Thread by @ponderouswhims, Ok so we finally tracked down what we think is the source [...]

Ok so we finally tracked down what we think is the source of today's #syscourse about tulpa/parogenic systems. Turns out we're exactly the kind of system they were criticizing, so naturally we have some Opinions. Let's talk about it, shall we? 1/?

We're not gonna link the tweet because we're not all that interested in arguing. We just want to express our own thoughts, and hopefully provide some insight into our experience & those that may be similar. 2/?

To that end, we reserve the right not to engage with replies if we so choose. We will also likely block people who try to tell us we don't exist.

Fair warning. 3/?

First, a little history on us. We're a parogenic system. We became a system ~6 years ago, with 0 exposure to tulpa or plural communities.

We contextualized our experience the only way we knew how - as a thought experiment; a flight of fancy; an overactive imagination. 4/?

But we also realized over time that it was Not The Same as normal imagination. We argued about it. We began to question the nature of consciousness. What, exactly, defines a ~real person~? 5/?

^ That's a philosophical question and we don't have hard answers. The point here is that, years later, when we stumbled across plurality on the internet? We saw ourselves, for the very first time. We learned words for what we are. 6/?

Some of the first words we learned were 'tulpa' & 'tulpamancy'. These were the words that described us. We took them and we used them, because we had nothing else. 7/?

We also, around this time, learned where those words came from. Let me state here, for the record, that those origins are absolutely 100% culturally appropriative. 8/?

There's something deeply racist about a white women butchering Buddhist spiritual practices & terminology and dramatizing them as bizarre/magical/dangerous in order to sell copies of her orientalist book. 9/?

And yes - people latching on to that, building a western practice directly based on an orientalist caricature, naming it a bastardized version of a Tibetan word & pretending it has anything to do with Tibetan Buddhism? That's appropriative too. 10/?

But here's the thing: 'creating a headmate' is not an idea that belongs to a specific cultural practice. I did it by accident - how could it be?

And the space that modern tulpamancy occupies - discussion & strategies for how to do that - isn't inherently appropriative. 11/?

A month or two after learning about tulpamancy, we found the term parogenic. It felt good. Because now we can call ourselves what we are without invoking that shitty history.

A history that isn't ours, by any stretch of the imagination. 12/?

I think there's a conversation worth having here: about the origins of the tulpa terms, about the ways we claim or reference that history.

It's always worth engaging critically, with a healthy dose of self-reflection. 13/?

But I do have sympathy for the people who use those terms today. People who discovered the basic idea of creating headmates and now call it by the name they were taught it is called.

And that is not exclusive to those, like us, who learned it after-the-fact. 14/?

I think we were lucky here, that we found a better term so quickly, while we were (are!) still figuring things out. We're not used to using 'tulpa', we're not active in tulpa communities. It was easy to switch. 15/?

But if you've built an identity, a community, around the only words you knew to describe yourself? If the terminology helps you find others like you?

I can understand that. 16/?

Again, I think it's worth some critical reflection. But that's a personal process. We build our own relationships with words. 17/?

All this is to say that: parogenic systems are not inherently appropriative, and there is nuance to be had in the discussion of tulpamancy, its history, and its modern forms. 18/?

And if you're only here to shit on systems that you don't understand? You can kindly fuck off. 19/19

-S

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