thecandlelightsociety

[thecandlelightsociety]

The current state of r/tulpas is really... not good.

If you want to see the most well preserved looking glass into the past of the tulpamancy community then the tulpa.info forums would be your friend, but it should be noted since nobody else has that it had it's own subculture and ideas those active on the 4chan scene or the early reddit or tumblr (back when tumblr had a real tulpamancy community) might not have shared.

One of the problems with the tulpamancy community being an internet era group is that our history is terribly archived. A lot of it was in discords and such which you can only learn of now via talking to really old members of the community. We have access to some of those people, if you Circ or anyone else reading wants us to pass on a question to one or two of them. A lot of our history is just in the memories of those who came before.

It should also be noted that the old style of the community while changed isn't actually all gone. The problem is that it's locked up tight and fortified inside of mostly tulpamancer and interested singlet only servers which usually begin to lean towards center to right wing culture (not too surprising when you remember our origin history with 4chan).

For a tulpamancy server to remain a tulpamancy server nowadays it has to be 4chan culture derived, and that's kind of sad. There is some other servers too which are mostly still tulpamancy spaces, but you can feel the plural community's influence creeping into them with how they talk and how they think of certain things. It's been quite rough for the reddit side of the tulpamancy community ever since the redditulpas server got nuked. The subreddit is both larger than ever but a shadow of it's past in community cohesion, and the successor discords are all odd and have a laundry list of problems some much longer than others.

Our community is growing larger and larger, but what makes it our community has never felt more precarious as we transition into whatever comes next for our practice.

I genuinely am interested in the tulpamancy community. Not… not r/Tulpas (the discount r/Plurals at this point), but the OLD Tulpamancy circles.

I wish often that I could’ve been part of those. I’ve been wanting to learn more about tulpamancy, particularly as someone who has weirdly created parts who most certainly aren’t tulpas. I was to know how tulpas were created.

Note to self: try to find the old guides and learn more.

[thecandlelightsociety]

Potential Red Flag that More than Tulpamancy Is Happening

If you and your tulpa(s) randomly switch (as in neither party consciously initiated it) or experience involuntary switches, that is not normal in Tulpamancy. Switching isn't random or involuntary in Tulpamancy; it's most often a mutual agreement between systemmates and a conscious thing that occurs. Tulpas don't randomly take front without warning or involuntarily in response to certain stimuli.

If you experience random/involuntary switching more than the random freak occurrence, you should look into dissociative disorders because this may be a symptom of something like DID.

6-5-2025

[thecandlelightsociety]

Hello, I'm Astra from the Candlelight Society. I wanted to reach out in the case that @system-facts is the blog of one of the alters in your system.

If he is not: I'm sorry for the wave of criticism that is likely coming your way from him being a troll and directing people towards you, take care of yourselves. I don't know why you would be the specific target but this person is either in need of serious help or a truly pathetic troll. Don't let it get to you. Feel free to reach out.

If he is: I'm sorry that he has dragged you all into this position, but he is causing real harm and problems for multiple people. Whatever the case is that has made him do these things, please make him stop and prevent him from doing these things again. I'm not particularly affected by being fakeclaimed, but that isn't the case for many on Tumblr. I'll also apologize for any messages that may cause a negative effect on you that I said towards him, even if I still think they were justified. Feel free to reach out if you need to talk 💙

Hello. I am not natasha / the princess, I am Alaska, but I am also from The Corporate Tower.

We lost Wi-Fi and I’m going off of data from our phone. We seen the tag right before our Wi-Fi went out and couldn’t respond to it so thank you for inboxing this blog and telling us.

We don’t know who the fuck that person is. We don’t even have that url as one of our blogs.

Our only sideblogs for members are our system is me (alaskaintheforest), our boss Natasha (her 18+ personal blog and this one), Syntax (his 18+ blog and dragon of endos), and Supernova (supernovafoxposting).

Yes, a lot of personal info, but we don’t post much important things on those blogs.

Proof just in case. And because we’re paranoid. Censored blogs are 18+ so we didn’t want to reveal them. Corporate creations is our newest blog we made today as a new system member creation blog.

So, listen :

System-facts is NOT one of our blogs as they do not know us, we do not know them, as well as we don’t even have system-facts as a blog.

If you can help reblog this for reach please do. We are not about to get thrown into some shit. We are setting this straight now.

Thank you for providing us an opportunity to reach out to you too. /gen

-Alaska

[thecandlelightsociety]

Switchy: server-side pluralkit for minecraft

Switchy lets players swap between presets of player data and customizations by utilizing the existing features of other well-established mods in the ecosystem - nicknames, skins, origins, and so on - plus vanilla data like inventory, position, and spawn point.

It's for systems, RP servers, account sharing, genderfluidity, furries, even mapmaking - everything is toggleable on a per-player level and built to be extended with mod compatibility addons.

It works with vanilla clients, but adds the GUI above when modded.

[thecandlelightsociety]

[thecandlelightsociety]

I know this has been done before but let's actually get this in the tags for full visibility, and why not typos, sure

Calling all systems and plurals and mixes of the two

[thecandlelightsociety]

1000 followers???!

Holy shit! We're not usually one to care about followers but this is amazing! This is the biggest following we've ever had on Tumblr and really, we're honored by each and every one of you. We hope we can make the plural community a better place for everyone.

That's why we want to give back, with a 1k follower raffle!

The Prize: One hand drawn and flat colored icon, to be used as an icon for system members, OCs, whatever! The finished product will be a 1500x1500 digital drawing, and the winner will receive both a transparent version and one with a background of their choosing.

Examples of flat colored icons:

How to Enter: You must be following this blog to enter; it's okay to follow just for this if you don't already! All you have to do is reblog this post and your name will be in the raffle.

How Long Will it Run?: The raffle will run one whole week before the cutoff time, so reblog within that timespan! If the poll below has ended, the raffle is over.

What'll Happen if I Win?: You'll be contacted through tumblr messages to let you know you won, and we'll begin discussing the details of what you'd like for your icon! We'll stay in touch until it's complete to make sure certain details are correct. The icon drawing itself will take 1-3 weeks to be completed. You'll have the option to have your commission and/or blog name posted to this blog once it's done!

[thecandlelightsociety]

Wow, that's a fascinating find! It's probably better to let it speak for itself on this one though so no breakdowns this time.

Hey syscoursers, I found a pretty recent study regarding endogenic plurality.

I’m wondering about other’s thoughts on it? I have some mixed feelings, so

[thecandlelightsociety]

Some body thoughts

[thecandlelightsociety]

The tulpamancy study AMA was so exciting!! We woke up ridiculously late and all the questions we wanted to ask already had been; so happy with the level of passion from the community!

some responses from the two researchers that we found interesting/exciting:

[thecandlelightsociety]

Astra: The tulpa AMA is revealing some really cool stuff so far. Not sure how much long they plan to keep up with the thread but I'm glad to have gotten some of our questions answered, and apparently tulpamancy is becoming more popular among other academics who hear of it!

To quote: "Hi! I just want to add that whenever I talk about tulpamancy in academic circles, among philosophers or psychiatrists or cognitive scientists, I got a big wave of interest. I've spoken to a lot of academics who think the possibility of creating a tulpa has big implications for our understanding of the human mind, the imagination, culture, and the self. I have a feeling the concept is going to catch on more and more beyond the current tulpa community."

[thecandlelightsociety]

There is a Tulpamancy research AMA happening on the Reddit.

Come take a look at the posts if you want! Although try not to post if you don't have something relevant to the conversation to add please!

This has been the coolest thing we've seen so far. It perfectly lines up with our subjective experiences with possession in comparison to switching.

"We found that when a tulpa is possessing the body and writing a sentence, there is reduced activity in a particular part of the brain that's involved in planning actions and having a sense of agency over your actions (the pre-supplementary motor area, or pre-SMA). This suggests that tulpamancers have learned to down-regulate this key agency/planning region, which lets an alternative agent (the tulpa) take control"

[thecandlelightsociety]

I do not mean to sound stupid, but I read your post "dissociation is not solely trauma-based", and I was wondering if you knew of any sources or books about it? I think I don't fully understand what dissociation is. For exemple, no matter how I look at it, I don't understand how meditation could be considered like anything close to dissociation, simply because it's also used as a grounding technique.

I'm combining two asks here, because I'm going to cover both in one go :) you don't sound stupid.

You've got to start with the understanding that dissociation is a continuum from normal (aka nonpathological) to "abnormal" (I hate that word, but aka pathological). I finally dropped the wild existence of Dr Jamie Marich, clinical trauma specialist and a pro endo, CDD system, who wrote Dissociation Made Simple. Let me quote because the book is actually good.

Yes, dissociation is so hard to understand that she wrote an entire book about the concept.

"The English word dissociation comes from the Latin root dissociātiō, meaning “to sever” or “to separate.” At this point when lecturing, I usually ask my students: What are we severing or separating from when we dissociate? You may take a moment, before reading on, to ask this question of yourself. Try not to think on it too rationally. Listen to your gut-level response...

For the purposes of this opening chapter, let’s focus on the form of separation that every human being can likely relate to —severing or separating from the present moment—especially when the present moment becomes unpleasant, overwhelming, or otherwise painful."

Dissociation is a disconnect from something-- this can be memories, thoughts, emotions, or, in worst cases, reality. The present moment.

Not all meditation is dissociative, but most is. For example, emptiness meditation is about disconnecting from everything in the moment. You are literally fine-tuning your dissociative techniques. This is also true when you're using grounding meditation to disconnect from overwhelming emotions or thoughts to get back into the moment.

There are a variety of tasks that we either develop naturally or learn as a way to achieve some degree of separation (e.g., enough to stay somewhat present but still get some relief, or going further into totally cutting oneself off from in-the-moment presence). Dissociation of this nature is not all or nothing—it generally happens in degrees and can depend upon how much distress you feel in any given context. We can do this by daydreaming, drifting off, zoning out, zoning inward, disengaging eye contact with people, losing focus (especially when driving), or getting a little floaty in many other life circumstances. Some people frame this “floatiness” as similar to hypnotic trance and others feel it is quite distinct. We may even take deliberate steps to enhance the experience of separation. How often have you escaped into a book or a movie, into your phone or computer, or into some activity, because it makes the harshness of dealing with the present moment and the emotions it can elicit somewhat more bearable?

Let me be very clear, if you said yes to this question, this answer does not mean that there is anything wrong with you! All of these can be quite ordinary forms of dissociation that every human being is capable of experiencing.

A really, really good way to understand this concept is actually through maladaptive daydreaming (MADD), a highly addictive form of dissociation.

Indeed for many of us, substances or other behaviors that cause major surges of dopamine (e.g., spending, computer games, sexually acting out) can become the accelerant of dissociation...

Whenever we become accustomed to dissociating, especially as children growing up in complex trauma, our brain becomes bonded or some would even say addicted to that state of escape. Once chemical or other reinforcing behaviors are introduced to us, they can accelerate that already familiar experience and we become further bonded to that behavior.

Daydreaming itself is dissociative. Point blank. It is both the most normal kind of dissociation, and yet the most common maladaptive dissociation.

Daydreaming and journeying into my head’s imaginative scenarios is another series of behaviors that can have both adaptive and maladaptive qualities. As a kid, they kept me safe. As an adult, they are the source of so much of my creative power—yet if I engage them too long, too hard, or too much, I run the risk of getting lost and not being able to attend to what helping professionals might call my activities of daily living (e.g., eating properly, sleeping, taking good care of myself, getting to work, attending to loved ones appropriately and with good boundaries).

Let's cut away from the book really quickly to look at Eli Somer, the guy who came up with MADD.

Maladaptive daydreaming is a dissociative disorder: Supporting evidence and theory.

The only real thing I want to quote is:

Although trauma may be one causal factor, we indicate several other etiological pathways to the development of MD. We discuss associations with related concepts and suggest directions for future research.

And

MD is strongly related to dissociation and seems to rely on an innate tendency for absorptive and imaginative fantasy. Through its rewarding properties, this form of immersive daydreaming becomes abnormal. MD may thus be viewed as a disordered form of dissociative absorption.

While Somer talks about how it can be a behavioral addiction in that paper, I find this is a more succinct description.

Maladaptive Daydreaming: Epidemiological Data on a Newly Identified Syndrome

Maladaptive Daydreaming (MD) is a proposed mental disorder characterized by excessive, compulsive immersion in vivid and complex fantastical daydreamed plots, generating intense emotional involvement, often accompanied by stereotypical movements. This addictive absorption in daydreaming becomes maladaptive as it consumes many hours a day, generates shame or guilt, hinders achievement of short- and long-term goals or tasks, and overall causes clinically significant distress and/or interferes with functioning in social or occupational realms. Maladaptive Daydreamers (MDers) report a strong urge to daydream whenever they can and annoyance whenever they cannot, and, repeated unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back, or stop daydreaming, like other behavioral addictions.

And that's the best way to look at DID and other maladaptive, pathological forms of dissociation. It's a behavioral addiction, an escape that we not only crave, but can no longer live without. Just like you can get addicted to working out and gambling, you can become addicted to severing ties with reality through pleasurable (and in some cases, necessary) forms of escape.

I don't know if this is going to make sense, but I've found looking at dissociation like an upside-down iceberg helps me.

At the top, the widest part, is everyone on the planet, and the basic, general concept of dissociation. Severing from the present moment, be it through your phone, book, daydreaming, meditation, zoning out.

As you go down, and it gets narrower, it becomes more important to put names to specific types and forms of dissociation, and fewer people struggle with these forms. In the middle is a confusing mix of seemingly normal and pathological dissociation. You have mediumship, authors with living characters, OCD (yup), ADHD (shocking, I know), MADD, DPDR, (C)PTSD, people on the edge of forming behavioral addictions.

At the bottom, the smallest point, only pathological dissociation, with a much smaller population experiencing it. DID, OSDD, severe and chronic DPDR, DA.

For people that struggle with dissociation... they fell down a hole and travelled all the way to the bottom of the iceberg. What was once a general, normal, human experience became a very specific problem. Over the years, as they travelled deeper, they used and developed a complex mix of various normal dissociative reactions until it eventually became a named, pathological experience.

I sincerely hope that this helps explain and answers both questions ):

Here's another really interesting paper (from none other than, DUNDUNDUN, Colin Ross).

Maladaptive Daydreaming, Dissociation, and the Dissociative Disorders

[thecandlelightsociety]

Michael: We've been far more active on our syscourse blog as of late than here and it would be a nice change of pace to do some stuff here instead. Seeing as we're a tulpamancy blog first and a general plural blog second, how would people feel about us doing tulpamancy guide reviews?

For reference, this would be breaking down the guide and what (we personally think) is good, bad, or outright wrong with it.

[thecandlelightsociety]

Astra: The FNF team was really pissed off when they made Spookeez Erect. Like why the hell is this harder than Thorns Erect lmfao

Absolutely loving this new update, they really cooked.

[thecandlelightsociety]

Dimensions of Fronting

In my Manifestations post, I used fronting as a catch-all term for any sort of physical attachment to the body.

I'd like to delve into that a bit more here, exploring language to better explain individual experiences of fronting and control over the body.

This isn't really intended for every day use, but is meant to better explain plural experiences of fronting in a more clear and more precise way.

Full body vs Locational Attachment

Full body attachment is, as expected, attachment to the entire body at once.

Locational Attachment is attachment to specific body parts such as only a hand or just the legs. When referencing locational attachment, it's usually useful to refer to the part of the body one is attached to.

Efferent vs Afferent Attachment

Besides simply being locational, attachment can come in afferent and efferent forms. Some nerves send signals from the brain to the body. Other nerves in the brain receive signals from the body.

Nerves responsible for sending signals from the brain to the body are called efferent nerves. These allow you to control the body. Nerves responsible for receiving signals are afferent. These allow you to sense things through the body.

Attachment can exist in both forms separately.

If a headmate feels like they're experiencing everything happening to the body but feel like somebody else is controlling it, they're experiencing afferent attachment with efferent detachment.

If a headmate is controlling the body but feels disconnected, as if everything is happening to somebody else, this is efferent attachment with afferent detachment.

Alternative Terminology:

The terms above are more technical, designed to help conceptualize the dimensions of fronting. For everyday use, I would recommend Possession and Attunement.

Possession referring to taking control of the body, attunement to receiving signals from its senses as if they were your own.

Solitary Attachment vs Shared Attachment and Co-fronting

Any of previous attachment types may be experienced by multiple headmates at once. Multiple headmates feel like the whole body is theirs and share control over it simultaneously. Shared attachment can also be over specific limbs, where multiple headmates feel like the limb is theirs at once.

If only one headmate feels attached to the body or limb, this is solitary attachment.

When multiple headmates are controlling the body, this is usually called co-fronting.

How to use the language?

One thing I often struggle with is putting our experiences into words.

A lot of plural language is vague and has multiple conflicting meanings. Part of an issue with having such a large community made up of many smaller communities.

What one person means when they say they're fronting may not be what another means.

This allows us to more easily describe and compare different plural experiences.

For example, a distinction for our partial possession vs our proxying.

When I partially possess an arm, I fully experience that arm as if it's mine. I experience both afferent and efferent locational attachment to that specific limb. If using possession and attunement terms, this may also be considered Attuned Locational Possession or Partial Attuned Possession.

In contrast, when proxying (typing while somebody else is fronting,) I don't feel like the hand belongs to me. I send signals through them, the words typed out are mine and coming from me, but the fronter still experiences the hands as if the hands belong to the fronter. I experience a locational efferent attachment (sending motor signals) and afferent detachment (an absence of sensor signals) to the hands, while the fronter may experience afferent attachment and efferent detachment to the hands. This can also be considered a form of Unattuned Locational Possession of the hands.

Breaking it down!

Full body Attachment and Detachment:

"I'm in complete control of the body, everything that happens to it is happening to me."

Full Fronting (full body efferent and afferent attachment.)

"I'm in control but everything feels like it's happening to someone else, as if I'm outside the body."

Complete Unattuned Possession (full body efferent attachment and afferent detachment.)

"I can feel everything but it's as if someone else is controlling my actions and making me act things out."

Complete non-possessive Attunement (full body efferent detachment and afferent attachment.)

"I'm a spectator watching while someone else controls my body. Everything that happens is happening to them and I just exist in the background."

Complete Detachment (full body efferent and afferent detachment.)

Partial Attachment and Detachment:

"I have total control over this limb, and feel through it as if it's mine."

Partial Attuned Possession (localized efferent and afferent attachment.)

"I can control this limb but I feel like it's someone else's and don't feel these sensations are happening to me."

Partial Unattuned Possession.(localized efferent attachment and afferent detachment.)

"I can feel through this part of the body as if it's mine, but I have no control over it."

Partial non-possessive Attunement (localized efferent detachment and afferent attachment.)

"I can't control this limb and I feel like it belongs to someone else."

Partial Detachment (localized efferent and afferent detachment.)

Things to consider...

While writing this, there were some experiences that were hard to categorize. This is especially true of unconscious reactions. If you tickle a headmate's mindform who is co-con but not fronting, and their reaction causes the body to jolt, do these sorts of automatic and unconscious reactions constitute a form of Efferent Attachment?

This model is still not comprehensive. But I believe it's a good starting place for understanding fronting experiences.

[thecandlelightsociety]

I want to share this article archived by the wayback machine in 1997 and I believe to be written by Dr. John M. Grohol. Here is a link to the archived page. I feel like it's helpful to see a piece of history like this because, even almost THIRTY YEARS later, people are still called fake or have doubt cast on them for simply being open on the Internet about having DID or being a system!

_________________________

"The Prevalence of Multiples Online

Multiple Personality Disorder or DID Seems Prevalent Online

We see a growing number of individuals who visit our Web site and write us e-mail, as well as participate in mental health chats, that seem to have multiple personality disorder (MPD), or the disorder's newest name, dissociative identity disorder (DID). People with DID seem to be in many support rooms found online for mental health support. We even host a popular discussion forum for MPD/DID here on Mental Health Net.

So what's this all about? Is DID really that prevalent online?? Does the online world somehow draw more people with DID to it? Is DID being diagnosed more often because of more accurate tests? What's going on here??

From our experiences, it seems clear that a little bit of everything is involved in the greater numbers of people who suffer from this disorder showing up online. First is the greater knowledge and education amongst behavioral healthcare professionals about this disorder. If they know what to look for, which they are better trained to do more now than ever, they are more likely to be able to accurately diagnosed MPD/DID in individuals. This has been accomplished by greater research in this area in recent years as well as more information being trickled down to the clinicians who actually do most of the diagnosing and therapy of individuals with this disorder.

In addition to greater numbers of individuals being diagnosed with this disorder, many more of those people who get the diagnosis are coming online to find out more information and support for their problem. While there is still debate about how prevalent MPD/DID is within the general population, finding reliable and accurate epidemiological information about the disorder can often be difficult, if not downright impossible. Much of this is due to the political debate which has surrounded the diagnosis of MPD/DID in the past few years (Coons, 1989). Many misconceptions still exist and are even perpetrated by some mental health professionals. So information found online may fill some people's needs with this disorder.

But because it is a rare disorder, it also means there won't be any support groups available in their community for this problem. Like rare medical conditions and the popularity support groups for those have enjoyed online, so too are MPD/DID groups popular online. People with this disorder have found one another and can discuss issues that only other people with DID/MPD can understand and sympathize with.

Last, the symptoms of DID/MPD are such that there is often times an accompanying (and justified) social fear, out of concern of the ramifications of switching personalities when in the company of others (whether at work, at home, at a party, etc.). This fear is not nearly as powerful or present when in an online chat room or discussion forum. This is probably because such forums are devoid of many of the social cues and nonverbal communications which may encourage an emerging personality to present him or herself. It may be easier, in fact, for someone who suffers from MPD/DID to talk to others in such a forum because of the ability to remain present in a singular personality.

There is no clear reason why so many people seem to have this disorder in online chat rooms. It is likely a combination of factors which have resulted in this perception. This should be no need or cause for alarm, since individuals who have DID/MPD we've spoken to have overwhelmingly given high marks to the experiences they've had in online support rooms and forums. As more and more people come online, we will expect to find more rare mental disorders represented, especially those which have a social component which may be helped through an online modality of communications."