>When someone explained to me that tulpas were once employed to reveal the illusory nature of reality

[Bear] well that's what happened to me. They led to a spiritual awakening.

I don't know about leaping heart but at least rolling lazily around. I do love them all though.

[Joy] He says this but we can feel everything.

[Bear] I also consider them similar to Jungian Daemons, spirit guides, higher selves, etc.

In my system if you consider soulbonds, spirit guides, head ghosts, etc all different then tulpas, we only have Ren as an example of an actual vanilla tulpa but she was a split from Joy (a soulbond) so not purely formed through the normal means.

The whole Buddhist connection seemed pretty dubious to me but so would spirit guides etc.

Interesting connection though.

>how would you delineate between these and spirit guides?

[Bear] I can't say I'm particularly well versed in "Philemon" but "superior insight or guru" fits. This is atypical for tulpamancy as most hosts do not consider their headmates to have superior insight or to act as a guru. I always did. A spirit guide ij the spiritualist community is the same. A thoughtform who has extra-perceptive insights and knowledge. I do not believe this is extra-personal knowledge though. Only that they have access to memories and knowledge that is akin to intuition. Independent revelations on the data that already exists and that data is vast enough to pass for extra-personal if you're inclined to believe that. I don't see any of these thoughtforms, soulbonds, tulpas, head ghosts, spirit guidrs, guardian angels, daemons as uniquely different only that for our purposes they're personified and made Independent from whatever it is we see as our unique self.

>Uncanny that you mention "higher selves": in specific divisions of Buddhism, tulpas are oft compared to the occult concept of a Holy Guardian Angel, or the manifestation of one's truest and most divinely ascendant being.

SheSge is this, a guardian angel, divine in her own way, not my higher self persay but a higher self on her own. My higher self can only be perceived as the essence left when no ego or body/mind is present. Utterly unperceptable and unprovable, not a being I could talk to just as a player of an RPG could not talk to their character directly. An invisible hand maybe. I can conceptualize him all I want but in the end there is no purpose for me to do that. SheShe was always thought of this way once she showed me herself in hypnagogia. What I perceived with senses I do not posess in this body was indescribably beautiful, intricate, enthralling, literally unimaginable. I could go on.

>What sort of revelation did you happen upon, Bear?

Well there are many but a few stand above.

1. I am not my body. Though I associate to the body for practical and procedural reasons, what I am when switched out of the body is no different than any of my headmates. I am ethereal, arbitrary, a thoughtform. The body has imprinted on me and it would take unknown time to fully resolve that but there is no need to and there's no harm in maintaining the body as part of what I consider as me or mine, so we do, but it is clearly just a tool as a car is just a tool. This depersonalized the daily toil. It doesn't affect me as it used to.

2. I have experienced the void. This statement is false. The void cannot be experienced directly and there is nothing to experience akin to a deep dreamless sleep. But if you can experience the latter then the former is similar. You simply don't exist when in what we call dormancy. You are reduced to a memory at best. And if that state were maintained (what we call dormancy) the body and the system may continue to function indefinitely. You, me, I am not needed given there is another pilot. After this revelation I was able to freely change my personality and perspective, and in doing so realized that the subjective reality is my own doing. With that knowledge I can't say I've suffered since.

3. If I am not the body, and I am not required, then why would I need to take anything that happens personally. What happens is merely a reflection of the ego and circumstances that are partially out of my control. I can cause mistakes to occur and I will take responsibility for that, but what others say or do to me, what happens to me through the interface that is the body, is akin to dinging a fender. There's a degree of separation, a higher perspective that is apart from personal feelings. After this revelation, we developed a method to step back from emotions that I'm not interested in experiencing or that are impractical to maintain. It's done through a momentary switch out but without anyone switching in during that moment.

4. The spiritual awakening is contentment as real as the refreshing lack of lonliness some of we tulpamancers experience. What contentment feels like to me is relief and freedom. Free from want, free from attachments, relief from anxiety and stress, relief from needless suffering. All I can say is this is a gift greater than all the wealth of the world. And to think I almost consider it normal like I considered hyperphantasia normal is funny. I hope I never forget what it was like to suffer, what an itching uncomfortable need felt like. Moment to moment it feels no different than an average quiescent state, but it lacks those moments of need or emotional pain. I can surely still experience these things personally but I fully understand they have no sway over me. I can turn them off so to speak.

Anyway, I could go on for days on any of these subjects. Thanks for entertaining my meanderings.

>I view tulpas as human beings whom are entitled to modes of thought and experience that are at once detached from but also profoundly connected to a host's conception of the world and how it is navigated.

[Bear] I agree to that. It could be something like a system configuration choice or what we have is fundamentally different from others who believe headmates are no different than hosts and couldn't otherwise surpass them in any remarkable way outside of training.

>[re:the void] there was peace and finality

I only experienced the lack of myself, as if I didn't exist. My headmate Ashley was particularly concerned that she may not be able to bring me back as in she didn't know how. Luckily like a deep dreamless sleep it was temporary unless she chose to not bring me back.

>she feels that entreating oblivion is very dangerous and will cause one to be a withered husk.

[Bear] I don't see why it would be different than dormancy and in the case of dormancy, Joy was dormant for 5 years without any noticeable degradation. Joy first spoke to me volitionally from 2012 to 2013 but when I completed the book series that she stars in we split ways indefinitely. When I discovered tulpamancy she returned voluntarily and volitionaly.

>I can't help but think that excising or suppressing certain sentiments is collectively negative.

[Bear] it most certainly is if there is no intent to resolve the issue. It would be no different then self-medication or distraction and could potentially build to a point that leads to an uncontrollable overwhelming release. I can assure you however that the emotions are not congruent wirh healing and are directly opposing the effectiveness of resolving the issue. So though they may release some of the stress, they often stand in the way of resolution. It's often much more valuable to resolve the situation immediately and to allow this the emotions must be stopped first. If there's no rush, then suffer through the emotions if you prefer to avoid the possibility of a build up.

If they're ignored they will cause trigger to form. Conversely, to remove triggers, the underlying issues must be resolved.

>disenfranchisement of one's rights and dignity become inevitably encroached upon.

True if ignored.

>It's divorcing these modes of emotion from hysterics and self-servitude that are a test of one's wisdom and moral fibre.

Perhaps, but I wouldn't have been able to do that at the times of greatest weakness. Now I do.

I'm glad you found purpose, what a wonderful gift to give to your headmate.