visionsofgray:

As the title suggests, I am hosting this week’s Theory Thursday on /r/Tulpas, with the subject being tulpamancy and daemons—specifically, what daemons are, the differences between daemons and tulpas, and what mechanisms make them different. Please note, though, that though I read around on the subject, I am no expert at daemonism and that all of these are only theories, written from what I understand, using generalizations for brevity’s sake. The sphere of experience for both tulpamancy and daemonism is immense, and as thus, this post should be taken with a few grains of salt and the understanding that everyone’s experiences differ. You can read the original posting here, and a crosspost is available below the cut. Any comments/questions/discussions are welcome. Read More

Hi, so, I don’t do the tulapmancy thing, but I am a dæmian, and have been actively speaking to, and interacting with my dæmon for, uh, oh gosh, I think it’s been like, seven years now. xD And that’s not counting the eight or nine years before that where he was an occasional imaginary companion. Which is all to say, I think I’ve got a fairly good grasp on dæmonism, and how it works. And as such, I’d like to offer a couple corrections, and maybe some insights from the dæmonism side of things.

This is not really organised, but more me reading through your post, and commenting on the various parts, so…

I know a couple of the most well-known dæmon websites mention Jung and his theories. But I actually wonder how many dæmians hold to them? It’s actually a question I don’t have any clue about, whether it’s still a prevelent thing to talk about Jung. I know I can’t see my dæmon as my subconscious because well, if he was my subconscious, how am I able to talk to him? xD The subconscious being, by definition, below conscious thought.

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Oh yeah, and the ratio of same vs different gendered dæmons is actualy much closer than it is in the His Dark Materials books. Like, I think there is still a majority of dæmon/human pairs who don’t share gender than those who do, but it’s not a very big majority. (And how do you count non-binary humans or dæmons, because, yeah, that’s another way of identifying.)

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I’m also not sure any dæmians (or surely not very many, at any rate) interact with their dæmons on a sensory level. I don’t even know if such a thing is really possible. Projecting is just overlaying a mental image of the dæmon on the world, and imagining what the dæmon would be doing if they were actually there. I’m assuming this is what you do with tulpas in the real world, but I don’t know much about that, so I could be wrong (and I’m not really sure what “hallucinatory imposition” is).

Sometimes a dæmian will “switch” with their dæmon, but it is a very uncommon thing, and entirely up to the individual whether that’s a thing they and their dæmon want to do. I don’t think it’s really talked about in the community, nor particularly encouraged. For myself, if my dæmon wants to speak with my voice, or type, it’s more like, he dictates and I repeat, instead of him actually taking over any part of me.

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I need to make a correction to your section on “number and form”. And it’s a common misunderstanding, so I’m not surprised to see it. But basically, there’s a distinction to be made between a dæmon’s settled/stable form, and the way they choose to appear. The settled/stable form (different dæmians prefer different terminology) is the form that fits the human’s personality. That’s where analysing animals as a personality typing system comes in. And yes, it’s generally assumed that mythical creatures, human forms, and the like are considered non-viable in terms of settling. This has to do with it being a useful personality system. For example, there are so many different kinds of dragons out there, some big, some small, some social, some not, some friendly, some not, &c. &c. So, given that, how can you expect to come up with a set of traits that all dragons share? Or saying you’re settled as a human; like what does that even tell you about your personality?

However! Having said that, dæmons, being purely imaginary creatures, can take any form they choose, and, in fact, can care alot less about the laws of physics than (I understand) tulpas do. These are often known as comfort forms, though I don’t think that term is terribly helpful, really. Some human/dæmon pairs choose to always remain in their settled form; others hardly (if ever) take their settled form at all. And heck, because the personality typing side can be separated from the imaginary companion side, some people try to find a settled/stable form while not actually talking to and interacting with a dæmon.

So, for example, I’m settled as a swift fox; that’s the form that fits my personality. And my dæmon does spend quite a bit of time in that form. But he also spends alot of time as a small purple dragon, and sometimes he hangs out as a human. And occasionally he’ll flip into other forms for the heck of it (not necessarily real-life animals either; for a time, he really enjoyed clunking around as one of the Cylons from Battlestar Galactica, though he hasn’t done that recently). He likes to teleport places or jump impossibel distances, and do things like balance on my shoulder where, if he was physically real, he’d surely fall off. Any insistance that he should follow physical laws generally prompts him to curl up in midair, just because he can.

Unless someone’s come up with better terminology recently (they might’ve; I’m not as active in the dæmian community as I used to be), we don’t really have good words to distinguish the two types of forms a dæmon can take (settled form vs I’m-imaginary-and-I-do-what-I-want form), and with a tendency to just call them all forms, well, it can get confusing for anyone.

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As far as I know, most dæmians believe their dæmions to be mental constructs, at least in part. Some believe they are also part soul, for those who believe in souls. The belief in dæmons as all or part soul used to be much more common (especially when dæmonism was new) but has become less and less a thing as time has gone on. I, personally, am quite happy referring to my dæmon as a glorified imaginary friend, or as the imaginary talking fox that lives in my head. I think lots of people shy away from calling them imaginary friends, though, because of the connotations of childishness that phrase has, preferring to describe them as mental constructs instead. For me, it basically amounts to the same thing, and I tend to get better reactions if I just outright call him imaginary.

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I’m not sure what to say about dæmons and autonomy, partially because that will actually depend on the dæmian. Some will work hard to develop their dæmon’s personality as different than their own. Myself, I tend to describe my dæmon as semi-autonomous. He has enough autonomy that we can have meaningful conversations (one of his jobs is to play devil’s advocate), and for him to provide insights that I hadn’t (consciously) thought of until that moment. But he doesn’t really have preferrences, like, you’d expect a person to have favourite foods, or a favourite colour, or favourite songs, nor does he have enough of a separate personality for him to, say, do a personality typing test and come out with different results from me. But this really is one of those things that varies from person to person, some dæmons having very developed personalities, and others not really so at all.

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I hesitate to say belief determines what will be created, mostly because I don’t think it’s a matter of belief at all. Now it’s a bit more wibbly because we’re dealing with a brain, but it’s rather like creating most things. Belief has nothing to do with me following a recipe and baking a cake, nor with following a set of diagrams to fold some origami (and generally if I set out to fold a paper crane, and somehow end up with a squirrel, that’s got nothing to do with belief either, and everything to do with me fucking up at following the instructions somehow).

Though, like I said, brains are more wibbly. And when I set out to find my dæmon, it was super easy because I basically already had a dæmon without knowing it. That’s the part about him being an occasional magical companion before he became identified as my dæmon. But I guess that’s the thing about dæmonism being about bringing out a voice that’s already present. Some people have to actively work at it, and some people, like me, have an imaginary friend that already fits a chunk of the dæmon description that just needs strengthening. And some people try out dæmonism, decide it’s not their thing, and let their dæmon fade back into their general mental chatter. And that’s okay, too. It’s a nice thing about viewing the dæmon as part of ourselves; you can’t harm your dæmon by not talking to them (though you might feel bad about it, or upset your dæmon by doing so).

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I know some dæmians have taken up tulpa forcing techniques as a way of strengthening their dæmons, i.e. making them easier to project and talk to. It depends how much one cares about having strong projection skills, or a stronger dæmon vioce. I’m sure you could continue with the various techniques to have a dæmon indistinguishable from a tulpa (or at least, how would you even be able to tell because no-one else is in one’s head except oneself). But if you can tulpafy a dæmon, I don’t know why you couldn’t dæmonify a tulpa. Or create a dæmon!tulpa. Convince a tulpa to play the dæmon role in your head. Plenty of dæmians have other headmates of various sorts, some of which may be more tulpa-like (which is out of my depth, and also, I think The Dæmon Forum uses the word “headmate” differently than other places on the internet).

You wouldn’t actually need to alter the tulpa’s personality at all, just as tulpafying a dæmon need not involve mucking with the dæmon’s personality. It’s really simpler than that, and seems to reside in whether you view the tulpa/dæmon as you or as not-you. And seeing your dæmon as not-you might be just as difficult as seeing a tulpa as you. Like I said, I don’t do the tulpa thing, so I don’t know, but my brain is currently giving me error messages if I try to think of my dæmon as not-me, sooo…but maybe if I cared to put more effort into it, which, well, I like my dæmon just as he is.

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I’m not sure what to say about your last point. I guess you’d need someone who’s worked with both tulpas and dæmons to find out what their experiences are. I don’t feel like my dæmon influences my decisions any more than me coming to a decision by myself. But then, when I’m talking to my dæmon, I am essentially talking to myself, so it’d be really kind of weird if I suddenly started making different sorts of decisions after I became a dæmian than I did before. xD Because whether I think in monologue or dialogue, I’m still the same person, after all.

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Now, if this isn’t long enough already, I’d like to give you a couple thoughts from the dæmonism side of things.

Firstly, your tulpamancy stuff seems like alot of mental work for little gain. At least, from what I understand of it, you spend alot of time picturing a tulpa in fine detail, constructing an image of them, well, in terms of all the senses possible, before you ever get to, what seems to me, the interesting part: their personality, actually having an imaginary entity you can talk to and interact with. Like, okay, if I practiced tulpa forcing techniques with my dæmon, I could make his projected image clearer, maybe make his voice more distinct, but really? There’s so many other things I could be doing with my time, and what I’ve got is plenty good enough that I just really don’t see the point. We also like the freedom of taking whatever form he wants, not limiting it to just the one you spent all that time on. <Because what’s the point of being imaginary if I can’t have fun with it.>

The other thing about my dæmon being me is, well, as long as my dæmon still loves me and tells me I’m awesome, my mind isn’t completely fucked. That probably sounds incredibly cheesy, but it’s simply, if my dæmon is convinced I’m awesome, that means that on some level, I am, myself, convinced that I am aweome, which, when I’m having an emotionally terrible day, and my self-worth is poop, is incredibly comforting. And that strikes me as something a tulpa, being not-you, doesn’t really provide in the same way.