I don't remember exactly when I first learned about tulpas. It was probably some clickbaity YouTube video from the mid-2010s attempting to expose some "dark side" of the internet. Around 2019 I rediscovered the tulpa community. After experiencing a severe dissociative episode I began researching altered states of identity. Some of my research led me to scientific, peer-reviewed psychological studies. Some of my research led me to more spiritual interpretations of identity, though with a modern twist. The tulpa community falls into the latter section.
There's a lot to explain when it comes to tulpas. The gist of it is that you meditate really hard to create a kind of external being, called a tulpa. It's a bit like having an imaginary friend, though some people say they can literally see, hear, and touch their tulpa. Some even claim that their tulpa can inhabit their body and control it. One example of this is the story of Oguigi and Koomer , a man's 2-year tulpa journey in which the character he created slowly took over his entire life. Unfortunately the original blog has been deleted and is only viewable through archived snapshots.
I forgot to mention, a significant amount of tulpas are based on characters from the show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. You can read more about that here .
I got pretty deeply invested in tulpamancy for a few weeks. I didn't really want a companion, but I had an idea for a comic and thought that tulpamancy could help me bring my characters to life, almost literally. I listened to this podcast on YouTube and meditated nightly. It led to some interesting ideas in terms of character development but ultimately I could not manifest another being into my reality.