preface:

I just want to reiterate that everything in my post is opinion, and even if you agree with it, no part of it
should be propagated as fact (as that tends to happen with large reviews or commentaries on tulpamancy
that are published in text.)

If you believe that you yourself have committed any of these "bad practices", don't spend time worrying
about whether your tulpa is really sentient or not. You're already in this, just keep going, and seek
self-improvement. The most efficient way to tulpa-force has always been to do what you think works best,
and if anything I have said here is in contradiction of how you like to roll, for the love of god ignore it. I'm
just some angry self-righteous twat on the internet, and this is my rambling based on what I've seen in the
community.

If you truly feel your reasons for creating a tulpa, switching, pregnancy, or anything else, are completely
justified and have contributed to an increase in your happiness, then nothing I have said here matters. My
statements are sweeping, and my disagreement with your practices are a result of my inability to
understand you, whether it be because of different ethics, morals, personalities, or goals. I'm not going to
suddenly agree with you when you say you are doing the right thing, but that's what opinions are for. As
with everything else in this community, take it all with a grain of salt.

Why You Shouldn't Make a Tulpa, and Bad Practices

As the tulpa phenomenon grows ever larger, there's been an increased visibility
of emotional drama occurring between hosts and their tulpa. This is not to say that there
was any less drama proportionally when there were fewer tulpamancers, but with more
minds at risk of potential emotional and spiritual scarring in the face of mal-intentioned
tulpa-forcing, I am compelled to make a public statement about the risks of creating a
tulpa. While there are no real obvious physical risks, such as those described in
creepypastas and other mythical internet lore, malpractice of tulpamancy as well as
mistreatment of your tulpa may be detrimental to your emotional or spiritual well-being.
In this context, I use "spiritual" as a descriptor for that which involves the pursuit of
self-discovery, self-meaning, and a psychological connection with the greater universe
as a whole. No matter how you approach the tulpa phenomenon -- may it be from a
psychological, spiritual, metaphysical, or magickal standpoint -- if you do not go into
tulpa-forcing with the right intentions you may cause pain and stress to yourself or
others. Here are reasons you should not make a tulpa:

Because You're a Fangirl (or: Because You Love Ponies)

The nature of creation for many tulpa is grounded in the obsession with a form or
a character. For example, there are cases of tulpa being created, because the host was
infatuated with the idea of having real Pokemon, of having a tangible version of a
fictional character such as Jack Frost, Severus Snape, or Hatsune Miku, or -- the most
abundant of cases -- wanting a pony for a companion. There are many hosts who
recognize that though they are free to pick these forms their tulpa may deviate over
time. However, there is probably an equal amount of hosts who find the novelty of
having a tulpa purely in the tangibility of the desired form. This is a horrible reason to
start tulpa-forcing, as you will not realistically anticipate the weight of your actions. A
tulpa is a living, thinking mind; it does not exist purely to please you aesthetically or for
imaginary playtime. That is the function of an imaginary friend.

Because You're Bored / Because it Sounds Cool

This is not a fully valid reason to create a tulpa, although it is possible to be
enlightened by the nature of tulpa after-the-fact of creation. In an era of entertainment, it
is understandable why so many are so prone to making tulpa out of sheer boredom.
However, with this mindset many do not realize that tulpa are intended to be a
permanent addition to your mind, and that they often seek to improve you as a person
and consequently, your quality of living. Tulpa created out of boredom are potentially
more prone to be treated as a temporary plaything rather than a lifelong friend.
Because You're Horny
This is the extreme version of wanting to make a tulpa purely for the form. Simply
put, the amount of dedication required to bring a tulpa to sapience, and then impose it
visually and tactically, is not worth your time. Your living, thinking tulpa will not
appreciate being created as a sex slave. There are very few cases of tulpa actually
being intentionally created for these purposes, as it is pretty much common courtesy to
not make someone a sex slave.

Because You're Thirteen

Tulpamancy should be approached with a mature mindset, anything less will fail
to understand the weight of creating a sentient thoughtform. A message to
thirteen-year-olds and those of similar age, you have not matured enough to create a
tulpa. While you may be capable of acting mature for your age, you simply are not
mentally developed yourself. Throughout your school years, you will continue to change
as a person, discovering significant new things about yourself and others and forming
new beliefs and opinions. Until you have a solid foundation for your own mind and
personality, and are beyond the influence of crazy teenage hormones, it is irresponsible
for you to take on the task of developing someone else's mind and personality.

Because You Want To Switch

Switching is one of the most common forms of escapism in the tulpa community
which takes place on the mental stage for greener-grass syndrome. There are carefree
hosts that want to take the place of the tulpa in search of unconventional experiences in
the mental realm, ignoring their real life responsibilities and leaving the burden to the
tulpa. This is simply greedy and an irresponsible to want to make a tulpa.
 There are many practices in modern tulpamancy which I am personally highly
critical of, even though some of them are very common and are preached by the
majority. A tulpa exists for the function of improving the host, who in return offers love,
life, and friendship. There are several tulpamancers who create a tulpa out of loneliness
or depression, and learn through interaction with their tulpa how to interact with other
real people and improve their sociability and confidence. There are suicidal folks whose
tulpa suppress negative thoughts, and help them get by in day-to-day life. There are
artists whose tulpa serve as muses for inspiration. There are many righteous reasons to
have a tulpa, but there are also a lot of bad practices that serve as gimmicks that
remove tulpa from the limelight of self-improvement and devalue them into mental
crutches for the host to defy their real life. Along with that are practices that are
essentially neglectful to the tulpa itself, and as long as the tulpa is thought of as a
sentient mind, those practices are to be avoided.

Spending Too Much Time Online

There are far too many people who spend the majority of their time on the
various tulpa-related IRC channels, tumblrs, subreddits, forums, etc. When your tulpa is
developing, it is your responsibility to spend time with it outside of the online world.
Simply going outside and experiencing the sight, sound, smell, and feel of your
surroundings with your tulpa is a far richer way to develop your tulpa than to sit inside
and meditate on your computer chair for a few minutes. Even when you think your tulpa
is mature, it is still more beneficial for them to experience and grow first-hand through
your ventures in the real world and with real people. You will see things from their point
of view, and witnessing the world around you from the mind of a tulpa is a very euphoric
buzz, compared to the dullness of your room.

Assuming Immediate Sentience / Insta-tulpas

We are all familiar with the commandment of modern tulpamancy to "assume
sentience". While it is beneficial to assume that your tulpa is sentient from the get-go,
this phrase has evolved into an instruction to expect that every stray thought you have
is from your tulpa. It has basically become an instruction to assume sapience, rather,
the expectation that your tulpa has the understanding, knowledge, and wisdom to act as
a human being who can speak and formulate complex thoughts. Why is this bad? This
expectation severely skews the perception of tulpa. A secondary sapient mind as an
entry into tulpamancy simply cannot be materialized within less than a week of forcing in
most circumstances. The majority of these "insta-tulpas" are likely not tulpa at all, but
dare I say, servitors (or basic imaginary friends). Along with that, these alleged tulpa are
almost never given the same appreciation as tulpa that take longer to develop, and their
hosts disappear from the community within weeks. My research in the progress report
section of the tulpa.info forums reveals that at least 50% of hosts who report displays of
sapience within a week of forcing their first tulpa tend to become promptly inactive in the
community, and stop posting on their progress report logs or tumblrs. There are even
some reports of thoughtforms completely disappearing, with the host realizing it was just
their own thoughts all along.

It is common knowledge though that after the creation of the first tulpa, you
become more prone to creating new tulpa faster on the basis you have already trained
your brain to accept tulpa as independent entities. In my opinion, this is the only area
where insta-tulpas (sentient in less than a week) are possible, and are not as prone to
being underappreciated given the host already has perceived the high value of tulpa.

Time Dilation
There are several hosts who have made claims in the past that they have dilated
their perception of time upwards of hundreds of years in their wonderland. If true, the
mechanics are not well understood. It could be that memories are auto-generated, and
are essentially confabulations. It could less likely be that the host really did experience,
from his mental frame of reference, hundreds of years. Time dilation is a bad practice,
given that it is yet another form of escapism that serves no self-fulfilling purpose. There
is no wisdom to be gained from a practice that encourages idling in your fantasy world,
to mentally lay off real world responsibilities.

Merging/Splitting and Memory-alteration

Merging and splitting, between tulpa and host, is an unstable and unpredictable
practice. By carrying out such practices, you run your memories at risk. Many reports of
tulpa merging with or splitting from their host include side-effects of lost or fabricated
memories. There isn't really a good reason to merge or split, drama included. Issues
with your tulpa should be handled on a personal level through vocal/emotional
communication, and compromise. By handling issues this way, you are more
realistically preparing yourself for the same kind of issues with real people.

Switching
Switching is the practice of a tulpa and a host trading places, so that the tulpa
becomes host-like and in control of the physical body, while the host becomes tulpa-like
and experiences things as a tulpa would. As mentioned earlier, this is a form of mental
escapism -- although it is still denied by many. There are only two reasons people
purport to switch; the first is that the host wants to experience tulpa-ness (a euphemism
for escaping the real world), and the second is that the tulpa wants to experience and
exercise influence over the physical world. However, the most efficient way for the
second goal is for the tulpa to possess the host, and for the host to share his senses
with the tulpa. This is effectively the exact same thing, minus the host's opportunity for
escapism.

Roleplaying, and the Misrecognition Of

While many people believe that roleplaying is rampant in the tulpa community, it
really isn't. The act of roleplaying would mean that a person is willfully pretending to
have a tulpa (which makes no sense), or has a tulpa and makes up a lot of bullshit to
craft an insanely dramatic story to post online. These stories tend to never reach a real
resolution, as something new is always happening, and the host never comes to a
moral or philosophical conclusion. An exaggeration of this would be:

Your tulpa is a servitor is a tulpa who is actually a pregnant backup of a clone of the
memory of your future self which is actually the result of five different merged
personalities that lived in conflict with a malevolent sex slave servitor that was
accidentally made during a shared lucid dream with your best friend until there was a
massive thousand-year war in the galaxy-sized wonderland that was home to millions of
undiscovered tulpae which got destroyed by a secret memory-erasing method that can
never be used again because it wiped itself and all that remains is a collection of videos
depicting scrambled events in the crystal ball you found in a hidden compartment in your
wonder-library after a long day of switching and adventuring, fighting hoards of
robot-zombie NPCs with laser katanas, all in the period of 10 minutes due to amazing
time-dilation abilities.

Roleplayers tend to be the epitomes of ridiculousness, as that is the easiest way

for them to get attention. However, not all ridiculous stories are from roleplayers. While
it can seem that some people's stories are moderately ridiculous, often times the
subconscious mind creates dramatic events in order to solve a real life problem -- much
like the alleged purpose of dreams. With enough analysis, a truly relevant dramatic
experience can be linked to situations the host is dealing with in real life, such as a bad
relationship, or depressive tendencies. In the event that a tulpa does something
strange, such as leave for extended periods of time, or act differently, it's often for an
important reason that is up to the host's interpretation. Some developed tulpa are even
introduced subconsciously, or at least without the host's conscious awareness, for the
purpose of aiding in real-life problem solving even though the host may not have any
idea what is happening.

Pregnancy
Tulpa pregnancy is often frowned upon, and for good reason. Those who have
experienced tulpa pregnancies often claim that the pregnancy was a symbol for
creation, or for love. However it is most often the case that a tulpa pregnancy is a
surface-excuse for the gimmicked creation of an insta-tulpa, guised as a symbol of love
between the host and mother tulpa. If you really want to make a new tulpa with a tulpa
that you love romantically, you should simply tulpa-force together. The process of
putting your own emotional energies towards the creation of a new sentient being is
more rewarding and fruitful than a rushed spectacle of a tulpa pregnancy will ever be.

This concludes my statement of disdain for certain practices in the tulpa

community, and I will surely update it as people do more stupid things. Everything I've
said here is my opinion, and is on the basis that tulpa are psychological/spiritual
sentient beings that function to aid the host in real life.