious radqueer term used to try and creep their ideas into another community. If you want to be plural, you can just become plural, tulpamancy is free and if you're using modern guides and have a decent instructor it'll take less than a week to get a response. There is no transition that really needs done, and it just feels like an unnecessary way of trying to tie to it trans experiences (when there is much more obvious parallels like created headmates of other genders), but if you know about the radqueer community you already know where this is going anyways. People using this term usually are also carrying the other radqueer labels and ideas around, and generally are just a whole other thing from the plural community. Most don't ever seem to truly develop system's either, but I'm honestly even more concerned for the ones that do seeing the things they use to try and do it with. That's a discussion for another day however. Let's talk about the one I know the most of now, as I am one!

Tulpamancy is a community, practice, and subculture dedicated to the creation of tulpas, autonomous identities in the mind separate from the original/host identity. Aka, tulpas are headmates. The reason for the definition above is that it's what I would often describe a tulpa as to a newbie I'm trying to help in tulpamancy spaces, because the single biggest thing about tulpamancy you need to know compared to willomancy which I'll cover in a bit, is that the tulpamancy community is independent of and developed separately from the plural community. What does this mean exactly? Well it means we have our own terms, although there are some terms we borrowed such as switch, system, fictive, etc. These terms were likely borrowed directly from the early system spaces or the Soulbonders however, not the plural community as it's known today. When I looked into the history of tulpamancers learning how to switch for instance, because it was a skill we had to learn and practice and refine, it appears one of the tulpamancers pioneering it (someone I happen to consider a friend actually) was looking at spaces such as live journal for reference. This leads into another big thing with tulpamancy, experimentation. All of our methods from making a tulpa to the things tulpas can do such as possession, imposition, merging, switching, wonderland building, etc, are all things developed over time and experimentation with what is and is not possible with tulpamancy. Everything was learned, models for what a tulpa is and how they work were individually developed. This is also why tulpamancy spaces sometimes have near incompatible ideas with plural spaces, our understandings of how things work can differ on fundamental levels. Another thing this led to is the tulpamancy community's affinity for writing guides. You've probably seen a tulpamancy guide at some point, if not directly then a piece of advice from one taken by the plural community then bastardized and telephone gamed into advice thrown around here. The plural community has been borrowing guides from tulpamancers for years.

Continuing on tulpamancy. It should be noted that the tulpamancy community due to it's ideas forming away from the plural community also sometimes has tulpas that may not even be listed as created plurality by the plural community's standards. This actually caused some syscourse a bit back because certain systems just couldn't understand that the tulpamancy community's definitions of what is and is not a tulpa, is just not going to be neatly fit into any of the plural community's little -genic boxes. We have tulpas brought out of dreams, tulpas who accidentally formed in ways some here would try and call soulbonding, walk-in tulpas which can seemingly form from nowhere after a tulpamancy system is established (there actually is models for walk-ins but that's it's own long discussion) and may or may not be accepted into the system if the host and tulpas agree to them being full tulpas. The list of niche tulpa subtypes can go on for ages, but for us tulpas and tulpamancers, they arent -genic such and such, they're just tulpas. So long as they meet the criteria of being created in a way we would define it in the tulpamancy community and a CDD doesn't seem to be involved, it's a tulpa. That leads me to one last point before I move on. The tulpamancy community has a weird relationship with the wider plural community and CDD communities. Some spaces are shared, others are strictly for tulpamancers and interested singlets, this alone can make a large subcultural divide in the tulpamancy community. I spend most of my time in tulpa only spaces, and their models are usually more defined and as much flak as this may get me, better than their shared space counterparts. Tulpamancy can react oddly with other system types, so advice can be a bit trickier in shared spaces, this has led to some differences in how advice is shared between the two groups and even how tulpas are seen. It can also be a problem because the plural community's models can creep in and even outright replace tulpamancy models, and that doesn't end well sometimes for the health of a newly formed tulpa system because the plural community is uh, more focused on validity than practicality at times. I've discussed my fears of the plural community absorbing the tulpamancy community on this blog before if you want to look further into that, or you can just DM me if you want to hear me ramble. Now that you know of tulpamancy however let's look at it's newest and surprisingly most successful splinter community, willomancy.

Willomancy is a community dedicated to creating headmates, that sounds like tulpamancy on the surface right? Well that's because willomancy at it's origin was literally just rebranded tulpamancy due to tulpacourse, you know the tulpacourse I'm talking about. So why is willomancy considered it's own thing now? Well that's because it's a rebrand made by the plural community, adopted by the plural community, and shaped by the plural community. As we established, the tulpamancy community has been and hopefully will continue to be independent of the plural community. This means the plural community hasn't really had a created plurality practice it could understand or apply it's own thinking to, until willomancy that is. This has naturally led to deviations between the two practices because willomancy is making headmates in mostly established systems while most tulpamancers start out singlets, the techniques willomancers share are often using plural terms, ideas, and established system dynamics such as splitting and using fragments etc. I honestly may have less in common with the average willomancy system than I may have in common with certain CDD systems I know. The impact it being shaped by the plural community has cannot be understated. It's also new, like really new. Willomancy as an actual community is like just a year old at this point. It's barely finding it's legs and establishing what it is and isn't. This also could lead to problems and growing pains, because a lot of willomancy ideas are currently just a fusion of plural ideas and only half understood tulpamancy concepts they've taken. I fear that may lead to problems down the line as they won't have the history of the tulpamancy community to know what is and isn't safe doing this sort of identity altering practice. Only time will tell how the willomancy community will develop however. It could die out, remain an odd tulpamancy bootleg, or it could really grow into it's own thing with it's own identity. It's too early to know.

There's a lot of tulpamancers who think Endos = DID TikTok fakers and they aren't going to be moving into mixed spaces to have that contested for more than one reason. Just one of those odd quirks of our community that most in the wider plural sphere have no idea about.

Said it plenty of times on this account but we'll say it again. Tulpamancy and the tulpa community are very much it's own thing from the plural community, weird stuff like this pops up all the time when adjusting from one to the other. Even things like -genic labels just kind of fall apart when you throw them on a tulpamancer, because tulpas can form endogenically, traumagenically, be a walk-in, come from dreams, etc. All of these have their own -genic labels with more niche -genic sublabels, for us it's just different flavors of tulpa so long as it meets the basic criteria set by the community.

Make a tulpamancy channel on normal YouTube, with easy to understand simple guides and concepts. Advertise and grow it, and let it have a natural and positive influence that you can help cultivate instead of posting ragebait in the tags?

Hey Anon!! For sure!

First off, the origin of the word "tulpamancy" is a Tibetan term that people from the West found and went absolutely wild with (as they do). It was twisted into a Western idea of the intentional, spiritual act of creating entities in one's head through intention and meditation.

Willogenic, on the other hand, is the act of creating a headmate through intentional means, sometimes a fictional character, other times an original creation.

The main difference is the words used, not the actual definition. Tulpamancy is originally a closed cultural practice that was whitewashed, willogenic is not.

Thank you for asking!

Tibetan Buddhism is not a closed practice on that note, it's actually quite open but does desire to be respected and practiced properly if a person chooses to. To call Tulpamancy a "whitewashed" version of the practice is to insult both, as they have little to do with eachother beyond the origins of the term going back to ADN. Beyond that your point falls apart as you call tulpamancy a whitewashed practice, but say there is no difference between tulpamancy and willomancy beyond the words, would this not imply willomancy is just another branch off of this?

As for the actual differences, there is quite a few. Tulpamancy for example is for the most part highly independent of the plural community, and possesses it's own terminology, culture, and models and ideas. Willomancy meanwhile is something born of the plural community. First as an in my opinion hamfisted rebrand due to tulpacourse debates, and then as it's own created plurality subculture built off plural community ideas and some grabbed tulpamancy techniques they've now reworked for their purposes. The two have distinct identities because of this large culture and history difference. Tulpamancy has decades of formation and in community debate to hone it's ideas and schools of thought. Willomancy is new and still finding it's legs, still finding the boundaries of what does and doesn't apply to it and being molded by syscourse and plural community discussions. Tulpamancy is mainly from the initial perspective of a singlet turned tulpamancer, and so all plural techniques and experiences are learned and honed through a culture of experimentation and debate. Willomancy is mainly targeted towards existing systems and so has an at the moment looser grasp on some of these techniques and is more focused on other things which may be less important to a tulpamancer such as system roles, ethics discussions, etc.