Tulpa

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This article is about the Theosophical term. For the Tibetan term trulpa, see Nirmāṇakāya. For the film, see Tulpa (film).

Tulpa is a concept in Theosophy, mysticism, and the paranormal of an object or being that is created through spiritual or mental powers.[1] Modern practitioners use the term to refer to a type of willed imagined being which practitioners consider to be sentient and relatively independent.[2][3] Tulpas have thoughts, emotions, and personality separate from their host. People who have one or more tulpas are tulpamancers.[4] Tulpas can be created either with a collection of meditative techniques[5] or accidentally when someone has an imaginary friend that persists later in life.[6]

History[]

20th century[]

Theosophy and thoughtforms[]

Thoughtform of the Music of Gounod, according to Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater in Thought-Forms (1901)

20th-century Theosophists adapted the Vajrayana concept of the emanation body into the concepts of 'tulpa' and 'thoughtform'.[7] The Theosophist Annie Besant, in the 1901 book Thought-Forms, divides them into three classes: forms in the shape of the person who creates them, forms that resemble objects or people and may become ensouled by nature spirits or by the dead, and forms that represent inherent qualities from the astral or mental planes, such as emotions.[8] The term 'thoughtform' is also used in Evans-Wentz's 1927 translation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead.[9] The concept is also used in the Western practice of magic.[10][page needed]

Occultist William Walker Atkinson in his book The Human Aura described thoughtforms as simple ethereal objects emanating from the auras surrounding people, generating from their thoughts and feelings.[11] He further elaborated in Clairvoyance and Occult Powers how experienced practitioners of the occult can produce thoughtforms from their auras that serve as astral projections which may or may not look like the person who is projecting them, or as illusions that can only be seen by those with "awakened astral senses".[12]

Alexandra David-Néel[]

Spiritualist Alexandra David-Néel stated that she had observed these[which?] mystical practices in 20th-century Tibet.[1] She described tulpas as "magic formations generated by a powerful concentration of thought."[13]: 331  David-Néel believed that a tulpa could develop a mind of its own: "Once the tulpa is endowed with enough vitality to be capable of playing the part of a real being, it tends to free itself from its maker's control. According to David-Néel, this happens nearly mechanically, just as the child, when her body is completed and able to live apart, leaves its mother's womb."[13]: 283  She said she had created such a tulpa in the image of a jolly Friar Tuck-like monk, which later developed a life of its own and had to be destroyed.[14] David-Néel raised the possibility that her experience was illusory: "I may have created my own hallucination", though she said others could see the thoughtforms that she created.[13]: 176 

21st century[]

From 2009, the term started to be used to refer to a type of willed imaginary friend. Practitioners, or tulpamancers, consider these to be sentient and relatively autonomous.[2] Online communities dedicated to tulpas spawned on the 4chan and Reddit websites. These communities collectively refer to themselves as tulpamancers and offer guides and support for others. The communities gained popularity when adult fans of My Little Pony created forums for tulpas of characters from the My Little Pony television series.[2] The fans attempted to use meditation and lucid dreaming techniques to create imaginary friends.[3][15]

Surveys by Veissière explored this community's demographic, social, and psychological profiles. These individuals, calling themselves 'tulpamancers', treat the tulpas as a "real or somewhat-real person".[3] The number of active participants in these online communities is in the low hundreds, and few meetings in person have taken place. They belong to "primarily urban, middle-class, Euro-American adolescent and young adult demographics"[3] and they "cite loneliness and social anxiety as an incentive to pick up the practice".[3] 93.7% of respondents expressed that their involvement with the creation of tulpas has "made their condition better",[3] and led to new unusual sensory experiences. Some practitioners have sexual and romantic interactions with their tulpas, though the practice is controversial and trending toward taboo. One survey found that 8.5% support a metaphysical explanation of tulpas, 76.5% support a neurological or psychological explanation, and 14% "other" explanations.[3]

Characteristics[]

Tulpas are able to communicate with their host sometimes – this communication is done with "alien feeling" thoughts in which they sense thoughts that are distinctly not their own. Some tulpamancers may experience hallucinations of their tulpas; this includes auditory hallucinations, visual hallucinations, tactile hallucinations and olfactory hallucinations. Tulpamancers that have hallucinations may be able to see, hear and touch their tulpas.[3][5]

Possession is where the tulpa takes control of the body. When possessing the host experiences depersonalization and the tulpa either gains control of part of the body, has control of the body along side the host, or switches places with the host taking full control of the body.[5]

Relation to mental illness[]

In society and the medical community, having "multiple personalities" are widely seen as a sign of mental illness. Although having a tulpa does not fit the diagnostic criteria for any mental disorder, tulpamancers are often confused as having dissociative identity disorder or schizophrenia.[5]

In Samuel Veissière's survey of 141 tulpamancers he noticed that the rates of autism, ADD and ADHD in tulpamancers is significantly higher than in the general population. He goes on to speculate that people may be more likely to want to make a tulpa because these groups have a higher level of loneliness. 93.7% of tulpamancers who had been diagnosed with a mental disorder said that their tulpa has made their condition better.[3]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ a b Campbell, Eileen; Brennan, J. H.; Holt-Underwood, Fran (1994). "Thoughtform". Body, Mind & Spirit: A Dictionary of New Age Ideas, People, Places, and Terms (Revised ed.). Boston: C. E. Tuttle Company. ISBN 080483010X.
  2. ^ a b c Thompson, Nathan (2014-09-03). "The Internet's Newest Subculture Is All About Creating Imaginary Friends". Vice. Vice. Retrieved 2020-01-25.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Veissière, Samuel (2016), Amir Raz; Michael Lifshitz (eds.), "Varieties of Tulpa Experiences: The Hypnotic Nature of Human Sociality, Personhood, and Interphenomenality", Hypnosis and meditation: Towards an integrative science of conscious planes, Oxford University Press
  4. ^ "Personality Characteristics of Tulpamancers and Their Tulpas". Bethel University.
  5. ^ a b c d "Tulpas and Mental Health: A Study of Non-Traumagenic Plural Experiences". .
  6. ^ "Imaginary Companions, Inner Speech, and Auditory Verbal Hallucinations: What Are the Relations?". Front Psychol.
  7. ^ Mikles, Natasha L.; Laycock, Joseph P. (6 August 2015). "Tracking the Tulpa: Exploring the "Tibetan" Origins of a Contemporary Paranormal Idea". Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions. 19 (1): 87–97. doi:10.1525/nr.2015.19.1.87.
  8. ^ Besant, Annie; Leadbeater, C. W. (1901). "Three classes of thought-forms". Thought-Forms. The Theosophical Publishing House. Archived from the original on 10 December 2016. Retrieved 26 April 2017.
  9. ^ Evans-Wentz, W. T. (2000). The Tibetan Book of the Dead: Or The After-Death Experiences on the Bardo Plane, according to Lāma Kazi Dawa-Samdup's English Rendering. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 29–32, 103, 123, 125. ISBN 0198030517.
  10. ^ Cunningham, David Michael; Ellwood, Taylor; Wagener, Amanda R. (2003). Creating Magickal Entities: A Complete Guide to Entity Creation (1st ed.). Perrysburg, Ohio: Egregore Publishing. ISBN 9781932517446.
  11. ^ Panchadsi, Swami (1912). "Thought Form". The Human Aura: Astral Colors and Thought Forms. Yoga Publication Society. pp. 47–54. Archived from the original on 3 October 2016. Retrieved 26 April 2017.
  12. ^ Panchadsi, Swami (1916). "Strange astral phenomena". Clairvoyance and Occult Powers. Archived from the original on 26 June 2009. Retrieved 26 April 2017.
  13. ^ a b c David-Neel, Alexandra; DʼArsonval, A. (2000) [Original French published 1929]. Magic and Mystery in Tibet. Escondido, California: Book Tree. ISBN 1585090972.
  14. ^ Marshall, Richard; Davis, Monte; Moolman, Valerie; Zappler, George (1982). Mysteries of the Unexplained (Reprint ed.). Pleasantville, New York: Reader's Digest Association. p. 176. ISBN 0895771462.
  15. ^ T. M. Luhrmbann (2013-10-14). "Conjuring Up Our Own Gods". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2017-08-12. Retrieved 2017-04-22.

External links[]

  • The dictionary definition of tulpa at Wiktionary
  • The dictionary definition of thoughtform at Wiktionary
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